Was the Omni-God concept a consequence of the development of human consciousness?

It is interesting to speculate how the incoherent and mass-apostasy-inducing Omni-God concept arose and came to dominate Christian (and some other) theologies and Priesthoods. 

One God who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and created everything from nothing - i.e. the officially mandatory nature of God according to mainstream Christianity; is an idea literally inconceivable to simple people and children. 

And inconceivable people of the past, and up to the life of Jesus; because I see nothing explicit to suggest that the authors of Old Testament, the Gospels, or Epistles conceptualized God in this way. 

The Omni idea seems to have emerged - off the record - in the generations after the ascension of Jesus and deaths of the Apostles; until we see it behind the Christology schisms and disputes, concerning the divine and/or human nature of Christ; that tore-apart the nascent church in its early centuries. 

Such disputes were (and are) inevitable when Jesus was assumed to have been incarnated into the creation of an Omni-God, since the Omni definition of God excludes the possibility of Jesus being a second creator-deity; and indeed removes any possible reason or purpose for a further manifestation of deity. 

(If God is supposed to be able to do everything, know everything, be everywhere etc - then there is no necessity for Jesus Christ to be incarnated, live, die, be resurrected, ascend to Heaven etc. The Omni-God can - by definition - do everything that is doable, so Jesus is superfluous.) 

Yet if Jesus Christ is not a truly divine creator God; then Jesus is "just" a teacher, prophet etc - and we either assume Jesus was a false teacher and revert to Judaism; or assume Jesus was a valid teacher as with Islam. 

But if Jesus is not divine, he is not unique; and there is no reason to build a religion around following him. 

So how and why did such a strange and destructive idea emerge? 

My best guess of how, is that the Omni-God was synthesized from the ancient Hebrew idea of a single dominating personal God to whom all other Gods were inferior and subservient; and to whom all worship and obedience was due. 

This "monotheism" was combined with Greek philosophical ideas - and religious ideas - probably from  elite and initiatory mystery religions; such as Neo-Platonists and Gnostics); of a universal but impersonal abstract-deity that was everything (pantheism), was the ultimate cause of everything, was perfect hence time-less etc.

(Much like some Hindu and Buddhist philosophical concepts of deity.) 

 

But why did the Omni idea happen at all? 

My understanding is that this was part of the development of human consciousness; and the increasing inner sense of separation of the individual from the group. 

Before the Omni-God concept; human consciousness was naturally, spontaneously, and largely un-consciously very much immersed in the group consciousness - and this group consciousness included the realms of spirits and the divine. 

Because people experienced relationships with so many other Beings (such as animals, trees, landscape, the dead, angels, demons, and gods); there was no subjective "problem" of creation as being incoherent.

There was no need to "explain" how it was that the universe held-together and had purpose - because this coherence was simply a matter of experience. Men knew that things cohered. 

This was, and still is, how young children experience reality even nowadays; and perhaps some tribal peoples as well. 

In other words, in ancient times there was no felt-problem of incoherence that the Omni concept was needed to solve. 

There was no need or reason to explain why all the different aspects of reality held-together and had an overall purpose. 

And no reason to explain why there were real values - a real and universal morality... Since such things were obvious.  

It was when Man's consciousness began (and continued) to become ever more self-aware and separated from the group consciousness; and from awareness of the dead, spirits of many kinds, and the divine - that Men sought an explicit explanation of the "unity" of all things...

That intellectuals came-up with the Omni-God explanation. 

This does not explain why the early Christian church seized upon the Omni-God concept and made it mandatory, despite all the problems it has caused ever since. 

But I think that ultimately such reasons are social rather than philosophical: to do with the church as an institution, rather than Christianity as a theoretical construct.  

The Omni-God concept is popular in all the major monotheisms, I think because it is interpreted to make the specific religion both universal and mandatory; it is used to insert the religion and its church into the ultimate creation and operation of absolutely every-thing. 

Omni-God removes choice from religion; and religion becomes a matter of acknowledging one truth for everything...

Or else the act of rejecting that church and religion gets conceptualized as rejecting... absolutely everything, and all possibility of anything.

So, with Omni-God; not be be a member of the church and religion is therefore conceptualized as a wholly irrational and incoherent act - an embrace of absolute nothingness.  

If it is broadly correct that the Omni-God emerged after Jesus and in the early centuries AD; driven from-within by changes in Mens' consciousness; then we can also see that a genuine, living, motivating belief in Omni-God has become impossible in the modern era.

Shoals of people have left the Christian church, and/or had their faith reduced to the feebleness of a lifestyle-choice, by the insistence of Christian theology on the Omni-God combined with the gross incoherence of the concept - which incoherence has now become spontaneously obvious even to those of low intelligence. 

(The two obvious problems about a Christianity rooted in the Omni-God concept and a Good God; are an inability to explain genuine evil and extreme and undeserved suffering and death; and also an inability to explain human agency or "freedom".)  

In replying to a basic question of "who was Jesus?": mystery-word-spells about Jesus being simultaneously wholly-Man and wholly-God seem like meaningless or devious abstractions; when materialism is built-into the modern perspective. 

In replying to what did Jesus do?": kick-the-can pseudo-explanations about Jesus being necessary to save Mankind from the blame attached to an "original sin" leading to a "fall" that occurred in prehistory; make no sense (and seem grossly unjust)...

When Man's consciousness has become so spontaneously separated from the group/ spirit/ divine that the choices and events of putative ancient ancestors is experienced as utterly irrelevant to me-here-now.

If the Omni-God was not original to Christianity but instead the contingent artefact of a particular stage in Man's historical consciousness and the rhetorical requirements of the ancient church...

And since the O-G concept currently stands in the path of any possibility of explaining (clearly and simply) the nature of Jesus and what he did...

Then Christians really need to go back and re-examine and reject this Omni-God dogma... 

And then we need to replace the obsolete and harmful Omni-God with a conceptualization of God that makes explanatory-sense to us each, here, and now; and which clearly and simply explains the necessity of Jesus Christ for those who desire salvation.  

We can never "know" completely and finally; but can Love wholly and eternally

From Exegesis by Philip K Dick, referring to his novel The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982) 

This is a strange ending [to the novel]. 

The will (of Schopenhauer) turns back on itself and is satisfied not to know: This is the form its cessation takes: that he is content not to know, and so is she. Thus one thing is certain: the restless, striving, irrational will is defeated; it has given up. 

If this is how victory is defined, there has been victory. 

If victory is defined as knowing whether Tim Archer defeats Fate through Christ and immortality—it is not victory. 

The final message seems to be: sublime peace - freedom from the restless striving will - is possible, but knowledge - intellectual knowing - is not. 

The heart can know peace but the mind cannot be satisfied; the drive to know, to possess intellectual certitude is doomed to failure.

Sureness is not factual but relational: but a matter between persons, between beings (in the here and now).

What we can be sure about is not knowledge - which is why epistemology, a philosophical search for surety of factual information -  is a dead end. 

"Knowing about stuff" is not the core of reality; because reality is not naturally divided into units, into "facts". 

We can never ever be "certain" of facts because reality is not pre-divided into facts - not factually-segmented - such divisions are imposed, arbitrary, and selective.

(The idea that "scientific facts" are the only thing we can be certain of - is therefore a dangerous delusion.) 

  

What, then, is the core of reality? 

The fundamental and real divisions are those between individual living beings. 

Ultimate reality is therefore to do with living beings and the relationships between them. 

The heart can know "peace" in the context of love; albeit in this mortal world that peace can only be temporary - because of entropy/ death and evil. 

Yet in resurrected Heavenly life, that peace can be eternal.

And love between living beings is a dynamic thing, because life is dynamic; which is why and how love overflows into creating.  

Even in Heaven (even for God the Creator) we will never know finally, nor wholly and eternally - because creation is ongoing, and other-beings really are "other". 

But we shall love wholly and eternally; and it is that possibility which makes Heaven possible. 

 

A big danger is that we will "find" whatever we "seek"

There seems to be a fundamental problem in life, that while passive, assimilative compliance leads (in our society and world) to disaster and damnation -- on the other hand, there is a very big problem when we consciously and conscientiously seek a specific thing. 

This both in physical material terms (as when people pursue a career plan, or a plan to find a lover or spouse) - and also spiritually. 

It seems that many people (including some of the greatest spiritual exemplars) have deceived themselves and fallen into error by exerting their considerable powers by devising strategies to discover and attain some very particular thing. 

Many people seek specific knowledge - and seek it by long-term efforts: the long monastic training by prayer, liturgy, meditation, labour; years of ascetic striving by desert-dwelling hermits; the prolonged initiation of mystery religions, spiritual science, ritual magic (alchemy, astrology, divinations etc). 

The resulting gross divergence in outcomes, results, beliefs, dogmas, rules and laws, practices and compulsions - is evidence that the process was one originating in the defective wilfulness of fundamentally-incapable beings. 

The big problem of all such spiritual effort; is that people do find what they seek - yet what they seek is something that has been decided by their conscious personality-mind, and implemented by the mundane will-power. 

Such people think they know what they need, and they suppose that they know what is good for "other people" and for "the world"...

And mostly by the transformations of themselves that happen because of their sustained and willed efforts; they find... what they seek, only only what they seek... Find this by various combinations of enhanced abilities, diminished intuitive discernment... of actual-finding with self-deception. 

Ultimately Life (at least for a follower of Jesus) ought to be about loving relationships with other people, other beings, with God and Jesus and others... and the creativity that arises from such loving relationships. 

Life is therefore, ultimately, NOT about changing other people for (what we regard as) the better - that is attempted manipulation - which is a psychopathic and selfish thing, even when justified by altruistic theories. 

Relationships are ultimately NOT about us knowing just what others most need, nor about planning other people's lives (For Their Own Good) - whether materially or spiritually. 

Life is ultimately NOT about making a better world for everybody by knowledge, skill and determination exercised over time... 

Because we really have no idea of what that better world actually is - and the attempt to devise and impose a better world lead to propaganda and coercion - justified by "the common good" (and always by "the end justifies the means" thinking). 

The fact that this stuff is inevitable (and to a significant extent) in our mortal world, is because this is not Heaven; and our world is permeated with evil and undercut by entropy. 

But even if inevitable to a degree, this kind of will-directed strategizing should not be our ideal - yet it is, unfortunately, presented as the ideal by most religions and spiritual systems! 

We cannot know what is good in any degree of specific detail; even less can we know how to act and arrange things to "make" good.

To pretend otherwise leads to great and general harm, including (and primarily) harm to Our-Selves. 

But we do know enough of such matters to be able to live well-enough to develop spiritually and attain salvation - after which, as eternal resurrected beings in Heaven; we can get on with participating in the world of divine creation. 

But not before. 

We cannot have it by wanting it; because:

What we want (in our mortal selves and world) is not really IT.    

Atheist materialism versus Church religion - only one winner, unless...

Atheist materialism - the mainstream ideology of the West, that monopolizes the entirety of public discourse - is a system of reasoning that claims to be wholly based on "evidence"; it claims to make no metaphysical assumptions regarding the ultimate or basic nature of reality. 

Atheist materialism therefore operates wholly at the superficial level of evidence and logic - as defined by its won denied assumptions of what constitutes valid evidence and logic. 

This is achieved by taking its own metaphysics for granted (and denying it exists) and keeping all discourse confined within its own assumptions; and declaring everything else to be meaningless, or merely arbitrary personal opinion (which amounts to the same thing). 

Church religions are deeper than atheistic materialism, because churches declare specifically their own fundamental metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality - and that these assumptions are shared by the religion's adherents.

Church religion is superior to atheistic materialism because it knows and admits that it has metaphysical assumptions, which it then sets-out explicitly - whereas atheistic materialism falsely denies that it makes any metaphysical assumptions.  

However, these fundamental religious assumptions differ between religions.  

Each religion defends its own assumptions by trying to prove them: either prove them from evidence: such as the claimed observable consequences of belief and unbelief in terms of individual psychology, or perhaps societal functioning. 

Or else religions try to prove their fundamental assumptions using rational logic - religions try to prove that their assumptions Must Be as they are, or else things would be incoherent or incomplete. 

However; to the atheist materialist, the variety of Church religions metaphysical assumptions is regarded as conclusive evidence that their assumptions are arbitrary - just made-up.

And the atheist materialist regards attempts by religions to prove that their own particular metaphysical assumptions must be true, whether the attempted proof is by observations or by logic, as being dependent on already accepting the religious assumptions. i.e. Church proofs are seen merely as circular reasoning. 

Atheist materialism has alternative and non-religious explanations for all church attempts to prove all possible systems of religious metaphysics. 

To atheist materialism there is thus "zero evidence" for anything religious; and the assumptions of all religions are seen as arbitrary and just "made-up". 

Atheist materialism (nearly-)always wins disputes with church religions, because atheist materialism is much more powerful... very-nearly all-powerful, at the Western civilizational level.  

The metaphysical assumptions of atheist materialism are immune to social refutation because they never discussed as being "beliefs" - and are denied to be assumptions at all. 

This rhetoric is effective and "works" because the metaphysics has been built-into every type and level of the functioning of modern society; and inculcated such as to become habitual during socialization. 

Atheist materialism is the default for modern Men. 

Church religion continues to lose this debate with atheist materialism, because the dominant public metaphysics depends on power, and church religion gets weaker and weaker. 

Also because church religion has assimilated more and ever-more of the assumptions of atheistic materialism such that it has conceded all the most fundamental ground in advance of discussion. 

Therefore, attempts to prove any religious metaphysics in publicly acceptable or socially effective ways in our society as it actually is; merely lead-back into atheistic materialism. 

Church religion is consequently stuck and doomed; because insofar as a religion has power, cohesion, effective-influence, wealth, organization etc; that religion is itself a part of the atheist materialist civilization, and its already-existing assumptions.  

From such a society, with such basic and habitual assumptions as we actually have; there can only arise various kinds of atheist materialist conclusions.

 

The way forward is therefore down - down to considering the metaphysical assumptions of religion as what they are - which is as assumptions, not evidence-derived...

And therefore religions need to stop pretending to derive our metaphysical assumptions from consensus definitions evidence and logic - because the modern consensus of what constitutes valid evidence and logic necessarily sustains atheistic materialism. 

If we (you and I) continue to rely-upon societal and consensus (including church society and consensus) definitions and understandings of valid metaphysics; we will be trapped by atheistic materialism.

Only by using our own personal discernment to discover what it is that we really belive about the ultimate and basic nature of reality can we escape atheist materialism. 

Only by coming to know our own personal and deepest metaphysical convictions can we move forward to a positive, sustaining, and motivating, and fundamentally different system of understanding. 

And, only if reality is objectively real - and if that ultimate reality is set-up such that we each, as individuals, can attain to sufficient true understanding of reality - could this be possible. 

That is the necessary faith: the faith that it is indeed possible and achievable for each one of us who desires it and consciously chooses to do it; to gain a sufficient understanding of the fundamental nature of reality for ourselves.

The perspective of psychotherapy is something new and assumed. A gross and harmful distortion of modern biographical writing

I have read and continue to read a lot of biographies; both formal biographies, and more journalistic accounts of people's character, actions, and lives. 

And since the mid-20th century most biographies I have encountered - especially the worst ones, and the worst aspects of even the better biographies - adopt the assumptions of psychotherapy even when writing about older and the pre-modern people. 

Yet; I am confident that people of the past were not motivated therapeutically in the way that modern people are motivated. 

That is, I don't believe that past people lived with the implicit (often explicit) intention of reducing their (more or less severe, more or less long-term) psychological state of dysphoria (i.e. feeling bad/ adverse/ un-pleasant in some way). 

Nor did past people have the over-arching life-purpose of "making themselves feel better"; by their life-choices and behaviours. 

We moderns usually do have such a perspective on life - but it was not always thus. 

Furthermore; the psychotherapy perspective in biography (i.e. in the intent of understanding people) usually traces dysphoria to either past experiences (e.g. childhood or early-life relationships, traumatic events, disappointments etc.); or to disease. 

Whereas it would be more accurate to recognize that much of our character is inherited. 

Yet, heredity was the first-line explanation for human behaviour for (probably) thousands of years - i.e. through most of recorded history. 

I mean: to explain a person's behaviour, the usual thing in earlier times was to discuss what had been inherited from parents and other ancestors - including typical racial characteristics.  

The consequences of these anachronistic distortions is profound; a gross failure to understand what it is to be human. We moderns populate history with versions of our own unusual modern consciousness. 

This has many adverse effects; including eliminating from consideration a whole world of group consciousness, of people who lived embedded-in a psychological world derived from their ancestors. 

Eliminating many centuries in which religion was such a powerful motivator that it was often primary - and overcame considerations of personal happiness or suffering. 

And - because psychology and psychotherapy are products of the atheism and materialism of modernity. 

Past experiences and diseases are typically explained in wholly materialistic terms; and when heredity is considered, it is materialist - only from the modern and narrow perspective of genetics. 

Thereby eliminating a world in which "the spiritual" was pervasive; and relationships naturally and spontaneously extended to include the dead; spiritual beings such as angels, demons, fairies and ghosts; and eliminating, also, what used to be profoundly life-shaping experiences of direct relationships with the divine.    

Thus modern biographical writing is yet another of the many ways in which - by our assumptions - we paint ourselves into a corner of alienation and soullessness; whereby we conceptualize ourselves as nothing more or other than material entities produced-by and acted-upon by material influences... In a world that has always been like this, with the implication that our condition is inescapable. 

Big events are distorted versus micro/ non-events getting inflated - Two kinds of media manipulation

In that seminal year of 2020 we saw example of the two extremes of coordinated global media manipulation. 

At the start of 2020 was the Birdemic (i.e. the international response to the supposed "emic" - the lockdowns etc.) - which was not just a big event, but the biggest event in the history of the world.

The role of the mass media in this instance was to distort a genuinely vast phenomenon in pursuit of The System agenda. 

Then in summer of 2020 was saw a micro-event (or non-event) in a town in the USA, blown-up to an international scale phenomenon for months, everywhere, apparently obsessing the leadership class down through all their managerial, intellectual and professional myrmidons. 

From nearly-nothing, or actually-nothing; The System was able (in an incredibly short timescale) to make a defining global phenomenon - such that socio-political changes were implemented across the entirety of Western-dominated nations.

That is the power of The System - of the Establishment - of the unified and linked totalitarian social institutions. 

The power - via mas and social media, and the mass addiction to them - to focus and sustain much of the attention of hundreds of millions. 

And, reciprocally, the power to get hundreds of millions largely to ignore what They want ignored. 

When the issue is Big, like the the Birdemic, Peck, Fire Nation or "AI" - I assume that They are then engaged in a major attempt fundamentally to re-program human thinking in some way that progresses their agenda of atheist-materialist-bureaucratic self-damnation...

When instead (as today) the global media are focused on an issue that is so micro, so trivial, that it may be literally nothing at all; I think we can be sure that They are doing so partly in order to prevent people noticing something very big.  

But also because such micro/ non-event based frenzies are a big part of Project Chaos: the demonically-driven evil agenda focused on spreading and amplifying mutual hatred, endemic fear, motivating resentment - and existential despair. 

Big event mania promotes totalitarian evil - and plans for System omni-surveillance and micro-control; while non-event frenzies strategically promote civilizational and System breakdown*.

In a nutshell: Big events are intended to unify; inflated micro-events are intended to divide.

*Non-event frenzies have a triple effect. In the short term and long-term they actually promote disorder and breakdown; but they are successfully (and dishonestly) "sold" to the System-totalitarians because they can be "used" to implement increased totalitarianism in the medium term. 

The problem of "reacting" to current affairs - the example of the 2020 Birdemic

Much of the public space is taken up by people "reacting" - especially to news and current affairs; including a wide rage of stuff from celebrity gossip to (what are presented as) Serious Analysis of the Big Issues of our day. 

I have, myself, done a lot of this - over the decades. 

At the trivial end of the spectrum; this kind of reaction material is dealing with obviously (indeed aggressively!) trivial distractions from mundane living - as when YouTubers film themselves acting their emotions on "unboxing" consumer items. 

(Indeed; my YouTube feed shows that "so-and-so Reacts To such-and-such" is a large and popular genre on this platform - and no doubt others.) 

The Trouble Is at the other end; would-be serious analysis of the Big Issues and events of the times; because that is where people are trying to reflect and to work-out their own basic stance on Life and how we ought to lead it.

Take, for instance, the 2020 Birdemic and the subsequent multi-million-person Peck - a subject about which I "reacted" and wrote a great deal at the time, and since. 

The Trouble Is that we don't really know what was going on - even at the most basic level (and never shall). 

We know (at least, I feel that I know, because it is not a secret) that the 2020 global lockdown event in "response" was in some general sense planned. But probably that is all we do know, for sure. 

More exactly the response was definitely planned - including the Peck (which was several or many agents, seemingly), because the Peck had had already been made; but what the Birdemic event itself was is something about which I don't think anybody is at all sure. 

I don't doubt there was a plan, something was launched, and that there was some kind of deliberate "seeding" of the environment with some-thing; some modified-agent that was intended to be highly infectious and highly lethal and lead to a real "emic". 

But if so; it seems that the plan did not work as-planned; because there was no highly-lethal and highly-transmissible agent (or, perhaps, only a very little of it) - and it is possible that the "cases" (including deaths) were nearly-all (or in some times and places literally All) a combination of other agents and no agent. 

The observed and reported data can easily be explained in terms of false attributions of causes to symptoms and death; and false positives from signs and tests that were wrongly and dishonestly deployed and interpreted 

This "nothing-burger" understanding of the Birdemic itself (as distinct from the response it it) is quite possible. 

But so also are many other scenarios, at more and more "superficial" levels; where various parts of the official story, some of the official data, are factually-correct (even when the implications of these facts are false and manipulative).

Maybe there was a real-new-agent that spread around the world infectiously, but it just didn't have a high mortality. 

And (if so) exactly then some possible questions (much discussed!) include: where did this putative new agent come-from; was it natural or contrived; how and why was it released?

How was the media coverage managed? How much reportage was completely fake (did not happen IRL) and was instead enacted; how much did happen but was done deliberately? 

And, on top; how much was indeed spontaneously happening (as reported), but distorted and amplified and misrepresented by reportage? 

Then the questions of actual human pathology - sickness and mortality. 

Aside from how many of the attributions of causality were lies or mistaken; there is the Huge question regarding how much suffering and death was caused by the putative agent (i.e. by "the Birdemic"), and how much by the "response" to the Birdemic (i.e. lockdowns, distancing, masking, swabbing, gross neglect etc). 

The response (which we know was pre-planned) was claimed to be working against suffering and death - but the response certainly must have caused some, much, or perhaps most of the suffering and deaths attributed to the Birdemic-itself. 

And if the response caused most of the suffering and death, then was this s&d an accidental (deluded or incompetent) by-product, or was mass s&d strategically intended as part of "the plan"? 

And if the suffering and death was indeed strategically intended - then did the strategy succeed?... Did the actual amount of extra suffering and death match-up to what was planned?

My point here is to emphasise just some of the uncertainties that surround "reacting" to current affairs; and the implication that some of the reactions that are intended to be sceptical - and intend (or claim to intend) to oppose the Establishment agenda, will instead actually support the Establishment agenda. 

For instance; analysis and scepticism regarding the official story of the origins and mode of spread of the Birdemic; usually accepts (or takes for granted) the reality of the Birdemic: i.e. it implicitly believes the official story that there was indeed a highly lethal and infectious agent whose genetic sequence is known. 

Or; dissent over the nature and effectiveness of lockdowns or distancing, often accepts the assumption that some kind of general government-imposed societal response to the Birdemic was necessary (despite no evidence from official data of unusually-high mortality rates before the lockdown/ distancing).

Whereas, if there was no significant reality to the Birdemic in the first place; then no response was ever necessary in the first place; which means that a response was actively contra-indicated (given that the scale and nature of a social (indeed international) response in terms of major social change; was itself inevitably itself bound to become a significant cause of disease and death. 

So dissent, opposition, analysis - may quite easily end-up supporting and sustaining the very agenda it tries (or appears to try) to oppose.

Especially when the nature or reality of The Problem is not-really-known, and perhaps unknowable. 

In a nutshell; when we react to anything we know of, or think we understand, only or mainly via officialdom and the mass media; we absolutely need to bear in mind that there are a vast range of possible realities, and in reacting to one, we are always assuming another.

And the range of possible realities extends from nothing at all having happened (total fakery), through levels such as the event being real but staged or permitted, to the event being factually (more or less) as-described - but the interpretation of that event being dishonestly manipulative. 

All we can ever know for sure is that (as of 2026) the official story is always false - but we can seldom know in what way false; so our reactions may be being manipulated in ways we do not detect, and may therefore do more harm than good. 

Why do I find so few blogs worth reading? Disengagment and its rationale.

In the past few months, I have begun to limit my reading of blogs more and more - including those I have been reading a long time. This was not a strategy, was not intentional - but something that I realize has crept-up on me. 

If I try to explain or justify this, I think the answer has to do with the continuing phenomenon I have often called "things coming to a point" - which I understand to be something that happens when the world is getting spiritually worse over time. 

When the world is getting worse, then the spontaneous default is for "everything" to get worse; which implies that if we personally do not want to share in the corruption, then we must spiritually detach from more, and yet more, of "the world".

And the process is ongoing, because the world keeps worsening. 

Insofar as we fail to do this, we will join ourselves to the increasing corruption of the world. 

And this corruption will reveal itself - both passively, in terms of what we go along with; but also actively in terms of what we explicitly support. 

I think this latter, for me, is the critical aspect: I mean, what people actively support; and more especially what I infer to be their motives for doing so.

We all differ in our specific tolerances; and I personally have a particularly strong aversion for spitefulness and Schadenfreude - and these seem to be stronger and stronger motivations behind more and more online writing. 

It is this, more than anything, that has driven me away from one after another blog; a sense that the ideas, ideology or religion is in fact serving primarily as an excuse for indulging in the expression and advocacy of spite and sadism. 

Like most sin; once defended and apologized, such a writer gets to enjoy his revenge and retribution fantasies - until they undercut or swamp the good-motivated stuff. 

The ideas - including the expressed Christian beliefs - have become a rationale for negative values; the negative values induce a dominant orientation on enemies and what should or shall happen to them. 

In my experience, people in the grip of such demonic passions are hopeless and unreachable - and indeed are fed by any form of engagement: they thrive on opposition, and they thrive on constructive and empathic approaches. 

(This may also be seen in the extraordinary and escalating levels of braggadocio and self-aggrandisement among far too many bloggers; which provoke in me a mixture of irritation and embarrassment - much as when observing the antics of an kindergarten kid having a tantrum!)   

So disengagement is the proper strategy - as it is with the demon-dominated, psychopath-mediated, world of public policy and discourse. 

Disengagement (with lapses, alas) is therefore exactly what I have been spontaneously engaged-in, actively trying to do; and, to an increasing degree, actually doing. 

Lord of the Rings has a Hobbit-centric perspective - except for one short passage...

Gimli, afraid of the ghosts under the Dwimorberg: picture by DavidDeb

Over at my Notion Club Papers blog; I discuss the short passage, during the "Paths of the Dead" sequence, where JRR Tolkien briefly abandoned his rule of describing events from a Hobbit's point-of-view; and lets us see things through the mind of Gimli the Dwarf. 

Badly phrased proverb number one: "You can't have your cake..."

"You can't have your cake and eat it too" - is a very badly phrased proverb, for two reasons. 

1. Having cake is intended to mean something like "hoarding", "retaining", or "continuing to possess" your cake. 

Yet having a cake usually means to eat that cake - which meaning obliterates the point of the proverb...

Or rather makes it an oxymoron something like: "You can't both eat your cake, and eat it as well"... 

Nonsense 

2. "Eat it too" is spoiled by the double meaning of "too" when the word is heard but not read; which was how I first encountered this proverb, as a child. 

The intended meaning is of course: "too" meaning "as well" or "at the same time". 

But the other meaning of the sound "two" is the number - and this is just confusing.  

To work properly the proverb would need to be made unambiguous; something like: 

You can't both eat and keep a cake. 

Why do so many people live so many years of decrepitude beyond what they say they want? Repenting sins in extreme old age?

Continuing on the theme of death and dying; and exploring the idea that the greatly extended lifespan in The West nowadays may have a spiritual purpose. 

The thing about many of the super-old (which is, approximately, anyone significantly older than the Biblical "three score years and ten") is that for most who attain it, it is a longer life of decrepitude - of significant, perhaps extreme, mental and/ or physical dysfunctionality. 

The modern extended life experienced by most people (a life that goes much beyond the seventies) is often explicitly unwanted by those who receive it.

In the sense that many younger people will state vehemently that they do not desire to live into their eighties or nineties - if that life is one of significant dementia, disability; if that life is one requiring massive support or residential care.

And yet that is exactly the extended life that many such people get; the kind of life that they always said they did not want, and which they may even continue to say they do not want...

But which, nevertheless, despite protestations; they act such as to extend, by seeking and accepting continual and escalating social support and medical treatment (even when at vast and crippling expense).  

It is physically easy to die, especially if you are prepared to experience suffering at the end: yet these people (and there are a lot of them) Do Not Die. 

Why?

My understanding is that their superficial personality-self in the "here and now" wants to die; but their deeper real-self retains an awareness that they are not ready for death - that they have unfinished business in mortal life. 

So, what is the nature of this "unfinished business", that may be keeping extremely old and decrepit people alive - despite surface protestations? 

I think the unfinished business is usually spiritual, usually an inner thing - and therefore we can only infer (or perhaps, in some instances, intuit) what that unfinished business may be. I shall now do this...

In one word, the major need is for repentance, in the broad meaning of the word to imply that people need to re-orientate their whole thinking and desiring; as they die, such people need to be pointed in a different direction. 

More exactly, they need to want to be pointed in a different direction - because (thanks to Jesus) that is enough. 

They need to let-go of their (perhaps) lifelong false and incoherent orientation towards seeking pleasure, avoiding suffering, and attaining material well-being. 

They need to let-go of their besetting sins; which are nowadays is perhaps most commonly rooted in resentment; so this is the example I will describe. 

Since the early 19th century, but especially since the 1960s, the West has been living in an Age of Resentment. 

The basis of most politics is a resentment against some other nationality, religion, class, sex, or race - and this resentment is regarded as  not just true but "good"; and forms the core of a system of values. 

In extreme old age the reasons for politics have long since gone - nobody cares what you think, and it makes no difference to anyone else...

But too often the earlier-life resentments remain; may indeed be amplified, brooded upon; and in a moralistic way, with self-satisfaction.

Elderly people - even with significant mental pathology - may nurse their social and personal resentments, express them obsessively; and seem to approve their own anger, hatred and spiteful desires - perhaps regarding this as signs of their own vigour; signs that they have not "abandoned their principles". 

To die in such a state has a bad spiritual prognosis. 

And I think that some of the extreme elderly are kept alive despite the failure of brain and/or body; in hope (God's hope, Jesus's hope) that as dependence increases, as life simplifies, as thinking simplifies - perhaps the individual may come to recognize the futility of resentment, the wickedness of resentment. 

Perhaps he may attain some other spiritually-healthy attitude; such as forgiveness, humility, gratitude, a benign disposition towards others...

An honest recognition of the pervasive decay and evils of this world, which includes all of us...

A focus on the genuinely important things of life: especially love; and the beautiful moments nearly everyone has experienced in reality and/or imagination. 

And perhaps a desire to move on, beyond death, to a world free of decay and evil, and wholly rooted in love.

Such is the kind of thing waited-for, hoped-for, in extending the life of the extremely elderly beyond what they say they want.

Such repentance may not happen... but it may.

After attaining which; the individual can die as soon as maybe, and with a vastly better prospect for life after death than would otherwise have been the case.   

Sturgeon's Law again - or, is Romantic Christianity *necessarily* just-another liberal apostasy?

If Romantic Christianity is an insistence that the individual (rather than any external authority, such as a church or a prescribed-interpretation of Scripture), and his deepest intuition (rather than e.g. "evidence" or "reason"), ought to be ultimately responsible for his Christian belief...

Then is this not just-another version of the kind of liberal-apostasy - just another attempt to create hedonic or socially-advantageous wriggle-room from the obvious and necessary truths of [insert favoured church or tradition]?

The best answer is not-necessarily, but sometimes, yes... it is bound to be. 

Especially when that individual attempts to impose his own personal intuition on "other people" in some kind of general, quasi-institutional, of self-advantaging fashion.

But even when an individual is going his best, the actual practice of Romantic Christianity will sometimes or even mostly be contaminated by the basic nature of this reality we all inhabit: which is undercut by entropy and permeated by evil.    

After all - so far as I can see - some version of "Sturgeon's Law" seems to apply almost everywhere - in the sense that in any category of phenomena involving people: most of that category is "more or less" crap. 

But the proper question is in that word "necessarily": the question of whether Romantic Christianity must be from-it-nature merely wriggle-room liberalizing-apostasy?

Because even if Romantic Christianity is, by the nature of all mortal earthly things, mostly crap; this is compatible with it being at its best actually good and true. 

I would first say that RC does not have to be, ought not to be a liberal apostasy; and that Romantic Christianity can instead be a genuine, positive, really new (and better!) way of being a Christian: a more authentic and divinely-approved way of "following Jesus".

   

In spiritual work, we need to make conscious effort... But not too hard or narrowly

In spiritual life here-and-now; it seems to be A Bad Idea to be too specific about what we want to achieve; because then there is a danger that we will achieve it!

To make conscious choices of what is "needed" is good; so long as we don't suppose that we already-know exactly what it is that we need (because, if we did, then we would already have it). 

The problem is that if we conscientiously follow, and work diligently at, some pre-set path or program; then will will manufacture a pre-determined result. 

(This happens from various causes: fulfilled assumptions, self-deception, peer pressure, perceived personal advantages...) 

In sum: if we get what we want, then we won't be getting what we need. 

Yet if we do nothing, we shall get nothing...

Apparently - we must go deeper, work from another level - one that is less specific and detailed; even as it is more positively transformative and valid. 

It's time to think about death...

William Wildblood has published an excellent post about a subject that almost nobody (in Western civilization) thinks about, except when compelled: death, and how we ought (yes ought) to prepare for it throughout our mortal lives.  

And by death, I don't mean dying. 

Dying - and especially the fear of suffering when dying - is a subject that almost obsesses our society, albeit usually in a covert sort of way. Not that dying is unimportant, of course it is (potentially) important; but that the fear of dying seems to block consideration of the overwhelming importance of what happens afterwards, and forever.   

The embarrassed evasiveness that greets any attempt to discuss death, would strike our ancestors (or probably most non-Western people) as utterly bizarre. Yet I was exactly like that myself, for most of my life. 

Western mainstream public discourse is (by no accident, I presume) restricted to a forced-choice between either an exaggeratedly childish and sentimental fairy-tale depiction of life after death; or else Nothing At All. 

Modern people have, apparently, really convinced themselves that the evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible that death is utter annihilation - and that to think hard about, or to discuss, what happens afterwards - is either a morbid psychopathology, shallowly-idiotic self-deception, or some kind of selfish and dishonest mental manipulation. 

Yet, at the same time - and in mainstream public discourse (prestige mass media, corporate communications, officialdom etc) we see the strong encouragement of exactly morbid psychopathology, self-deception and blatant emotional manipulation when it comes to encouraging and exploiting people's fear of dying...

Fear of what suffering might happen, what it (supposedly) might be like, and how suffering may (supposedly) be avoided. These are recurrent themes in the mass media. 

Returning to William Wildblood's post: 

The everyday has its place... it is wrong to dismiss it as nothing. But that place stands in relation to the spiritual which is primary. And therefore since the spiritual will only fully come into view after death, you must start taking death seriously. 

Not in a way that makes earthly life futile for earthly life must be lived and lived properly. At the same time, death is the goal of life, the goal not just the end of it, and you must see it as in a sense the crowning achievement of your life.

That the great majority of people in the contemporary West do not see it like that may be one reason for the widespread dementia that afflicts much of the elderly population. 

The obvious reason for that is that people are just living longer, kept going by modern medicine. However, there could be an underlying spiritual purpose behind this too or accompanying it...

It could be that dementia strips away the resistance to the spiritual and leaves its victims on some level more open to the next world. An atheist has by definition erected barriers in his mind. Old age in general and dementia in particular might help to dismantle these barriers...

These are fascinating ideas - and similar thoughts have also occurred to me. 

I agree with William that "advances in medicine" and better living conditions (warmer houses, more food) are relevant - but they don't altogether explain the tremendous extension of life among the very severely incapacitated elderly. 

As a strong generalization: Dying is easy - it is staying alive that is difficult. 

However, many people nowadays live many years longer than they say they want to live, and in a extremely debilitated state. 

Yet traditionally, until recent decades; doctors and nurses with extensive experience of elderly people usually said that when someone loses the will to live (for example after the death of a spouse), and are ready to die: then they will soon die - and it used to happen despite even strenuous medical interventions. 

This no longer seems to happen. 

Of course, it is a matter of specific individual persons; but what often happens is, I think, consistent with what William suggests. 

In other words, among those (apparently a majority) who have lived by dogmatic materialism and in utter exclusion of the spirit; and who approach the end of life with the expectation, and even desire for, eternal spirit-annihilation. 

Through the effects of ageing and disease; such people may experience a return towards the simple and instinctive world-view akin to that of early childhood; a time of life when the spirit was a matter of spontaneous everyday experience - but in old age an analogous way of thinking is perhaps manifested as impaired cognition, delirium, and psychosis. 

If this is going-on (and surely it will not always be the case in everyone of extreme old age or dementia), such persons are perhaps being given an extra chance - by God - to reconsider their choice of death. 

Maybe they are offered a further opportunity to re-evaluate their long-standing choice of rejecting even the possibility of God, angels, spirits, life-after-death... and resurrection? 

We are always free, and the decision of salvation cannot be compelled: second, third and further chances to recognize spiritual realities may well be rejected. 

But when the inner barriers of willed-materialism have been dissolved by illness - then, what were regarded as idiocies and absurdities may become recognized as real possibilities that could be chosen... if that is indeed what we most want for our-selves.

 

The desire for significance in our lives - versus the desire for pleasure

We want significance in our lives; but we fear it too. 

Significance implies that what we think, say and do has permanence and universality; but that clashes with a sinful desire that we can act without consequences, avoid responsibility.

A desire for significance also gets mixed-up with the desire for esteem, status, prestige - which lead to various types of pleasurable feeling. 

Yet, in wanting significance in our lives; we are wanting an objective, solid, reality - not merely our personal feelings.

In essence, in wanting objective, solid significance; I think we want that (potentially) other people may always be able to know that-which is important in what we think or do.

We want other people to be able to find-out and know what Good we did. Find this out for themselves - without relying us on persuading them, or manipulating them in any way. 

(The modern brainwashing processes of "celebrity status" perfomed by the mass and social media and their false, dishonest, artificial virtuality does not suffice. It does not do the job we want doing.)

But why should we want significance, rather than merely wanting pleasure for ourselves - here-and-now?

Ultimately, the reason is: because of love. 

If we love, we want a shared world - that is an objective reality.

Heaven is the situation in which there is significance, permanence, universality; and Heaven is a place of love - and only of those who love.

Those who do not love, who do not want significance, reality, objectivity, permanence; these are the people who want more than anything current and perpetual pleasure - and they want it regardless of what happened in the past. 

These people dwell in the state of Hell. Because Hell is a wholly-subjective world, a world where My subjectivity - because My pleasure - is primary.

By contrast; a world of relationships, like Heaven, must be objective; and to want objectivity is to want significance.

Note: This is edited from a blog post of 28th August 2019.

When doing theology, I think like a scientist

I have noticed a big difference in the way I think about the way I think about theology, compared with almost everyone else. 

Which is: that I think like a scientist - whereas they think like theologians!

I state this as a matter of observation, rather than trying to assert the superiority of the way that I think - after all, very few people are, or ever have been "a scientist"... 

Indeed extremely-few "scientists" - i.e. professional researchers and scholars in self-styled science subjects - are or ever have been scientists. 

Modern professional and accredited "scientists" do not (with very rare exceptions) think like scientists - for instance, they do not seek and speak the truth - but instead they think like the careerist bureaucrats that they ultimately are. 

Anyway, what I mean is that theologians clearly feel the weight of authority and tradition so heavily that they believe that it would be a ridiculous presumption if they, as an individual person, was to critique, confront, or overturn that inertial mass on the basis of the thoughts of "little old me".   

I don't feel that way. 

As a scientist (especially the kind of theoretical scientist that I was) it is perfectly normal, indeed it is expected and necessary, that "I" am prepared to critique, confront, or overturn decades, hundreds or thousands of years of authority and tradition. 

That is now just allowable - it the job of a real scientist - if possible. That is what the very best scientists of history, the ones we are taught to admire and emulate, have always done. 

Furthermore; the way that science works is by making different (and perhaps new) assumptions, or "hypotheses" and then... trying them out. 

Unless we do this, then we will not make any qualitative difference to science - unless we do this, we will just be extrapolating or interpolating on already-existing science (potentially worthwhile, but an activity that comes almost automatically for competent technicians of science). 

In other words; to do significant science entails being able creatively (and creativity is always and necessarily personal) to select from and reframe existing "evidence" in the making of new "theories". 

Then... taking that new theory and exploring reality on that basis - to see if it holds-up, to see if it has any advantages. 

This is pretty much what I do with theology - i.e. I approach it in a manner analogous to that of the kind of creative scientist that I aspired to be. 

I seek truth in a scientist's kind of way; but that truth is much bigger than the truths of science...

Theological truth is, indeed, as big a truth as I can imagine and express. 

When theorizing about Jesus, we should start from Jesus

The basic problem afflicting the "traditional" ways of theorizing about Jesus; is that they were doing theology or philosophy without Jesus, then trying to insert Jesus into the scheme. 

Therefore; insofar as they have been successful at providing a model of reality without Jesus (e.g. pantheism or monotheism) then they have created a model that has no need for Jesus. 

This has been the problem with mainstream Christian theology - it derives from world-views that existed before Jesus (such as Judaism, or the pagan classical philosophers), a world-view that did not include Jesus - and then has tried to insert Jesus into the model; while asserting (as dogma) that Jesus is necessary to the model. 

The outcome has either been to assimilate Jesus into the pre-existing model - e.g. with Trinitarian formulations of the nature of God, which strive to maintain Hebrew monotheism. 

Or else (as with Neo-Platonism and most of the mystery traditions) they render Jesus an "optional extra" to their already-complete schema - merely helpful, rather than essential. 

What we should instead do in a philosophical or theological sense, is to build our model of understanding from Jesus, around Jesus... starting with Jesus. 

For instance; Jesus says he came to save us from death, to offer us eternal life - so we may infer that this was not possible before Jesus or without Jesus. 

Jesus offered a post-mortal life in Heaven - so we may infer that Heaven did not exist before Jesus.

And so on... 

Of course; we need to insert Jesus into pre-existing reality and reality after Jesus - but this contextualization ought to be done narratively, not philosophically. 

The story of Jesus is a linear story about (among many other things) creation of this world by God, the nature of Men and our place in creation, and Man's possibilities in the future. 

Creation (obviously) came-before the incarnation of Jesus and continued-after Jesus's ascension. 

And it seems most people (at the time of his life, and after) never recognized or accepted Jesus's gift of eternal incarnated life in Heaven. 

And everyday life in this mortal world as a whole (e.g. the balance of present human suffering and gratification etc) seems not to have been positively and qualitatively made-better by the life and work of Jesus.  

From which I infer that the story of Jesus is one that (as he seems to have said) is one that ends and aims-at our situation after mortal-death. 

 

The above are examples - the general point I am making is that we should start our attempts to understand what Jesus did, with the life and death and resurrection of Jesus himself; and our explanations of how this fits with everything else should take the form of a narrative - the history of creation. 

Pantheist, Monotheist, and Jesus-centred Christians

It seems to me that the religion of Christianity - as expressed in the major churches (variously, since very early in church history); was formed from people who wanted several different and mutually incompatible things. 

There were "pantheists" who believed in one deity which was everything - so it was vital that the deity was itself everything, or else had-created everything from nothing. 

They were focused on the inevitability of change and death ("entropy") which they saw in all material things; and therefore recognized the ultimate and ineradicable insufficiency of incarnate mortal life on this earth. 

They also believed that consciousness was a false separation from the reality of universal deity, hence a curse. 

These pantheists yearned most for escape from this incarnate, earthly, mortal life and the curse of consciousness; and their hope was to become pure spirit, and exist in a "timeless" state of impersonal bliss. 

There is no essential role for Jesus Christ in this tradition. 

Jesus is either dissolved back-into the unity of deity; or else regarded as a teacher, helper, advocate or some other such...  

(A job that is no doubt admirable, but secondary and dispensable.)  

This pantheistic strand got rolled-up into orthodox/ mainstream Christianity, especially from the pre-existing Neo-Platonists and mystery religions. In its purest form this led to the Christian Gnostics; but it is found in all the main Christian churches today - most of all in the monasticism of the Catholic churches, and least of all in Mormonism - but is present in all to some degree. 

The other main strand of the religion of Christianity was monotheism; which was mainly from the ancient Hebrews, and the Old Testament. 

This emphasizes a supreme and jealous personal God as the only deity; but its focus was on Man's behaviour and happiness in this earthly mortal life. 

The monotheistic concern was with evil rather than with "entropy". Its concern was with forming "God's people" as a group. 

The monotheistic focus was on morality, on the conduct of life - which was conceptualized as a comprehensive and mandatory Law; with many rules - dictating that which is virtuous; prohibiting that which is evil. 

Morality in this-life dictated the after-life; and the major focus of the after-life was Hell rather than Heaven. 

Hell was the default state of eternal torment - while Heaven was both uncertain and vague, and mostly co-opted from the pantheistic tradition. 

In other words, the monotheistic Heaven (in so far as it is thought about at all) is only superficially distinguishable from the depersonalized state of a pure spirit, dwelling in timeless bliss; thus we get the mental-pictures of de-individualized ranks of Heavenly choirs engaged in perpetual cycles of worship, praise, and celebration of the one God.  

Since there must be only one God; the role of Jesus in this monotheistic scheme is very confused, and indeed incoherent. In practice therefore; Jesus is seen as a Messiah whose fundamental task is to abolish evil on earth. 

This means that - for monotheists; the concept of entropy is subsumed within the concept of evil.

The monotheistic strand of Christianity is found wherever law, rule, and authority are primary; and in such situations Christian churches become structurally all-but indistinguishable from other monotheisms - Jewish or Islamic.   

The task of Messiah is to transform earth into Heaven, to immortalize this mortal lie - and purge it of all evil. 

Since this has not happened; Jesus's mortal life was seen as a failure - and he must therefore return in a Second Coming; in a role indistinguishable from that of the one God; to finish the work of Messiah. 

Traditional, orthodox, mainstream Christian churches are composed of various and oscillating admixtures of Pantheism and Monotheism - varying between times, places, and persons. 

Jesus-centred Christians only really exist as individual persons, or small groups - because they (we) are not church-rooted. 

This kind of Christianity is (potentially) described pretty fully in the Fourth Gospel ("John") - when this Book is regarded as autonomous from, and primary among, all scriptures. 

The focus is post-mortal and incarnated - on resurrected eternal life in Heaven; and Jesus is seen as having made this possible - which is a divine act of creation.

Therefore Jesus is fully a God; therefore a God later than, and in addition to, God the primary creator (therefore monotheism is not true).  

For Jesus-centred Christians; Jesus was absolutely essential for those who desire salvation. 

Before Jesus there was no salvation; and without Jesus salvation would not have been possible. 

Jesus-centred Christianity is personal and inter-personal. 

Jesus was and is a person. Men are individual persons in mortal life. Jesus and Men stay persons after resurrection and in Heaven. 

Love is between persons - not abstract, not "unconditional". 

Consciousness is retained after resurrection. Individual natures and purposes are retained after resurrection.  

For Jesus-centred Christians; without Jesus, there would not be any resurrected eternal life, Heaven would not exist; and it is only by following Jesus that Men can make the choice of resurrection into everlasting life in Heaven. 

Note added: In summary; Pantheists and Monotheists fitted-Jesus-into pre-existing religious structures; suitable for church-based religions - a process that inevitably had the effect of leaving Jesus structurally-inessential, if not redundant (despite whatever protestations). [Of course; I presume that many Christians have been ignorant of, ignored, or pushed hard against the official theology and doctrines - and lived what was de facto a Jesus-centred Christianity - which needed no church, and need not be known to anyone else.] If, instead of insisting upon Pantheism or Monotheism; we start with Jesus and what he said and did (according to the most authoritative source) - we get a Christianity with a very different structure and emphasis. 

Fake fights, fake wars - and when the reason for real enmity is calculatedly mis-described.

That we spontaneously take sides is evident whenever we watch any kind of contest - such as a sport...

We find-ourselves rooting for one or another person or team - even when we know nothing about that sport and have no reason to care who wins, one way or the other. 

We are all and often manipulated by our instinctive propensity to Take Sides; including in evolutionarily-novel situations where we have no need or reason to take sides, and where we have zero reliable information concerning what is really going-on. 

Thus, we frequently - almost automatically - find ourselves supporting some entity engaged in deliberate and strategic evil - wanting them to win, and excusing or denying the harms they are doing. 

In the public domain - in inter-national or within-nation conflicts of all kinds, including wars (of all kinds) we seldom know - are seldom told - what that fight is really about, what really motivates the two sides who have created, sustained and escalated the fight. 

My best guess is that almost-all real wars at present are about something quite other than the explicit, publicly proclaimed, reasons for war. 

And indeed there may not be a real fight! 

Plenty of the "conflicts" reported and analyzed in the mass media and among politicians are utterly fake. 

I mean; both parties are on the same side, and merely putting on a drama of fighting each other. 

"We" are manipulated into taking sides; but "They" are all on the same side, and against "Us"!*

Our best hope in resisting psychological (and spiritual) manipulation by the powers of evil; is to become conscious of our own innate tendency to take a side; and deliberately to disengage mentally from the given-choice.

To take neither side; but because we must do something, we need to push out the wrong with something right. 

Instead we ought to support some other side. Support a third side. And make sure that side is in-harmony-with the purposes of divine creation.

*Note added: That should be our default assumption - whenever presented by the media and officialdom with some conflict. In other words; we should assume that They are being untruthful - either about the reality of conflict, the causes, the real sides... or something. We may occasionally be wrong - a stopped clock sometimes tells the right time, and They will sometimes tell us something factually-correct - but even then the interpretation of the facts will surely be false. Detection (of what is happening), disbelief, and disengagement, should be our default response - if we can manage it! We can seldom know what really is happening; but we can be sure it is never what They are telling us is happening.    

Transformation and Translation: "Born Again" into the "Second Creation"

Joining-up a couple of dots from what I've said; when Jesus met Nicodemus and told him that Men need to be "born again" - Jesus meant that we must die first, in order to attain resurrected eternal life. 

And, if we follow Jesus; this second birth will be into the Second Creation;  the creation by Jesus - which is Heaven. 

We must be born again, by resurrection into Heaven: which involves both personal transformation (resurrection); and personal translation (moving from mortal Earth to Heaven). 

** 

John.3 [1] There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: [2] The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. [3] Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. [4] Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? [5] Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. [6] That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. [7] Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

Memory, dreams, and Heaven

My understanding of dreams is that their specific content, their details; are much less important than their general theme and emotional tone that they leave behind. This is why many people (including me) don't remember their dreams, or else have only hazy and partial memories. 

Indeed, the unreliability of memory - its fading, distortions, and apparent loss; its second-rate quality compared with lived experience - is something that seems to threaten even the possibility of a meaningful life - at least, if memory is regarded as necessarily a physical, material thing. 

A dream last-night seemed to be "about" memory itself; and that way that - somehow, in some part of our selves - the joyful essence of the very best of our past life experiences (even of decades before) is alive. 

Such a dream was every bit as real and powerful an experience as anything material in the waking world - indeed it seemed to surpass "real life". 

Such a dream reveals that the best memories are not lost - nor even faded or distorted; but significant memories are powerfully and actively present in our minds and spirits, here-and-now. 

This fits-with and makes-sense-of my understanding of Heaven; because some dreams (not often! - at least not often for me) can be a foretaste of what Heaven is like and how it "works". 

I interpret the way a dream can be experienced as the best of ourselves, the best of others, and the best of this world; and that during the dream we can really respond fully to such things - as a practical demonstration of what resurrection will do fully and eternally. 

I am the way, the truth and the light... (Explained)

John 14: [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. [4] And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. [5] Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? [6] Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

My understanding of this report of Jesus's teaching is that he is implicitly contrasting the new dispensation with the old. 

In the old dispensation "the way" was a highly literal "way" - it was single path (the Law) - a single life-pattern of beliefs and behaviour that every man needed to follow if he was to be favoured by God in this mortal life. 

But the old "way" made no difference to what happened to him after death - the ghostly realm of Sheol was the common destination for all Men. 

When Jesus says that he himself is the "way" this is at first a paradox - because a person cannot be a path. So Jesus means he himself is replacing the old idea of a single and specified path-through-mortal-life.  

In future, in Jesus's new dispensation; to "do the right thing", to live well; we ought to think of our relationship with the person of Jesus, because Jesus is now "the way"...

We should therefore have a relationship with Jesus instead of trying to stick to "walking" along a semi-literal, and single, legally-pre-specified, "track" through the choices and chances of this world. 

By my understanding; "the truth" seems to refer to "reality" - or how-things-are with respect to what is important. In other words; our relationship with Jesus is the most important thing, from now...

All this is assuming that we ourselves want what Jesus is offering in his new dispensation; which is described as "the life". 

The life is, in other words, being used here as shorthand for "resurrected eternal life in Heaven"; Heaven instead of Sheol. 

(And also instead of any other other alternative post-mortal situation or state - such as annihilation, depersonalized bliss, or some kind of reincarnation.) 

 

The phrase "cometh to the Father" is less clear, and may (I think) be a later interpolation. 

But "the Father" could be taken to refer to the nature of divine creation; such that "coming to the Father" would mean coming to live in perfect harmony with divine creation which is Heaven - that is to say living by love always and wholly...

Therefore being with the father might be living in the Heavenly state which is by love and without evil; and Life without coexistent death meaning something like "entropy" - i.e. disease, damage, ageing, etc.  

A loving relationship with Jesus, and intention to accept what Jesus offers, is now replacing the old conceptualization of the "way"; it follows that following Jesus is the only "way" to Heaven, there is no other "route" through life to resurrection; "no man cometh to the Father" except by the nature of his relationship with Jesus.   

Note: As background: I also understand that our relationship with Jesus is by "the Holy Ghost" - which is the spirit of the ascended Jesus as we may know it in this world and mortal life. And I also assume that although we can and should commit to love and follow Jesus in this mortal life; the actual following Jesus to resurrected eternal life in Heaven must happen (and can only happen) after death; i.e. post-mortally. 

Becoming a Christian is not the answer

People seem to think that becoming a Christian is an answer: the answer. 

They think; if they can only become the right kind of Christian - i.e. join the right church and believe and do what it says - then they will have the answers.

(Not all the answers, but all the most important answers.) 

Because people think that being a Christian is itself the answer, then they make-it-so - or try to make-it-so. 

If they succeed in making being-a-Christian the answer - then from-that-point-onwards, they hand-over responsibility for ultimate values to... whatever they consider to be Christianity. 

From-that-point-onwards their job is to understand and obey.  

They regard becoming a Christian as arriving, coming home: as the end. 

If, however, they fail to make-it-so, and discover that becoming a Christian is not the answer - then they stop being a Christian. 

However, I would say that becoming a Christian is Not the answer. 

Instead; becoming a Christian is to ask the right question.

I would say that becoming a Christian is not the end, but instead the beginning. 

 

The artistic genius of Buddy Christ

It is possible some of my readers do not know that remarkably... memorable image of our Saviour "Buddy Christ" - which was a briefly glimpsed statue, peripheral to the plot of a rather mediocre 1999 film called Dogma. 

Such is the genius of this movie prop that it has since become a lasting cultural phenomenon.

 

Francis Berger and I try to analyse the greatness of this icon in the comments to a post at his blog; which is primarily about another (for rather different reasons) striking image of Jesus:

 

Symbolic leaders: able, drooling, or crazy puppets

We know (ought, by now, to realize) that our leaders are puppets - but not all the same kind of puppet. 

The point is distraction - to have everybody looking-at and discussing the puppet - rather than noticing (or even asking!) who is people pulling its strings. 

Distraction can take many forms. Some are constructed as "strong" puppets - pseudo-competent, attributed with ability. Such a puppet may even be intelligent and hard-working as a person - but is still a puppet. 

Other leaders are constructed as incompetent, naïve, ignorant, or drooling idiots. We observe the incapacities and dysfunctions; empathize or mock the human wreckage; agonize about what is to be done. 

Others act the role of a crazy - firing-off opinions, assertions, threats, promises. People are confused, encouraged to try to make sense of it all - become enmeshed in discerning the puppet's strategic from his reactive nature - and so forth. 

Many kinds of puppet are possible; and the person deployed as puppet may be more or less convincing his role - may even really be what he is depicted as!

This doesn't much matter, because the point is distraction; and the totalitarian media collude in evoking, amplifying, and sustaining this distraction.

Since distraction is primary; it can work equally well to have a beloved and admired heroic puppet; or a hated and demonic puppet - or to alternate between them.  

Thus the job is done.  

It's a very flexible system! 

In some places leadership puppets are constantly being replaced; and that business takes-up a great deal of here-and-now attention and energy. 

In others, the puppet replacement is less frequent, and there is a long narrative attached to the process. 

In others, the puppet is supposedly permanent - and the debate is about whether rule by a long-term puppet is an unjust and intolerable imposition.  

Of course, when there is a puppet, then there are puppet-masters - those who choose the puppet, and pull the strings. 

Which means that the real societal power struggle is not between puppets, but between alliances of puppet masters. 

For the puppet masters, the advantages of puppet rulers are so great that they collude to maintain the public pretence that the puppet is "in charge"; and that policy U-turns and contradictions are due to changes of the puppet's mind, or corruption of the puppet.

(eg. When a drooling idiot is the puppet leader; then nobody asks - nobody with power, anyway - who chose that leader; and who was ruling when the leader was acknowledged incapable of doing so.) 

When we see self-contradiction, and unimplemented policies and the like; what is actually happening is that one masters-alliance has grabbed the strings and imposed control and pursue their agenda - only for another alliance to wrest the strings away, then make the puppet say or do... something else.

All of which public discourse attributes to the nature and motivation of the puppet. 

In sum; the puppets are, at most, superficial froth on the surface; while the direction of water flow is the product of puppet-master activity; and tidal changes of direction are a consequence of different groups of puppet masters in covert conflict, different of their parties achieving temporary dominance. 

The lasting influence of alchemical thinking on mainstream modern ideology

[The aim of alchemy was] to hasten the ... processes of nature by precipitating matter through stages of decay and decomposition into a new birth whereby it would become "perfect", in the Latin sense of "completed" or "fulfilled", and having once achieved this state, the new born matter could then be used to heal any sickness in the rest of nature. 

From Wizards: a history; by PG Maxwell-Stuart (2004)

This strikes me as a basic way of thinking that survived long beyond the discipline of alchemy. 

As I understand this passage; "alchemy" could be generalized thus:

This actual world is of-it-nature imperfect - only ever partly and intermittently as it should be; continually assailed by unavoidable evil, entropy, death.

The aim of the alchemist is to transform this actual world into a "perfect" state of fulfilled completion. 

And this alchemical transformation works by controlling and shaping the natural process of dying, death and rebirth.

So that the world (individual people, human society, nature itself) is alchemically-"perfected" by accelerating its "decay and decomposition", through dissolution, and into a new birth.

Imperfect matter is alchemically-transformed to perfect matter.  

The imperfect is therefore deliberately deconstructed, reduced to its fundamentals. 

In effect, it is destroyed.

But... this destruction is justified and idealized (for the destroyer) because that which is destroyed is intrinsically flawed; while the destruction is aimed at a re-made "perfection". Belief in the perfection of the re-made justifies the preliminary destruction. 

If perfection is desired, preliminary destruction must be accepted. 

The re-made, new-born, perfected entity produced by alchemy - which might be a person (New Man), society (New World Order), or an artefact like the "philosopher's stone" - will then alchemically work-upon, transform, and progressively perfect the un-transformed whole.

As I read the above passage; it suddenly struck me how often I have come-across this alchemical way of thinking (and justifying) among the ruling class - or more generally (and in a reduced and materialistic form) among managers and other bureaucrats. 

The idea of perfecting via destruction; of transforming by controlled decomposition and re-making.

This includes the real truth that things can (typically) only get better, via getting worse; and makes of it a universal justification for making things worse.

(Including when the real motive is personal benefit, resentment, or spite.)

Alchemical thinking provides a permanent rationalization for all possible harms inflicted by selfish manipulation or people and the world*. 

And, as I have noticed more recently; this idea of "alchemical transformation" can take the reality salvation from Jesus Christ - i.e. resurrection to into eternal and wholly-loving life in Heaven, on the other side of death - and appropriate it to this-worldly human will.  

Alchemy (thus considered, in its ultimate sense) can therefore be a fundamental alternative to Christianity; and one that has a special appeal to the leadership class of this mortal world.  

 

*I am certainly not saying that alchemical thinking is always or necessarily evil. I don't believe that is true. Plenty of good people, and Christians, have studied or practiced alchemy - which does contain significant truths, especially when regarded as a way of achieving limited, specific, partial goals. But I am saying that - as a general principle, alchemy is mistaken; it is ultimately not reality, ultimately untrue. 

And alchemical thinking actually-is used to contradict one of the fundamental assumptions upon which Christianity is based...

Which is that the evil, entropy and death in this world and mortal life are intrinsic, and cannot be transformed-away; and that the only true-and-real escape from entropy and evil is the salvation of Jesus Christ, on the other side of our personal death.  

Note added: The way to consider the value of alchemy is as a science. Science has been useful in many ways; but science is not just harmful but actually destroys itself when regarded as metaphysics - i.e. when scientific assumptions are regarded as necessary and universal. 

Why is seven *the* magical/ mystical/ mythical number? Geoffrey Ashe's answer...

I have previously written about the strange way that things fall into sevens; but it is also well known that seven is usually primary in a most (although not all) magical, mystical and mythical contexts - dating back to Medieval times, and far more anciently. 

Seven has some interesting properties arithmetically, and is notoriously difficult for children to handle, when it comes to times-tables and mental arithmetic - but these aspect of the number are hardly mystical. 

And the psychological origins of this primacy of seven is very difficult to explain, because there aren't any very obvious sevens in nature. 

Indeed, the seven-ness of things is often attributed rather than actual - as with the (supposedly, but not really) seven stars in the Pleiades, the colours of the rainbow, and the "planets"*...

(*To make seven planets required leaving-out the earth, and instead including the sun and moon; until, eventually, Uranus was discovered.)  

Furthermore, there are exceptions to the primacy of seven - so that any explanation of its role must take these into account. 

A few weeks ago I discovered a book that tackled this seven business head-on, analysed the phenomenon in great detail; and offered a plausible and coherent explanation: it is The Ancient Wisdom by Geoffrey Ashe (1977). 

Ashe's answer (as some will have guessed from the illustration) is that the number seven derives its importance from the stars of the most obvious and recognizable of all constellations of the Northern Hemisphere; known at the Plough, Big Dipper, Great Bear and Arthur's Wain - which has been used for a long time** to find the North Star - Polaris. 

(**If you go back far enough, Polaris was not always close enough to true north to be a useful guide; and it will not always remain where it now is - axial precession.)

Geoffrey Ashe's argument is too long, complex, and nuanced to summarize - but it convinced me! 

If you are interested in the origins of magic seven - you now know where to look.