Jesus was Not a "suicide by cop"

Note: In what follows; I take the Fourth Gospel ("John") as my eyewitness source for the life of Jesus final years. 

If we are to regard Jesus's life and behaviour as, in significant ways, exemplary; we should notice that he did not cling to his mortal life - did not try to delay his death. 

This has sometimes been taken to mean that Jesus did not value mortal life, and that we should not value it.... 

That because Heaven is eternal, and mortal life is finite; "therefore" mortal life has not ultimate value except insofar as it leads to Heaven. That "therefore" we should live now, as-much-as-possible, as if we were already resurrected, immortal, and in Heaven. That "therefore" the sooner we die, the better...

But it is equally important to recognize that Jesus did not court his death: that Jesus was not in any sense a "suicide by cop" - nor was Jesus (as-it-were) using the Jewish and Roman authorities in order to bring about, as speedily as possible, the kind of death that was prophesied, ordained, necessary. 

Instead; the way we should think about this; is that Jesus knew when it was "time to die". 

He knew when it was time to stop struggling against the dying of the light, and prepare for transformation and the next phase of our existence. 

And this is something that we can learn from his example; we also need to recognize when it is time for us to die, and when the time has arrived to choose and prepare-for what comes after.

And "what comes after" depends, substantially, on what we personally believe is possible; and of these possibilities - which one we personally most-want. 

What is the purpose of this mortal life? Three things for a Christian

1. To know and desire resurrected eternal life in Heaven, after death. 

This, with pre-mortal spirit life, is the frame for purpose in mortal life.  

2. The quest or destined-task for our life - this typically varies with age and situation.  

This is the positive purpose of mortal life; what we are trying to do. 

3. What we need to learn from experience; what life is trying to teach us. 

Learning is the negative purpose of mortal life, our response to our situation. 

**

How do we discover the nature of Heaven, our quest, and life-lessons?

This has changed through human history:

1. We are told exactly what to do, by a missionary or church. Our job is to obey. 

2. We learn, read, reason what to do; selecting with discernment from church-approved sources (e.g. tradition, scripture, theology, church creed/ doctrines/ rules etc...). 

3. We do all of the above - using any or all of the above sources, and more; and our own imagination and creative endeavor; to infer what to believe and do: based ultimately on our deepest attainable intuition. 

 

We all have some spiritual power - and it can help, for a while - but that is all...

Watching the series "AD" (which has way too much explicit torture and violence, the inclusion of which is a sign of unrepented spiritual malaise on the part of its makers) I realize how much people crave spiritual power; and regard spiritual power as a validation. 

This is analogous to the craving for technological power; both as a way to control and exploit nature (this-world) for benefit; and (we hope) to defend ourselves against the problems and sufferings of this-world. 

It seems that the era of the Apostles (depicted in Acts, especially) was one in which spiritual power was evident, and was taken as proof of Jesus's divinity; and was regarded as presaging the salvation of this-world - en route to making this world into Heaven. 

Hence the - false - idea of the Second Coming of Jesus (at first believed to be imminent, later to be delayed), a necessary to finish the work he (as the prophesied Jewish Messiah) had left incomplete.  

If there was a high level of spiritual power among the followers of Jesus in the years after His ascension; then we should recall there is always spiritual power in everyone; even nowadays, to some degree - and what SP there is, is still deployed as purported proof of various (often opposed) religions or spiritualties; and used for attaining personal (and group) benefit and/or guidance. 

That is: we each - to some extent, and temporarily (because entropy and death are inevitable) - have ability to avert some of the bad things in life, and a make good things happen - some ability to imporve our everyday lives by deployment of spiritual powers. 

For instance, even conservative evangelicals and other denominations, who pretend to be anti-magic, deploy petitionary prayer to shape their lives and churches - and to some extent it works.  

An ability to shape our current lives, for our own reasons, and by spiritual means; should be regarded as just a fact of life; and then evaluated for what it really is, and means; and also for what it does not mean or imply. 

Since the spiritual is real, and we are spiritual (as well as physical) beings, and have agency; it is to be expected that we have spiritual abilities to influence life in accordance with our will - just as we have some physical abilities to influence life. 

Yes we do - but let us not be over-impressed by such abilities. 

They can sometimes do something; but never very much or for very long, or consistently - at least not on the positive side. 

Spiritual powers - like physical powers, like technologies - are much more apt to destruction than to make any positive difference to the fundamental and eternal nature of this mortal Life. 

Spiritual power can be good, can be used for good; as can personal qualities such as intelligence, strength, beauty... 

But spiritual powers do not defeat evil, nor extinguish entropy: they do not make an ultimate difference. 

Powerful and robust motivation seems essential to a good (mortal) life; yet many effective motivations are delusional or evil

The question of motivation is one that has occupied me since before I began blogging; because I regard the modern West as a profoundly demotivated society. And without powerful and robust motivation - we are easily externally manipulated, and indeed come to desire and depend-upon external motivations. 

This much was recognized more than a century ago by CG Jung, whose therapy and philosophy was mainly about encouraging people to discover their own strong motivations - usually searching in our unconscious memories and emotions, and trying to strengthen and make conscious what we find. 

This either foreshadowed or led-to a while branch of mainstream and popular therapy and spirituality that (in various words) suggests that people discover what they really want to do: and then do it!

Thus far - the advice would be that we each, and individuals, need to discover that which motivates us powerfully and robustly. 

But, on its own, such advice implicitly assumes that all strong and enduring personal motivations are necessarily A Good Thing - or, if not good in any general of societal sense; then at least things necessary and inevitable for our personal development and happiness. 

Clearly, this is not the case. 

In the first place; some people are powerfully and enduringly motivated by selfish, exploitative, spiteful of destructive intentions towards other people, or other entities. 

And secondly; some people are motivated by falsehoods - including the psychotic delusions of the overtly insane (which can be overpowering motivators). Such strong delusions can immiserate and even destroy the life of the person who holds them.  

The conclusion seems clear: powerful and robust motivation is a very effective way of subjectively-improving the experience this mortal life - of providing direction and meaning. not enough - at least from a bigger perspective. 

Unfortunately; this works almost regardless of the nature of motivation. Religious-, political-, artistic-, lifestyle-, cult-motivations of opposite and incompatible kinds, have provided similarly life-enhancing for different people. 

And actually delusional (even self damaging) false beliefs and desires can motivate people towards (what apparently feels like, and perhaps is) a better everyday life overall.  

Motivation Is Not Enough!

As an example from my own life: From 1994 (and I know the exact day and circumstance!) and for about 20 years I was very highly motivated as a scientist. 

After a decade of working as a scientist - doing research and teaching - I "found my problem"; which was evolutionary theory as (mostly) as applied to humans, and (mostly) psychology. This strong and (relatively) lasting motivation enhanced my experience of life; and greatly enhanced my "achievement" as a scientist, albeit not my career as an academic.   

However; the enhancement was partial, and was initially harmfully-distorting to my world-view; as I increasingly tended to regard my "subject" as The most fundamental description of reality. The motivation introduced a major and damaging incoherence to my "life" (in the largest sense of life). 

Such harmful distortion is almost inevitable given the partial, and inevitably evil-tainted, nature of nearly-all actual specific motivations in this world. 

Furthermore, after a couple of decades - which is actually a long time to be a dedicated and active scientist, not many people manage as long or longer - this motivation, and indeed all forms of motivation, faded significantly, and I was no longer self-propelled with directional vitality. 

Finding my motivation was therefore substantially helpful, but contained the seeds of its own demise; and was anyway radically-insufficient in an ultimate sense.  

It is because our motivations have such a foundational role in the good experiences of life, that they are so tenaciously held - and that which provides the motivation may be absurd, mistaken, or evil makes surprisingly little difference, or no difference at all. 

What this adds-up-to; is that it is potentially very helpful to our enjoyment of our life, if we can discover what it is that "works for us" as a strong and lasting motivation...

But even if that is effective, and even if we succeed in the Jungian project of finding-out and following our personal "bliss";  this is an essentially subjective and idiosyncratic phenomenon; so the subject of motivation is pretty much arbitrary, may be grossly false; and may be evil (evil, even including as judged by our own evaluations). 

My interpretation is that the problem of "me" having the most-satisfying and most-gratifying mortal life on earth that I can manage (albeit temporarily); is essentially separate from the ultimate problems of goodness - of truth, beauty, and virtue. 

Because that which motivates effectively may be (and perhaps always is, to some significant extent) bad: false, wicked, and/or ugly. 

It is therefore fortunate that the salvation of Jesus Christ does not depend upon us having found a life-enhancing motivation! 

Indeed; the motivation for a person to accept, desire, work-towards resurrected eternal life in Heaven through following Jesus might well be a personal failure to discover what works for himself as a powerful and robust motivator. 

Indeed; it is evident that there are many people who - by their nature or from circumstances or pathologies - are only weakly motivated; and experience their mortal lives as purposeless and meaningless.

And these relatively-unmotivated people may be more inclined to embrace the salvation of Jesus; than are those seemingly-fortunate people of greater health and vitality, whose busy and successful mortal lives are shaped and directed by some strong motivator!

Evil is a subtype of Entropy, in this Pluralistic-Animistic divine creation

I have often written about the twin ultimate-problems (ineradicable insufficiencies) of this, our mortal life; under the headings of Entropy and Evil. 

My understanding of reality is that its fundamental divisions or units are eternal Beings, i.e living-Beings; such that (to modify the title of William James's book) this is an Pluralistic Animistic universe; i.e. there are many fundamental entities (not one); and these fundamental entities are alive, purposive, with agency and other attributes of Beings.  

Because things began with many Beings; God's divine creation (that we inhabit) is the primary source of cohesion: in a crude sense, by creation God imposed harmony on pre-existing and originally autonomous Beings. 

For creation to be sustained (insofar as it is sustained) there must me harmony/ cooperation/ cohesion etc between the Purposes and motives of the many Beings which constitute creation. 

Otherwise, divine creation will tend to fall apart - with different Beings pursuing different goals, or living by different values.  

It is this tendency for divine creation to fall-apart into a chaos of competing directions and behaviours that is the essential cause of the tendency named Entropy: i.e. the tendency of all life, order, organization, forms, functionality etc to decline towards chaos, with time. 

The primary source of Entropy is therefore the disharmony of Beings.

Therefore we need to stop thinking of Entropy abstractly, as if it was a branch of physics, as if it was some kind of force (or anti-force) that broke-up stuff... 

Instead, we should think of entropy as a consequence of the fact that the Beings of divine creation are imperfectly aligned in their nature and purposes. 

Our situation is that we may find ourselves loving God and experiencing profound desiring to live in harmony with divine creation; but we simply cannot do this in reality as we experience it, in this mortal life - because of our innate nature, because of the way we are (and have been) eternally.  

We may want to live in harmony with divine creation, but we cannot. 

But not all Beings want to live in harmony with divine creation, and some Beings hate God; and these are Beings that have chosen (or, at least, are currently choosing) Evil.

So, Evil can be defined as a kind of chosen Entropy; when the inevitable disharmony between our-selves and divine creation is made into the positive choice our-selves to oppose divine creation.  

From this perspective we can see that Evil is a type of Entropy - in a sense a worse type of Entropy: a positive decision to pursue negative outcomes. And worse than non-evil-Entropy; because Entropy is universal and unavoidable, whereas Evil makes the personal choice to oppose divine harmony....

Motives for Evil are various, but perhaps some kind of resentment or grudge against God and the imposed aspect of divine creation, might be the most basic motivation.  

Aims of Evil, too, are various. 

Perhaps the aim is to exploit divine harmony in pursuit of personal gratification or other selfish benefit; perhaps (more extremely) to oppose divine harmony simply from a desire to see it destroyed, taking spiteful pleasure in the destruction. 

This was the unavoidable human condition, blighted by ineradicable Entropy, and worsened by chosen Evil; and the situation for all Beings, until the advent of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus was a mortal Being, incarnated into this world of imperfect harmony between Beings - but Jesus himself loved God wholly; and was himself (at least, at the time of his ministry, after his Baptism by John) wholly-aligned with divine creation. 

Jesus was himself mortal: which is to say he was subject to Entropy. And Jesus was subject also to Evil. However; because Jesus was perfectly aligned with God and creation he knew that after death he could (and would) be remade as himself but "perfectly" - in other words, resurrected into eternal life, freed from Entropy. 

Resurrection takes our aspiration to live wholly in harmony with divine creation, and rebuilds us from that basis.

Furthermore, Jesus knew that if or when others had followed him into this eternal (because wholly-aligned, Entropy-purged) state of resurrection - which remaking process would be guided by Jesus himself - then a world of such persons would be a world without Evil.

In eliminating Entropy, resurrection also eliminates Evil, as a subsidiary effect. 

And this wholly-harmonious and wholly-God-aligned post-mortal world would be Heaven: in which the deepest and ineradicable problems of this mortal life are eliminated; and free and creative Beings live spontaneously in harmony (loving God and each-other), and from common aims and motives. 

 

The important (vital?) insight that "inevitable" does Not mean Good

One of the deepest and (it seems to me) most important insights from Jesus, is that what is inevitable in this mortal life, is not for that reason Good.

Many things in this life may be unavoidable - including our own natures, work, and taxes, but also many others - and therefore we should make the best of them; but these same things may nonetheless be evils, or indeed sins.

My impression is that few people are prepared to acknowledge this reality; and instead they tend to assume that that which is unavoidable, or that which has always been an aspect of life throughout known history - are therefore either positively Good, or else neutral. 

Yet this point seems to be fundamental to Christianity (at least, as I understand Christianity); because if it were otherwise, then there would be no necessity for salvation, and Jesus would be optional at best.   

Or, to say the same thing in an opposite way: Jesus is necessary and our hope lies in salvation exactly because much that is universal, pervasive, inescapable in our own (or any other) mortal life is fundamentally wrong and/or adverse.

In a word, mortal life does not, cannot, and never shall, suffice. 

And this is why salvation (with resurrection into Heaven coming after this mortal life) is the only true hope. 

This divine creation - the primary creation of this mortal life, world, universe - is not good enough. 

The opportunity to follow Jesus is needed if we want better; and the Second Creation of Heaven is our only genuine possibility of attaining that better life and world. 

Christianity remade as a religion of power, or of escape

It often seems that there have never been very many Christians in the world; because so very few people - even among the religious - seem even to want what Jesus offered: i.e. resurrected eternal life in Heaven, attainable by following him.

What the mass of religious people want most, is apparently a deity of power.

God/s whose own power is so great and irresistible, that service to the God/s can guarantee that those who serve him/them will win (eventually). 

Naturally, when such people call themselves Christian, they make "Christianity" into an instrument of power, serving a God defined in terms of power in this mortal life and world. 

An influential minority find "winning" to be no more than a temporary palliative; because these people are irresistibly-aware that evil pervades all Men, winners as well as losers; and because disease, degeneration and death make our mortal life a tragedy. 

What such people desire most deeply is escape from the tragedy that is mortal life on earth. 

Naturally, when such people call themselves Christian; they make Christianity into a religion of escape; a religion of palliation in this temporary and illusory mortal life and world; escape into complete absence of all suffering (perhaps bliss) in the next, and real, world. 

It is natural, and probably inevitable, that people will make their religion into a vehicle of what they most want; but it is confusing for those who instead want what Jesus offered.

When the overwhelming mass of Christianity actually is about power; and its "advanced" practitioners primarily desire escape - and when power or escape fill most of Christian discourse - it becomes difficult, or perhaps in practice impossible, for someone who innately wants what Jesus actually offers to recognize "Christianity" as the place he can find what he desires. 

This is why I think we are compelled to seek fundamental knowledge concerning our deepest wants in a manner that is direct and personal, intuitive and simple. 

If we do not, or cannot, find the necessary knowledge for-ourselves and validated by-ourselves - in faith that the true deity will guide the sincere searcher sufficiently for the purpose; then I see zero possibility of actually finding Jesus's offer by a process of sifting through the colossal and growing archives of public religious discourse. 

 

Note Added: The above analysis suggests why Christianity has declined, and is declining. 

If you are religious, and it is power you really want in the 21st century; then Christianity is not the place that somebody would seek a share of power. The obvious power religions are not in Christianity but in the plainly-monotheistic world religions. 

Affiliation with power might be sought by supporting or converting-to the global monotheism which has been growing so rapidly in zeal, numbers, and nations over the past century. Or else a power-seeker might seek affiliation with to the global racial monotheism that has such a disproportionately large share of world power, wealth, and influence. 

As for religions of escape: a much purer and simpler and more escape-orientated religion than Christianity can be found among the Western philosophical (and Theosophy-derived, "perennialist") versions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism. And (overlapping with these) there is a large, growing (and socially-acceptable, Establishment-supported) Oneness spirituality of the New Age. 

In sum; both for those who seek power, and those who seek escape; there are more straightforward and "effective" alternatives to be found outwith Christianity.

"My way or the Highway?" - Christian "exclusivism"; in relation to Christian claims of the Necessity of Jesus Christ

A lot of modern people are(or claim to be) averse to the exclusivism of "Christianity".

By "exclusivism" they usually refer to some particular self-identified Christian church, or denomination, or a selection of such churches. 

And by exclusivism is meant a collection of various ideas that limit salvation: for examples that Christianity is the only true religion; that church instructions and/or sacraments provide the only valid path to salvation; that those who are not Christian are doomed to eternal torment, and so forth. 

Various alternatives may then be proposed for these and other various exclusivisms (for instance; that all religions are true, or equally-true; that Heaven is for everyone, eventually; that Heaven is for good people, and others). 

All of these miss the point. 

Christianity is indeed exclusive; and exclusive in the sense that for those who want salvation  - which is resurrected eternal life in Heaven - there is only one way of attaining this goal. 

And that one way is by following Jesus Christ. 

In other words: Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation - meaning that if Jesus had not existed, and was not still alive and active; then there would be no salvation for any of Mankind. 

Such a brief definition may be true and perhaps acknowledged by many or most Christians; yet it leaves some key terms undefined, in particular what it means to "follow" Jesus Christ. 

But the answer to that should, I believe, be regarded as secondary to the first step: which is: 

To want what Jesus offers; to desire salvation for oneself, and to want it as the priority of life. 

I would say that anyone who wants salvation as the priority Is A Christian: by that commitment is a Christian defined.

The secondary question of what "follow" means in this context; and how, exactly, I personally (here and now) should follow Jesus Christ; well, such matters are surely more the subject for a life quest, than a thing that can be pre-decided by any act of faith and resolution. 

(Even joining a church and obeying it does not decide what "follow" means in practice; since the Church opinion must be learned, acted on; and anyway there is always dispute on such matters within all churches.)

Anyone who sincerely desires to attain eternal resurrected life in Heaven will, presumably, do whatever is necessary for him to attain this goal (as and when this becomes evident); and will do so according to his own best attainable knowledge and understanding... 

"Following Jesus" is a matter about which it would seem foolish to expect unanimous agreement. 

The core of "what Christianity is may, nonetheless, be a matter of shared consensus among Christians of many types - but only among Christians!

Because, it seems that plenty of other people (apparently a large majority) do not want salvation but want... something else instead, and there are many such possibilities...

Therefore; it seems to me that almost all of the people who object to the real exclusivism of Christianity do not themselves want salvation...

But, for instance, they might deny the real possibility of post-mortal life; or prefer some other post-mortal outcome than everlasting life in Heaven Perhaps they want reincarnation? Or not to die at all? Or for death to be annihilation of the self? Or they prefer eternal life as a spirit rather than to be resurrected bodily. Or they want a post-mortal pleasure-paradise of themselves reborn, but not resurrected. 

Many possibilities exist - including the desire to become a ghost, or a demon - common enough wishes nowadays.  

So the exclusivism of Christianity is seldom a real problem! 

Those who themselves do not desire Christ's salvation, or who regard it as an unpleasant, bad or evil thing - can hardly object that such salvation is exclusive!

And, although theoretically a possibility and a genuine problem; whether people actually exist who sincerely desire salvation (i.e. desire for themselves resurrected eternal life in Heaven), and who also deny that Jesus is truly necessary to attain this salvation, is not clear to me. 

I guess that (if they indeed exist) such people would need to believe that:

1. They wanted salvation

2. There is a path to salvation

3. But a path that does not require Men to "follow" Jesus - in any sense of "follow" - i.e. that (contrary to what Christians assert) Jesus is not-really necessary to salvation.  

Only if such people exist, then I can see that such would indeed have a legitimate grievance against the exclusivism of Christianity! 

Too many Mainstream Orthodox Christians are "universalists" when it comes to "the resurrection of damnation"

There is a sentence in the Fourth Gospel that contradicts the argument and multiple statements of the rest of the Gospel, and which I assume was a later and alien addition...

But which (with, perhaps, a terrible and malignant inevitability) became standard orthodox compulsory dogma in many Christian churches (at least among theologians):

John 5: [28] Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, [29] And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

The alien-ness of this passage is that, through the rest of the Gospel, it is evident that resurrection is A Good Thing, Good News, the great gift that Jesus offers to all Men who "follow" Him.

This is the real Christianity: one that recognizes that Jesus offered a great gift...

A gift that any mortal man (whether he be good or bad, as evaluated by This World, and after all we are all "sinners". Sinners both in the primary sense that we all shall die, and the secondary sense that nobody lives in full harmony with divine creation). 

Thus, a great gift that all may choose to accept - by following Jesus through death into resurrection and Heaven. 

What I regard as True Christianity, takes-up Jesus's many statements in the IV Gospel and its overall argument; that has resurrection linked with Heaven: resurrection is the needful transformation by which we are "born again" in a form suitable for Heaven. 

So; salvation properly means saving us from death, and the default fate of becoming ghostly spirits, barely our-selves.

Saving us into an eternal life in Heaven. 

Yet here, in the above quoted sentence, there is raised the spectre that Jesus's work was to raise the barely-conscious gibbering ghosts of the underworld Sheol into an everlasting incarnated state in which they would suffer the eternal torment of Hell.

Add to this horror; the statements in some other Books of the New Testament that only few - probably the very few who have "done good" to a sufficient degree, can or shall ever attain the resurrection of life.

And we get that truly horrible depiction of Jesus Christ as cosmic sadist that is so vehemently insisted-up and enforced by so many churches...

I mean the common and horribly inverted picture of a "Jesus" whose "great work" as a "saviour" was to implement a system of alleged-salvation, by which the majority of Men (probably a very large majority) were resurrected from death in order that they could be tortured forever. 

By such means, a large number of self-identified Christians - past and present - chose to make themselves into "Universalists". 

But not the kind of Universalist who assert that Jesus's work was to compel everybody to resurrect into Heaven; whether they wanted it or not...

Instead the kind of Universalist who believes that Jesus made things so that everybody gets resurrected, everybody gets brought to consciousness forever; and afterwards, for most of them, their eternal life will be one of inescapable and ultimate misery. 

Both "universalisms" are wrong: Resurrection is a choice and Heaven too is a choice, therefore neither is for everyone. 

Why is that so hard to grasp? 

And why are self-identified Christians so stubborn in refusing to grasp the Good News, or (worse) insisting that they do not even want it? 

Entropy is Not a part of evil - these are two separate problems

The problem of entropy is one that presses upon us the average mortal life perhaps more strongly than evil. 

By "entropy" I mean the universal tendency for beings to experience cumulative adverse change with time: dysfunction, degeneration, disease - and the ultimate manifestation of entropy is death. 

All of these are unavoidable, are universal. 

Traditional Christian theology usually conflates entropy with evil; indeed entropy/ death is usually subsumed within the concept and causes of evil. 

For example, the traditional interpretation of the Adam and Eve story is that they began as good and immortal beings; free from both evil and death. 

With The Fall they chose evil, and at the same time necessarily became mortal - subject to entropy and death. 

(In traditional theology) with the salvation from Jesus Christ we are allowed to return to the primal situation of Adam and Eve - saved from our self-caused punishment of both entropy and evil. 

After their fall; A & E and their descendants also needed to toil in order to live - in effect toil was needed to overcome entropy. 

Because (in effect) entropy meant that, over time, our minds and bodies and the environment are all against us: we must make efforts every day, we need to toil simply to remain alive and functional, but all such efforts are temporary palliative: will inevitably be overcome and will fail.

(In this sense, entropy is a more pervasive problem than evil.) 

And ultimately all of this bad stuff supposedly happens because of The Fall! 

Everything bad is down to an evil choice of ancestors, and its ramifications. 

This is very difficult to comprehend or believe. There seems a gross disproportion between the events described in Genesis, and thousands of years of billions of people's suffering and toil, disease and dying in fighting - and failing to defeat - entropy.   

Well, be that as it may; traditional theology regards evil as primary, entropy as a part of evil: evil is the ultimate cause of entropy. 

Therefore trad-theol has it that we overcome entropy by overcoming sin, where "sin" is understood to mean the manifestations of evil. 

That is; the repentance of evil/sins, leads also to the escape from entropy: leads to eternally healthy and vigorous - and happy - life in Heaven.

I have described elsewhere my understanding that entropy and evil can and should be distinguished, and that they have different causes. 

Entropy is intrinsic to this creation, the one we inhabit now; to the original or primary Creation by God - this creation that we are born-into. 

Heaven can be conceptualized as the answer to entropy; by a second and opt-into creation (i.e. the creation made possible by Jesus Christ) - with resurrection conceptualized as a voluntary re-making without entropy, as leaving-behind entropy. 

So, while traditional Christian theology regards entropy-death as secondary to evil - and regards Heaven as the answer to entropy-death because, in repenting moral sins and having the effect of sins removed by Jesus, we also and simultaneously eliminate entropy. 

But instead; I regard entropy and evil as ultimately distinct concepts: (in this creation) entropy is unavoidable, while evil is a choice. 

However, the confusion and conflation of entropy and evil among Christians seems to be a consequence of the fact that the answer to both entropy and evil is the same: i.e. resurrection and our "escape"/ progression-into eternal, wholly-good life in Heaven; by following Jesus Christ.

In a nutshell: entropy and evil are different problems with different causes in this-world, but both problems are cured by the same treatment: following Jesus Christ to Heaven.

And otherwise they are not cured. One who does Not follow Jesus to Heaven; has thereby chosen to continue to live with entropy and evil. 

 

Note Added: The difference is that:

Entropy is intrinsic to the nature of God's creation - the First creation. 

Evil is about a specific-Being's attitude towards creation: positive, or negative, affiliative or hostile. 

The intractable problem of moral legalism in Christian discourse

If there is one area of life in which discussion is futile, it is when trying to persuade a Moral Legalist in a situation where somebody has transgressed a law, rule or principle, that he regards as both absolute and primary. 

Such people cannot be made to recognize that the crucial move in their argument has been their own personal choice to regard values as existing ultimately in the form of laws. 

As well as, secondly, the choice to place This Law, here-and-now, as above all other laws that could (in principle) be applied to the situation under discussion. 

In other words; any possible argument has already-been pre-decided by the prior choice of These-Laws as necessarily valid and supreme, and the prior choice to apply This-Law here-and-now. 

Moral legalists have taken a vastly complex situation unfolding in real-time; and applied-to-it a grossly simplified model, that begs all the most fundamental questions. 

On the one hand we have Life; but on the other hand a set of Laws and relations between Laws. These Laws are then claimed to be descriptive of The Ultimate Truth about Life. The claim is that Life derives from Laws.  

In other words, the Man-assumed model of reality which is The Laws; is given primacy over all the multitude of details of that existence in which we find ourselves. 

There can be no relevant "evidence" for this assumption of the primacy of Law. It is an act of faith, a personal decision.  

Such moral legalists (and they are legion, and occur in all Christian denominations) cannot be persuaded; because they regard every attempt to point-out the fact of their assumptions, and that all such assumptions depend upon a personal choice of what-to-believe; as a challenge to their core moral values - hence as necessarily emanating from an evil tempter. 

One who debates a moral legalist, is subjectively assigned a (literally) demonic role. 

The reaction to any challenge to the assumption of the validity and applicability of Law is therefore typically extreme, and always negative. 

And also projective - in the sense that it attributes motivation in absence of knowledge. Any pointing-out of "my" assumptions as assumptions is experienced as an evil-motivated attack on what I have assumed to be ultimate good. 

Naturally enough, albeit mistakenly and sinfully; this may subjectively be regarded as "justifying", or even requiring (moralistic zeal!) - justifying an extreme response against this threat. 

Thus moral legalism is, I believe, a major cause of the extraordinary extremity of hostile rhetoric from some Christians online, and sometime IRL; and a cause of the inability of so many Christians to learn from experience, from Life. Because when These-Laws have-been accorded metaphysical primacy, primacy by-assumption; then anything that happens in Life can have nothing to teach us about the validity and applicability of These-Laws.  

Note added: If not, then what? If not Moral Legalism, then what instead? 

The answer lies in distinguishing the limitations of this actual mortal life from the ideal situation of Heaven - and in remembering the ultimate primacy of Heaven. Here-and-now in this vast and impersonal world as-is; we are stuck with legalism and bureaucracy as inevitable evils. Laws can be improved and reduced, implementation should be supervised and shaped by wise human judgment - but all Laws are ultimately wrong. 

And yet we are stuck with them, especially when it comes to public and societal morality (we can, and should, try to exclude laws and law-like rules as much as possible from a loving marriage, family, and strong friendships. 

(For the same reason, we should resist the temptation to conceptualize loving marriages and families in terms of societal-derived models - destructive errors such as regarding the family as essentially structured like a "social institution", as analogous to a mini-nation; as properly "ruled" by monarch, or "democracy", or whatever...) 

However; Heavenly morality and values are wholly relational, i.e. rooted in love between persons - and there is no place for Laws in Heaven. 

This is what we need to hold in mind, in order to avoid the self-blinded and destructive zealotry of the self-defined-Christian - but often net-evil, and in-practice demon-aligned - Moral Legalists. 

Becoming more divine? Poetry as an example of theosis

If, in a simplified way, if salvation is the purpose of this mortal life, then theosis is the meaning of it. In other words: theosis - i.e. becoming more divine - is what we are supposed to be doing on a daily basis. 

But what this means is far from clear. To say that Love is primary, and we should become more loving is true; but somehow too abstract - and in a way too "static": it doesn't provide much of an idea of what we ought to be trying to do now - this minute, in a few hours; and over the next days, months, years. 

I find that creativity is as aspect of love, an overflow of love - such that God's divine creation can be understood as a manifestation of God's love. 

But what is creativity as we know it and do it in mortal life? 

Well, there are serious problems with the way we think about creation. 

Two of these problems are that - first - we we regard creativity as associated with specific activities - especially the arts - which means that creativity is defined externally, by human institutions. 

Secondly (and linked to this); we regard this externally-defined creativity as needing a minimum threshold of ability and achievement.   

Take the example of poetry. Poetry has long been socially defined as a creative activity, intrinsically - we assume that "a poet" is creative. Traditionally, the status of being " a poet" must be conferred-upon a person. 

However this "poet" status requires some external and "objective" criteria to be satisfied...

Publication of your poetic work - perhaps specifically publication by a high status publisher, or attracting a paying audience to readings, or being employed as a teacher of poetry - are examples of how the claimed status of "a poet" is accredited. 

These are assumed to be measures of writing what is regarded as real poetry (e.g. a shopping list or a bureaucratic memo does not count as "a poem"), while also achieving the minimum necessary poetic ability. 

Thus (traditionally) "a poet" is one who has produced work of a type and standard worthy of being called poetry. 

This is because writing poetry is so easy and so common that otherwise the status (and it is a status, a socially sanctioned role) of "poet" could, and probably would, be claimed by something approaching the majority of the population! 

But this is to treat poetry as a social function and privilege - not as a spiritual activity. 

Insofar as poetry is treated as a profession, it is not a valid mode of theosis. 

However; the alternative to having external standards of definition for poetry and poets; would seem to be reducing the whole things to meaninglessness and futility. If poetry is "just" whatever-people-say it-is, and poets are whoever wants-to-claim-the-name, then the concept has no function. 

The answer seems to be that poetry as a creative spiritual activity needs to be removed from the external and public sphere of definitions and evaluations. 

And when this is done, poetry ceases to be regarded as an intrinsically-creative activity: such an understanding means that poetry is no more creative of-itself than any other activity a person might engage in - such as preparing food, gardening, or humming a tune.

The evaluations and definitions of spiritual creation then become a matter between the individual person and God - sidestepping society and institutions altogether. 

Of course, people can and will be dishonest with themselves, will fool themselves - but then this is subject to spiritual feedback. 

By pretending to be creating but not really doing it, people are only harming themselves - spiritually. 

If someone desires theosis, desires to participate in divine creation; then it is up to that individual - and nobody else - really to do just that; to the best of his knowledge and ability; calibrated by the most fundamental discernments of which that person is capable.

With spirituality and "this world" we cannot have it both ways. 

If poetry is being done for spiritual reasons, as an aspect of theosis; it ought to be kept separate from the social system that defines and evaluates poetry - and which allocates status on that basis.

The "spiritual poet" is engaged in activity related to participation in divine creation - and there are no external objective sources that have the authority to determine such matters over and superior to our own best evaluation of the matter. 

A spiritual poet is someone who finds that doing something he himself honestly regards as being rather like what-gets-called poetry, is a good way to pursue creativity and theosis. 

Such an activity will not be recognized or rewarded socially, nor will it be accorded a higher status than any other of the thousands of alternative ways in which a person might be creative.  

What then is the reward? 

The reward of creating is twofold: immediate and post-resurrection. 

The immediate reward is that creating is satisfying, profoundly satisfying, to a Christian - because by it he joins with God and Jesus Christ in the work of divine creation. 

But such rewards are temporary in this mortal life; so creating is not cumulative (or not necessarily, and seldom cumulative) during mortal life.

I mean that the benefits of theosis do not (or only seldom) accumulate incrementally during mortal life: we don't get more-and-more "divine" as mortal Men by our creativity.  

That is: Creative accumulation is spiritual, not material. 

What happens is that we do get a benefit from each and every creative activity, and it does build-up; but lasting benefit comes after death if/when we are resurrected.

The more creatively we have lived as mortals, the more divine shall be the form in which we are resurrected...

Just as it true for Loving - which is not separable from creating: the more loving our lives, the more divine we shall be as we commence eternal life in Heaven. 

Saturday music: The Muck-spreader song - aka "Fling it 'ere!"

As sung by The Yetties

(And by me)

Way down on our farm we are right up to date, 

For mechanisation's the byword of late 

For every task, we've a gadget to match, 

But our new muck-spreader's the best of the batch 

 

Fling it here, Fling it there, If you're standing by then you'll all get your share 

Now young Walter Hodgkins, he brought back a load 

Of liquid manure from the farm up the road 

And he hummed to himself as he drove up the street, 

And his load also hummmmmmmmmmmed in the afternoon heat 

Now the muck-spreader had a mechanical fault, 

And a bump in the road turned it on with a jolt 

An odorous spray of manure it let fly 

Without fear or favour on all it passed by 

The cats and the dogs stank to high kingdom come, 

And the kiddies, browned off, ran home screaming to Mum 

The trail of sheer havoc were terrible grim, 

One open car were filled up to the brim 

The vicarage windows were all open wide 

When a generous helping descended inside 

The vicar, at table, intoned "Let usspray" 

When manure from heaven came flying his way 

 In her garden, Miss Pringle was quite scandalised 

"Good gracious!" she cried, "I've been fertilised" 

While the Methodist minister's teetotal wife 

Were plastered for the very first time in her life 

 And all of this time Walter trundled along, 

He was quite unaware there was anything wrong, 

Till a vision of woe flagged him down—what a sight! 

A policeman all covered in ... you've got it right.

I took up playing the piano accordion aged 15, at first borrowing a smallish instrument from school; after which my Dad got me a full-sized (120 bass) Italian instrument secondhand. 

After a few months I was playing in events at school alongside my (much more musically-gifted) friend Gareth who would sing, play flute, electric bass guitar, or tambourine-attached-to-thumbstick (to be thumped on the stage in time with the chorus) - according to repertoire.  

We named ourselves the Muck-spreaders - and as such did two main performances; because in both of them the climax and finale (of a very short set) was the Muck-spreader Song - stolen from a Yetties LP. 

For this we donned comedy Somerset Rustic garb - flat cap, open shirt with neckerchief, trousers held up with hairy string, short wellington boots; and a heavily-exaggerated local dialect. Gareth was the front man and lead singer; I provided the backing music and chorus. 

In my memory, our act was "crude but effective". Helped by the excellent lyrics and Gareth's way with an audience, "Fling it 'ere" went down a storm - first with Bristol Dental students folk club; then, time later, with the parents and pupils of the Backwell School Revue.   

Is the planet of Kolob (i.e. the Mormon Heaven planet) in principle discoverable in outer space?

Reading Laeth's latest aphorisms, he reminded me of a 2019 post from Wm Jas Tychonievich about whether or not the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith was, in principle, correct to posit an actual planet (assumed to be orbiting a star that Mormons term Kolob) as the place of God's (usual) residence; thus the physical, material location of Heaven. 

I made a comment at WmJas at the time; and find I have further notions now that I have thought further about heaven in relation to entropy, creation, and love: 

I mean that I now understand resurrected (i.e. incarnate, physical, material) eternal life to be possible in a situation where all the Beings have committed eternally to be wholly motivated by love. 

It is this living from love that "abolishes entropy" (to express it as a double-negative!) - or, differently expressed; enables all of resurrected creation to be eternal, eternally developing, eternally living.

Heaven happened when this became possible (during Jesus's ministry, I assume); and began to be populated when humans (and other Beings) made the choice and eternal commitment to love, and began to be resurrected.   

Thinking about the possibility of something like the planet of Kolob, and whether it would be discoverable as a place in this universe - somewhere that might theoretically be travelable-to; I realized that it seems relevant that resurrected Human Beings are (apparently) to be able to visit and function on this earth and in mortal affairs - e.g. some of the Beings people call Angels are resurrected humans.  

This would mean that eternal Human Beings can exist on earth, and in an environment where nearly everything else (or, indeed everything else) is mortal and subject to entropy, decay, death. 

And it seems that Angels are not usually recognized as such; and indeed (at least in the modern West) Angels are regarded as impossible nonsense.

My notion is that even if mortal Human Beings were capable of travelling to a Heaven such as the planet of Kolob is supposed to be, and even if these people were allowed to "enter into" this Heaven (e.g. to investigate and study Kolob) -- then it is quite possible that these mortal Human Beings would not recognize or realise that they were in the place of Heaven. 

It is, in deed, easy to imagine that modern Western Men would even deny vehemently that Heaven was Heaven if told the fact, even if these people actually were living "in" Heaven! (i.e. were present as mortal-incarnates in the situation of Heaven, but were not resurrected-incarnates) 

This self-blinding to Heaven is, after all, no different from our mainstream and official on-principle/by-assumption/ and absolute denial of even the possibility of paranormal, supernatural, spiritual, and/or divine phenomena.

As Tolkien showed in literary form: evil cannot comprehend good; likewise those who reject and are unfit-for Heaven, cannot even perceive Heaven.  

Note: I should be clear that Kolob does Not play an active role in my own theological metaphysics - indeed I have not even considered the matter for some years. But I don't see why Heaven, or God the Father's dwelling place - should be one particular planet, or  The reason I write here is that those who reflexively reject the idea as absurd, insane, or stupid - could probably benefit from thinking more deeply about their reasons for doing so.  

Resurrection, not incarnation, is the most shocking and strange thing about Christianity

I have often heard it emphasised by Christians how remarkable, how shocking, it was that God was incarnated as a little baby, lived, suffered and died an ignominious and agonising death.

But is it really so shocking? All of these are familiar possibilities for a being that is an 'avatar' of a God - a spirit part of God that takes on human form and lives as a human, perhaps a super-powered human, maybe even breeds with humans etc.

(Jesus is not an avatar - but my point is that the general idea of a God taking on a human form is common enough.)

Neither is it all that shocking when the incarnated God comes back to life after being killed - since all societies seem to have believed in some kind of continuation of existence after biological death (so nothing really dies altogether), posited some kind of afterlife; and Gods in particular would be expected to be unkillable. 


What is really shocking is that when the divine Jesus came back to life it was not as a spirit. Instead God became a Man again, in a Man's body, and for eternity. Jesus was resurrected.

I think that this is so shocking that - as far as I can tell - most Christians still don't believe it, and have never really believed it; but instead have always tried to claim that Jesus's resurrected body was 'not really' what it seemed, but some kind-of embodied spirit.

It is, apparently, very difficult for people to accept that a creator God could have a body like ours, eternally; and still be God. 

To most intellectual Christians, at any rate, it seems intrinsically ridiculous that something solid and bounded might be superior to something unbounded of pure spirit; so they resort to various types of 'yes, but'... argument, that explain resurrection as retaining the appearance of an incarnate body while replacing its inner reality with spirit.

If this was so, the question is why?... Why did Jesus bother with resurrection, if the body was merely a kind of illusion? Why didn't he make eternal life explicitly a thing of pure spirit?

Why go to all the trouble of making it 'look like' Jesus had an absolutely humanish body, why the emphasis on how normal his body seemed?

(An emphasis, but not not exclusive; after all Jesus was hard to recognise, could apparently appear and disappear etc; but certainly the primary point being made is that this was in some essential way the same human body that Jesus had inhabited before he died, with the same appearance, wounds etc; and it was certainly solid to touch, and he ate food.)

If we take the Fourth Gospel as primary (and the other Gospels as partial confirmations) it is evident that the resurrection was into a 'normal', solid, material human body - and that was the main thing about it!

We should not allow secondary explanations to remove that major - and shocking - fact.

The distinctive thing about Christianity is therefore not 'eternal life' in Heaven; but eternal life in some version of our actual solid human body. 

There Must Be something very important about The Body, if it is to become eternal for us, in Heaven.


Note: On further reflection, the fact of resurrection has very wide-ranging implications for the nature of ultimate reality; including the nature of life in Heaven. In a nutshell, resurrection implies that the life eternal promised by Jesus to those who follow him is A Resurrected Life - a life certainly including resurrected entities, beings, things from this mortal life. Not, therefore, a life of pure spirit or thought; but a life of everlasting solid beings and objects of many kinds - thought consisting-of/ interacting-with solid things. Perhaps CS Lewis intuited this, in his fantasy of The Great Divorce? 

Further Note added today: This is an edited repost of what strikes me as a significant insight (i.e. significant for me) which made near zero impact at the time of first publication seven years ago (except on WmJas Tychonievich) - and indeed, I did not properly grasp it myself. So here 'tis again. 

The Medical School analogy for mortal life lived for salvation and theosis - Something More is needed!

I have previously made an analogy between our situation in this mortal life in relation to Heaven, and that of a student at Medical School training to be a doctor. 

Mortal Life = Medical School; Heaven = Being a doctor. 

I have found this analogy helpful in trying to articulate the difference to this mortal life made by the expectation of Heaven. 

When mortal life is lived primarily to achieve salvation.  

To live this mortal life as much as possible with the sole aim of working towards salvation into Heaven, is actually the highest aspiration of many Christian denominations. 

This corresponds to attending Medical School with the sole aim of passing the exams and qualifying as a doctor. 

Some students approximate to this idea - their horizon is bounded by the goal of attaining a pass grade in final exams. 

They work hard attending official classes, revising material over and again, practising exam techniques... all focused on reaching the minimum standard. 

They strive to master the exam curriculum but nothing more, because that would be a misdirection of effort away from the essential aim. The aim is to pass the exams safely, rather than well. 

But if such people can safely and without sanctions attain the aimed-at medical qualification without working or exams - e.g. by bribery - they will do so. 

All they want is that degree certificate!

Medical School is nothing-but a way of qualifying as a doctor. 

This suggests how and why salvation is a fundamentally insufficient basis for life.

When Medical School is nothing-but a means to an end, then it has no value of itself. Likewise, if salvation is all that matters, then this mortal life is devalued - and (like achieving a qualification by bribery) it would be better if it could be dispensed-with. 

The salvation-focused Christian will often yearn to have this mortal life over and done; or that it never had been. 

He thinks: "If only God had created reality such that I had been incarnated directing into Heaven, instead of being compelled to endure this mortal rigmarole - how much better things would have been!"

At the end of this perspective lurks the suspicion that God messed-up; or maybe exhibits traits of ruthless cruelty, in compelling us to endure the futile miseries of mortal life. 

In sum: A mortal life lived wholly to attain salvation would even if successful be a meaningless life. 

When the aim of mortal life is theosis, as well as salvation 

By theosis (which I regard as being broadly the same as concepts such as sanctification, exaltation, deification) I mean the idea that a purpose of this mortal life is to "fit us for Heaven". 

The idea that we should, through our lives, strive to make ourselves more holy, more divine in character; more like Jesus Christ; purer, less sinful and more virtuous; more fully-orientated to the life of Heaven. 

In the analogy; this corresponds to the student whose goal at Medical School looks beyond the examinations and the degree certificate; and who strives to prepare himself for working as a doctor. 

Such a student would seek out extra, and more specialized, teaching; might attend research seminars as well as didactic lectures, would perhaps visit other Medical Schools and explore other models of medical services. 

He might go beyond just "picking the brains" of his medical teachers for essential facts and useful exam tips; and try to understand what "makes doctors tick", engaging in deeper conversations about the "whys", as well as the "hows". 

Theosis therefore entails orientating beyond salvation, and has potential to add considerably to the function of mortal life; somewhat as orientating beyond qualification adds to the interest and enjoyment of being a Medical Student.

Yet! Even a mortal life that combines theosis with salvation is deficient; because it accords no value to the actual here-and-now mortal life. 

Even with theosis; mortal life is still nothing more a means to an end. 

Although the "end" is enlarged by theosis; this actual present life is still utterly subordinated to the necessity and needs of post-mortal life. 

The intrinsic value of mortal life

For mortal life to be valid in itself requires that mortal life have intrinsic value, and is not merely a means to an end - no matter how glorious and eternal that end.

In the analogy; this imperative corresponds to the value to the potential "extra-curricular" activities at Medical School of a student who is already committed to salvation and theosis. 

Those many other possible ways that make the life of the student richer, more social, more creative. 

Participating in sports, music, societies. Reading widely in literature. Making strong friendship. Romantic relationships. 

Self-discovery and -development. Thinking about "life"; and understanding the essentials as deeply as possible. Choosing an aim, a path, a quest...

These extra-curricular, non-medical, activities of an imaged student - recognize that he is not just "a student"; they are rooted in a recognition that he is (or rather "I" am, from the POV of the student) a here-and-now human being with all the requirements of such. 

This is analogous to the necessity that these our mortal lives, be valued for themselves. 

That this mortal life is not only "for" something; it is of value intrinsically. 

In other words; we are not supposed to live only in conformity to external demands; we are not supposed to live only to qualify for Heaven and serve its purposes; because we have our own unique nature and potentials that demand to be gratified - and ought to be gratified... 

Of course, our spontaneous nature and potentials - just considered in and of themselves, and without salvation and theosis - might well include much that would be selfish or destructive - evil. 

This would correspond to the old (mostly upper class) Medical Students who would attend college but do as little as possible towards qualifying or equipping themselves for medical practice. They would do as little as possible except (for example) playing sports, socializing, wenching, hunting, boozing, and lazing. 

To be an "ideal" Medical Student, there must be as a basis the genuine motivation both to qualify as a doctor, and also to look beyond qualification to aim at being a good doctor. This is the essential framework. 

This is why I emphasize the necessity of a "framework" for mortal life; corresponding to salvation and theosis. 

However, we ought to recognize that, although necessary, salvation and theosis are not sufficient. 

Something more is also needed, is indeed essential - and that "something" has to do with that which is unique to each of us.     

Seeking spiritual contacts - the advantages of deceased persons over the still-living

As a spiritual goal and method, seeking spiritual contacts with individual people* is the best strategy - and superior to the use of abstract models. 

The difference is that the division of reality into persons (into "beings") is the primary division of reality - reality actually is divided into beings; whereas any other scheme of analysis (eg by symbolism) is, ultimately, an artificial and simplified-scheme, imposed-upon real-reality.  

Much of this mortal life is about our relationships with the people familiarly-related to us, and typically around us in the material environment; and especially those whom we love. That is with "material" contacts, among people whom we know "physically". 

But our relationship with the wider world and universe; ideally includes "spiritual contacts" - by which I mean relationships with those whom we know spiritually rather than physically.

(Of course there is a much wider range of possible spiritual contacts, than physically-present people.)  

Spiritual contacts can be with people who are still alive, in this mortal life; and they can also be with those who are deceased - and especially those who have died and resurrected to eternal life. 

It might be supposed that material relationships are always the best, and spiritual relationships are secondary or even optional. This ranking is probably usually true - our family, spouse, best friends are usually the most significant relationships. 

But physical relationships are not the most important for everybody, and they are not necessarily most important at all phases and stages of a human's life. 

Even for those who are most deeply engaged by physical relationships; a better, fuller, more creative and integrative life may be possible if there are important spiritual as-well-as physical relationships. 

In my own life, the most profound and enduring relationships have often been spiritual in nature; examples include JRR Tolkien (the first such), Glenn Gould, and William Arkle. 

What is interesting is that these people were alive when I first knew of them, and I even met Arkle face to face (once, very briefly - he lived in the same village as me). But in all cases; the spiritual relationships became much more important after the person had died; and I think this may be significant.

To explain: I had a more powerful sense of spiritual contact with these people after they had died, than while they were alive. 

I think it possible that spiritual contacts may be stronger and more significant than physical relationships; and spiritual relationships may potentially be stronger with the deceased, than with the still living.  

One plausible reason (i.e. plausible to me) is that the resurrected dead are wholly good, wholly loving beings in a way that is impossible during mortal life; therefore the relationship has potential to be wholly-beneficial to us (in so far as we ourselves are able to respond to this goodness, which is inevitably only-partly). 

Another reason (reciprocally related to this) is that the still-living are often more or less dominated by this-world. They may be dominated (at any particular moment) by the corrupt, selfish, misguided, evil, or otherwise negative aspects of their natures. 

Such factors may make spiritual contact with the living both more difficult to achieve, and less beneficial - less-Good - if it does happen. 

Furthermore, living mortals often (to a greater or lesser degree) close their minds to spiritual contact (whether consciously, compulsively, or unconsciously); such that there can be little or no spiritual contact with them. 

This mind-closing may be for good reasons as well as bad ones - e.g. a need to conserve energy and attention for what seem like (and may be) important spiritual tasks, or to exclude potential spiritual subversions and other attacks. 

Nonetheless, it seems to be a fact (in my experience) that I am usually unable to feel any sense of spiritual contact with even those among the living whose works (e.g. writings) have benefitted me greatly, and therefore for whom I sometimes feel drawn to establish some kind of spiritual contact.

It just doesn't happen.  

However, many or most of all those who have died are not resurrected Heaven-dwellers - and some are "evil spirits" or one sort or another. 

It is possible, indeed perhaps easier, to achieve spiritual contact with these than with the resurrected - and such contacts will most likely be harmful to the still-living. 

IMO this especially applies when spiritual contact is being sought for present and selfish gain - to impose one's will upon the world. This motive surely tends to attract the more mischievous, pitiful, and even demonic type of discarnate spirits - those spirits who aim to manipulate and exploit the still-living for their own benefit. 

It also may well apply when spirit contact is being sought for less obviously selfish motives such as to be taught knowledge or provided with life-guidance. 

The kind of discarnate spirits who are likely to respond to a "demand" for knowledge include include those spirits who are foolishly conceited about their own knowledge and capabilities, and seek disciples. Those among the living who seek life-guidance from the dead, will presumably attract discarnate spirits who delusionally regard themselves as experts in what is best for other people.

(Spiritually analogous to the many professional counsellors, life coaches, "influencers", psychoanalysts, and psychotherapists in this mortal world - each convinced by his or her own superior wisdom and expertise.) 

I conclude that when it comes to developing profound and beneficial spiritual contacts, "dead" people are (usually) superior to the still-living. 

And that the main motive for such contacts should be a kind of personal love, or the sense that real and mutual friendship may be possible. 

After all; the truest physical friends in our mortal life are not those from whom we hope to get the most benefit; nor even those with whom we set-up some kind of a mutually-beneficial exchange. 

The best physical friends are those with whom we feel an affinity, and for whom we have lasting affection; and when this feeling is mutual. 

When we seek spiritual contacts much the same applies as to mortal physical life. Initially we feel drawn to the person (often for no known reason, but spontaneously, from the heart). We feel that he or she is perhaps the kind of person with whom we may have a friendship. So we strike up an acquaintance, and begin interaction. 

Friendship (whether physical or spiritual) may, or may not, develop as each discovers more about the other - and the friendship may develop to varying degrees and depths (not every true friend is also a best friend). 

But there can be no one-sided compulsion; because all real friendship is mutual and - at root - exists for its own sake, for mutual joy.

The benefits we get from true friendship flow from its love, and the joy and creative stimulus that brings.

*Or other kinds of Being. 

Hell - Where did it come from, where did it go?

I was reading a biography of Stevie Smith by Frances Spalding, and a chapter concerning her relationship to Christianity - by which was largely meant the Church of England. 

At one point it quoted a passage to the effect that the one thing SS found most repellent was the idea of Hell. In particular, to summarize, Stevie rejected:

Hell regarded as a place of eternal torment, to which people were sent by default, on the basis of divine judgment. 

In rejecting this idea of Hell, as well in her response to this rejection - i.e. ceasing to be what she regarded as a Christian - I suppose Stevie Smith was representative of her era.

Certainly I have often seen or heard the same kind of thing said by others. 

It seems that (in some broad sense) Hell came-in with "Christianity" around or after the time of Jesus - and disappeared with Christianity through the 19th and 20th centuries. 

And, at about the same time as Hell was disappearing - people began finding the idea repellent; because those who rejected Hell also assumed that Hell was not true: assumed that the Hell concept is ,and always had been, false. 

And therefore the Hell-rejecters infer that the primary nature of the Hell concept was as a psychological manipulation used to terrorize people into joining and obeying the Christian church. 

In other words, the Stevie-Smith-esque moral critique of Hell, already rejects the reality of Hell: it already assumed that Hell is not and never was real. 

The question I address about Hell is: Where did it come from, where did it go*? 

What has apparently happened; is that the modern human mind has become unreceptive to the reality of Hell. What once seemed real, possible, almost inevitable - has come to seem an obvious deception. A cruel, because manufactured, mass manipulation. 

To summarize: Hell used-to "work" very effectively as a mechanism of population control; but it does not work anymore. 

This historical change towards Hell-incredulity is usually interpreted sociologically; meaning in essence that the change in Men's minds was caused by changes in society. 

If the sociological explanation is true this would imply that if modern society was changed then Hell could again become an effective motivator; and this change would happen whether Hell is regarded as a reality that is now being denied, or if Hell is regarded as a not-real tool of social control.  

But I believe that sociological change to restore Hell could not and therefore would not happen. 

I suggest instead that Hell first came, and then went, because of changes in human consciousness. 

In other words; I am saying that Hell arose because Men's minds became receptive to the idea; and this change led to sociological change; and then Hell dwindled because Men's minds changed further - and then society changed to reflect this. 

The idea is that Hell is a product of a particular phase of Mankind's consciousness - and that phase has now passed. 

On this view; because Hell is primarily a product of Man's consciousness; then it would not be possible to restore the ancient idea of Hell. 

And if Hell is a product of consciousness at a particular phase of development; then a modern-day religious society could not motivate people with such an idea of Hell, even if it is true; and for the same reason; a tyranny could no longer effectively control society with the false-but-believed threat of Hell. 

What was this phase of consciousness that was so receptive to Hell? I would term it a semi-alienated state of partial group-mind. 

My idea is that in ancient (pre-Christian) times; Men were not alienated but were (mostly) immersed in their society, and actually lived as a part of the group-mind. The after-death experience was then regarded in a groupish way - whatever happened beyond death, happened to the members of the group. 

Men were not then afraid of becoming an "existential outcast" in the manner of Hell. 

Hell emerged when Men each began to separate their personal consciousness from the group-mind; and Hell was (I suggest) a consequence of this state of being semi-alienated. 

Man's hope was to retain the state of being in this group-mind after death; but Hell came from the terror that - after death - the group may choose to cast-out the individual because of that individual's transgression of the group-norms, and consign him to the eternal torment of being existentially-alone. 

The sociological phenomenon of Hell was therefore a consequence of Men's innate angst concerning emergent alienation from the group mind; which is why Men became receptive to the idea of Hell. 

But in the development of human consciousness, Men continued to detach from the group-mind; until for recent generations Men have ceased to experience the primacy of the group-mind - to the point of being unaware of it, and even denying its reality. 

Modern Men regard themselves as almost-wholly alienated; and therefore tend spontaneously to regard death as an inevitable and universal annihilation. 

In the officially (and inwardly-perceived) modern secular-mainstream understanding of each Man dwelling in a purposeless and meaningless universe - there can be no divine judgment. 

And the idea that mortal life death might lead to a default-inevitable state of being tormented cannot for a modern Man) be true - because for modern Men, after death there is nothing.    

For modern Christians (with the alienated consciousness we share with other modern Men); Salvation and Hell are alike consequences of personal choice in relation to the divine; not a judgment. 

And as this alienated consciousness continues to develop; these personal choices of post-mortal situation become more individual, bespoke, unique - and reciprocally less and less group-defined, less and less categorical in nature. 

Modern Christians now understand Hell (insofar as they have thought about it seriously) more as a positive choice - Hell is a choice made by those who have decisively-rejected (for whatever reason) the desirability and chance of resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

Hence, for the consciousness of modern Christians; "Hell" is real but differently-understood than 1-2000 years ago. 

The modern concept of Hell is nowadays negatively-defined as "everything but" Heaven. 

For modern consciousness; Hell is therefore an open-ended variety of possibilities - and insofar as Hell is for some individuals experienced as a situation of eternal torment - then this is what has been asked-for, and from-which they do not repent.  

*NOTE: The title of this post references an amusing and enjoyable novelty song that my kids used to dance-to; mainly from a Wii Just Dance compilation. 

Yes, post-mortal Heaven... But what should we Do Here and Now?

Christian faith is - or should be - focused on resurrected eternal life in post-mortal Heaven... So, not this moral life, not this earth and universe. 

But what should we Do Here and Now? 

The answer could be - Do what you evaluate as best: and start now. 

...BUT - don't expect to make a system from it. 

Do not try to create a formula for world-saving, nor even for world-improvement. 

Your answer as to what to do, now; the best answer you can diligently and honestly discover and devise; is something about which you cannot persuade others - therefore you should not try. 

You should not wait until after persuading enough others, and launching a movement before you do it. 

It is (nearly-) all about your discernment, your insight, your actions in your life. 

And what happens to most people, or even the few people that surround you; is something you cannot control. 

And it is actually "control" of others that motivates most supposed world-bettering and evangelism. 

Give-up control fantasies, if you can. 

Work from love, not from systems - and where there is no love from you; there you can do no Good. 

Everything always changes, and yet everything stays the same?

Is it true that everything changes, and yet everything stays the same? 

It does seem to have a general truth, especially over the long term, and in one-direction - when the first "everything" is taken to mean the superficial aspects of daily life and things, which are always changing; but the second "everything" means the fundamental and overall goodness of daily life.

For instance, the design of an entity - whether a car or a constitution, fashions or laws - tends frequently and always to be changing (especially in this age of left-totalitarian bureaucracy), and these changes can be "sold" as improvements; however, these changes do not add-up; they fail to lead to any fundamental improvement in things-in-general (e.g. the totalitarian society of left-totalitarian bureaucracy continues, and indeed solidifies). 

What I mean by "one-direction", is that while it is common and easy for surface changes to make life overall and in the long-term worse; this seldom works in the inverse. 

It seems difficult and rare for a multitude of superficialities to improve life in a lasting and qualitative fashion. 

This is related to the observation that while it is relatively quick, easy and cheap to corrupt people and make them worse (It happens All The Time; and I have seen this qualitative corruption of people more often than not over the past decades; e.g. in relation to my class of people in medicine, science and academia). 

On the other side; it is so slow, difficult, and costly of effort to improve people; that I think it fair to say that there is no known method by which it can be done. 

To put it differently; people can be made worse passively and unconsciously, simply by their going-along-with the changes of life, passively responding to the incentives towards evil...

But for people to improve, to become better-people; requires in inner, active and conscious change in their attitudes and motivations. 

Since getting-worse is unconscious and passive and energy-absorbing; while getting-better is conscious and active and energy-consuming - getting-worse naturally happens more often and more widely. 

This, I think, is a reason why well-meaning people so often err in their optimism. 

After considerable investment of times and effort, they have been able to reform some evil or injustice, or to introduce some improvement; and the tendency is to regard all such positive steps as accumulating towards a hoped-for positive and general transformation. 

For instance; institutions, including churches, may have achieved many little-but-surface improvements - in some objectively-measurable area; such fund-raising, attendance, missionary/ evangelical activity, implementation of one or another scheme... 

And these several or many surface changes are mistakenly summated into the optimistic expectation that things are going their way. 

The model they believe is that any step in the right direction is of-positive-value; and so long as there are such steps, then things are optimistic. 

But, after a while, a step-back and an objective eye reveals that although "everything" changes in the desired directions over the short-medium term; over the medium-long term, fundamental decline continues... 

Christian apostasy continues, churches continue to shrink in seriousness and size; faith is rarer and weaker; assimilation to the values of secular-left totalitarianism is increasingly dominant. 

However, such is our addiction to institutional optimism, that an objective retrospect seldom happens, and lessons are never learned. 

Instead, over and again, some novel strategy is embraced, some new set of optimistic "initiatives" becomes the centre of attention and efforts, and some of these are achieved with superficial success...

And the cycle repeats. 

 

This is how it is with The World, and apparently how it always has been. Even when (perhaps stimulated by a religious revival, or a Good Monarch) there is a genuine positive transformation at the large scale - this cannot be made into a system, and the attempt to so so reveals flaws in the original basis for positive change. 

Such that new kinds of corruption emerge, and the benefits are soon dissipated then overwhelmed. 

Everything changes, yet everything stays the same? 

This is why Jesus Christ did not promise a better world, and did not construct a system for attaining a better world. 

He knew that such is impossible in this mortal life, by the very nature of this-world. 

But instead Jesus promised something genuinely attainable (thanks to His work): that individual people might, after death, have resurrected eternal life in Heaven.