Christian conversion as a loyalty-test initiation

One of the reasons that so many deeply-dissatisfied atheist-materialists are repelled from Christianity; is that Christianity means picking a church or denomination and then obeying it. 

As with a gang or cult; the prime demand is for loyalty to the institution; and this is enforced by initiation through loyalty tests. 

Typically, the covert is required to believe and affirm some things he regards as false; and (which is probably worse) must state that some bad things are good.  

There is often a honeymoon period after conversion when everything seems easy - but the loyalty tests will soon arrive!

One classic is Abraham being ordered - as a test of obedience to divine will - to sacrifice his son Isaac; so that he is faced with a choice of disobedience to God and ritual murder of his child. 

The test is that we must agree and believe that the Right Answer was to kill Isaac: that the goodness of God is axiomatic whatever God asks of us; and obedience to the incomprehensible divine will is essential, while eschewing gross evil and doing what we personally believe to be good is irrelevant. 

Well, that is the Old Testament - but there are also some stark loyalty tests in the New; such as the story of Ananias in Acts of the Apostles*. First Ananias, and then his wife, are struck dead by divine will for some combination of withholding tithes from Peter, and then lying to cover the sin. 

The episode seems to be presented as an exemplary punishment - as a warning and deterrent to others not to do this kind of thing. 

No doubt it would have been very effective at ensuring tithes got paid; but... Well, this kind of justice is more like the Forest Laws of the Normans, than the behaviour of a wholly good God whose children we are. 

What such loyalties resemble is a kind of bait and switch con practiced on the convert - who hopes and intends to buy one thing, but being induced to accepts another, and much less desirable thing. 

Or the Christian feels like a Man induced to sign a contract; who then finds himself bound by all kinds of things written in the "small print" of which he had been unaware, and would not wanted to agree-to.

Each church has its reasons for such practice; and claims that the requirements are all logically entailed and/or absolutely necessary for the integrity of the whole. Such tests are seen as a part of the process of learning what it really means to be a Christian. 

However; I have come to see these loyalty-tests as corrupting of Christians, in a process that continues and worsens. 

This process is one I regard as corrupting, because it always seems to push converts towards a conceptualization of God rooted in power not love; and a conceptualization of Christianity as derived-from the group and enforced by authority via rules and tests and practices.

It is this effect of Christian conversion (or devout practice) that is so repellent to non-Christians; and is worsened by Christians who assert that there is no alternative. 

And indeed, there is no institutional or this-worldly alternative; since the attempts at "liberalization" all lead out from Christianity and into conformist left-secularism.  

The only real alternative I can imagine is to recognize Christianity is primarily and essentially a matter between Jesus Christ and each Man individually - not bound-up vitally with any institution; and concerned primarily with what happens to each of us after death, rather than what happens during this mortal life.

Of course institutions are essential and anyway unavoidable; and of course post-mortal expectations can and should influence this moral life...

But it is a matter of what is primary, essential, and mandatory; from which the rest grows and develops. 

It is a matter of the true and necessary root of Christianity.   

* Acts. 5 [1] But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, [2] And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. [3] But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? [4] Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. [5] And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. [6] And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. [7] And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. [8] And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. [9] Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. [10] Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.  

Not a war to win, but a war to destroy

Long-term (six year plus) readers will know of my recurrent "obsession" with the subject of evil; and the nature and definition of evil. 

This is because I believe that the nigh-universal lack of understanding of evil has rendered almost-everybody helpless in the face of a very powerful class of persons who have successfully engaged the hearts and minds of a very high proportion of the population of The West, and many other places. 

Bluntly; lack of understanding of evil has led many hundreds of millions of people (at least) into supporting strategic evil - and with a clear conscience, because they regard that evil as actually "good".

In other words, the inability to understand the nature of evil has led to moral inversion: what is really and intentionally evil is regarded as good, and vice versa.  

And people are not (as they may once have been) merely victims of manipulation - because it is of the nature of evil that once embraced it increases (evil feeds-upon itself).   

Thus we find that the nicest people are, on average, the most deluded; the most likely to be most powerfully supportive of the strategies of evil. 

This is particularly stark when the strategy being supported is a deliberately maximally-destructive war. 

And a war intended to embrace in destruction its supporters - themselves, their families and friends, their homeland, their ideology and passionate convictions - all that they superficially suppose that that they hold most dear. 

A world war is openly being planned - with full public declaration, before our eyes, in the mass media - in the West: in the UK and Commonwealth, EU nations, the USA, and beyond. 

Indeed this war is becoming the only game in town: as a long term strategy war is displacing all the other evil-motivated plans/ "good causes" such as I term the Litmus Tests: socialism/ leftism, CO2 climate environmentalism, birdemic-healthism, antiracism and feminism, the sexual revolution etc. 

All are being wound-down, and preparations for war are building-up.  

What is worse - or rather worst - is that this war (which is, in part, intended to be an expansion of the war that has been going in Eastern Europe over the past four-plus years, and in the Middle East more recently, and incipiently in East Asia) is not a war to win; but a war intended to destroy.

What is already afoot and expanding in Europe, is war of a kind seldom or never seen before in human history. In this actual and coming war; although one side does indeed want to win, and wants an end to the war (or begins that way); those who control the the other side want this war to continue, to expand, to increase in intensity - without end-point.

This happens because those who control one side are not of that side, but are instead (successfully and without being detected) using that side primarily and ultimately to pursue all-round destructive purposes.

This is happening, the strategy is working; things are much worse than almost anyone - including the experts - realize; exactly because almost nobody in the West understands evil; and especially they do not understand the sheer negativity of evil.

War analysts (of all sides) consistently assume that war is about seeking benefit, a negative means towards positive goals; and will end when that benefit has been attained. 

But when a war has been created, and is being sustained and expanded, in order to destroy; and ultimately in order that the participants come to support that goal of destruction - then this is a very different matter. 

The developing war situation is one that cannot necessarily be stopped or reversed - even if there was a general and effective will to stop it - which there is not. 

Evil has such an easy time in the modern world because there are so very few people (and none with power) who are strongly on the side of God and Good.

The mass of people cannot and do not support Good because they do not believe Good exists, or has any objective meaning. Their vague notion of good is something that exists (temporarily) only psychologically; as culturally-contingent notions in the heads of themselves, and people like them. 

The idea that The Good is a part of Reality, or The Universe; is literally meaningless to mainstream modern people - it is not so much denied as something that simply does not make sense. 

But we need to recall that the war of this world is always and ultimately a spiritual war; so this is no exception. 

This is a ultimately war to induce people - as many as possible people, on all sides - to align with spiteful destruction as a spiritual goal.

And this happens by value-inversion; by inducing people to regard evil as good and vice versa; and this is easiest when evil is not understood. 

And this failure to understand evil becomes inevitable when people do not believe-in or understand Good. 

And this failure to understand goodness is inevitable because so many people have assimilated the official and culturally-mainstream fundamental assumptions - e.g. that there is no God, no spirit, no salvation: no possibility of external and objective purpose and meaning in the universe.  

The ongoing and accelerating war of destruction is a consequence of these deep and multi-generational cultural trends. 

This stuff is not some hypothetical future scenario; on the contrary this state of deep incomprehension and value-inversion describes where we are now, culturally. 

And where we are stuck; because it can be seen that the problems run very deep, and have many layers. 

Which is presumably why we are all marching blandly and blindly towards a vastly destructive and intentionally-endless war that nearly-everyone supports indirectly with sadistic vehemence. 

Note: those who publicly oppose the ongoing-upcoming war are also (very nearly always) part of the fundamental problem that has led to the war, and share the same war-generating fundamental assumptions. They do not oppose the war for Good reasons. 

Movie review - Good Fortune (2025)

Good Fortune (2025) works pretty well as a mainstream Hollywood comedy; it is a fairly typical "3 Star" movie (i.e. 3/5 Stars; i.e. worth watching, but not re-watching). 

What makes Good Fortune rather different is that it is very earnest in tone, and tackles the deep subject of "meaning in life"; and, as such I found its assumptions and aspirations interesting and illustrative, and I continued thinking about it for a while after watching. 

I was attracted to the movie because it features an angel as a main character (and I find it interesting to see how this device is used); but the conceptualization of angel is - as usual - a being that "helps people" in very practical ways (almost trivial ways, in the case of our protagonist) in a universe assumed to be wholly materialistic in its nature. 

But the angel comes-up-against a person - endearingly played by the film's auteur Aziz Ansari - whose constantly-working life is on a down-trend of materially deprivation and insecurity, such that it seems to him not worth living. 

The other main character is an ultra-wealthy technology-investor-type of the post 1990s style; whose life is depicted as very pleasant and easy - and a lot happier. 

Magical-life-swaps ensue; and these are used to examine the question of what Makes Life Worth Living, in order to save the "soul" of the despairing protagonist, and undo a plot conundrum. 

These "things" that MLWL, are all depicted as material; except for romantic (and maybe filial) relationships; and, to an extent, casual friendships. For instance, much is made of the Mexican food Tacos, as a symbol of the good life; and a cheap kind of good life... that could/should be accessible to all. 

Because the life worth living is materially-conceptualized, the "answer" to the problem of meaninglessness and despair is a material one; and that which is arrived-at is (implicitly)... mid-twentieth-century, Old Left-style socialism. 

So; Trades Unions are very positively depicted as a way "forward", and redistribution of wealth from the few ultra-rich to the hundred-millions of grindingly poor; is explicitly stated to be the solution to poverty. 

Economic socialism is portrayed as if it were a "radical" notion, but in reality the ideal utopia is almost exactly a reactionary yearning for the 1950s in The West. Something that already has-been; and something which was vehemently rejected at the time, by the exact same class of people who are making this movie!

In other words, Good Fortune implicitly rejects the post 1960s "Civil Rights" New Left focus on race, feminism, and the sexual revolution; and argues for a restoration of the Old Left focus on socialist economics.  

Except, of course, it doesn't! Because the movie has the usual (mandatory) quota-casting and soft-sell idealization of "vibrancy" and the rest of it. 

So what is actually being advocated is to re-impose Old Left economics on top of the actually-existing New Left society... 

Therefore (and for obvious reasons); Good Fortune says nothing-at-all about the decades of colossal immigration; which was exactly the primary cause of the (rightly-) vilified mass life of a "gig-economy" of low-paid, insecure jobs getting worse at one end...

And the tiny minority of ever-fewer, ever-richer and ever more-powerful class of people at the top...

(Who were, of course, the class of people producing, scripting, directing, and acting the movie.)  

It is an historical fact that it was the Old Left who favoured a Trades-Union-dominated, high-minimum wage economy, Characterized by strong top-down regulation of work conditions, enforced exclusion of competition, labour protection, and secure contracts. And these were the group most vehemently against mass immigration and "globalization".

(For instance, as I well remember, it was the Left of the Labour Party who most strongly opposed the UK's entry into the "European Union" in the referendum of 1975.) 

And this was for very obvious reasons (i.e. "obvious" to common sense, if not to the current ruling intellectual class of Hollywood opinion-formers!). 

But my main point is that this morally-earnest movie can come-up with no higher ideal for human existence than reversion to the actually-achieved socialist Old Left, mid-20th century. With its notion of a "decent minimum" level of material provision and security for the masses; in the context of a structurally-secular vision of reality.

Yet even this mundane, low-animal-level, "barnyard ethics" social-utopia of "comfort and convenience for all"; is rendered an impossible "fairytale" - by the insistence on the continuing destructive reality of open-ended massive immigration - with its inevitable consequences!

 

It is the old story. Those who ask for, work for, live for, aspire to have "nothing more" than a comfortable life of minimal decency; will thereby become so alienated, fearful, demotivated, and despairing that they will have even so meagre an existence taken from them. 

Materialism is incoherent - and leads to incoherent understanding and therefore the inability to recognize/ conceptualize/ defend simple-self-interest in the medium/ long-term. 

This; because human beings Just Are by nature religious and spiritual. It is built-in - whether we like it, or like it not. 

Excise religion etc; and we become fundamentally helpless; self-hating drivelling idiot-lunatics. 

In sum; we are creatures who can only function in a (broadly) sensible and realistic way, when we know that this mortal life is not everything...

Subtract all this context; and what remains is not just happy (or miserable) animals; but something less-than an animal. 

The synergy of evil - "take advantage of the crisis" leads to ever-more chaos

As I have often said; I believe there is a totalitarian evil among the Establishment that seeks a society of omni-surveillance and micro-control of the masses of the world - preferably under some version of a world system (but en route by national systems or their coalitions). 

This can be regarded as a partial evil or "lawful evil" - in that it is long-termist and strategic, and depends on relative-virtues such as obedience, hard-work, cooperation, and a sense of duty (at least among its minions) in order to operate. 

And there are increasingly dominant Agents of Chaos in the Establishment - whose motivations are almost-wholly negative - especially hatred, resentment, and spite; and who seek to inflict suffering, destruction, and death.  

This can be regarded as an extreme or "chaotic" evil - in that it is driven by short-termist and self-centred motivations.

What I seem to have noticed in recent months is that the Agents of Chaos are proving highly successful in causing coups (including externally-fixed "elections"), starting revolutions and engineering international war and global economic and trade collapse...

Which is, of course - at least on the face of things - directly in opposition to the aim of a stable and tyrannical global totalitarianism... 

Yet the totalitarian opposition to war and collapse has been extremely feeble, and diminishingly effective. At best the totalitarians seem able or willing to delay the work of destruction - but never explicitly or strongly oppose it. 

Which raises the question of why the totalitarians are not trying much harder to prevent all their plans and strategies (Great Reset, Agenda 2030, and the Litmus Test issues etc) from being swept aside by chaos? 

One answer, I think, is the progression of evil - the fact that evil is dynamic, always tending to get worse; that evil un-repented feeds upon itself. 

But partly it is due to a mid-set that always tries to exploit a bad situation rather than resist or remedy it.  

When there is an economic, trade, or food collapse - the first instinct of the totalitarian is to take-advantage of the situation. 

The totalitarians therefore believe that any crisis is an opportunity: e.g. an opportunity to get more money (ostensibly for use in implementing "the strategy") - to raise funds from corruption, taxes, tariffs, or simply by having an excuse to devalue the currency or "print money" (aka "inflation"). 

Recently, this has been streamlined into simple confiscation of assets from nations or large organizations, by large financial institutions - which are near the heart of the totalitarian project. 

Or an opportunity to get more power; e.g. by new and more oppressive laws, or to justify emergency "laws" made by diktat. 

This happened by announcement in the media and the police and legal system just following these instructions, in the UK in 2020. At present, the "process" is streamlined to statements made on personal accounts on social media.   

The consequence is that chaos (flouting of morality, breaking of rules, collapse of systems, increase of wars) expands almost-everywhere; without any serious attempt at check by those with power to do so, and with no attempt at reversing it. 

The Easter problem, the fake-virtue of humility; and the false ideals of obedience and altruism

Easter seems to be a time when the confusion, incoherence, and errors of mainstream Christianity become most evident; as mainstream Christianity finds ever more way of being wrong, of misdirecting attention, and sowing confusion! 

Perhaps one root of this is the un-Christ-like, fake-virtue of humility.  

This leads to the preaching of two kinds of error:

1. Unselfish ego-annihilating obedience to God's will

2. Unselfish altruism 

Mainstream Christians are always saying things on the lines that all good which they enact is "not from me, but from God-in-me.". They claim that the highest Christian aim is for us to become nothing-but a channel for God to work-through. As a commenter put it: "I did nothing on my own God did everything". 

Christians repeat this without considering its implication that such an attitude depicts humans as unthinking and utterly-obedient slaves of deity; and what is worse, slaves to the kind of God who wants humans to desire nothing higher than to cease being themselves - and instead become mere tools. 

Such an attitude ultimately renders the creation of free and creative Men utterly futile - a divine mistake. 

Mainstream Christians are always preaching that we cease to be selfish and instead live to serve; that we ought to set aside considerations of self-interest, and instead help other people. 

But this is merely utilitarian atheistic materialism under a Christian disguise!

Of course, it can easily be seen what the preachers are getting-at: they are trying to combat sins such Pride and Lust. 

But the problem is that humility Just Isn't a virtue; and indeed is something close to the worst possible attitude to inculcate in a pervasively evil world of totalitarian domination of all social institutions - including the mainstream religions and churches. 

The opposite of Pride is not anti-pride; the opposite of selfishness is not doing what other people want (or "need"). 

The opposite of psychopathic gratification is not to become a non-person, one-with-God: a hollowed husk in human shape, an instrument rather than a divine Son of God, and a participant in divine creation.   

To recommend humility and living for the "benefit" of other people; is therefore to preach something other-than what Jesus did and taught - it is to preach another religion. 

There are Religions that are rooted in the oneness of God and the delusional unreality of The Self. There is a religion based on negation of the self, and absolute submission to God will. 

But these are not Christianity. 

From a Christian point-of-view; to recommend humility and altruism is, in the context of The West in 2026 - pretty much to guarantee a chosen damnation via assimilation to evil societal norms. 

Instead; the proper virtues by which to resist sins such as pride, selfish-short-termism and so forth; are the Christian virtues: 

Love of Jesus in thanks for his divine creation of Heaven, and his continuing guidance and comfort; Faith in his offer of the possibility of resurrected eternal life beyond death; and confident Hope that this shall be our personal "destination". 

The pain of childbirth: Can Christian hope alleviate the sufferings of mortal life?

Because being-a-Christian is essentially about resurrected eternal Heavenly life beyond mortal death; it may seem that - even if it were assumed to be a real and attainable possibility - this is not of any help in helping people deal with the sufferings of this mortal life.  

And, after all, it is this-life and its suffering that presses most strongly upon us; in a day by day (minute by minute) way. 

What most people most-want is: Help. Now!

It seems, on the surface, that another-life after this-life cannot be of any genuine assistance. 

We must still live-through all the miseries and pains, and perhaps for many years, before attaining the transformed state in a deathless and good situation. 

However, this understanding is mistaken; because resurrected eternal Heavenly life creates a larger context, that transforms what went before - both by expectation, as well as in retrospect. 

What I mean can be illustrated by the pains of childbirth. 

To generalize: giving birth (especially for the first time) is often extremely painful. It is often about as painful as anything can be: genuine agony, and this may continue for hours.

(Although, of course, medical technology nowadays provides methods for alleviating this pain.) 

And this is when things go well!

Unless you have experienced, or been present at, such a childbirth; you probably don't believe me - or think I am exaggerating ridiculously. 

You probably think: "If childbirth was really as painful as all that, then surely I would know about it? Surely people would go on about it more than they do?"

Well, the point is that - when childbirth is anticipated positively (the baby is wanted), and goes well, and a healthy baby ultimately arrives - then people more-or-less forget about how painful the process had been.

More exactly, they don't forget so much as put the pain into the context of having-a-baby; the pain happened by-the-way, almost as a means-to-that-end. 

The pain of having a baby - even while it is happening - happens as part-of, and en route to, a desired destination.  

In other words the occurrence of child-bearing pain is contextualized by its meaning and result; and this has a powerful influence both during, as well as after, the agonies of giving birth. 

To understand the power of such a context; consider that the same amount of pain which happens in childbirth would have a very different, and much worse - indeed traumatizing - significance; if it were deliberately inflicted in the course of torture.

The pain of torture would be worse both at the time, and also worse in recollection; than the same pain happening in a childbirth context.

(Again; assuming the baby was wanted, and was alright when born.)     

To close the analogy: this is like the effect of resurrected eternal life on the sufferings of mortal life. 

Having the destination of Heaven as a purpose, has a transformative effect on the meaning, hence the experience, of suffering during mortal life. 

Transformative both during suffering, and also when looking back from resurrected life on that suffering.

This does not make the pain of life go-away; any more that the childbirth context prevents the pain being very painful indeed.  

However the meaning of pain is part of the suffering; and when the meaning of pain changes, the nature of the suffering changes. 

The reason why the pains of life are worse for modern people than it was during the ages of faith - is that for modern people pain has no meaning, because an atheist-materialist life has no purpose. 

Pain without purpose is pain without meaning; so pain without purpose is experienced as "pure suffering".  

The pains and sufferings of mortal life are far too many and too various for there ever to be any possibility of preventing or curing them all - and some causes of suffering are innate and intractable to the Human Condition.

Therefore we should not consider Christianity as if it were a supposed-painkiller, nor as a preventive or therapy for the sufferings of mortal life. 

However; our mortal life - including its pains - is given purpose and therefore meaning by the desired destination; by personal positive transformation (resurrection) and the Heavenly life to come.

And this affects our experience of suffering in mortal life while it is happening, as well as in retrospect.    

The desperate appeal of deus ex machina

"Deus ex machina" is a term used to describe the plot device by which intervention from outside the action appears just before some catastrophic disaster, and solves an apparently impossible problem. 

In "real life" DEM has long formed the basis of optimism - the hope that something not-known (or known but previously inactive) will emerge unexpectedly to save us. 

Or to put it negatively, despair may be staved-off by hoping that "Something will turn-up". 

This may, of course, be true! 

Because we really do not know or understand much about how the world works; so there is never reason to give-up hope.

But hope is not the same as optimism - and it is a very different thing to hope for rescue, than it is to expect rescue by some unknown event.

In particular, it is foolish to construct a specific hope from a logical sequence of double-negative assertions. 

For example, that (for all we know) we cannot be sure that "leader"-X isn't really a genuine saviour, who is (despite superficial appearances) cleverly plotting behind the scenes towards some kind of decisive last-minute master stroke. 

Or, spiritually; the worse the world is apparently getting, and the weaker and more corrupt "my church" seems to be - nobody can disprove that this won't make it more likely that the Deity will (at last!) step-in, make a personal intervention, and save things in some unexpected fashion.

(Such a "saving might itself be negative - as in saving-from the default of Hell; or it might be positive in the sense of establishing a redeemed Church as dominant and pervasive across society.)

Such reflections were provoked by my again considering the (in retrospect) extraordinary optimism that was prevalent among spiritual people in the years approaching and just following the millennium. 

Among many or most such people existed a near-consensus that the whole world was shortly to be raised to a higher spiritual level (higher "frequency" or "vibrational" level); that would affect everybody and every-thing (like it or not).

...Although the more discerning in the New Age clearly acknowledged that for this external influx to be effective would also require a receptivity - or even some positive spiritual move - from each individual; in order to meet this incoming spiritual "energy" halfway. 

So an element of at least consent, and probably collaboration, was also required -- nonetheless the primary cause was a new, or greatly amplified, external influence. 

My interpretation of this apparently anachronistic millennial expectation is that it was the product of a kind of desperation; especially among those genuinely spiritual people who had rejected (or simply did not believe) Jesus's offer of reasserted eternal Heavenly life. 

And, mutatis mutandis, I think the same applies to the optimism (as contrasted with hope) of so-many of those Christians who are serious and motivated about their faith. 

The Christians who believe-in some kind of external saving of this mortal life and the earth; are guilty of conflating the true and sure hope of Heaven, with a false optimism concerning this-world. 

This false-optimism among Christians seems particularly pernicious, insofar as it entails God intervening to save (what seems to me) the most deeply evil civilization the world has yet known - I mean a civilization that is already, and increasingly, strategically and officially inverted in its values.  

The answer is simple, but difficult; and is to strive to be motivated primarily by next-worldly hope rather than this-worldly optimism - and to root this in the faith that God will (indeed, by Jesus, already-has) made it possible for anybody and everybody, in whatever situation, time, or place) to attain salvation.  

The next inference is more controversial among Christians, which is that this can only be attained by taking personal responsibility for salvation. 

In other words; I am assuming that there will be no worldwide, or even culture-wide, deus ex machina intervention; because everything has already been done; and "all" (!) that remains is for us as individuals is to recognize that reality - and to make our commitment, to choose to follow Jesus...

That is the essential starting-point. 

And then... we each need to discover what that actually means for us; for us specifically - here-and now.   

Are we seeing the beginning of the end for world civilization? A massive collapse in functionality?

I have begun to think so. 

It is impossible to be sure, because the whole world of communication is full of lies and fakes; as well as sheer ignorance and honest error. 

But the attempts to maintain some kind of civilization outside of the West - which is long-since committed to suicide - are apparently unravelling by the day.

It seems that positive feedback may have set-in, when one problem leads to several* - multiplying in a series; and the response to each problem actually makes it worse...

And, if this is so; then collapse will accelerate and soon become undeniable - and unstoppable.  

The new-ish factor is that the self-loathing Western civilization has become so consumed by resentment and spiteful sadism; that a significant portion of the Western-globalist ruling class have decided to do everything possible actively to bring down the rest of the world, during their own self-inflicted death throes. 

These people are negatively-motivated: they do things primarily in order to harm others - and they will do them, even when their own actions will harm themselves - and even when their actions will harm themselves even-more than they will harm others. 

Nowhere is exempt - the scope is as wide as their fear, resentment, and spiteful sadism... which is continually widening. 

And in this entropic world; destruction is just so much easier to accomplish than generating and sustaining functionality - that effort and resources invested with intent to harm, may go a long way and achieve a great deal. 

But I could be wrong again, as I have been wrong before; because I don't know - and nobody knows - what is really happening, and what is important, or how people will react. 

It should become clear, one way or the other, quite soon. 

*Each shortage leading to several more; one supply failure leading to several others that depended on the first; a war that leads to more wars, in more places etc -- all such iterating and interacting. And when resources are mobilized to solve one lethal problem, then this creates other fatal weaknesses elsewhere. 

People don't want, and anyway can't do, the past - so it's not an option (despite that the present really is worse)

It is a Big problem - that has been ongoing and increasing for something like 250 years - that more and more people have stopped wanting "the past" - and, even those that do want it in theory and as an ideal, cannot actually do it.  

This is the case for Christianity (in all its types), and it is the case in every area of culture of which I am aware. 

Modern Christianity is (much) worse than the past, but there are never enough people to prevent the present, and those who want the past don't want it enough, or else (when push comes to shove) can't actually do essential bits of it. Modern pseudo-Christianity takes over, and dies - but the traditionalist shrink, are overwhelmed by politics and infighting - and yet become more theoretically extreme and hard-line in their fantasies and aspiration of "how things could be" if only...

The present is rubbish, yet the past has no traction. 

Same in classical (and no even popular) music; the same in politics and government, science, medicine, law, education, journalism, the police and military... the same everywhere. 

The same in marriage and the family. 

All significant changes in all domains of living turn-out to be net-destructive; yet the good stuff somehow is not preserved; because somehow people don't want it enough... or can't justify why they want it - or they want it but cannot actually live it when the chips are down.  

Therefore; whatever the future holds - it is neither going to be a recurrence of the past nor a continuation of the self-annihilating present. 

We can of course, and nearly-everybody does, be either reactionaries or radicals; but both are futile.  

Reaction is futile because of the above, but radicalism is futile because it continually destroys-itself, and leads only towards a situation of chaos that only demons and their mind-controlled puppets would actually desire. 

Yet, here we are, you and me. 

We can be sure that we all have potential access to salvation and the guidance and sustenance of the Holy Ghost (else we would not be here in the first place); and in our actual lives have experiences and lessons that are potentially of great value for eternity (else we would not be sustained alive). 

So, although I see no grounds for optimism in societal terms; there is every reason for hope in personal terms. 

"What do I think about X? Excuse me, I'll just ask..."

The idea that what we think, believe, do; ought-to-be derived from some external authority - which is, in practice, always some institution/ organization/ corporation... some formal group of people - is something that we recognize in others, but seldom acknowledge in ourselves. 

I had a friend who had recently become a member, or some kind of associate, of the UK Trotskyite "Socialist Workers Party"; and he described to me how things worked there, ideologically. 

Whenever there was some big new news story - an invasion, an economic crisis, a strike, civil disorder - a meeting would be called at which the event was ideologically framed and explained, and members were told how The Party could make use of it: therefore what to think and do about it. 

This is how communists work, and this has been well known and obvious to others, whenever any argument with them is attempted.

It is why communists can and do, in lockstep, make 180 degree turns of policy as required by Part expediency; as when Hitler made a pact with Stalin, then again when Germany invaded the USSR.

In 2020 there were several such 180 degree No-then-Yes instant turns: whether Testing was needed; whether Masking was needed; was Christmas to be cancelled?

Analysis, debate, argument was futile: what was false, wicked, unnecessary yesterday; becomes true, good and compulsory today - and this is all rational, consistent and absolutely necessary. 

When authority lies with an institution, so does truth and legitimacy; so there are no valid grounds for dissent.

There is only either obedience, or just-punishment. 

This is also, by somewhat different procedures, how churches work when they are powerful in the lives of people. 

(This fundamental identity of control procedures is one reason why people - mistakenly* - assume that "ideology" and "religion" are the-same-thing - and that totalitarianism and theocracy are fundamentally identical.)

When some new "thing" emerges for which the church view is not immediately obvious; there is a some mechanism by which the churches framing, explanation and instructions are handed-down.

Because the church is the essential and only mediator of the divine; it is the ultimate repository of truth, beauty and virtue - so that all anyone absolutely needs to know is what the church thinks, and then to obey it.

Outwith which there is nothing but selfish, sin-rooted, individual will.  

This model of institutional authority represents a world-view - a mode-of-consciousness - for which the ultimate responsibility for important attitudes, beliefs and behaviours lies in some external and formal social grouping. 

It was (apparently) not always and everywhere thus, but it has been thus for recorded history: with ultimate authority variously - but always externally and institutionally - located.  

The "job" of each individual in such a System is to internalize as much as possible of the approved views and ways of reasoning that characterize "that social institution" there-and-then given custody of his conscience; and when the answer is not obvious - to seek and follow appropriate guidance. 

Such an external-authority-based set-up dictates the role of intellectuals in terms of the social institution. 

The job of an intellectual in this scheme is that of a commissar: to learn, defend, and transmit the institutional view. 

When there is dissent or opposition to the institutional view, the job of the intellectual is overcome it - by whatever means he can, by whatever means are effective - while staying within the institutionally-ratified assumptions, evidences and methods. 

The point is that the intellectual's own thinking is in service of this task. He will not think in any way that might lead to another conclusion than that of the institution he serves.

This is why institution-serving individuals will never, under any circumstances, acknowledge or even discuss their fundamental - including metaphysical - assumptions. 

They will only-and-always operate-from those assumptions; they will only assume the rightness of the institution they serve. 

This is the cause of a feeling we must all have experienced, must all have come-up-against - even if our own thinking is in service to a church or other societal institution. 

Perhaps the most usual encounter to evoke this feeling is with a bureaucrat who is trying to enforce the institutional will upon us; trying to get us into-line with the current strategies and priorities and behaviours. 

We may be lured into defending our case for dissent or disobedience (or inadequate enthusiasm!), or arguing against the institutional POV; but we Will realize (later if not sooner) that we are just talking into sand. 

Our interlocutor is not interested in what we think, not interested in the validity of our arguments - he already knows what we are supposed to think and do.  

His only interest in our arguments is to refute them using institution-approved arguments, to bring our views into-line with institutional views...

Or else to discredit our perspective (usually by discrediting us).  

Most of the people, most of the time, behave in this way - in all walks of life. 

It might be most obvious in political ideologies, churches, and bureaucracies - but it is the same everywhere nowadays; including the areas I worked in: medicine, academia, teaching, and science. 

This is proximately because in modern life all social institutions have become primarily bureaucratic; and all bureaucracies are linked to (and indeed form) the global totalitarian System. 

But it is also because many people, and nearly-all intellectuals in particular, regard ultimate authority as residing in some social institution such as their ideology, or employer, or their church (or The System) - and see their ultimate job to be defending and propagating that institutional authority. 

This reality is what underpins and causes the futility of argument; here and now. 

Most argument that we encounter in the media and professionally, is between individuals "representing" institutions. 

The main exception to this commissar-like situation, is when individuals are more or less "psychopathic"; when they are selfish, self-seeking, short-termist - and are using institutional camouflage - faked attitudes and assumptions, subverted/ inverted procedures etc), to pursue to their own personal agenda - seeking wealth, sex, power, fame, admiration; or whatever "turns them on". 

Anyone who is seeking spiritual truth, trying to understand his own situation in this world and larger reality; anyone who seeks a religion and a way of living - will come up against this commissar or bureaucratic externalization of authority. 

In effect; the seeker is supposed to strive for a situation in which he accepts the external authority of one church or another. 

In practice; this means that the seeker is supposed to accept some external authority (e.g. the truth and validity of Church X) as the first step - from which all-else follows. 

Because once a particular external institution is accepted as the fount of authority, validity, goodness and correct procedure - then the seeker can (and is expected to) hand-over his conscience and honesty to that institution.     

From then on - his ultimate role in life, or at least the role that dictates what counts as ultimate - is to himself learn, defend, and transmit the institutional view. 

It is difficult, it may be impossible, for any individual to find anyone who will engage on any other basis than that of first accepting (or being rhetorically-duped into accepting) the primacy of some external authority - some denomination, church or other institution. 

Life becomes a choice between actually-existing social institutions. 

Duty becomes a matter of serving the chosen institution. 

And if you are not happy about this situation - you will probably have no alternative but to accept responsibility for yourself.  

You can then expect to be attacked by everyone who serves any institution (i.e. almost everybody!)

But in a totalitarian-bureaucratic world where all social institutions are orientated towards evil; this path of personal responsibility is the only alternative to serving one or another (or several) organizations assimilated to the demonic agenda. 

You real choice is between serving overall-evil body, heart, and soul; or seeking a direct and personal knowledge-of and relationship-with something better.  

*"mistakenly"; because when religion is sincere, it is regarded by adherents as being ultimately spiritual and underpinned by the divine. This makes a difference. The question is how much difference - and in what ways different? The difference may be so feeble as to be ineffectual; the ways of difference may be for worse, as well as for better.  

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. 

Why calls for boycotts and sanctions are a symptom of failing to understand that "things are much worse than that".

There are people, online especially but also IRL, whose response to the evil nature of the ruling classes is avoidance. 

It's the puritanical impulse (common to all religions, and found in all denominations); that ranks "sins" and makes a Big thing about publicly and socially avoiding those regarded as worst; on the assumption that this will make people and society overall better...

But given that all Men are sinners; the puritan impulse has its dark side.

Which is (to summarize) that of allowing or even encouraging the multitude of sins and evils Not singled-out for enforced surveillance and exclusion.

Thus a high status puritan (whether religious, or nowadays non- or anti-religious) may be mild-mannered and modest in dress, and strictly avoid alcohol and fornication...

And also be extremely spiteful, resentful and cruel. 

In practice; the avoidance of one or a few special sins, allows space and oxygen for the non-special sins to grow unchecked.  

This is a close analogy to the idea that it is an effective strategy for those who oppose (for instance) "leftism" to operate by avoidance and exclusion of (supposedly) exemplary wrongness. 

Such is the call for "activism". 

This stuff may have begun back in the 1950s, when such people often asserted "I don't have a television", which of itself is perfectly fine; but it was said in a way that implied those who do have a television are morally corrupted. 

When I was a teen, another version of this was people who would "boycott" some particular organization, because it "had ties" to some particular nation, that was supposed to be particularly evil - South Africa was the favourite example... 

And this, at a time, when China's "cultural revolution" was underway! But China wasn't what the right kind of people were talking about, while South Africa was.  

Nowadays there are people whose response to any currently highlighted instance of the evil-strategy of Western institutions is to assert that people "just" need to stop consuming their output. 

This amounts to picking one example (or ten, or a hundred) from among thousands or millions of equivalent evil institutions or persons; focusing on the supposedly special evil of that one...

And then assuming that if we stop consuming the product of that one we shall ourselves become better people and create a pressure for general improvement. 

Such an attitude is evidence of a gross failure to understand that "things are much worse than that"; we are way, way beyond any state at which singling out persons or institutions or nations for special disdain can be anything other than a personal idiosyncrasy. 

As such - as a personal idiosyncrasy - such disengagement and boycotting may well be significant and important. 

I certainly have particular entities - people, places, institutions etc. - that I avoid like the plague; often because they make me viscerally disgusted. 

It seems like obvious sense that we each should go-with such intuitive aversions; but let's not delude ourselves that this "makes a difference" in any systematic way

But the step from this to - for example - launching some kind of campaign to boycott or block some particular entity; is evidence of dangerously naïve ignorance concerning the actual state of our civilization - which is far more systemically and strategically evil than such people realize.

The vast volume of socio-political commentary that focuses on criticizing the absurdities and evils of the self-styled "left" political personalities and parties, is another such failure - because the leftism being critiqued pervades all major personalities and political parties. 

Similarly; when commentators focus on the supposedly special value-corruptions of a particular nation (Canada, New Zealand, UK, France...) this is another instance of dangerous incomprehension; because the real problem is qualitative, not quantitative. 

The problem lies with the entirety of Western civilization, and all its parties, and all its institutions, and all of its leadership class...

And their commonly assumed and shared and enforced atheism, materialism, hedonic-despair - and pervasive and long-term self-loathing and suicidality. 

If you don't grasp this; then you are part of the problem, enmeshed in and supportive of the strategic evils of The System - and have no grounds for self-congratulation. 

And if you do grasp the situation - that things are much worse than implied by assumptions of specific and encapsulated evil; then you will know that picking-out particular people or institutions, parties or nations for special and systemic exclusion - and assuming such "action" will "make a difference"; is not just futile, but dangerously delusional. 

"The future belongs to those who show-up" is both pragmatically futile, and spiritually counter-productive

It was in 2007 that I began to take an academic interest in the gross and worsening sub-fertility of native people in the entire developed world, and I did some research into what seemed like a possible exception (Mormons) from 2009. I have also written about the genetically catastrophic problem of human reproduction over the past several generations. 

So it would be fair to say I am aware of the problem*. 

But being aware of this biological problem, and doing something significant to reverse it; are very different things. I used to believe that certain kinds of religion pointed the way forward; but this has been hope has been dashed by the events of the past fifteen years. 

For instance, my positive example of US Mormons have now slid into substantial sub-fertility; and the events of 2020 demonstrate (as a strong generalization) that all religions across the world are now subordinate to the destruction-motivated global totalitarian strategy. 

My conclusion is that this matter of biological degradation and extinction, with the inevitability of civilizational collapse - while real - is insoluble; mainly because nobody At All is serious about even trying to solve it at the requisite large scale, plus that there are no known effective answers.  

Any plan to "save our civilization" is therefore futile - either ignorant, deluded or deceptive**

This has the effect of dissociating spiritual and Christian concerns. When the large-scale future is not going to be saved by our spiritual imperatives; this means that we are free to focus upon our personal situation - which is probably something that we ought to be doing anyway.  something that  

We need not, we should not, continually be trying to extrapolate from what we ought spiritually to be doing in the here-and-now; according to our deepest analysis and convictions. 

We need not, we should not, be trying to link our personal spiritual quest into some practical/ material/ "real world" supposedly-groupish benefit... 

As when people talk about some kind of imagined Christianity as the basis for some kind of future and viable Western civilization. 

That's all nonsense; because it is way too late for such palliations. 

Because things are much worse than such people believe.   

+++

* Indeed, the problem is that a few people are very-belatedly waking up to a situation that has been a solidly-established and relentless trend since the 1990s, and roots that go back considerably before that. These people have only recently noticed the top-down and multi-pronged and purposive quality of globalist strategies against Western nations. Consequently, they grossly underestimate 1. the profound and extensive damage already done; and 2. the extent to which the whole process has been driven by cowardice, self-loathing, and suicidal motivations among the hedonistic-godless-nihilistic Western masses. Such a situation does not respond to common sense suggestions, angry exhortations, or desperate pep talks.   

** One kind of deception comes from people whose real and mastering concern is to have a safe, comfortable, convenient, pleasurable, prosperous, or high-status life for themselves - but who want to dress-up such (understandable, but blatantly self-centred) motivations in some pseudo-tribal concern of a civilizational kind. 

Keeping children safe? - Oh yeah, sure...

I need not bother to provide evidence of how little the Establishment cares about the safety of children in the UK. 

All their favourite strategic policies tormented, harmed and killed children on a truly colossal scale; and then condoned and concealed this - directly, and indirectly. 

So when there is legislation that purports to be motivated by concern for the "safety of children", we should immediately know that this is a lie - and the motivation is certainly quite other.

And know too that the real motivation is certain to be evil - or else it would not systematically, and by saturation and coordination, have been lied-about.

(And also, we know with certainty it is evil because, everything that our Western leadership class is pursuing seriously over the long-term - is strategically and intentionally evil; and I mean Every Single Thing.)  

It seems that the access to media is already more explicitly and aggressively restricted in the UK than any other Western nation - especially after geopolitical events in early 2020, and then again from early 2022. 

A lot of stuff that can be read online from the US, Commonwealth and Europe; has been blocked in the UK for the past three-to-five years.

You didn't realise? 

Well that is significant - one way or the other.    

Q: What kind of stuff is blocked? 

A; Stuff critical of the major programs of UK Establishment policy, of course!

Those Litmus Test issues I linked early. 

So far this past week I have noticed several blog posts blocked by a message stating that the problem with content is child safety - when actually the content is related to some kind of analysis of (privileged and powerful) social and ethnic groups. 

Would-be readers are sometimes asked to provide "age verification" (i.e. to create an account and explicitly identify themselves), in order to read this anti-Establishment material.  

Well, I expected nothing else - the West is now, after all, a fully-totalitarian society, just closing a few remaining loopholes of un-restricted discourse.

And They are only interested in doing things to Us; and not-at-all in what We want; and it has been like this for many years.

As always, the truly vital thing is is that we:

1.Recognize the situation.

2. Recognize it for what it is - i.e. They are lying in order to harm us - physically, but mainly spiritually.

3. Recognize the net-evil strategic motivations of our leadership class - whether institutional, national, and global leadership. 

4. Realize that therefore the worst spiritual harm comes from Our consenting to the validity of Their imposed world-view and motivations; and from consenting to Their authority to control Our world-view and motivations. 

5. Be confident that They cannot spiritually harm Us... unless we invite Them into our hearts. 

But that is exactly what So Many people do in excusing Them as having naïve good intentions, or being merely selfish and greedy, or being merely stupid and ignorant and short-sighted. 

Things are much worse than that. 

In truth; Our leaders do bad things to Us, for bad reasons. 

What we need to do is be clear and explicit in our own minds as to what is going on and why; and then to reject it as evil*!

Too many people jump to advocating effective organized opposition... Not that this ever actually-happens! - but that does not stop people calling for it, automatically; like a speak-your-weight machine. 

But opposition as such is futile and indeed counter-productive, especially when opposition is itself motivated by some strategically net-evil programme, inevitably rooted in the hedonic materialism of all public discourse. 

Corrective and good social action may or may not be possible in practice; but whether possible or not, good action cannot possibly happen without a prior and sustained inner act of discernment, responsibility and courage. 

While of course we should strive not to cooperate or support evil; organized opposition will be futile or counter-productive unless genuinely motivated at every level; because to evil does not lead to good, unless there is motivation to good.  

And at the bottom line, as this process expands and envelops, we should recall that, in net-effect; mass/social media do vastly more harm than good.

All restrictions on mass media will almost-inevitably make it less popular overall, less engaging, less addictive**.

So that, by pursuing short-term expediency, evil is (to a significant extent) thwarting its own long term success.  

After all; to be denied some particular external inputs, and to be thrown-back upon our own personal experiences, evaluations, personal contacts, and individual reasoning - is probably just what we most need. 

In our civilization and nation; things probably need to get worse before they can get better - but they will get better only if we first understand enough of what is going-on.  

*That is what is required of Christians for salvation - it is indeed, all that is required of us, in a negative sense. Of course, the reality is that to move on to resurrected eternal Heavenly life, we must commit eternally to live only by love - and the rejecting of evil is really just a means to that end.

** This also applies to the "AI"-slop that is flooding mass and social media. Since this (as with all aspects of "AI") is backed by subsidies and amplified by corrupt boosting into displacing appealing content; such a trend can only diminish the long-term influence, impact and appeal of mass and social media. 

The extreme difficulty of winning a war against opponents who are forbidden to surrender, and therefore must be annihilated

What follows is meant to provide an historical analogy for a current real world situation - i.e. the Western proxy-war against the Fire Nation. 

The Paraguayan War of 1894 was apparently one of the most destructive wars in history - in terms of the proportion of the Paraguayan population killed. Broadly speaking (because precise numbers are not known) more than half of the entire nation of Paraguay were killed, including nearly all men. 

This happened because Paraguay was a small and relatively weak nation whose (apparently crazed or psychopathic) leader Lopez attacked three much larger and stronger surrounding nations (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay) - simultaneously. 

Despite this one-sidedness; the war continued for more than five years because Paraguay was not allowed to surrender. 

It takes much longer to annihilate a population than to defeat a nation militarily. 

When a nation is being used as a proxy by a superpower - an easy matter to do by imposing a superpower-puppet leadership by coup, and controlling them by bribery and blackmail - the proxy nation is in a similar situation to, but potentially worse than, Paraguay. 

The proxy nation may be militarily defeated, but forbidden to surrender. Then the war can only end by annihilation of the proxy nation.

And conducting a war to the point of annihilation of the enemy, is bound to be far more costly and destructive even to the victorious side, than would be the case of fighting only to the point of military defeating the opponent. 

Hence the appeal to superpowers of using proxies to fight their opponents, rather than doing so oneself.  

Suppose then that the superpower has several further proxies lined-up and waiting in the wings; and who will be compelled to fight until each of these is also annihilated...

And suppose further that the superpower actively despised, resented, or otherwise hated the proxy nations...

This is why being a proxy nation used by a superpower may be worse than Paraguay. 

I presume that the Paraguayan leader did not actually hate his people, and did not desire that they be annihilated - but those controlling a superpower may actively hate the people of the nation they are using as proxy. 

The superpower may be glad that the the people fighting as their proxy, are being slaughtered en masse and their country ruined.  

In this case, the annihilation of a series proxy nations used in wars against the Fire Nation would actually be a positively desired result! 

Finally; we should add that a supra-national-globalist leadership class is actually controlling the geopolitical strategy of the West - this is a group without any national or other group loyalties, but instead motivated by a destructive hatred of all nations and peoples.

(A group, I would add, whose members are mostly in service to demonic powers, rather than pursuing human interests.) 

Therefore, it is desirable for such a group that this planned sequence of proxy wars should also damage the superpower who is proximately contriving and conducting them.

What I am talking about is therefore a blueprint for incremental worldwide annihilation by mutual destruction.

Because, once lethal conflict has begun, then (so long as those in power remain in power) nobody will be allowed to stop and there will be no victory.

This business of contriving an unending sequence of unwinnable proxy-wars designed for mutual destruction is, I believe, the actual situation in the world today. 

I assume that this fact is understood by at least some participants at the highest levels of geopolitical strategy - but most people in most places simply will not accept that things could possibly be as bad as I describe. 

Time will tell.  

 

It's important to recognize how very bad things actually are - civilizationally

A recurrent source of disagreement I have with nearly everybody, and going back to about 2008; is that I am acutely aware that our civilization is in a really, really bad way - much, much worse than almost almost-anybody is prepared even to entertain as a possibility. 

This seems to me very obvious! And also that the problems are as deep as such problems can be - problems of false fundamental assumptions concerning reality, and problems that the strongest human motivations in this life are disordered...

The problem of habitual and compulsive dishonesty (including, most damagingly, with oneself), and the problem of being unable or unwilling to learn from repeated experiences. 

...To mention only some of the fundamental problems. 

I suppose one reason that this conviction of mine is hardly shared, is that people evaluate civilization first in terms of how they personally are feeling, here-and-now - and if they are feeling OK or happy, they infer that nothing can be seriously wrong. 

Or that people evaluate civilization in terms of sheer abstract survival and continuity. SO that as long as things haven't actually collapsed, or can - at least - be imaged as rebounding or self-correcting (even over multigenerational timescales) then nothing can be seriously wrong. 

And under this is the truth that matters of civilization aren't our concern, really. Civilizations are not as product of human will and planning - and neither is their continuation. They are a kind of unavoidable backdrop and essential sustenance - and (evidently) a colossal influence in spiritual aspirations, beliefs,  perceptions - and yet these matters cannot be positively influenced in an overall or top-down fashion (although they can be negatively affected). 

In the end, spiritually speaking; we are individual persons and agents - no matter how much we try to elude this; and our primary social concern is with loving relationships - which are the only like that "society" has to the great dramas of spiritual learning and salvation. 

Therefore I am not-at-all saying that we ought to recognize how very bad things actually are because this might help us to make them better! 

What I am saying here; is that - unless we recognize how bad things actually are - then we Will Not Actually pursue the real business of our lives - i.e. the great dramas of spiritual learning and salvation.  

While some may argue that we don't need to acknowledge the evil nature of the Big Picture in order our-selves to be good; this seems decisively to be refuted by experience. Unless people feel themselves spiritually detached from our civilization in a profound metaphysical and motivational way; then for so long they will be aligned with the agenda of evil - and at a deep level of affiliation that subverts surface declarations and practices.   

In other words: observation of what happens when not; brings me to the conviction that we need (yes need) to sense, know, acknowledge, take-account of; just how very bad things really are civilizationally - if we our-selves are to be able to become clear about this mortal life - and make Christian personal discernments and choices. 

To be free to choose to follow Jesus, and to learn from our actual lives; entails that we know the nature of our spiritual situation in this world.  

Anything less just doesn't cut it. 

***

NOTE ADDED: I would like to emphasize that the fullest recognition of how very bad things are; is, or can be, in its effect a great and immediate liberation. 

By it we are freed from futile engagement with that utterly vast, and impossibly complicated, web of distortions and manipulations that is the realm of public discourse. 

Positively: we become true agents; with both authority and need to stand on our own evaluations.

And thereby we become primarily responsible for understanding our place in this world, and deciding our desired destination beyond it. 

Is Everything a Total Fake?

It is an interesting and significant fact, that major-controlling institutions in our totalitarian Western society often tolerate - and indeed fund and publicise - books, TV, movies, and social commentary; the arguments of which categorically assert that Everything in public discourse is a Fake - and, in the most uncompromising versions - always has been a Fake, through history.

The expounded idea is that official and mass media narratives are (in general) pure illusion, based on nothing at all; an eggshell of false narrative enclosing a void of real life content. 

At the most extreme level, the "Everything a Fake" people seem to be saying that "nothing ever happened" - at least nothing that was said officially to have happened. They are suggesting that public discourse has always been pure illusion.  

With individual exceptions - this is not generally true, especially not as we go further back into eras in which the mass media and state propaganda systems were smaller and less effective.

I feel confident that "Everything has always been a Fake" is not true, from the big changes in increasing fakery that I have experienced through my lifespan, and by the obvious acceleration of such trends through the 1990s and into the 21st century. 

If Fakery has got so much worse in living memory, then clearly things were less faked in the past. 

Also, we know that Total Fakery isn't the norm from the huge efforts that The System invests to make things happen. 

This would not be the case if it was normal and expected to manufacture significant fakes from zilch. Important fakes aren't built on nothing, for the obvious reason that then they would be less effective. 

We all know that lies mixed with facts are much more convincing than complete fabrications. 

 

When fakery incorporates real aspects of actual events; fakes are far more difficult to disentangle and thereby disprove outright - hence far more convincing to the credulous and inattentive majority. 

What (in general) happened in the past was that underlying events were essentially real (albeit much more often contrived by the authorities than realized at the time); but the truth of reality was exaggerated, or twisted by fakery, in order to manipulate public opinion. 

The incremental trend (especially over the past several generations) was both for fakery to become more dominant; and for the underlying real events to become more top-down contrived. 

For instance, the 2020 Birdemic was very nearly a Total Fake; in that it was invented, planned, and implemented top-down - and some "evidential" aspects were Total Fakes (e.g. things that had not happen were theatrically staged and filmed). 

But as a total phenomenon; the Birdemic incorporated many real world actions and events - and the consequences of pseudo-therapeutic interventions (e.g. extra deaths caused by supposedly anti-Birdemic medico-social changes) - into its pre-determined narrative. 

Eventually; there resulted a hyper-complex and deliberately-confused mass of many inventions, illusions and lies - built-upon and mixed-with a few factual realities. 

Consequently; we know for sure that the official narratives are all false and deliberately misleading; but it can never be known what actually happened minus the Fakery. 

The lesson is that although some small things are indeed a Total Fake, most important lies will interweave real facts and events. 

Which does not, of course, mean that there is "some truth" in (for instance) the Birdemic, the CO2 Climate narrative, or the current top-down imposition of AI; because events and facts are not truth. 

We must learn to distinguish between facts and truth: facts only have meaning when interpreted by theory. 

Thus, when theory is false and dishonest, then "real facts" can only serve to sustain a false and dishonest understanding. 

In sum: all the major strategies of the global totalitarians are fundamentally and intentionally false - despite their not being total fakes; and despite whatever correct facts and real events are woven into them.

Total Fakery is not the real problem - which is why people are encouraged (officially!) to entertain the idea of Total Fakes at such length, and in such detail. 

It is intentional untruthfulness in service to evil intent, that is the real problem.         

 

On mass media censorship and propaganda - If we need to be told major stuff by the mass media, then we are already lost

The UK mass media are censored and controlled - both openly and explicitly (eg. wrt the birdemic dissent, or Fire Nation news sites); and by news blackouts wrt mass immigration and its consequences.

And, of course, this censorship and propaganda usage of media is increasing rapidly in scope, completeness, and coercion.  

There is a great deal of complaint in the alternative media about this - but the complainers are part of the problem.

The real problem is that people have come to rely on the mass media for basic information and understanding of the world and their lives. 

If we need to be supplied by the mass media with information on matters of direct human observation and experience, and if we need to have its implications explained to us by the mass media - then we are already lost.

We are lost; because because we have handed-over responsibility for our fundamental understanding of the nature of things. 

Even worse; we have chosen to hand-over responsibility for our basic assumptions and values to the worst possible external influence: to evil-motivated people, who work in corrupted and converged institutions/ organizations/ corporations that constitute the bureaucracy of an intrinsically evil totalitarian system.

(Evil in itself; and which is also in service to the agenda of demonic supernatural powers.)

Complaints that the mass media are censoring their output are dangerously misplaced - after all, what on earth do people expect from the mass media in the Western world as it is now? 

Clearly, the complainers have grossly underestimated the pervasive extremity of evil as it actually is in the world now, and has been for many decades - and worsening. 

It is not as if knowing more "news" about the horrendous corruption and us-hatred of the leadership class, has done or would make any difference to "their" aims and conduct - their desire to corrupt, torment, and spiritually-annihilate the nations and their peoples. 

And it's not as if there are a great mass of good-motivated "ordinary people" who are being hoodwinked by media censorship, but who would otherwise compel significant and positive reforms in public affairs. 

Ordinary people "know" (in the sense that the information has passed through their eyes and ears) all kinds of terrible stuff, more than enough! And/yet it makes no apparent difference whatsoever to their fundamental assumptions, world view, values, behaviours... 

"Concerned" words are cheap, but human priorities tell a different story. 

The Western masses are, even if much less evil as the leadership class; deeply complicit and accepting of major strategic agenda themes of the recent decades; and have a system of values that do not rise above the level of the farm yard (i.e. this-worldly hedonism, fear driven avoidance of suffering, addiction to convenience, and craving for continual distraction). 

There has never, in the history of the world, been such shallow, trivial, and cowardly (because demotivated) people as there are in the West, now. 

And if people need to be told something so invasive and everywhere - things we all know from observation and our daily personal experiences (and the observations and experiences of our direct social circle) - then clearly it is already too late. 

So, what to do? 

Forget about "effective political action", resistance, reform: that is absolutely Not a possibility, when basic understanding and proper motivation is so completely absent; when indeed the actuality is of a widespread and accepted social ethic of value-inversion.

From where we are as a civilization - spiritually and morally; all social action going forward must be net-evil. There is no source for it to be anything else. 

 

We must first want what is good, or no good will eventuate. 

Real understanding follow only upon proper motivation...

And then, when it comes to important matters, such understanding follows easily and swiftly.

To know and desire a human life based on good aims and conduct; we need-not, and certainly should-not, depend on anything produced by the mass media. 

Learning, understanding, awareness? What should Christians do in daily mortal life?

I've said elsewhere on this blog that we each need a purpose for this mortal life; and that for Christians (followers of Jesus Christ) our individual purpose in this mortal life should be "framed" by the confident expectation of  resurrection into Heaven. 

That still leaves-open the question of what we are supposed to be doing on this side of death; given that we would not be sustained alive by God unless there were reasons that were good for us - meaning eternally good for our immortal souls. 

I have expressed what we should do using the term "learning" - learning now for a "pay off" in post-mortal life; and this can be further expanded by the concepts of understanding and awareness.

(This presumes that God, by the continual action of creation, "engineers" the kind of learning-experiences that we each need, or could benefit from.)  

It seems to me evident that Christianity includes a great deal of emphasis on the positive value (and perhaps even essential nature) of understanding and awareness. 

So, it is not enough (or at least it is sub-optimal) for Men simply to experience mortal life unconsciously, passively, and without reflection - because that is unfree: such an "automatic" life does not entail the needful positive decision to align with God and work in harmony with divine creation. 

What is required then is a kind of learning that has risen to some level of understanding of what has been learned; and this understanding of what has been learned should rise to a level of awareness. 

This is what enables freedom to have its vital role. 

(And such freedom can most profoundly be understood as a bringing to bear of our own divinely creative selves - such that God's creation is expanded and enriched by the creativity of individual beings in voluntary alignment with God's aims and methods.) 

With respect to the need for understanding; it would, of course, be unrealistic (if not impossible) to suppose that we can attain anything much like a final and comprehensive understanding of this world - not least because the reality is of a world massively causally-interlinked; such that any specific understanding is bound to be deficient and distorted to some degree. 

Nonetheless, I think many will know by experience a kind of understanding that might be called an epiphany, an insight-into or showing-forth-of reality; a creative moment underpinned and endorsed by intuition. 

This seems to be close to the kind of thing we most need. 

Now, it is also essential to realize that the constraints of this mortal incarnation mean that - at least in our physical and material manifestation - this kind of epiphanic insight can be misremembered or completely forgotten in a bodily sense; we might suffer all kinds of accidents, sickness or degenerative disease. 

It would (after all) be pretty worthless if our needful spiritual learning/ understanding/ awareness depended on such fragile things as the functionality of human brain and body. 

Therefore, we must assume that true knowledge is never forgotten in a spiritual sense; that our intuitive epiphanic insights are permanently stored as part of our spiritual-person, our immortal soul.    

A further constraint that needs acknowledging is that most actual people most of the time, are "victims of" (in thrall to) their innate personality, abilities and circumstances. Such that they (we) will mostly be making bad choices and leading lives that are not just un-virtuous - but considerably more sin-full than they "ideally" might be. 

The message I get from the Fourth Gospel and other confirmations; is that this does not matter ultimately; and that a Christian life is possible for everyone capable of love, who value love most highly and who desire above all to follow Jesus to Heaven. 

Ultimately, it need not matter how weak, mean and corrupt such a person might be, or what terrible kind of life he leads. Jesus came to save (even) sinners - not perfect, nor even better-than-average Men*.  

It is crucial to note and absorb that Any bad circumstance of this world, including the self-inflicted, can be (and actually is) overcome by faith - sustained by hope and driven by love. 

But although all manner of spiritual guidance and support are available when needed; none of this happens automatically, nor can it be achieved by any external power. We cannot be "made" to live in a worthwhile way; just as we cannot be compelled to salvation. 

The crucial aspect is always in our-selves, in our freedom (properly understood as the creative agency of our real self, in chosen-alignment with the divine); and the basis of freedom includes learning, understanding, awareness. 

There is always something eternally-valuable to be learned from any person's actual life here-and-now; and/but this learning always requires to be driven primarily by the free spiritual life of each person...

Indeed by the free spiritual life of each being of any kind; since Heaven is populated by those Beings of all kinds who - after their mortal deaths - commit eternally to live primarily by Love.  

*It is not really relevant here - but I suppose that I need to comment on the fact that none of this is meant as an excuse for being selfish, sadistic, spiteful - doing evil. But the usual problem with those who do evil is that they deny that what they are doing is evil, or (nowadays, invertedly) say that the evil they are and do is good. The take home message is not that utter impossibility that we should cease from sinning, nor that "real Christians" are better (more ethical) people than others on average, nor that becoming a (real) Christians entails becoming a "better person" -- but that Christians need to acknowledge and repent the evil that they (we) inevitably do; and that (in principle) nobody is so bad in their behaviour that they cannot become a Christian. What excludes so many modern people from salvation is not that they are worse than past people in their behaviours; but that modern people Do Not Want Salvation.  

The success of Jesus? This world or the next? (Counter-productive Christian evangelism)

It seems to me that much Christian evangelism is counter-productive - putting people off becoming a Christian, rather than encouraging them; because of the Christian having a mistaken understanding of what Jesus did; and also because the Christian is incoherent about whether Jesus succeeded in his mission, or not. 

Many or most Christians seem to have the idea that Jesus made this a better world. That the life of Jesus was therefore an inflexion-point in history - Before Jesus, bad; after Jesus... getting better. 

Such Christians (and they seem to have been a large majority, at least among writers) seem to believe that after Jesus, life started started improving - especially for Christians. 

They assume Jesus made this world a better place. 

This kind of Christian usually believes that Jesus's core mission was to set up a church; and the church's mission was to make this a better world - and that this was actually done. 

Such Christians look at history and believe that the Christian societies were better than the others. They look at modern life and perceive to their satisfaction that the Christians are the best people - that conversion to Christianity improves people, that the Christian church is a force for good in the world. 

The first problem with this conceptualization of what Jesus did, is that there are plenty of people who disagree that the life of Jesus was an inflexion point after which the world began to get better - they just don't see this; they perceive many and terrible exceptions to it.

Some people would say that Jesus made no significant difference to the world - that the world carried on much as before. Some would say that the difference Jesus made was sometimes good, sometimes bad. And same with the Christian church/ churches - a mixed picture. 

There are plenty of people who don't see the founding of Christian churches as a net positive achievement, and who do no agree that any particular Christian church has been a force for good in the world.

In a nutshell - many people feel it is just wrong to claim that the life of Jesus made the world a better place; or that the Christian church has been and is a force for good in improving human life.   

They conclude that - if making a better world including better human lives is what Christianity is about, and the "evidence" for this is the history of the world and the nature of human society today; then Christianity cannot be true; and indeed might well be a force for harm. 

A further confusion is the Second Coming of Christ. 

Many Christians don't seem to realize what a weird and unconvincing idea this is! 

It means that Jesus's life was actually a failure, or else at best a very partial success; because the Second Coming predicts that despite Jesus, and the church he is supposed to have founded; this life will either stay bad, or get so bad, that Jesus will need to come again and "finish the job". 

("Finishing the job" means, pretty much, that Jesus (second time around) will make this life and world so much better that it is perfectly satisfying in every way.)

The need to finish the job; means either that Jesus did not wholly succeed - or that he actually failed. 

This idea is strange enough in itself to many people; I mean, why on earth would not the divine Jesus do everything that needed to be done in his first coming? Why would it be a good thing to delay the necessary by some indefinite (and now very long) period?

And then there is the problem of why the Second Coming has been delayed for two millennia? 

If life on earth can be made perfect, and if doing this really was Jesus's work and achievement - then surely it ought to be made perfect ASAP - rather than being delayed, and delayed? 

The many, various, and often complex explanations for the delay in the Second Coming are very seldom convincing; such that those who conclude that this was the way things work in Christianity, almost always become impatient for the Second Coming - or believe it to be imminent. 

So far many generations have so far been disappointed in this hope or expectation. 

 

The point I have been working towards is that the above are misunderstandings of what Jesus came to do, and what he did, and the nature of his success. 

Jesus did not come to make this world a better place, neither did Jesus come to found a church that would make this world a better place. 

So whether the world was made better or worse by the life of Jesus, or by Christian churches, is not relevant. 

That's not what Jesus was about. 

Jesus came to make possible, eternal resurrected life in Heaven: he came, in other words, to offer a new possibility of life everlasting to all Men - which we call "salvation". 

 And Jesus succeeded completely this aim, his real aim. 

...Which also means that the Church is not (and never has been) essential to the success of Jesus: a church may be helpful or unhelpful for a partiucar person in attaining salvation. 

But Jesus ensured that Men's achievement of salvation was possible (although not equally easy, because Men differ) for all Men, in every situation; in all religions and churches (or no religion nor church).  

I think Christians can be, and ought to be, quite clear and simple about this - for themselves, and in interacting with others... 

Jesus's life and work was not about improving this mortal life on earth. If it had been, then Jesus failed.

Jesus's life and work was about improving the next world, the world beyond death: and in this Jesus succeeded completely and first-time around. 

(No need for a Second Coming to "finish it off - it is already finished.). 

Jesus's work was done - is done.  

Now it is up-to-us, each of us; to choose or reject the possibility that Jesus has made available.