Total Smugitude - The standard atheist 'refutation' of the metaphysical incoherence of their ideology

It is easy to show, following many different lines of argument, that atheism is psychotically-incoherent; and has led to mass personal misery and despair, and civilizational collapse. 

But any amount of argument, evidence, experience (and sheer common sense) - is casually and effortlessly 'refuted' (to the satisfaction of atheism) by variations on the theme of: 

Yeah yeah yeah - yadda, yadda, yadda... 

But none of that heavy stuff matters, because at the moment I feel fine. 

I am quite satisfied with myself as I am. (And insofar as I am not - I'm working on it.) 

And anyway (unlike Christians and other religious) I can believe anything I feel like believing - even scraps and shavings of spiritual nonsense - so really there is No Problem. 

It's all a pointless fuss made by simple-minded, dogmatic, crazed and/or retarded zealots; whose real purpose is to get inside my head; spoil my pleasures and sense of self-satisfaction; fill me with guilt about made-up problems (like sin); and thereby control and exploit me for their own purposes.

I know this because I was exactly like this for most of my adult life. 

I also knew that my position was incoherent, weak, and amoral; and therefore opened me to exactly the kind of exploitation and manipulation of which I accused Christians. 

But as adolescence shaped-into a kind-of adulthood, and proceeded through the years - I became more and more selfish and short-termist (to as great as a degree as I thought I could get-away-with), and I wanted to stay selfish; and I resented anybody trying to enlist me for any other project than my own self-satisfaction, here-and-now. 

The problem (and what saved me, literally - from deliberately chosen damnation) was that my short-termist selfishness and self-indulgence as also opposed by some strong impulses or instincts (as I thought them) - that did not make sense in my plan to become ultimately smug: indestructibly self-satisfied. 

I could not help but value love, honesty, beauty and several other things that made my life more difficult; albeit I kept working against these 'obstacles', and was able to become more self-gratifying (at least in my inmost, guarded thoughts). 

From a Christian perspective, I had taken the side of the devil in the spiritual war; and was engaged in a long-term war of attrition against my own natural goodness - which was in me as a consequence of being part of God's creation. 

And the devil's side was winning because my atheism meant that there was no compelling reason to resist the trend towards the implicit goal of Total Smugitude.  

Eventually the increasingly official and cultural evil of Western Society - as well as personal events - made the stark choice clear. 

Eventually, my own inmost attitudes - absorbed from the great and the good, from the self-styled and publicly-acclaimed socio-ethical experts of our time - began to sicken and disgust me, more-and-more sharply.

Eventually a commitment to self-gratification was instead leading towards a solid and corrosive conviction of existential hope-less-ness and despair.  

Either I would have to hand-over my mind and motivations to The System; and try to enjoy being taken wherever that was trending; and to build and strengthen my smugness as having made such a wise and self-gratifying choice...

Or else I would need to become a Christian (of some kind).

 

Does being a Christian make you a better, or happier, person?

Being a Christian does not make you a better or happier person. 

That is not what Jesus Christ promises, and not what he aims primarily to 'deliver'. 

That is not what Christianity is properly "about". 

Christianity - at core - is (or ought to be!) about salvation; and salvation is saving an individual from "death", and instead enabling him (by following Jesus Christ) to become resurrected to eternal life, in Heaven.  

Yet there is a relationship between "not of this world" Christianity, and the conduct and experience of this mortal life on earth. 

And this can be seen by the contrast with that ideology of materialism-atheism-leftism, that dominates (all-but monopolizes) public discourse; especially (although not exclusively) at the highest levels of power; and especially in The West. 

This belief system - which has, in practice, infiltrated the leadership and laity of almost all self-identified religions, and has now coopted all the major Western churches (including Christian churches) in their core affiliations - we will here term the materialist-atheist ideology.  

Christian belief does not make you a better person. But it does mean that you want to attain salvation; want, that is, to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected everlasting life in Heaven. 

And to enter Heaven requires that you desire to live eternally in complete harmony with God's will, with the motivations of divine creation. 

To attain salvation does not require that you actually attain harmony with the divine, while alive mortally on earth - or else Heaven would be empty! 

But you need to want to do it! 

Such a desire may positively affect your conduct in this mortal life. So there is an indirect relationship between Christianity, and being a better person. 

To be a materialist atheist does not of itself make you an evil-aligned person. 

But it does mean that you have no reason - except momentary expediency - to be a better person. 

And it does mean that you have no coherent basis for understanding what a 'better person' might be.

What about a happier life for Christians? 

Well, that is not promised; and the basic nature of this world is unchanged by becoming a Christian. All Christians are subject to the 'entropic', corruptive, degenerative nature of this world - and all will die.

(Indeed all Christians need to die; if they are to attain their heart's desire.)   

Yet, insofar as existential 'alienation', meaninglessness, and purposelessness - a sense of the futility of all relationships and actions - are all major dissatisfactions of modern life; then the Christian understanding does provide a positive and hopeful framework - such that miseries with these roots can be known as temporary and not ultimate. 

Whereas, for a materialist-atheist, there is no ultimate or permanent reason to be happy. 

Happiness is understood to be merely an evanescent response to psychological, bodily, and environmental events. So, to be happy doesn't mean anything and doesn't last. 

On the plus side; the materialist atheist has no ultimate restrictions (such as would apply to a Christian) on what he does in search of happiness. But, whatever extreme measures he might take; any consequent happiness can, in practice, only be momentary and meaningless. 

And when the atheist-materialist is not currently happy; then there is no better context in which to experience this misery. 

For the atheist-materialist; here-and-now misery can therefore be known as ultimate and overwhelming; despair can be absolute. 

In sum; being a Christian certainly does not make you better or happier. 

But following Jesus does provide an ultimate understanding of reality that can inspire and sustain betterness or happiness.

In particular; Christian conviction and affiliation is able both to explain why this mortal life is not the most important outcome in a life that extends to eternity; yet at the same time our lifetime choices may be of permanent significance - taken-up through resurrection into everlasting creation.  

"Let no such man be trusted..." What do You think of Weber's Bassoon Concerto?

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. 

From The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare

I don't think it quite true that the man with no musical appreciation is intrinsically untrustworthy. We are all entitled to a blind-spot or two (mine include sculpture and ballet). 

It would be more accurate to my experience to assume that among those who do profess an affection for music - and in particular for classical music - there is a certain type who cannot be trusted. 

How may this untrustworthy type of 'music lover' be detected? 

There happens to be a "test piece" - the reaction to which can be used to pick-out the treasonous species of classical music maven.  

This was discovered by the novelist Kingsley Amis. I seem to recall that he stated somewhere, on the basis - I understand - of extensive research; that anyone who said he did not like Weber's Bassoon Concerto, was the kind of slimy and pretentious individual that ought to be be avoided if possible, and shunned if not.

I think this is probably correct. It is not necessary that one should actively like Weber's Opus 75 (and certainly not required that it should be a favourite piece*); but a Man who claimed to dis-like it, clearly has something rather seriously wrong with his attitude to the world. 

How do you respond? 

No pressure...

* The Bassoon concerto is not even my favourite concerto by Weber! - that would be his first clarinet concerto (F Minor, Opus 73) - which I regard as the equal of Mozart's for the same instrument. 

Nowt so queer as "folk"

 

Doubling-down - a characteristic of the middle managerial, bureaucratic mind

The often remarked phenomenon by which leftists double-down on their errors is interesting. 

It shows, in the first place, an indifference to truthfulness, combined with a dishonesty about motivation. 

Because, if somebody really believed in what he professed, he would carefully monitor outcomes to ensure that they were actually being achieved. 

But habitual lying means that adverse real outcomes can be ignored, and false motivations mean that there is no end point to this process. 

Doubling-down is mainly as aspect of that bureaucratic, totalitarian evil that I have been calling Ahrimanic. 

In practice, doubling-down is characteristic of the middle-managerial mindset; a level of person who denies his own agency, does not discern or evaluate; but instead regards his function (and being) as implementation of decisions made by those higher-up the System. 

I often observed this in bureaucracies. The attitude - at every level - including 'leadership' of major institutions like universities or health authorities - that it is not my job to question strategy. I found the same attitude when I had dealings with senior bureaucrats and politicians who headed national organizations. 

Where then ought strategy to be decided? Where is it actually decided? 

This is unclear; because even at the highest levels that we can observe - there is never any genuinely strategic thinking; not least because the pretense of strategizing is done by (often) large committees, and decided by voting - which tells us that the real deciding has already been done elsewhere.

Eventually, at some invisible level - and perhaps at a supernatural-demonic level - there are (there must be - given that there obviously-are long-term strategies) those who genuinely strategize: who set out the imperatives upon which everybody below (including supra-national, national, institutional, professional, and corporate 'leaders' - as well as the millions of bureaucratic and media minions) then doubles-down.  

The basic model, then, is a covert, occult real-leadership which sets the left/ evil agenda for the world; and then everybody else is just one of the double-downers.  

But evil is (ultimately) oppositional, therefore mutually antagonistic, hence strategies do not cohere. 

So there is a lot of doubling-down on multiple oppositional, incoherent, and therefore mutually destructive, strategies. 

Thus we get a world ostensibly in strategic pursuit of a single totalitarian System; which itself operates to prevent and destroy the possibility of its own implementation. 

Since evil also projects its own sins; this has led to the obsessive zeal directed against imagined dissidents, saboteurs and terrorists - who are blamed for the Systems own self-destructive incoherence. 

The System both aims-at and also sabotages a closed, complete, global totalitarianism. But those (real or imaginary) outside the System are blamed for the failure of coherence that originates within the System itself. 

(Consider inflation. It has wholly been caused by System strategies, but is blamed on causes such as the birdemic and the Fire Nation, that are - supposedly - outside the System.) 

On top of this; advanced evil has abandoned strategy, and pursues spiteful destruction of The Good directly. 

At the invisible level where strategies are made; there are increasingly-powerful anti-strategists, who seek to increase and spread chaos, corruption, ugliness, lies, suffering, death for their own sake - because that is what They want. 

This will mean less doubling-down in future. But (if Sorathic motivations are behind it) blind-implementation of plans will Not be replaced by adaptiveness, functionality and the capacity to learn. 

Doubling-down will not disappear. We should expect to observe middle manager types within the System, complaining bitterly and despairing that the higher-ups are not following-through on the long established strategies (and blaming Christians and subversives). 

These middle managers will continue, and escalate, doubling-down - to the limit of their ability - because doubling-down is What They Do, it is All They Have. 

Meanwhile the psychopathic types of the System will be moving into ever more obviously hedonistic, exploitative and short-termist behaviours. Extravagant, blatant, open, extreme and perverse personal corruption of behaviour will be seen from these 'elites'; whose 'enjoyment' will increasingly derive from come from the fact that They can do, in public, what the masses are forbidden to do.   

And the spiteful (Sorathic) types will be exhibiting an ever more naked sadism at the suffering and destruction they are facilitating. On the large scale they will provoke war, escalate war, fuel war, feed ever-more people into ever-nastier war. They will break-up functionality, provoke chaos, and export chaos globally.  

The Sorathically-evil have no need to advertise their activities, but will lie, plausibly excuse, and falsely misrepresent their destruction

This is, as I have often argued, an era in which the first necessity is discernment - understanding; and in which this must begin in the individual person (because this is what God wants of us, as well as because nearly-all potential sources of external authority - such as churches - are corrupted and converged into the System). 

On the one hand; we are not personally responsible for the large-scale events of this material world, nor can we affect them. On the other hand; we are and unavoidably responsible for our own understanding and evaluations. 

And right-understanding and true-evaluations have a positive spiritual impact that cannot be prevented by the strategists of evil. 

From "adverts are the Best thing on TV" - to Only Bad TV adverts

Although commercials are clearly a 'minor' art-form, at best; in the UK it used often to be said - from the 1970s and up to around the millennium - that "the adverts are the best thing on TV". 

This was not literally true; but certainly the best adverts were masterpieces of their kind; almost miraculous in their compression, and variety; and one of the best modern directors - Ridley Scott - began by making some iconic TV ads.  

They were also very effective at selling their product. 

Indeed, it was precisely that they needed to sell the product, which made them so effective. Constraints of this kind are good for art - just as Shakespeare was the most popular playwright of his day. 

Nowadays - not only are there zero good adverts, there are only bad adverts. 

TV commercials are not merely un-enjoyable, but actively unpleasant to experience. 

Why? because they are not even trying to sell the product; but are always, and primarily, trying to operate as propaganda for the evil value-inversions of the globalist Establishment. 

Indeed - this is mandatory as a bureaucratically-imposed factor in their corporate role: advertising political correctness, the leftist-woke ideology, is the core institutional role of modern commercials and PR. 

And bureaucratic imperatives are not, and never can be, the basis for high quality, or or even enjoy-ability in anything; because bureaucracy is intrinsically evil - and evil is ugly, as well as dishonest.   

The weird 1960s 'science' mania

As a child growing-up in the middle 1960s, I was fanatical about 'science' - and had all kinds of weird ideas about "how great it would be" to live a totally artificial and high-tech life. 

I thought it would be great to live on the Moon, or Mars - in gigantic glass bubbles or domes linked by tunnels; breathing artificial air and venturing outside in space suits or podular vehicles. If not "outer space" then "inner space" as it was termed; living on earth but in similar cities located on the floor of the oceans, or maybe in Antarctica. 

I seem to have regarded it as a positive thing that people would never go outside, or even use their legs! Because in these cities we would never need to walk anywhere; but would be transported by monorails and moving walkways; supplemented by personal hovercrafts, hover-boards, and (of course!) jet-packs. 

If any single thing represented the mid 1960s dream of a science world - it was the jet-pack!

The indoor environment was also supposed to be highly artificial and technological; with banks of TV monitors - and with fitments and furniture that folded away flush into the walls when not in use. 

There would be no books, but everything would be on screens - especially wristwatch screens and vid-phones; a concept so exciting that I could not make myself believe the possibility!

Clothing would - naturally! - be entirely artificial; made of nylon, plastic and metallic substances, and secured by multiple large zips. (Zips were futuristic!). Even better, clothing might be disposable - a new style every day!

Food would be like that of the Gemini astronauts: that is, food would be in synthetic cubes and slabs, or taken as tablets. Drinks would be engineered in bright colours and exotic taste - to provide essential vitamins.

(I regarded vitamins as the single most essential aspect of eating: having the idea that if you had enough of the necessary vitamins, you would not need anything else).  

 

In sum; I can see that the lifestyle I hoped for was essentially that of an (extremely idealized!) astronaut. 

How things have changed - how I have changed ; in terms of what I want, like, hope for!

My 1960s daydream now seems like a claustrophobic nightmare of boredom and triviality! The best things (such as recreational space-ships, jet-packs and mini hovercraft) never happened, were never viable, were ear-splittingly noisy!

And now that I could have a 'TV on a wristwatch, I don't want one; I dislike vidphone communications; and screens in every room turn out to be a combination of uninteresting, sinister and taken for granted. 

I love medieval buildings, wooden furniture, traditional food, tea and coffee, trees, meadows, and hills; and choose to wear cotton and wool exclusively; and much prefer paper books to the 'e' versions. If I daydream - it is of a rural and earthly idyll of some kind; nor a Martian one. 

The main lesson I draw is that things which sound cool, exciting and in general "great" seldom are. Not least because this whole attitude is one of passivity seeking to be overwhelmed with stimulation: the idea that happiness is a consequence of a perfectly designed and tailored environment.

It was reading Tolkien in my early teens that marked and triggered the change-over away from desiring an artificial and astronaut lifestyle to something more crafted, and connected with natural things - although I have lived and worked almost wholly in cities.

More deeply, I have come to recognize that such matters as where we live, and what lifestyle we strive for, are secondary to spiritual imperatives - and that 'lists' of what is great, cool or idyllic ought not to dominate our choices. 

Living in accordance with checklists is a Bad Idea - no matter the provenance of these checklists -- no matter even if these checklists are derived from scripture, religious authority or whatever. 

In the ultimate analysis; checklists are external, material and demand submission; whereas we are called-upon to seek instead inner motivations, specific and contextual guidance from the Holy Ghost - and active and conscious engagement with living. 

It has become clear over the decades that spiritual guidance will tell me when I am in the wrong situation and need to seek change; or when I should stick with the present situation (which is, of course, never perfect!).  

After that basic choice has been made - other matters take priority. 

Is everybody a "latent" Christian?

When I was an atheist I used to get very annoyed by Christians who would argue that I was "Really" a Christian, whether or not I knew it; and I only needed to acknowledge the "fact". This struck me is untrue; and I sure I was right - not least, because when I did become a Christian it caused a massive change in my mind and life; a far greater change than if conversion had merely been a matter of 'admitting' what I already was. 

However, I think it may in the past have broadly been true that "everybody" (i.e. most people) was a Christian. In other words; perhaps it was once possible to take for granted that people would choose to convert to Christianity if they:

1. Knew what Christianity offered - i.e. resurrection, eternal life, Heaven. (i.e. A "better deal" than any other religion.)

2. Believed these claims were true. 

Thus early Christian missionaries seemed to emphasize that Christianity offered the believer more than their previous religion - so that the potential convert wanted to believe it was true. 

Then the missionary tried to convince the potential convert that the missionary's claims were true.

This 'convincing' was, in the early days, often by miracles, answered prayers, and other 'supernatural' means.

The early days of Mormonism provide a well-documented example of this process, when the first wave off missionaries were sent to England. 

To simplify; the missionaries would describe what was 'on offer' from this new version of Christianity (representing, for many people, an enhancement of the trad-mainstream Christian afterlife); and then (to convince of truth) the missionary would give the potential convert a Book of Mormon (having described its miraculous provenance). 

This was done with instructions to read with a truth-seeking-intent, and while doing-so to ask God in prayer whether the book was true - thus the potential convert was seeking a personal divine revelation of the validity of the Mormon claims (the availability of such personal revelations being a major element of Mormonism, and the Book of Mormon itself). 

This 'method' worked sufficiently well in the middle 1800s that the missionaries would convert a couple of people every day, on average. Most of these converts would be sufficiently convinced and enthused by their new religion to leave their homes and families (forever, potentially); and emigrate thousands of miles over sea and land - to settle permanently in and around Salt Lake City. 

Such experiences with Christian conversion fit with the assumption that if only a person knew what Christianity offered, and believed it; then he or she would become a Christian. 

But that was then; this is now. 

Now it cannot be assumed that people will, in general, want an afterlife at all; and even if they do want an afterlife, that they would desire the kind of afterlife that Christians describe. 

(For instance, it seems that many people want something more like 'Nirvana' - a barely-conscious, depersonalized state of timeless bliss.)

So, even if such people could be convinced of the reality of what Christians claimed, and convinced that they themselves could obtain this outcome - they would not want it, but instead something else.

 

Furthermore, there are many modern people cannot be convinced of the truth of Christianity; and the reason they cannot be convinced is not due to lack of evidence, but because their fundamental assumptions (i.e. metaphysical assumptions) rule out the possibility. 

In other words, they do not believe that miracles are real, or that answered prayers could happen. Any possible evidence is already explained-away by prior exclusion. 

An apparent miracle Must Be due to delusion or fraud; an answered prayer just 'wishful thinking' operating on coincidence etc. 

An excellent example of this mind-set is depicted by CS Lewis in The Last Battle, the final book of the Narnia Chronicles. There are a group of dwarfs who are actually on the threshold of Heaven, surrounded by Good Things - but who have decided that the whole set-up is a malicious trick. 

The dwarfs therefore actually perceive almost everything Good as trash: good food tastes of muck. Any pleasing event is a deception. 

Their whole mind-set is focused on a determination not to be fooled - and therefore a determination that every-possible-thing is (underneath the surface) malign and nasty. 

Such is an accurate allegory of many modern people. 

• They (we) have pre-decided that this is a purposeless, meaningless and impersonal universe. 
• Any suggestion that there is a loving God who created it, is regarded as childish delusion. 
• Such suggestions met with incredulity, and regarded as an attempt at manipulation. 
• Any 'evidence' of a miraculous or supernatural kind, is explained-away as necessarily fraudulent.    

In conclusion; however differently it was in the past; mainstream modern people are Not latent Christians; but indeed are pre-immunized against serious belief in religion generally - but Christianity in particular. 

 

The developmental-evolution of consciousness, and the function of the Mass

From Philip K Dick: 

The cyclic repetition which takes place in the Mass governs also the concept of why the Mass is spoken and what it is about. 

Our God died, and was buried (gone), but then He returned. 

So saying, the priest therewith becomes Christ, proving the authenticity, the rightness, of the whole religion and the whole service...

It is as if each time the Mass (or Last Supper, 'in remembrance of Me') was secretly celebrated by the early Christians, they got to unfold their miracle, about Jesus, for their own eyes alone, invisible to the (Roman-secular) world...

I can imagine the impact in the early days of the 'fish' Christians when they gathered in stealth to perform the feast of agape. 

New people who had never known Jesus, could be brought in one by one, and this shown to them. 

Suddenly he would be there! Only not as a mortal but in his Transformed state... 

He would be all through them, the celebrants. "Time would be abnegated". 

Excerpted and edited from 5:127 of Exegesis (2011) by Philip K Dick. 

The above is Philip K Dick's imagined account of the effect of the Mass among the earliest church Christians. 

I find it broadly very plausible as an account of how Men of that era - with the consciousness of that era - would have experienced this ritual-ceremony: i.e. as an overwhelmingly powerful re-living of the events being re-enacted.

If so, it is easy to see how the 'institutional church' emerged and grew among the 'secret Christians' (with their Ichthys symbol of the 'fish' of Christ). 

If then we imagine the Mass in the era of the late Middle Ages, when Men's consciousness had developed further in the direction of self-awareness, individualism, and alienation from the group and the world. 

I think we can intuit that the ceremony of the Mass must, by about 1500, have lost a great deal of its original effect. Because if it had not lost effect, then the Reformation questioning, and then denying, of the Christ-role of the priest, and the presence of Christ in the bread and wine, could not plausibly have been challenged. 

Wind-ahead another half-millennium to this modern era; when Men have become almost wholly cut-off from God, the divine, creation, in denial of the soul - and have become sometimes wholly-materialistic and this-worldly; and we can see that the Mass has lost all objective force.

The Mass no longer overwhelms the celebrants, it no longer imposes the experience of being in another time and place - but the ritual now requires active and purposive engagement from the participants. 

Time is - for most people, most of the time - no longer 'abnegated'; but instead the Mass takes place within the time and concerns of the mainstream secular world. 

Consequently the Mass is felt as no longer separate-from, nor higher-than, worldly church affairs - but has become highly assimilated to mundane attitudes and thinking.

Therefore, it was natural to the consciousness of modern Man that when an alleged global pandemic was reported; even (especially?) Catholics believed that all the churches of the world ought to be closed-down - until such a time as the secular authorities declared it 'safe'. 

This is an example of how a metaphysical assumption of the development of human consciousness through history may help us to understand the changes in Christian perceptions, attitudes, beliefs and practices since the time of Jesus; and may also help us to understand how we might positively respond to such changes. 

Is resurrected life *after* death really the best that can be done?

If we think back and recall the early dawning of self-awareness as young children, then perhaps we may remember the catastrophic dawn of consciousness of death - the time when we first realized that everybody, including our-selves, will die. 

It seems likely that this stunning fact, and the implications it carries for the rest of life, is perhaps the primary fact of consciousness.

For example, that seems to have been the conviction of JRR Tolkien, which he wove into Lord of the Rings as the deepest structuring concept. 

I have come to recognize - or, at least, believe - that the core of Christianity, the prime work and achievement of Jesus Christ, was 'simply' offering the possibility of a life beyond this mortal life, and indeed a better life; the chance of escaping the otherwise universal fate of death.

In other words - starting from where we are, the human condition as-is - Christianity essentially offers eternal resurrected life after death; and the promise that the everlasting life beyond temporary mortal life will be like this life, in that we are still our-selves with the same kind of experiences; but these selves and experiences will be qualitatively enhanced. 

This I regard as having been very clearly set-out in the Fourth Gospel - but it is also something that is quite spontaneous and intuitive in terms of what we, qua Men, want - starting from the situation in which we find-ourselves. 

So, we become aware that death is the great catastrophe and destroyer of life's meaning and hope, and we naturally seek - above all else - an escape from that ultimate termination. 

That, at least, is - I believe - how Men spontaneously, naturally, consciously regard death as young children - albeit 'culture' will overlay this innate attitude with some other attitude; and there are a wide range of secondary and acquired - but more superficial, and often ineffective - attitudes to death and what happens after it.

(All ancient societies believe in some kind of persistence after biological death, often a kind of reincarnation, or partial, maybe depersonalized, life as a spirit or 'ghost'. The Christian idea of resurrection was something new; as is the mainstream modern atheist idea of annihilation of the person.)  

But we can see that the Christian offer of resurrected life is not ideal. It is not a full and perfect solution. 

After all, death - and what leads-up to death, which is entropic change, decline, decay, disease, suffering etc. - is still a catastrophe. (Albeit temporary.)

Would not the ideal have been that Men were created-into Heaven, or, in some way, could go directly to resurrection without having to go-through mortal life and death?  

In other words; we can see Christianity as an eventual cure for the tragedy of the human condition; but it is not an immediate cure, and resurrection into Heaven does not - of itself - do much, or ultimately do anything substantive, to ameliorate the human condition (except secondarily, in providing hope for the future). 

I suppose this deficiency must have been immediately apparent; because "Christianity the religion" very quickly became 'mixed-up' with ideas that it would improve the human condition here on earth and during this mortal life - plans and schemes whereby mortal life would be regulated by 'God's laws' and (by ritual, symbolism, lifestyle etc) connected with divinity.

Also the idea that - at some point - Jesus Christ would return and transform life on earth so that there was no suffering or decay (the Second Coming, the New Jerusalem). 

Yet even with such additions to what Jesus actually said; the fundamental 'problem' remained to be explained: the question of why do we have to go through the tragedy of earthly mortal life terminated by death - before attaining resurrected Heavenly life? 

Properly to answer this question (rather than just kicking the can) requires further assumptions concerning the nature and attributes of God; and of God's aims in creation.

The fact that we are living in this mortal life, and destined to suffer the death of others and ourselves, suggests that there is no other way of reaching resurrected eternal life than via incarnated mortal life. 

Perhaps, for example, it is not possible for God to 'make' a resurrected body except via a mortal body. There might be another reason - but whatever the reason implies a constraint upon the power of God. 

This is not a metaphysical problem for me; but is ruled-out by the common belief in the omnipotence of God. 

Believers in an Omni-God have never, I think, been able satisfactorily to explain why such a God did not create resurrected Men ready for Heaven and incarnated directly-into Heavenly bliss - thereby avoiding the hazards, suffering, and risks of damnation of mortal life. 

(I regard the 'omnipotent God' assumption as false; and probably a post-ascension, maybe even post Apostolic, importation (from pagan Greek-Roman philosophy) to Christ's teaching, not being found explicitly in the New Testament.)

Once we have discarded this notion of the Omni-God, it is then coherent to assert that because God wants as many as possible to choose resurrection, there is no alternative to suffering death. 

This implies that - yes! - resurrected life after mortal death is the best that can be done, if the destination is to be resurrection. 

Thus far mortal life is irreducibly tragic; but for Christians that tragedy is ameliorated by the post-mortal destination.

However, for non-Christians, mortal life and death is just inescapably tragic in its structure; which may help explain why denial, distraction and despair in relation to death are so common among non-Christians.   

Therefore; my bottom-line answer is that, in broad terms, this entropic mortal life, followed by the catastrophe of death, is indeed the best that can be done - given that the destination God desires for us is resurrection, and resurrection can only be attained via the intermediate phase of a mortal body and death.  

Is there a place where the Establishment speak truthfully to each other?

Many people realize that They lie to Us; but there is a residual belief that there are places, times or situations in which They tell the truth to each other. 

Such ideas have various levels. It used often to be said that the mainstream newspapers were dishonest; but the 'in house' media such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Economist were basically honest - because (supposedly) in such places They were talking to each other - and the information exchanged need to be valid... 

This may have been true at some point in the past; but has certainly not been true since around the millennium; since when such journals are as deluded as, or even more so than, the rest. 

It seems clear that now there is just as much manipulation and brainwashing going-on among the Establishment; than there is of the masses by the Establishment. 

Yet there is a residual hope that we may discover "what They are really up-to" by examining off-the-record or internal communications; perhaps leaked, illicitly recorded or hacked memos, conversations, or accidental revelations... 

The image is of Machiavellian thinkers who, among themselves, deal with solid facts and reliably tested mechanisms; make explicit plans, and then objectively monitor their outcomes with rigour. 

And who only then invent lies in order to keep these secret and make them more effective.  

This leads to the assumption that when the secret communications are discovered and published, the resulting 'gotcha' will reveal the truth, will undeceive the masses, and thereby undermine and thwart wicked plans.  

But such excited hopes rest on the assumption that They are ever honest; when in reality liars nearly-always lie primarily to themselves - and indeed, self-deception is the basis of other-deception. 

(Furthermore - which is another matter - such hopes rest on an assumption that the masses care mainly about truth, are capable of recognizing the truth, and will adjust their evaluations accordingly.)  

I began to realize that this was a false model as a result of my own inner dealings with bureaucracies and those who head them. I worked in both Regional and District levels of the National Health Service Public Health services; and was a member of a university senior academic committee (Senate); and an editor in a multinational publishing corporation. 

In all of these, expedient untruthfulness was normal, expected, and insisted-upon. Everybody on the inside lied (but deniably - that was the skill of it) to each other, and they lied to their audience. They just lied All The Time!

I also had multiple experiences (and experiences of friends and colleagues) in relation to the conduct of science - which I know had once been a haven of honesty and truth seeking. 

Again, it was clear that - however things had been in the middle 20th century - by the millennium, the relationship between science and truth had been severed and discarded; and - exactly as with other bureaucracies - expedient and deniable untruthfulness was normal, expected and insisted-upon. 

Such experiences gave me the clue that nowadays - no matter how high-up and secret the level one is dealing-with in the Establishment; there is no place or occasion when it is the practice to be honest and where (which is necessary to this) honesty is enforced, and dishonesty exposed, repented explicitly, and sanctioned. 

We ought therefore to be wary of assuming that the latest revelations give us a window into how things really are - whether these come from leaks and hacks, private documents, recorded interactions or whatever. 

These covert sources may reveal Establishment attitudes that They would prefer to keep secret; but then again these attitudes may be faked inter-Establishment bragging, posing, virtue-signaling, or manipulations - rather than genuine revelations of motivations. 

In a world of pervasive dishonesty - truth is not available in public discourse, nor in private discourse among the Establishment. 

Truth is not Their currency. 

And whatever is connected bureaucratically to the System, shares System imperatives - of which one is that interactions must be untruthful in-line with the currently-dominant ideology. 

And this applies to all the major churches - including those institutional Christian churches that are employers, have workforces, gather in public spaces, have property, pay taxes (or claim exemptions) etc. - just as much as it does elsewhere. 

The choice of creation versus chaos is Not about an "hypothesis"

When I was quite a young kid, long before age 11; I can remember Christians trying to convince me of the reality of God by arguing that we 'need' God and the concept of creation in order to 'explain' the universe, this world, life on this world... 

And I was never at all convinced by these arguments (then, or later) because it struck me as absurd to posit God as an explanation for anything. 

And I was right! To deploy "God as an explanation", or even worse "God as an hypothesis", is a ridiculous and counter-productive way of talking about God; especially ridiculous as a way of trying to convince people of God's reality. 

God is not an explanation or hypothesis, God is really a metaphysical assumption concerning the fundamental nature of reality - Creation by God is something much deeper than an hypothesis: something upon-which all possible hypotheses depend. 

Therefore, it is incoherent to use "accepted reality" to make hypotheses about God. 

It makes no sense to begin a conversation by starting with the 'things' of this world, by starting with an assumption that there is meaning; starting with an assumption that we already know lots of stuff about this world - and then putting forward God as a putative explanation, an hypothesis, for why these things exist, why there are these meanings, why we know such-and-such. 

This is putting the cart before the horse.

From a theistic perspective, it is crazy to grant atheism a whole bunch of knowledge about the world - when the whole question of knowledge is exactly what is at issue; it is crazy to try and explain meanings, when meaning itself is the issue. 

For example; if we start talking about the history of 'the universe' and whether it was created or happened 'by science'; we cannot simply accept that we already 'know' stuff about the history of the universe - and then seek an explanation of it! The 'knowing' that we assume already contains an explanation - and that explanation already excludes God!

In effect, this style of reasoning describes what has happened, describes what the world is made from (its units) and how the world works... and only then asks whether God is 'needed' to describe and explain the world we have already described and explained! 

The answer will always be no - we don't need God as an explanation! God becomes, at best, an 'optional extra'. 

The proper question is hard to put into words, because it is far bigger than the usual questions, bigger than any other possible question; but is something like the question of whether reality is created? 

This is not a simple question about restricted phenomena - it is a question about the nature of every-thing; and it is a question about whether there is meaning to any-thing. 

The questioner needs to be able to intuit that if God is rejected and creation rejected; then purpose is rejected - and without purpose there can be no meaning, no justification, no knowing. 

If God is rejected; stuff Just Is, stuff Just Happens. 

We cannot then know anything about anything - because there is no 'knowledge' to be had - what we call 'knowing' is just stuff happening; or maybe nothing happening - we cannot know either way... 

Nothing can be said about anything - or rather, nothing we say can mean anything.

For creation; if we picture reality as having been made with intent, with purpose - then there can be meaning in relation to that purpose. 

If this is a creation we inhabit; then there can be phenomena, entities, beings... reality can be understood as being divided in certain ways, shaped in certain ways; knowledge may be possible in certain situations...

But if reality just happened - without purpose - then anything we choose to say about it is meaningless; since we our-selves have no purpose. 

There is no purpose to be had, there is no meaning to be had. 

What I am trying to get at, is that the choice between believing in creation and not believing, is an absolutely fundamental choice. 

Creation is not some kind of hypothetical description that we use like a scientific theory, to explain why B follows A, or why C, D and E are things in our words.

To consider creation is instead about whether or not such discussions are possible, whether they are coherent - whether they mean anything at all!  

Someone who genuinely rejects creation, and who believes that things are, and things happen, without purpose; is making a decision to reject any meaning in anything - including in life. 

Now, in practice, this never happens. Atheists who believe that everything that ever happened did so just because of causality and/ or randomness - nonetheless frequently express (and behave in accordance with) moral convictions; and hold convictions that they regard as really true; and the opposite as really false or evil. 

Even those who affect 'relativism' or claim to be 'nihilistic' only use these claims of meaninglessness against other people and other beliefs - not against themselves and their own beliefs. They 'pose' as relativists and nihilists; but always and all-the-time behave as if they knew things - including that relativism and nihilism are True!  

 

All discourse depends on the reality of creation. Yet - all the time, as an everyday fact - people are claiming that there is no 'evidence' for creation. 

In other words, people are ignorant of their own metaphysical assumptions; and the situation is exacerbated by their denial that they have any metaphysical assumptions! 

Incoherence is therefore the bread-and-butter, the staple diet, of all mainstream socio-political discourse in the world today. 

That which is created has turned-against creation; and by denying itself - dishonestly, incoherently - creation consumes itself; and things revert towards purposeless, meaningless chaos. 

This living-a-lie by denying creation is a deep reason why mankind has gone literally mad, and begun (increasingly) to destroy himself, his people, his nation and circumstances. Modern Man is not just neglecting survival and goodness; he actively, zealously embraces and propagates multiple self-destructive/ social-destructive/ civilizational-destructive ideologies and policies.   

The ultimate reason is that denial of creation is incoherent, and it is never lived-by; and this combination is not just an error, but an actively-evil choice. 

Since creation is real, and the only basis of coherence; we have a mass of people who deny reality and refuse responsibility for their own coherence. Life becomes necessarily a moment by moment expediency. 

...Just one damned thing after another. 

Once creation is rejected, all beliefs, attitudes and actions are declared arbitrary; yet in practice these are never acknowledged to be arbitrary. 

We thus inhabit a world where The Lie is enshrined at the basis of everything in mainstream discourse; which means there is no basis for anything - hence the chronic trend of deliberate collapse. 

Unless people, as individuals, can frame the question of creation properly; they will continue to be deeply confused and duped into embracing active evil: i.e. that destruction of Good (where Good = divine creation and that which is in harmony with it), which motivates the side of evil in the spiritual war of this world. 

Note added: I have not mentioned deism here: which is belief in a non-personal deity; that reality has a structure but no purpose. This doesn't work as an ultimate explanation, partly because it leaves out how we personally could know anything: If deism was true, we could never know it. Deism therefore ultimately reduces to the rejection of creation, and any assertions of purpose, meaning, knowledge etc. are incoherent. Therefore, I regard deism as ultimately the same as atheism - but in practice (in 2022, although not in all times and places) deism seems to be a transitional belief-phase; either going-towards, or away-from, theism. 

Half a century decline of leadership in Universities: from expert professionals to (over-promoted) bureaucrats

During the fortysomething years I was in the UK university system, I saw a massive change in the nature of people in senior leadership roles. 

Back in the 1970s, there was a sense that the universities were (still) run by academics: by scholars and researchers. 

And, broadly speaking, the higher up the hierarchy of power - the higher status were the people in terms of their professional record of achievement. 

Fifty-odd years ago; the individuals at the top (Vice Chancellors and Principals, Pro-Vice Chancellors and Deans) were nearly all people with a strong national reputation in their original disciples. 

It was common to select them from scientists who were Fellows of the Royal Society, Humanities scholars who were Fellows of the British Academy - or those of equivalent status in the medical, engineering or other such subjects. 

But by the time I retired; it was common to select people with a background of high position in generic bureaucracies: the civil service, business and corporate life - or simply those who had risen through the university bureaucracies - without having ever achieved anything remarkable in heir personal distinction in any academic subject. 

Instead of celebrating the academic distinction of top appointments; it had become usual to celebrate their supposed administrative competence, their connections within the System - or simply that they represented some favoured groups such as women, non-whites, foreigners, or a non-biological sexual orientation. 

This trend happened through the whole university system, so far as I could tell. For example women with bureaucratic seniority - rather than especially distinguished scholars or researchers - were appointed to both Harvard's and Cambridge's top-leadership positions (which were perhaps the two most prestigious such roles in the US and the UK).   

Harking back to my recent posts on the topic of leadership - I should clarify that expert professionals are not necessarily, or even usually, real leaders; and in practice universities very seldom had real leadership. 

On the other hand, expert professionals at least began as 'insiders' who had attained distinction in themselves performing the core function of universities. Whereas the bureaucrats who replaced them were no better (usually worse) as leaders - but were also 'outsiders', or else mediocre practitioners of the university's proper function. 

This is a microcosm of the decline of leadership in The West; because I saw the same trend in science and medicine, and wherever I looked. 

Real Leadership has always been a rare 'commodity' - and most groups have always had to make-do with something less; but in the (fairly recent) past; the personnel recruited to provide "not real"-leadership was at least consistent with the proper role of the organization and the distinctive 'traditions'. 

Nowadays - Not. 

The Fake leaders of today are aliens, successful officials, multi-valent 'networkers' - that is, merely over-promoted middle managers; or plausible psychopaths; and/or figureheads chosen as 'representative' of some non-male, non-white, non-native, or dysfunctionally socio-sexual 'identity group'. 

And it shows. 

How do you know when your metaphysical assumptions are wrong?

 An example came to mind from the ancient Greek (pre-Socratic) philosophers; among whom there seem to have been two recognized possibilities concerning the nature of reality - which have (as is the way of things) persisted to the present day as being almost the only possibilities underlying a superficial diversity. 

The first is the assumption that: that which is real does not change. Thus reality is eternally-static, is 'outside of Time'. Truth is this reality; therefore truth does not change but is eternal. 

Therefore order is primary and fixed; and movement, time, disorder - chaos or dis-order is a kind of temporary, surface illusion - or delusion.

The other assumption is that reality is always changing, every-thing is in flux. Therefore reality is chaos, and truth can never be known because it is always changing. Nothing can ever be known, because reality is chaotic, without pattern. 

Therefore claims to know truth or to describe reality are mistaken, delusional, illusory patterns - merely a product of limited perspective over a limited timescale.

These two recognized possibilities - stasis versus dynamism, or order versus chaos - are seen to underline all the mainstream religious/ philosophical/ ideological 'options'.  

But they are not the only metaphysical possibilities - because since the 19th century at least one other has been suggested - and this is the possibility I have been describing on this blog over the past eight or nine years. 

This is that reality is divine creation; and truth is harmony with divine creation. Creation is understood as dynamic and also permanent; because creation originated with God and is continuing. 

The permanence of creation lies in the permanence of God, and of other Beings that inhabit God's creation. 

The dynamism of creation derives from its being ongoing, consisting of the eternal elements that are Beings and also continually added-to in an open-ended fashion. 

Now that there is this third possibility for metaphysics; it is easier to see why neither of the earlier options was satisfactory; because both of them required Men to violate very fundamental intuitions. 

The assumption that reality was static order required Men to believe that all change was illusory - yet, paradoxically, there could not be any source of illusion in an ordered static reality. 

On the other hand; the assumption of universal flux and no possible knowledge is self-refuting from a version of the 'Cretan Liar' paradox: if knowledge of reality is not possible then we could never know that knowledge of reality was impossible. 

So far; I have not been able to discover any such fundamental paradox in what might be termed my metaphysics of divine creation; operating in context of what might be termed an animistic universe (in which living, conscious, personal Beings are primary). 

And, since it does a good job of explaining what I feel most needs to be explained: I am sticking with it!

***

Note added: Furthermore; since I believe that this is the best metaphysics (of which I know); I think that Christianity should depend upon it; rather than (as has been the case since shortly after the death of Jesus) a static-changeless metaphysics that (among other things) makes it impossible to explain (without paradox or hand-waving distractions) the necessity and work of Jesus Christ, the presence of evil, and the reality of human agency.  

Fortunately! - many of the most important aspects his metaphysics was first understood, and developed by the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, and the (not very many!) metaphysical theologians in that church. So a lot of the heavy-lifting has already been done.

What remained was to integrate this with 'Romantic' philosophical ideas (including a restoration of aliveness and consciousness of all of divine creation - including 'minerals', as well as plants) - and the most useful to me here have been insights from Blake, Coleridge, Steiner, Barfield and Arkle.   

The metaphysical role of men and women in this world, and the next

Most versions of Christianity - and indeed of world religions - do not have any metaphysical role - that is any ultimate, fundamental, essential, necessary role - relating to the role of sex differences (i.e. the division of Man into men and women) that are concerned with the ultimate metaphysical nature and destiny of God's creation. 

This is evident in ideas that sex is often seen as merely a temporary and expedient factor of this ephemeral earthly mortal life; and the belief that sexuality and sex differences will be dissolved away in the life to come. The idea is that we will all be a single kind of being; perhaps differing in appearance and individual character - but most Christians (other than Mormons) do Not see men and women as having a different 'role' in Heavenly life.  

In this earthly world, there are all kinds of - apparently opposed - ideas of sexuality, which are nonetheless all rooted no deeper then observations regarding human psychology. Human psychology is affected by 'nature and nurture' and also by many other things such as illnesses, toxins, genetic problems (including, I believe, cumulative and cross-generational mutation accumulation), drugs and others. 

From a psychological perspective, therefore, many different conclusions can be reached; according to selection of the evidence and prior ideology. 

These range from sexuality being a matter of individual choice, and 'therefore' a matter of indifference to the bureaucratic state - to its being a relatively-sharp binary divide, with one sex as superior, and the other sex inferior; when judged by various criteria. For instance women are (on average and when interfering factors are controlled) healthier, live longer, and are more conscientious; while men are stronger, more intelligent and more creative.    

But here we come up against the fact that in this mortal life - in this material and entropic world - we are always dealing with change, with 'imperfection' and corruption (leading towards death and material destruction in general). So that we almost never get any clear, coherent and stable answers from analyzing the material appearances of things. 

Different attitudes are aware of different sets of data, and the same set of data lead to different conclusions - yet the prior metaphysical assumptions that structure this ephemeral world into data, concepts, and persons are themselves seldom acknowledged or brought to awareness. 

This is a particular problem when we are trying to understand ultimate and spiritual matters. Far too often these get mixed up with worldly factors, and worldly expediency, as well as with short term social and personal agendas. 

Metaphysics then gets reduced to psychology and social policy. 

When this happens, observations are being put before the assumptions that make them possible - which is incoherent, and an error. People then try to generate expedient (and changeable) metaphysical assumptions that seem to sustain whatever it is they want to do, how they want to live, what makes them feel better. 

The result is a mess! 

At the back of everything, the question towards which other questions lead - is the nature of God the creator, God's relationship with Men, and God's purposes in creation.

If, at the end of the line, God is one; then this implies that unity - i.e. one sex (i.e. no sex) - will be the ideal of theosis. 

However things may be in his earthly mortal life; the ideal of Heavenly life will be tending towards the God-like state of no sex differentiation. 

And if God is one and a man in His nature, then it follows that men will be ideal, and woman secondary. Our ideals will tend towards the masculine; and the feminine will be judged by masculine criteria. 

But if, as I believe, God is ultimately two, a dyad; and if that dyad is a man and a woman - then sex difference and sexuality is irreducible, and ideal. 

When one understands that the two-fold division into man and woman goes all the way down, then in an ultimate and eternal sense (not expedient, not temporary, not due to limitations of knowledge nor accidents of entropy) - both man and woman are ideal types, and (again ultimately) the role and behaviour of men and women ought to be regarded in itself, by its own role and criteria. 

(It is the primordial love between our Heavenly Parents that began creation. That is, indeed, creation itself.)

If God is a dyad, and if we are children of God; then man and woman are both finally irreducible; and each is incomplete in some ultimate sense.   

If God is a dyad; then the closer than men and women come to being like God the creator, then the more important will sexual difference become; until, at some point in divinization, men and women will need to become a dyad - if theosis is to continue towards God-like-ness.

Such matters of ultimate metaphysics do not have any direct 'applications' to mortal life. In other words; we cannot read-off social policy from metaphysics. 

On the other hand, some polices are ruled-out by metaphysics - such as the mainstream sexual revolution agenda, and the current gender agenda. 

And the metaphysical understanding does dictate that we do not unthinkingly, and in all situations, judge men and women by the same criteria. Men and women are both human, but neither is the totality of human; so there will surely be situations in which we need to regard men and women as different in kind. 

And when there is a difference in kind, it is wrong to assume that there is no difference, nor should we assume that both men and women can be evaluated and regulated using the same concepts or mechanisms. 

On the contrary, we need to be mindful that men and women are like two separate but intertwined 'species' inhabiting the same niche. While we need to do separate things much of the time and especially at the lower levels of expedient functionality; the more spiritually advanced and ultimate are our considerations - the more aware we need to be that men and women are necessary parts of that harmonious loving creativity of interpersonal interaction which characterizes God's creation as it will be manifested in Heaven.  

However we may be forced to manage affairs with expediency  in this temporary and corrupt mortal life; we ought, therefore, to strive for an ultimate understanding of the human condition which does not give primacy to either the man's or the woman's perspective; but should recognize that at the highest level there is a genuine and necessary complementarity of the two sexes.

Bristol Beaufighter - Favourite aircraft of the week

 

The "Beau" was the first effective British Night-Fighter - illustrated above as flown by the first and highest-scoring night ace John 'Cats Eyes' Cunningham. I read a biography of him as a pre-teen. 

It was actually radar, plus superlative skill - including from his radio/radar-operator Jimmy Rawnsley, that explained Cunningham's success (DSO and two bars; DFC and bar etc.). 

But since radar was secret, his achievements were attributed to superlative night-vision ("cats-eyes") from eating plenty of carrots (i.e. Vitamin A)!  

The Bristol Beaufighter has always been a favourite of mine since I made it as an Airfix kit. 

Not my model - long since lost and destroyed! The above lacks the blobs of cement 'melted' all over the body and especially the 'glass' - and I was always too impatient and cheapskate (not enough colours) to paint them properly. 

I also attempted to include All of the armament options provided - bombs of various sizes, rockets, torpedoes... whatever - were all glued direct onto the wings and fuselage as necessary to cram them all in; and often I applied All the optional transfers ('decals'). 

I liked the Beaufighter mainly for its rugged looks, its multi-purpose functionality, and the heaviness of its firepower (probably the greatest firepower of its era: (Often with 4 X 20mm Hispano cannon under the nose - the Hispano being probably the best aircraft cannon of WWII - plus six .303 machine guns in the wings). 

And because it came from the Bristol company; and I lived not far from Bristol. 

Greg - of Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles - has done an excellent video on the Beau, which he called the most under-rated aircraft of WWII. 

The Beaufighter was not an obvious 'star' like the Spitfire or Mosquito - not especially fast or nimble; but it was beloved by its pilots (mostly) for its capacity to take punishment and get you home safe. 

The Aussies, in particular, had a special affection to for Beau - having received a lot of them!

And objectively it was the only airplane that was conspicuously successful in all the major theatres of the second world war. It was used as a heavy fighter (bomber destroyer), night fighter, fighter-bomber, ground attack tank-buster, torpedo bomber, anti-shipping strafing and rocket attack, and in other roles - and it continued to be used after the war, mainly overseas. 

The Beaufighter also performed some of the most spectacular operations of the war, such as this one:

 

Surprisingly, from its looks - with those huge Hercules radial engines - the Beaufighter was remarkably quiet. Especially when flying at ultra-low altitude on ground attack missions. 

This, and its often devastating effectiveness, earned from the Japanese a nickname that translates as Whispering Death.

The Romantic epiphany in Christianity

It is a striking insight when one reflects upon how Christianity (those who followed Jesus Christ) so rapidly and completely evolved from what we know of the teachings of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel...

...To a situation in which "the church" (an always-contested definition) successfully claimed the authority to define Christianity, and to control each Man's access to salvation. 

The Romantic epiphany is that this claim of primary authority by "the church" - however that is defined; and all other such claims that transfer primary Christian authority to any external objective locus: such as scripture, or tradition - Must Be Wrong. 

Must Be - because God the creator, and our loving Father, would obviously not have made the world thus; but would certainly have made a world compatible with the Fourth Gospel vision of individual Men choosing or rejecting each his own salvation - sufficiently guided and consoled by the divine within each Man and by the Holy Ghost. 

Must Be - because God regards each of us as a beloved and unique child, and has made the world such that each child has ultimate control of his own salvation - regardless of circumstances. 

Such is (more or less) the Romantic epiphany.   

Yet - although commonplace now - this Romantic epiphany was not possible until relatively recently - apparently not until the late 1700s, and then only in a few Men in a few places (in Germany, Britain, then France).

It was not possible for ancient Men to have the Romantic epiphany, because their consciousness was different from ours. 

They did not experience themselves - as we do - as essentially cut off from the world and other Men. Instead, they were - to a significant, but varied, extent, naturally, spontaneously, unconsciously immersed-in the world: part of the world. 

Therefore, ancient men could not envisage, could not experience, a religious life that was detached from the human community of "the church". Neither could they envisage life itself outwith the patronage of a leige Lord to whom was owed loyalty - exile from one's community was no better than a living death. 

Ancient Man was substantially and inescapably communal in his consciousness. 

Even, more than a millennium later, by the time of the Reformation - Men's minds had only somewhat detached from the group: Men were 'semi-detached'. Authority was still experienced as ultimately external.

Instead of locating external primary authority in "the church" the Reformers maintained the primacy of external authority and 'merely' transferred it to a book: while maintaining strict control over the interpretation of that book. 

But the condition of modern Man - not chosen, but fated - is one of alienation, of detachment. The Church/ The Bible or any other possible external location is experienced as Other - we are not organically and spontaneously "members" of any human social grouping, nor do we experience any book or scripture as innately authoritative in an objective - group-shared - fashion. 

We each confront the world as an isolated consciousness; whether we like it or not - and for a Christian, therefore, the claims of any external entity to stand between us and God, strikes us as simply, obviously, untrue. 

This is the Romantic epiphany; and once experienced it can never wholly be forgotten or suppressed. The Romantic Christian knows he has direct and personal task in this world, and that responsibility for his salvation lies, inescapably, on his own shoulders.

(Our individuality is, for us, as inescapable as was the communal consciousness of the ancients.) 

The Romantic Christian knows, too, and therefore; that a claim otherwise - a claim that an external is the necessary condition for our personal salvation, regulates our 'access' to resurrected life eternal - a claim that salvation is ultimately described-by or controlled-by any external authority -- is a false claim.

The Romantic epiphany is that nothing - nothing external, not an institution, not a book, not a set of 'authorities', not a practice... ultimately nothing stands between a Man and his choice of whether or not to follow Jesus Christ to Heaven. 

Nobody can give us salvation - except our-selves. Nobody can take away salvation - except our-selves. 

Salvation is as easy as you, me, or any person, saying and meaning Yes to Jesus Christ... And Damnation as easy as saying Yes to Satan. 

Are the demon-serving (or demon-hosting) Establishment afraid of dying? Not necessarily, but increasingly

It is often said on Christian blogs that the demon-serving high-level globalist Establishment (Them) live in fear of death; because They know They are going to Hell. 

But I do not believe that They necessarily live in fear of death. Some do, no doubt - but not all, by any means; and that has been an important fact in the nature of global evil.

But this may be changing; and more and more of the most evil Men of this world may be becoming terrified of the own deaths; and behaving accordingly with their most evil natures...

What follows are my intuitively-guided speculations on this subject.  

Some of Them do not fear death, I think, because in some instances Hell (accurately understood as a personal fate, rather than a uniform destination) is exactly what They desire, and what They prefer to Heaven.

In other words; They have understood and rejected Christ's offer of salvation. They do not wish to affiliate to God's creative intentions, which entail making an eternal and unbreakable commitment to live in Love. They prefer, and choose, Hell (at least, as They understand Hell will be for Themselves). 

Their choice is, instead of Love; to live (after mortal life, as well as in it) especially in-accordance-with that sin to which each is personally most devoted: pride, resentment, fear, lust, sloth, or whatever. (This is well described in CS Lewis's The Great Divorce.)

The question then is: to what extent this choice is fulfilled in actuality? Can They actually get what They most want? 

In other instances, They do not fear death because They do not believe that they personally are going to die. Not fully: not in their essential nature.   

How They believe this continuation of consciousness is to be achieved is necessarily speculative, but I have written on this subject before.  

In a nutshell; I think They believe that They may continue to 'live' because what we might term Dark Magicians purport to conjure animate thought-forms by group activities that entail mental concentration and ritual. 

This is regarded - not as a spiritual activity; but instead as a quasi-science; a manipulation of the material world by means of channeled will. 

(This belief intersects with the most ideological forms of Transhumanism; when people hope for continued life in a 'downloaded', or perhaps transplanted, form of consciousness. This shows how a wholly materialistic/ atheistic perspective can lead to quasi-spiritual hopes and intentions.)

It is the group nature of such Dark Magical activities that lies behind the Ahrimanic, materialist quality of evil that has dominated the world in recent decades. 

In other words; Ahrimanic evil operates by organized, hierarchical, bureaucratic mechanisms - to create a unified global System that is a mechanism for damnation.  

I think it likely that Their oft-observed concern with symbolism, signaling, ritual, pain, sacrifice etc.; is part of a genuinely black-magic orientated group-concern. This is not just about somewhat extending mortal life (although that is part of it); but also, ultimately, (for perhaps the 'chosen few') with attaining a kind of immortality after mortal death in a material but ghostly, or spirit form, 

The personal goal is then to continue (self-gratifying) activities in this world, as an 'honorary demon'; that has been created (and, probably is sustained - because this state is subject to entropy, and therefore needs constant infusion of energy to remain viable) by Black Magical means.

But, having said all this; I also believe that there has been a change in human consciousness over recent generations, but particularly since the millennium; and that part of this change has been a sharp decline in the ability of group-activity to conjure thought-forms. 

This change in Men's consciousness has affected the 'good magic' of Christianity, as well as the black magic of the demonic Establishment. This development has been a part of the decline of church-based Christianity: the fact that it can no longer do for people as much as it used to do. 

Those Christian group practices that used to 'work' reliably and powerfully to sustain and enhance spirituality, are now diminished in effect, and still diminishing. Indeed, for many people in the West; these practices have altogether lost spiritual power; and church activities have declined to a wholly psycho-social and political role.  

However, this development of consciousness must - I think - also have affected the power of Ahrimanic evil - and this will probably be one of the major causes that the cooperation of evil consciousnesses, which sustains The System, is now breaking-down.

I am (again!) talking about the transition between Ahrimanic and Sorathic evil, about which I have written many times before. 

I mean the breakdown of long-termist and coordinated evil by the defection of individual evil Beings; into the chaotic state of many simultaneous personal agendas each characterized by short-termist and destructive spite.

This is something that can be observed in the world today. The globalist alliance that launched a successful (covert) coup in early 2020 has, this year, fractured geo-politically into Anglosphere/ Western European 'West' and its vassal states; versus the others. 

Furthermore, The West has fractured such that the dominant elements are beginning to destroy the vassal states by acts of sabotage - financial, economic, demographic - and recently actual physical sabotage. 

This must have a confidence-shattering effect on many Establishment members who, until recently, 'trusted' that They would be exempted from the planned mass destruction; and would be rewarded for Their cooperation by eternal 'life' - among other and more immediate gratifications. 

Whether the evil-Establishment were correct to trust in the integrity of the principalities of evil is, for Christians, a question that answers itself! Yet, such Faustian stupidity is a fact of human life. Many Men have believed that Their cooperation with The Plan would win personal rewards; believed that They had a contract with evil, an agreement that evil would "honour"... 

(Despite that the powers of evil cannot be trusted; and will lie and cheat as is expedient - or as provides Them with some kind of sadistic enjoyment.)

Anyway, the hope was that They could achieve a kind of eternal existence of self-gratifying worldly activity.

There must, I think, have been some such 'trust' between lower and higher evil-souls - however misguided - in order to enlist the cooperation of so many individuals in so many nations. 

Many of These are now realizing that They have-been, or soon will-be, betrayed.

They face a dawning awareness of the terror of bodily annihilation and eternal spiritual torment. 

Of course; this betrayal and disillusionment opens a window to repentance; to affiliate with God and accept the salvation of Jesus Christ. 

In this mortal life it is never too late to repent - although it gets harder and more painful, the further advanced in evil a soul has gone. 

But, when repentance is rejected, realization may lead instead to a kind of destructive frenzy of vengeance - the desire to inflict as much suffering on others as possible, before falling into the pit oneself. 

This very purely negative form of evil, a 'lashing-out' which takes 'pleasure' only in the doing of evil and not in rewards from so doing; is what I call Sorathic - and it seems to be gathering strength, perhaps especially in the Establishment of the dominant Western power: the USA. 

I would guess that the 'promised' reward of an eternal life of personal satisfaction was, at best - only ever, in practice, short-term. 

Sooner rather than later; the promised rewards are revoked, and the self-gratifications of eternal living are inverted into a state of eternal slavery; a continued existence only as objects of torment for the pleasure of other evil beings - who are Themselves destined for the same fate.  

As the cabal of organized evil breaks down; such betrayals will be happening, and be observed; more and more often; and no doubt some terrible conclusions will be drawn. 

If this interpretation is correct, and the Dark Magician cabal is increasingly breaking-down into mutual warring factions; factions that then themselves splinter break-down into each against all - then these times are both very dangerous and somewhat hopeful. 

Christians are no longer up-against a coordinated conspiracy - which is good. But those evil Beings (human, as well as demonic) that remain powerful in this world, will feel that - now that their chance at 'eternal life' is gone' - They have nothing to gain from long-termism or cooperation;: nothing to lose' by sheer spitefulness. 

They seem highly likely to behave in an increasingly reckless and frenziedly destructive manner - whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself. 

Be Prepared (spiritually, I mean).