*
The idea of compensation seems to be built into humans at some level -
I mean the assumption that if a person has some obvious defect then there will
be some compensatory gift, ability or virtue.
I would say that there is
not much empirical evidence for this being true, probably more against it being true - but it
seems to be something we feel or expect anyway.
Therefore; I assume the law of compensation is a metaphysical truth, something built-into us as a principle of reality - something which is true despite appearances.
If we knew more, and saw more (more widely, more deeply), then we would all perceive compensation at work all of the time; but, as it is, the reality of compensation is more like a hunch, a suspicion, or a hope.
*
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query compensation. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query compensation. Sort by date Show all posts
Saturday, 21 February 2015
Tuesday, 29 April 2014
Compensation and Christianity - some of those who have difficulty with churches are cats, not goats?
*
Given that people are so different one from another, it would make sense from a Christian perspective if there were different possible paths through life - it would make sense if personality and ability were subject to a law of compensation.
(Otherwise, surely we would all be born the same? - equally well fitted to following the usual path.)
*
In other words, if disadvantages from one perspective were actually advantages from another perspective: then self-knowledge could be used to chart a potentially successful and valid course through life.
The only major alternative to compensation would seem to be that most people are born seriously defective - and (through no fault of their own that they know of) have very little chance of making any spiritual progress/ theosis - and indeed are highly likely to fall back into sin and damnation.
*
This implies that people with personality types that are impulsive, aggressive, unempathic, solitary and so on - in other words people whose basic character is so ill-suited to church membership and the usually-best path - 'must' have compensatory advantages.
If these advantages could be discovered, and understood from a Christian perspective - then many more people might be able to regard themselves as Christian; and accept Christ's salvation, and embark of a successful life of spiritual progression - even when their relationship with the groups of people who constitute the churches would necessarily be either distant or uncomfortable.
*
In fact, not only should such people (must they) have a valid path to Christian spiritual progression - but this path 'must' also be one that enhances the spiritual progress of other people including those whose personality and path lies within the church (if regarded in the proper light - if properly understood and appropriately used).
*
Perhaps this is another, and better, way of regarding those who are too awkward a fit for the church - instead of trying to hammer square pegs into round holes pre-prepared for them...
Or, to change the metaphor, instead of regarding the non-sheep - who will not stay with the herd - as necessarily goats (although some will be goats); could not some such people instead be regarded as cats?
You cannot herd cats like sheep can be herded - and cats are often selfish, solitary and lazy; but there is such a thing as a Good cat!
**
The fullest description of Compensation - indeed although inspired, beautiful and assured; nonetheless a very extreme and unconvincing account - comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay of that name:
http://www.emersoncentral.com/compensation.htm
***
Note added - to extend/ torture the sheep/ goats/ cats metaphor even further, it should be noted that most of the most public dissenters and critics and leavers of the real Christian churches of the past several decades are none of these - but might be termed Black Sheep. That is to say the 'Liberals' who are constantly engaged in attacking and subverting the real Christian churches are sheep - but they are sheep of another religion - they are sheep of secular Leftism.
That is: they are sheep like in terms of their docility, obedience, conscientiousness, empathy, groupishness and general herd-ability - they are 'joiners'. They are not independent-minded cats, they are merely looking for a different kind of herd: as I say, sheep of secular Leftism.
Another groups are 'sheep of a different species' - that is, they are real Christian sheep, but looking for a different Christian herd: for example those real Christians who change to another real Christian denomination. The sincere ones do so - not to find somewhere less onerous and where they can be more disobedient and get away with it - but in order to find a church where they can be more involved, more devout, more strict in their obedience to the church's rules.
*
Given that people are so different one from another, it would make sense from a Christian perspective if there were different possible paths through life - it would make sense if personality and ability were subject to a law of compensation.
(Otherwise, surely we would all be born the same? - equally well fitted to following the usual path.)
*
In other words, if disadvantages from one perspective were actually advantages from another perspective: then self-knowledge could be used to chart a potentially successful and valid course through life.
The only major alternative to compensation would seem to be that most people are born seriously defective - and (through no fault of their own that they know of) have very little chance of making any spiritual progress/ theosis - and indeed are highly likely to fall back into sin and damnation.
*
This implies that people with personality types that are impulsive, aggressive, unempathic, solitary and so on - in other words people whose basic character is so ill-suited to church membership and the usually-best path - 'must' have compensatory advantages.
If these advantages could be discovered, and understood from a Christian perspective - then many more people might be able to regard themselves as Christian; and accept Christ's salvation, and embark of a successful life of spiritual progression - even when their relationship with the groups of people who constitute the churches would necessarily be either distant or uncomfortable.
*
In fact, not only should such people (must they) have a valid path to Christian spiritual progression - but this path 'must' also be one that enhances the spiritual progress of other people including those whose personality and path lies within the church (if regarded in the proper light - if properly understood and appropriately used).
*
Perhaps this is another, and better, way of regarding those who are too awkward a fit for the church - instead of trying to hammer square pegs into round holes pre-prepared for them...
Or, to change the metaphor, instead of regarding the non-sheep - who will not stay with the herd - as necessarily goats (although some will be goats); could not some such people instead be regarded as cats?
You cannot herd cats like sheep can be herded - and cats are often selfish, solitary and lazy; but there is such a thing as a Good cat!
**
The fullest description of Compensation - indeed although inspired, beautiful and assured; nonetheless a very extreme and unconvincing account - comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay of that name:
http://www.emersoncentral.com/compensation.htm
***
Note added - to extend/ torture the sheep/ goats/ cats metaphor even further, it should be noted that most of the most public dissenters and critics and leavers of the real Christian churches of the past several decades are none of these - but might be termed Black Sheep. That is to say the 'Liberals' who are constantly engaged in attacking and subverting the real Christian churches are sheep - but they are sheep of another religion - they are sheep of secular Leftism.
That is: they are sheep like in terms of their docility, obedience, conscientiousness, empathy, groupishness and general herd-ability - they are 'joiners'. They are not independent-minded cats, they are merely looking for a different kind of herd: as I say, sheep of secular Leftism.
Another groups are 'sheep of a different species' - that is, they are real Christian sheep, but looking for a different Christian herd: for example those real Christians who change to another real Christian denomination. The sincere ones do so - not to find somewhere less onerous and where they can be more disobedient and get away with it - but in order to find a church where they can be more involved, more devout, more strict in their obedience to the church's rules.
*
Saturday, 12 December 2015
Compensation
Compensation is the universal rule of life - as Ralph Waldo Emerson intuited.
When worldly fellowship is lacking, God will ensure that we do not lack for other-worldly fellowship.
(On condition of our choices and effort, of our repentance and self-correction.)
The rise of fantasy literature, and indeed the whole positive side of the arts, sciences, mass media and modern communications is a part of this: almost all technology, despite its being overall and in intention destructive, but makes it possible to find compensatory good.
The modern situation that creates the problem will (or some adjacent aspect will) create new possibilities of solution that are sufficient to the problem.
So - as the social nature of society is subverted and suppressed, and collapses around us; we have a multitude of new communications with fellows emerging - to some extent even in this mortal world, but also in the other and invisible world - the imagination.
(Which is, of course, a real place with real and valid content!)
When worldly fellowship is lacking, God will ensure that we do not lack for other-worldly fellowship.
(On condition of our choices and effort, of our repentance and self-correction.)
The rise of fantasy literature, and indeed the whole positive side of the arts, sciences, mass media and modern communications is a part of this: almost all technology, despite its being overall and in intention destructive, but makes it possible to find compensatory good.
The modern situation that creates the problem will (or some adjacent aspect will) create new possibilities of solution that are sufficient to the problem.
So - as the social nature of society is subverted and suppressed, and collapses around us; we have a multitude of new communications with fellows emerging - to some extent even in this mortal world, but also in the other and invisible world - the imagination.
(Which is, of course, a real place with real and valid content!)
RW Emerson's essay Compensation
Wednesday, 10 November 2021
The Great Compensation - or, the unprecedented clarity and simplicity of Christianity Now
One of the good, positive things about these evil-dominated end times is that - probably for the first time since the ascension of Christ - the simplicity of 'being a Christian' has become evident.
This has happened because the core business of this mortal life of Man is being thrust upon us willy-nilly, like it or not.
The World is becoming more evil, and anyone who desires to stand against this invasive evil finds himself with ever-less worldly (and societal) assistance. The erstwhile support of the Christian-named churches has fallen-away and indeed (mostly) switched sides.
True information about Christianity, and true concepts with-which to understand information, is almost impossibly difficult to find among the truly immense quantity of disinformation, and varieties of distortion.
One of the (many) adverse effects of the churches is a combination of distraction and misplaced emphasis. So many Christians are expending all their (already too limited) attention and efforts on secondary or even irrelevant matters that have near-zero significance for the situation of people here and now - such that they do not help the Christian, and tend to block his ability to discover help.
The consequence is a stripping-away of a great deal that has been regarded as of core importance to 'being a Christian' - and the emergence of a stark and (potentially) saving simplicity.
This is a glorious phenomenon to behold! Individuals from all sorts of backgrounds of tradition and denomination (or none) are finding the path and finding direct and personal strength in their Christian faith - and finding too that they recognize each other with startling clarity and certainty.
Arguments and 'evidence' are falling away to be replaced by a direct-knowledge of what is Good and Necessary...
Amidst the rampant triumph of purposive evil - this marvelous Great Compensation is at work!
Sunday, 22 November 2020
Forgiveness necessary even in Heaven? Yes.
There is a point of view that regards the requirement for forgiveness as sub-optimal, in the sense that 'If God knew his business, there would be nothing to forgive'. In other words, there are some who think that life ought to be perfect, and if so then there would be no need to forgive, because nothing even sub-optimal (let alone bad) would ever happen.
And some people see Heaven that way. As a place of always-perfection. With zero need for forgiveness.
But I see Heaven as a place of Love, and Love is creative, creation (like Love) is dynamic - and if heaven is a dynamic situation, a place of doing; then it does not make sense to regard Heaven as the kind of perfection that is unvarying, unchanging.
That ends-up with something more like a blissful/ static 'Nirvana' than Christian Heaven - which is made by a personal and loving God for his divine children - who remain persons (and are resurrected, presumably with unique bodies).
My understanding of Heaven is that our main 'work' there (which is also the highest form of play) is to participate in God's on-going loving-creation. Thus Heaven is a place where there are many creators, in addition to God; each an unique person.
This means that all these individual creators need to be brought into harmony; or else there would be a clash and opposition of creative activities - as there is on earth.
My understanding is that this Heavenly harmony of multiple creation is quite naturally achieved by Love. If we have experience of a loving family, we already know that the individuals are continually - quite naturally and spontaneously - making their (creative) contributions to family living within this imperative of Love. So the many acts of many individuals are, over time, harmonised by Love.
But at any given moment-in-time, there are dissonant aspects.
Individuals are motivated by Love - nonetheless, the distal consequences of their love-motivated actions are not wholly predictable - and things may turn out worse than intended, errors will be made; there is need for compensatory correction.
Here in mortal life on earth; our creations are temporary, because every-thing is temporary. So many mistakes and errors of creation just disappear over time. But in Heaven, all the creation is eternal. What then happens to the inevitable errors?
Well, in Heaven errors cannot be erased - but they are compensated. I believe that compensation must be a divine principle.
Of course, compensation is important here on earth as well. As a family member, we may do something, and it turns out badly - we have made an error. Often this cannot be undone, and so we do our best to compensate for it.
That - I assume - is the nature of creation. Creation is full of errors, and full of conpensations.
Over time, mistakes are compensated - but they are still present. Still woven into the fabric of reality...
And this is the reason why forgiveness is vital for Christians.
Love does not lead to perfection, Love cannot prevent all errors. Therefore we can, should - and in Heaven we Do - compentate for our errors (repentance in action!).
Yet those errors remain, and therefore need to be forgiven.
Forgiveness is integral to the functioning of Heaven - Forgiveness is, indeed, integral to Love.
The same happens here in mortal life on earth. There are no 'perfect' parents, siblings or children - and we should not want any such nonsense. But there are (within earthly constraints) Loving family.
(If you must have perfection; then 'the perfect family' is simply a perfectly-loving family.)
Loving parents, sibs or kids will make mistakes - they surely will...
And therefore these mistakes must be forgiven if Family Living is to be maintained - on earth as it is in Heaven.
Indeed loving errors are forgiven, quite naturally and spontaneously, when Love is present and effective. It is only the incomplete and transient nature of love in this earthly life that causes problems. In Heaven, we shall be resurrected to eternal life, with a permanent commitment to Love.
Eternal Love between all persons is what makes Heaven heavenly - and forgiveness is just one of the many consequences.
Thursday, 30 January 2020
As worldly possibilities diminish, do the possibilities for theosis increase? Compensation in action?
We can see clearly that the possibilities for a traditional Christianity have diminished over recent generations, and are now at a very low ebb. Laws and regulations are increasingly anti-Christian; scripture translations and priest/ pastor teachings are deeply subverted or even inverted. All the Western Churches are declining fast; and the possibilities of leading a 'Christian Life' greatly reduced.
However, it is possible that as the possibilities for Christianity in This World has dwindled, we may be being offered the chance of an unprecedented ('compensatory') expansion of scope in our preparation for the life beyond death.
This can be understood in terms of Christianity as a member of a group, contrasted with Christianity as an individual. Christianity as a group-member, as a social activity, is what has been damaged so much - indeed 'damage' hardly covers it; since many self-identified Christian groups are almost-wholly Left-political in their major doctrines and activities; hence actively anti-Christian in their net-effect.
But if Christianity is seen as primarily orientated beyond This World, beyond our biological death, and towards Jesus's gift of resurrected life everlasting in Heaven - we may discover new, unprecedented, possibilities.
For those who want to accept Christ's gift; those who love and trust Jesus to guide them to Heaven - then salvation is assured and the problem of this mortal life becomes focused our our personal preparation - that is, our personal spiritual development towards what God want us to become.
As God wants us ultimately to become full sons and daughter of God (like Jesus), that is to become 'gods' ourselves, within God's own creation; our task is one of development, learning, growth.
This is termed 'theosis' - the process of becoming more divine; and it begins as soon as the gift of salvation is accepted. That is, it begins in mortal earthly life; and continues in resurrected eternal life.
If it is God's intention that each of us be an unique member of the Heavenly family, then our task here on earth is to make the best of our specifically mortal experiences. Since God is creator and placed us in his creation, for our benefit; we can assume that our actual life contains the experiences we need to pursue theosis in our own unique direction.
The transition is from Christianity conceptualised as part of a group (i.e. a church), with its primary value of obedience to the group norms (and societal group norms being Christian - as with a Christian monarchy); to what I have termed Romantic Christianity - meaning Christianity primarily based upon personal discernment, direct experience, individual responsibility.
This transition is (to a significant extent) an enhancement of our ability to pursue theosis in the way that is entailed by our own personal destiny; and to learn to rely upon our individual powers of discernment, and to develop our own inner guidance system in direct consultation with Holy Ghost.
Another way of looking at it is that modern Christianity must become much more active; since passive obedience to group norms leads away from Christianity, and towards demonic and even Satanic goals.
For example, conformity to the goals of any modern bureaucracy (including bureaucracies of the mainstream churches, which are multiply-entwined with the State and other bureaucracies such as law, police, education - all of which are 'converged' onto the primary pursuit of anti-Christian Leftism.
So obedience to almost any group is increasingly conformity to the single global Establishment agenda of evil.
A specific example may help: sexual ethics. In the past (200 plus years ago) a Western Christian would simply have needed to obey the laws of his society and obey the teachings of his church in order to lead a Christian sexual life. Passive conformity to group was pretty much sufficient to attain ethical sexual behaviour.
Nowadays, political, social, educational, employment, mass media and (most) church norms are aligned towards anti-Christian sexuality: in sum, group ethical values are substantially inverted when it comes to sex and sexuality. So, passive conformity to group (including mainstream church) norms will lead to unChristian sexual behaviour.
Therefore, in order for a modern Western Christian to attain Christian sexual ethics, he will need to develop his own powers of spiritual discernment, will need to take an active role in seeking individual and direct knowledge by consultation with 'God-within' (which we all have by 'inheritance' through being Sons of God) and by consulting with the Holy Ghost in prayer and meditation.
The modern Christian will need to take personal responsibility for his faith, to be prepared to go-it-alone in dissent from social groupings (including many churches); and to operate by an explicit process of intuition. He will need to seek and learn-from his own experiences.
This means that modern Christians are - in order to remain Christians - compelled to develop their autonomy via a direct relation to God and Jesus Christ via the Holy Ghost.
These conditions (the actual conditions of your life and mine) are likely very well-suited to the development of individual spiritual strength, near-ideal for learning spiritual discernment and personal, close-to-perfect for ultimately developing each Christian into a more distinctive divine friend for God.
In sum, I am suggesting that this is an example of what RW Emerson termed Compensation.
Christians may benefit from embracing the possibilities for theosis that have been enhanced by our actual socio-political conditions in The West today.
In this sense, we can see that our times are those of unprecedented opportunities - as well as being times of unprecedented evil.
The necessary difference in attitude seems to be whether:1. We continue to orientate our lives around this mortal life, or 2. Whether we orientate towards eternity.
However, it is possible that as the possibilities for Christianity in This World has dwindled, we may be being offered the chance of an unprecedented ('compensatory') expansion of scope in our preparation for the life beyond death.
This can be understood in terms of Christianity as a member of a group, contrasted with Christianity as an individual. Christianity as a group-member, as a social activity, is what has been damaged so much - indeed 'damage' hardly covers it; since many self-identified Christian groups are almost-wholly Left-political in their major doctrines and activities; hence actively anti-Christian in their net-effect.
But if Christianity is seen as primarily orientated beyond This World, beyond our biological death, and towards Jesus's gift of resurrected life everlasting in Heaven - we may discover new, unprecedented, possibilities.
For those who want to accept Christ's gift; those who love and trust Jesus to guide them to Heaven - then salvation is assured and the problem of this mortal life becomes focused our our personal preparation - that is, our personal spiritual development towards what God want us to become.
As God wants us ultimately to become full sons and daughter of God (like Jesus), that is to become 'gods' ourselves, within God's own creation; our task is one of development, learning, growth.
This is termed 'theosis' - the process of becoming more divine; and it begins as soon as the gift of salvation is accepted. That is, it begins in mortal earthly life; and continues in resurrected eternal life.
If it is God's intention that each of us be an unique member of the Heavenly family, then our task here on earth is to make the best of our specifically mortal experiences. Since God is creator and placed us in his creation, for our benefit; we can assume that our actual life contains the experiences we need to pursue theosis in our own unique direction.
The transition is from Christianity conceptualised as part of a group (i.e. a church), with its primary value of obedience to the group norms (and societal group norms being Christian - as with a Christian monarchy); to what I have termed Romantic Christianity - meaning Christianity primarily based upon personal discernment, direct experience, individual responsibility.
This transition is (to a significant extent) an enhancement of our ability to pursue theosis in the way that is entailed by our own personal destiny; and to learn to rely upon our individual powers of discernment, and to develop our own inner guidance system in direct consultation with Holy Ghost.
Another way of looking at it is that modern Christianity must become much more active; since passive obedience to group norms leads away from Christianity, and towards demonic and even Satanic goals.
For example, conformity to the goals of any modern bureaucracy (including bureaucracies of the mainstream churches, which are multiply-entwined with the State and other bureaucracies such as law, police, education - all of which are 'converged' onto the primary pursuit of anti-Christian Leftism.
So obedience to almost any group is increasingly conformity to the single global Establishment agenda of evil.
A specific example may help: sexual ethics. In the past (200 plus years ago) a Western Christian would simply have needed to obey the laws of his society and obey the teachings of his church in order to lead a Christian sexual life. Passive conformity to group was pretty much sufficient to attain ethical sexual behaviour.
Nowadays, political, social, educational, employment, mass media and (most) church norms are aligned towards anti-Christian sexuality: in sum, group ethical values are substantially inverted when it comes to sex and sexuality. So, passive conformity to group (including mainstream church) norms will lead to unChristian sexual behaviour.
Therefore, in order for a modern Western Christian to attain Christian sexual ethics, he will need to develop his own powers of spiritual discernment, will need to take an active role in seeking individual and direct knowledge by consultation with 'God-within' (which we all have by 'inheritance' through being Sons of God) and by consulting with the Holy Ghost in prayer and meditation.
The modern Christian will need to take personal responsibility for his faith, to be prepared to go-it-alone in dissent from social groupings (including many churches); and to operate by an explicit process of intuition. He will need to seek and learn-from his own experiences.
This means that modern Christians are - in order to remain Christians - compelled to develop their autonomy via a direct relation to God and Jesus Christ via the Holy Ghost.
These conditions (the actual conditions of your life and mine) are likely very well-suited to the development of individual spiritual strength, near-ideal for learning spiritual discernment and personal, close-to-perfect for ultimately developing each Christian into a more distinctive divine friend for God.
In sum, I am suggesting that this is an example of what RW Emerson termed Compensation.
Christians may benefit from embracing the possibilities for theosis that have been enhanced by our actual socio-political conditions in The West today.
In this sense, we can see that our times are those of unprecedented opportunities - as well as being times of unprecedented evil.
The necessary difference in attitude seems to be whether:1. We continue to orientate our lives around this mortal life, or 2. Whether we orientate towards eternity.
Monday, 30 December 2019
A world where all 'sides' are evil-motivated (but a world where Good is easily discerned)
We are moving towards (indeed we are already in, all-but) a world where all the sides are evil-motivated - that is they are overall, in net effect, operating against God/ Good and the continuing divine creation.
When we look at any large, significant, powerful, wealthy, mainstream institutions/ organisations/ corporations - we find that All Of Them are (overall, n net effect) on the side of evil. Political parties and government agancies and charities, law and medicine, hospitals, schools and colleges, artistic and scientific, military and police, journalstic and media, churches... all significant institutions are on teh side of evil.
We maybe grew-up supposing that there were some Good and some evil institutions, and our job was to discern and support the Good against the wicked - but now they are all wicked. Whoever we support, we are supporting evil; whenever we oppose, we oppose attributes shared by those we support.
Look within these institutions - there are inner groups and divisions; there is hierarchy and functional specialisation. We are used to a world when some of these inner divisions are Good and others not; when (say) doctors and nurses groups are Good and managers and public relations are wicked; when scientists and teachers are Good but administrators not...
Nowadays, all the significant internal groups are on the side of evil - overall, and usually by a large predominance. What may have been good sub-groups are by now long-since subverted.
Therefore, when we work-with, deal-with any significant institution, all significant institutions - we need to assume that every hierarchical and functional subdivision has by now, long since, been corrupted into the service of evil.
In sum: We Are On Our Own... It is us-against-the-world.
Fortunately, thought is free - if we choose to be free.
But of course, that is the exact problem - that most people, most of the time, choose not to be free. That is their decision, for which they only are responsible, ultimately.
Bu the fact is that we are free in our thought, and while discernment of good from evil was often difficult in the past, it is now very easy!
This World is devoted to value inversion - hence every institution and group is obviously evil in its intent, and obviously incoherent in its labile, tactical opposition to God/ Good/ Creation.
Why obvious? Well, we have built-in, natural spontaneous values - and these are contradicted by mainstream modernity. We have access to divine revelations from the Holy Ghost, and these are contradicted by all of the 'sides' offered to us in our lives.
Comparing the built-in and revelatory true values with those inverted values of The World, everyone can know for themselves (from themselves) what is evil.
It is a matter of compensation. As the world becomes more-wholly and more-extremely evil, that evil becomes obvious to the meanest individual. And, in a world where Jesus has offered salvation to all who love and follow him; simply to know Good from evil and to take the side of Good is sufficient.
This is not about what we Do but what we Know.
What we do may be coerced, what we know is our own business - unless we choose otherwise.
In the end we have no-one to blame but our-selves.
When we look at any large, significant, powerful, wealthy, mainstream institutions/ organisations/ corporations - we find that All Of Them are (overall, n net effect) on the side of evil. Political parties and government agancies and charities, law and medicine, hospitals, schools and colleges, artistic and scientific, military and police, journalstic and media, churches... all significant institutions are on teh side of evil.
We maybe grew-up supposing that there were some Good and some evil institutions, and our job was to discern and support the Good against the wicked - but now they are all wicked. Whoever we support, we are supporting evil; whenever we oppose, we oppose attributes shared by those we support.
Look within these institutions - there are inner groups and divisions; there is hierarchy and functional specialisation. We are used to a world when some of these inner divisions are Good and others not; when (say) doctors and nurses groups are Good and managers and public relations are wicked; when scientists and teachers are Good but administrators not...
Nowadays, all the significant internal groups are on the side of evil - overall, and usually by a large predominance. What may have been good sub-groups are by now long-since subverted.
Therefore, when we work-with, deal-with any significant institution, all significant institutions - we need to assume that every hierarchical and functional subdivision has by now, long since, been corrupted into the service of evil.
In sum: We Are On Our Own... It is us-against-the-world.
Fortunately, thought is free - if we choose to be free.
But of course, that is the exact problem - that most people, most of the time, choose not to be free. That is their decision, for which they only are responsible, ultimately.
Bu the fact is that we are free in our thought, and while discernment of good from evil was often difficult in the past, it is now very easy!
This World is devoted to value inversion - hence every institution and group is obviously evil in its intent, and obviously incoherent in its labile, tactical opposition to God/ Good/ Creation.
Why obvious? Well, we have built-in, natural spontaneous values - and these are contradicted by mainstream modernity. We have access to divine revelations from the Holy Ghost, and these are contradicted by all of the 'sides' offered to us in our lives.
Comparing the built-in and revelatory true values with those inverted values of The World, everyone can know for themselves (from themselves) what is evil.
It is a matter of compensation. As the world becomes more-wholly and more-extremely evil, that evil becomes obvious to the meanest individual. And, in a world where Jesus has offered salvation to all who love and follow him; simply to know Good from evil and to take the side of Good is sufficient.
This is not about what we Do but what we Know.
What we do may be coerced, what we know is our own business - unless we choose otherwise.
In the end we have no-one to blame but our-selves.
Friday, 17 October 2014
Power, potential, pride: Tolkien's parable of Numenor
*
There is no single lesson to derive from the Numenor parable; a true myth is not an allegory but a sub-creation with a life of its own.
But Tolkien's version of the Atlantis theme (deriving from Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, and long regarded as, at least, semi-historical) is something I find ever-more resonant.
*
The Numenoreans were the minority of mortal Men who had fought alongside Elves and Valar to overthrow the evil god Morgoth.
As a reward and compensation for destruction of their lands; by the gods these Men were given peace and plenty, their bodies were enhanced in strength and stature, they were freed from bodily suffering and illness, they were given a beautiful and safe island in which to dwell - out of reach of Middle Earth, their intelligence and skill were enhanced - including the use of magic, they had the friendship and help of the High Elves.
Their life span was extended about threefold, so they would have enough time to bring their schemes to fruition.
The Numenoreans were thus made super-Men; but they remained Men: mortal Men.
And for all their enhancements they had the faults of Men.
*
What did they do - what did they make of their opportunities?
For a while they were satisfied to live well - enjoying the simple things of human life enriched by disinterested learning, art, and religion - and faithfully accepted death when it was due...
Then they became scholars, scientists and technologists; almost matching the High Elves in their ingenious devices; and surpassing them in becoming the greatest mariners the world had seen, the greatest military power...
For a while.
*
But soon they got bored, felt constrained, wanted a change, wanted power and wealth and luxury and to dominate, wanted the worship and subservience of lesser men - wanted all this and nothing less than than all this; here, now and forever.
Wanted perfect satisfaction of all their desires: Good and evil.
Wanted permanent worldly gratification.
*
They rejected beauty for power, science for magic, rejected truth and freedom for propaganda and totalitarian coercion, disbelieved in the virtue of the one God and his Valar - eventually, in a final rapid spiral-down into the pit, embraced the worship of 'the dark lord' Morgoth and the High Priest status of Sauron, because they believed he could grant them their desires.
Other Men of Middle Earth then feared them; they were terrorized, exploited, enslaved, sacrificed.
Sensing their own degeneration and decline, ignoring argument, refusing repentance; the Numenoreans built a massive armament and assaulted the gods by force, invaded the undying lands to take what they wanted - to be immortal gods on earth...
And by direct act of The One (Eru, God); the invading army was destroyed, Numenor itself was destroyed, all its people were destroyed (except for a small surviving minority resident in Middle Earth or swept there in ships) by a cataclysmic remaking of the world.
In grasping at gratification of all their desires and forever, they embraced destruction: nihilism.
*
Numenor is modern man, conceptualized as being enhanced in both individual and social capability but failing to use these gifts for spiritual purposes; and instead pursuing more and ever-more personal and material goals, never satisfied, insatiable - grasping at more life, more power, more pleasure; at first with energy and zeal, then with fear and exhaustion, finally with despair and insane self-hatred...
*
Repentance and renewal was possible for Numenor at any moment up until the last moment - they were given chance after chance. The gods and The One held back their justice until they had no choice but to act.
But repentance was always blocked by pride.
At the end, the Numenoreans were, as a culture, insane, having embraced insanity by incremental steps, until - I guess, perhaps - the clearing of illusion at the very end. At the very end when utter failure was obvious and imminent, it is likely that death and destruction, annihilation, was actually chosen.
Chosen on the same basis that Denethor (one of the last true Numenoreans) described in his despair:
"...if doom denies this to me, then I will have naught: neither life diminished, nor love halved, nor honour abated. (...) But in this at least thou shalt not defy my will: to rule my own end."
Thus is pride the strongest of sins, thus is damnation chosen at the last.
*
There is no single lesson to derive from the Numenor parable; a true myth is not an allegory but a sub-creation with a life of its own.
But Tolkien's version of the Atlantis theme (deriving from Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, and long regarded as, at least, semi-historical) is something I find ever-more resonant.
*
The Numenoreans were the minority of mortal Men who had fought alongside Elves and Valar to overthrow the evil god Morgoth.
As a reward and compensation for destruction of their lands; by the gods these Men were given peace and plenty, their bodies were enhanced in strength and stature, they were freed from bodily suffering and illness, they were given a beautiful and safe island in which to dwell - out of reach of Middle Earth, their intelligence and skill were enhanced - including the use of magic, they had the friendship and help of the High Elves.
Their life span was extended about threefold, so they would have enough time to bring their schemes to fruition.
The Numenoreans were thus made super-Men; but they remained Men: mortal Men.
And for all their enhancements they had the faults of Men.
*
What did they do - what did they make of their opportunities?
For a while they were satisfied to live well - enjoying the simple things of human life enriched by disinterested learning, art, and religion - and faithfully accepted death when it was due...
Then they became scholars, scientists and technologists; almost matching the High Elves in their ingenious devices; and surpassing them in becoming the greatest mariners the world had seen, the greatest military power...
For a while.
*
But soon they got bored, felt constrained, wanted a change, wanted power and wealth and luxury and to dominate, wanted the worship and subservience of lesser men - wanted all this and nothing less than than all this; here, now and forever.
Wanted perfect satisfaction of all their desires: Good and evil.
Wanted permanent worldly gratification.
*
They rejected beauty for power, science for magic, rejected truth and freedom for propaganda and totalitarian coercion, disbelieved in the virtue of the one God and his Valar - eventually, in a final rapid spiral-down into the pit, embraced the worship of 'the dark lord' Morgoth and the High Priest status of Sauron, because they believed he could grant them their desires.
Other Men of Middle Earth then feared them; they were terrorized, exploited, enslaved, sacrificed.
Sensing their own degeneration and decline, ignoring argument, refusing repentance; the Numenoreans built a massive armament and assaulted the gods by force, invaded the undying lands to take what they wanted - to be immortal gods on earth...
And by direct act of The One (Eru, God); the invading army was destroyed, Numenor itself was destroyed, all its people were destroyed (except for a small surviving minority resident in Middle Earth or swept there in ships) by a cataclysmic remaking of the world.
In grasping at gratification of all their desires and forever, they embraced destruction: nihilism.
*
Numenor is modern man, conceptualized as being enhanced in both individual and social capability but failing to use these gifts for spiritual purposes; and instead pursuing more and ever-more personal and material goals, never satisfied, insatiable - grasping at more life, more power, more pleasure; at first with energy and zeal, then with fear and exhaustion, finally with despair and insane self-hatred...
*
Repentance and renewal was possible for Numenor at any moment up until the last moment - they were given chance after chance. The gods and The One held back their justice until they had no choice but to act.
But repentance was always blocked by pride.
At the end, the Numenoreans were, as a culture, insane, having embraced insanity by incremental steps, until - I guess, perhaps - the clearing of illusion at the very end. At the very end when utter failure was obvious and imminent, it is likely that death and destruction, annihilation, was actually chosen.
Chosen on the same basis that Denethor (one of the last true Numenoreans) described in his despair:
"...if doom denies this to me, then I will have naught: neither life diminished, nor love halved, nor honour abated. (...) But in this at least thou shalt not defy my will: to rule my own end."
Thus is pride the strongest of sins, thus is damnation chosen at the last.
*
Thursday, 10 July 2014
Population replacement in Britain - understanding its origins, following through its implications
*
The population of Britain is rapidly being replaced; from a combination of severe sub-fertility among the native population combined with year-upon-year massive immigration.
The sub-fertility aspect was brought home to me when I recently visited that rare thing - an English city which has had near zero immigration over the past fifteen years.
What struck me (before I had even figured out the reason) was that so many of the people around were old.
This brought home to me the deep reason behind population replacement; which is that the British reject religion and (therefore) refuse to reproduce.
*
Christianity has dwindled and declined in Britain to a much greater extent than is superficially obvious - because most self-identified Christians are - overall, in effect - anti-Christian; and this applies especially to the Christian leadership, who are Leftist fifth columnists that have subverted, hollowed-out and all-but destroyed all of the mainstream churches (the Church of England; the major Nonconformist churches such as Methodists, Quakers, Presbyterians; and the Roman Catholic church).
This mass apostasy is the root of a profound nihilistic demotivation which characterizes British life and is revealed most objectively (and lethally) in the incremental collapse of marriage and families, late fertility and massive sub-fertility most obvious among the skilled, educated and leadership classes.
*
Continued rapid mass immigration of any kind is very obviously a form of social suicide - and the British kind is perhaps more obviously so than most - so it is interesting to consider how a nation can do this to itself.
Mass immigration is indeed an active, deliberate and destructive strategy on the part of the British rulers - and this is a consequence of their characteristic self-hatred and smug, moralizing spite; and a thing only possible when people live inside the mass media, rather than being located in their own common sense and experience.
But equally striking is the bland, inert, passive consent (or at least placid acquiescence) of the mass majority of the British population - albeit that this is an engineered consent, yet there is little or no resistance to the engineering.
*
This is indeed near the root of the matter, and was starkly revealed by the picture of an English city without immigration; a city in which the population was almost visibly crumbling; the long term consequence of several generations in which purpose has weakened, sickened and almost died.
This is population failure at the most basic biological level.
The impression was of a people with nothing to hope for, therefore waiting to die, and therefore (at best) wrapped-up in the daily minutiae of media diversion and the pleasures of consumption; sometimes quiet, well-behaved, smart and cultured - sometimes aggressive, offensive, self-mutilated and destructive.
*
It is not so much that the mass of the British people actively-want to be replaced by a collection of various other people from other places - eventually to be dominated by whichever group happens to turn-up in the largest numbers and has the strongest will to take-over in any particular region; it is more that - lacking religion - the British people have no strong ideas about what to do instead.
How could they? For an apostate population; life has no purpose, no meaning; and in post-modernity, human relationships are few, shallow and ephemeral.
Mass immigration has been engineered by evil-serving elites who recognize it will destroy the British life that they loathe - but they could not have done this without the passive consent/ placid acquiescence of the demoralized mass of British people - and this demoralization runs very deep.
Indeed represents the deepest psychological level of evaluation.
*
The British reject religion - both among the elites and en masse - a sure sign of which is gross sub-fertility among the healthiest, wealthiest and most able.
Mass immigration follows on from this; but not as any kind of economic compensation (because most of the immigrants are economic dependents and use-up far more resources than they generate) - but simply because the migrants want to come to Britain and take advantage of her prosperity, while the nihilistic British people simply shrug and go along with this, because they don't care much (or at all about) what happens in the future - because they don't have anything in particular to aim at.
In sum, there seems to be only one thing which the British people are sure about - one primary and powerful conviction - and that is that they do not want Christianity - or indeed any other religion.
And from that, much else follows, as it will.
*
The population of Britain is rapidly being replaced; from a combination of severe sub-fertility among the native population combined with year-upon-year massive immigration.
The sub-fertility aspect was brought home to me when I recently visited that rare thing - an English city which has had near zero immigration over the past fifteen years.
What struck me (before I had even figured out the reason) was that so many of the people around were old.
This brought home to me the deep reason behind population replacement; which is that the British reject religion and (therefore) refuse to reproduce.
*
Christianity has dwindled and declined in Britain to a much greater extent than is superficially obvious - because most self-identified Christians are - overall, in effect - anti-Christian; and this applies especially to the Christian leadership, who are Leftist fifth columnists that have subverted, hollowed-out and all-but destroyed all of the mainstream churches (the Church of England; the major Nonconformist churches such as Methodists, Quakers, Presbyterians; and the Roman Catholic church).
This mass apostasy is the root of a profound nihilistic demotivation which characterizes British life and is revealed most objectively (and lethally) in the incremental collapse of marriage and families, late fertility and massive sub-fertility most obvious among the skilled, educated and leadership classes.
*
Continued rapid mass immigration of any kind is very obviously a form of social suicide - and the British kind is perhaps more obviously so than most - so it is interesting to consider how a nation can do this to itself.
Mass immigration is indeed an active, deliberate and destructive strategy on the part of the British rulers - and this is a consequence of their characteristic self-hatred and smug, moralizing spite; and a thing only possible when people live inside the mass media, rather than being located in their own common sense and experience.
But equally striking is the bland, inert, passive consent (or at least placid acquiescence) of the mass majority of the British population - albeit that this is an engineered consent, yet there is little or no resistance to the engineering.
*
This is indeed near the root of the matter, and was starkly revealed by the picture of an English city without immigration; a city in which the population was almost visibly crumbling; the long term consequence of several generations in which purpose has weakened, sickened and almost died.
This is population failure at the most basic biological level.
The impression was of a people with nothing to hope for, therefore waiting to die, and therefore (at best) wrapped-up in the daily minutiae of media diversion and the pleasures of consumption; sometimes quiet, well-behaved, smart and cultured - sometimes aggressive, offensive, self-mutilated and destructive.
*
It is not so much that the mass of the British people actively-want to be replaced by a collection of various other people from other places - eventually to be dominated by whichever group happens to turn-up in the largest numbers and has the strongest will to take-over in any particular region; it is more that - lacking religion - the British people have no strong ideas about what to do instead.
How could they? For an apostate population; life has no purpose, no meaning; and in post-modernity, human relationships are few, shallow and ephemeral.
Mass immigration has been engineered by evil-serving elites who recognize it will destroy the British life that they loathe - but they could not have done this without the passive consent/ placid acquiescence of the demoralized mass of British people - and this demoralization runs very deep.
Indeed represents the deepest psychological level of evaluation.
*
The British reject religion - both among the elites and en masse - a sure sign of which is gross sub-fertility among the healthiest, wealthiest and most able.
Mass immigration follows on from this; but not as any kind of economic compensation (because most of the immigrants are economic dependents and use-up far more resources than they generate) - but simply because the migrants want to come to Britain and take advantage of her prosperity, while the nihilistic British people simply shrug and go along with this, because they don't care much (or at all about) what happens in the future - because they don't have anything in particular to aim at.
In sum, there seems to be only one thing which the British people are sure about - one primary and powerful conviction - and that is that they do not want Christianity - or indeed any other religion.
And from that, much else follows, as it will.
*
Monday, 11 May 2026
Is modern Christian traditionalism even possible?
A problem that I experienced upon becoming a Christian, is that the standard model over the centuries is first to discover the true institutional manifestation of Christianity: then believe it, obey it.
The flip side of this standard model; is that a good Christian does not make up his own mind; because the major issues have already been settled, long ago, by wiser and holier persons.
The good Christian's job is to discover these already-known truths, then believe and obey them.
Yet, in our civilization; when it comes to questions of Which religion? Which church? - and Which party or person to believe to believe and obey among the factions within any church - choice is inescapable.
Literally inescapable. The most traditional and orthodox of Christians inescapably choose to be Christian, choose what kind of Christian to be, choose which particular church institution; and within that church institution they must choose between rival and contradictory claims concerning significant matters.
Every church-based Christian actually has-made these choices, and continues to make them.
He cannot believe and obey until after he personally has decided who to believe and obey.
This is a contradiction; because by a traditional model the good Christian is not supposed to be choosing who to believe and obey.
However, this contradiction is exactly what all modern Western traditionalists have already done and continue doing.
**
Note added. The above argument is based on the logic and facts of the situation, and is generic in scope. But the psychological element is also relevant.
When I became a Christian, I followed the standard model of conversion and practice outlined here. Therefore; once I had decided that Christianity was true; I then sought a denomination, and a church. However; I rapidly found that my first choice of a church was so corrupted with respect to the priority given to major issues of the day, that it seemed obviously harmful to take the approved attitude of belief and obedience.
I therefore sought an uncorrupted church; and the search eventually expanded to include Protestant and Catholic (Western and Eastern), as well as Mormon. But even when I made a "firm" choice of a church towards which I intended to B and O; it became rapidly apparent that "the" church was not of one mind - but instead riven by fundamental division on core issues of validity.
...Such that yet more choosing would be required. Until, in the end, it struck me that I was compelled to do so much personal discerning and picking - which never seemed to stop, that it reduced to absurdity the notion that belief and obedience to external-authority ought-to-be primary.
After all, if we are subjectively picking the authority to which we will submit; then how can we then regard that self-picked authority as objectively valid?
But there are other individuals who have, nonetheless, decided that the B&O attitude to whatever sub-institution has survived this selective process is the one-and-only valid form of Christianity. Even after themselves having been-through so much, and continuing, discerning - they have convinced themselves that their choice of an authority is objective and with universal validity; such that an attitude of humility and submission is necessarily due to this picked-authority.
Such a process of choice and its denial seems to result in a vociferous and hyper-aggressive attitude when asserting their "final" choices! My interpretation is that this noisy dogmatism is transparently understandable on a psychological basis, as a form of compensation; whereby such individuals are refusing to acknowledge or defend the non-objective nature of their their own religious incoherence; by a combination of starkly denying any problem, creating abstract models of the unity, and concluding the objectivity of their church's teaching and authority...
In the end, such "traditionalists" have manufactured a quasi-Medieval fantasy of tradition, rooted in what they personally suppose their church ought-to-be; rather than what it is. So that an attitude of obedient belief and practice against becomes possible, and natural.
In short, the "Christian Crusader" pose is an act; intended by the pseudo-traditionalists to distract themselves, as well as others, from the fatal knowledge that they are indeed... acting.
Sunday, 3 December 2017
Which sex is more vulnerable to being harmed by abstractions? Women - obviously!
Men and women are different - as a strong true generalisation - so it should not be a surprise when they are seen to be different.
One difference relates to abstractions: men are more at home in the perilous world of abstractions, and when women live-by abstractions they may become seriously disorientated. Women are the preferred bureaucrats in modern, totalitarian institutions - because women are easier to corrupt into servility to the rules.
When it comes to abstractions; women are more prone than men to a kind of institutional Stockholm Syndrome - when captives identify-with their captors; when the miserable slaves of regulations become emotionally committed to the regulations that enslave them.
Women intrinsically hate regulations and prefer personal relations - but once persuaded that regulations are their defence and guarantor; they lose all sense of perspective. The only response to the problem of regulation is seen to be more regulation - and thus they are trapped.
At worst (and that worst is not uncommon) women become helpless/ help-resistant pawns when manipulated by abstraction-wielders - which is why women are the prime, self-made, self-trapped victims of modernity and Leftism.
This is a simple fact - in the sense that so many women choose not to marry, to delay marriage until too late, choose not to have children, choose not to care for the children they have - and become blinded by anger and vengefulness when this insanity is pointed-out, or when any effective action is proposed to remedy it.
(For most women, not all but a very large majority...) In comparison with such self-inflicted - and remedy-resisting - life-destroying life-choices - nothing that modern culture can provide will come close to compensating.
And given that modern women (like modern men) have become materialist religion-deniers; this life is everything, and when they self-wreck this life there is no compensation and no repentance. And narcissism, plastic surgery, drugs or becoming an attention/sex-junkie are no more than momentary compensations - massively worsening the underlying problem.
Yet (unless women are coercively-enslaved - in which case these domains are destroyed and life emptied), women innately rule the love-and-sexual arena, women determine the existence of families, women provide the peer networks that bridge between families... If women will not or cannot do these things, then they will not be done - and life is impoverished.
The modern world depends on a spiritual-Christian awakening - both men and women are necessary; but it cannot happen without women. At present women are solidly driving the Left-Liberal-bureaucratic-totalitarian agenda (including within the fake-Christian churches); and if they do not stop, then the agenda will not stop (although it may be replaced by something different but equally bad).
The first step is for individual women to escape the toils of abstraction that enmesh them from early life; and take control of their own lives with reference to their true selves, their hearts - rather than being (as at present) dupes and tools for the implementation of the evil global Establishment strategy.
Sunday, 29 September 2013
The temptation of Pride
*
The sin of Pride is considered the worst sin from a Christian perspective - but it is hard for secular moderns (or indeed, those of other religions) to understand why Pride should be the worst thing (or even why it should be considered bad at all).
*
Choosing not to obey God is a realistic possibility for humans - because we have free will - we are 'autonomous agents'.
Therefore it is a perfectly coherent possibility to choose not to obey God, if the price of eternal misery is accepted.
('Hell' can be regarded as the condition of those people who have chosen to reject God.)
*
This, indeed, is the particular temptation of Pride - it is tempting because we really can reject God and His creation.
We puny humans really can do this - and the possibility of successful defiance in the face of incomprehensibly vast power may be intoxicating, may become the sole focus of life.
*
But there is a cost.
The cost of defying God is to be dedicated to the opposite of creation - which is to be dedicated to destruction, lies, inversions of truth - and misery.
(In other words: dedicated to evil - which is the destruction of good.)
*
Why choose misery? Because the miserable Prideful soul rejoices in the fact that he stands against God - really can refuse to worship, love, obey, cooperate with God - really can refuse to bend the knee to God...
(The Prideful man sees love and harmony and worship of God as disgusting subservience, voluntary enslavement and abasement; cowering before power.)
To the damned, self-damned, soul - Pride in standing alone and unbowed against the creator of the universe, and malicious delight in all corruptions, failures and sufferings of creation, is more than sufficient compensation for eternal resentment, misery and isolation.
*
And the impossibility of utter destruction of all good (since the evil man is himself created, hence partly good) is the source of that ineradicable resentment so characteristic of evil. Since souls are immortal, there is no escape from this resentment - for the Pride-consumed Man the very existence of his own soul is a source of permanent torment.
*
How do we know the self-damned Prideful man is wrong?
Because of love. If it wasn't because of love then perhaps there would be something to say for the defiance of Pride - but Pride is a rejection of the possibility of love.
Pride is defeated, ultimately, by choosing to love God and his creation - love is the reason to obey God, perhaps the only good reason.
*
But to choose Love is a choice, a real choice. We could - instead - choose Pride. And this choice has vast and ramifying consequences.
*
The sin of Pride is considered the worst sin from a Christian perspective - but it is hard for secular moderns (or indeed, those of other religions) to understand why Pride should be the worst thing (or even why it should be considered bad at all).
*
Choosing not to obey God is a realistic possibility for humans - because we have free will - we are 'autonomous agents'.
Therefore it is a perfectly coherent possibility to choose not to obey God, if the price of eternal misery is accepted.
('Hell' can be regarded as the condition of those people who have chosen to reject God.)
*
This, indeed, is the particular temptation of Pride - it is tempting because we really can reject God and His creation.
We puny humans really can do this - and the possibility of successful defiance in the face of incomprehensibly vast power may be intoxicating, may become the sole focus of life.
*
But there is a cost.
The cost of defying God is to be dedicated to the opposite of creation - which is to be dedicated to destruction, lies, inversions of truth - and misery.
(In other words: dedicated to evil - which is the destruction of good.)
*
Why choose misery? Because the miserable Prideful soul rejoices in the fact that he stands against God - really can refuse to worship, love, obey, cooperate with God - really can refuse to bend the knee to God...
(The Prideful man sees love and harmony and worship of God as disgusting subservience, voluntary enslavement and abasement; cowering before power.)
To the damned, self-damned, soul - Pride in standing alone and unbowed against the creator of the universe, and malicious delight in all corruptions, failures and sufferings of creation, is more than sufficient compensation for eternal resentment, misery and isolation.
*
And the impossibility of utter destruction of all good (since the evil man is himself created, hence partly good) is the source of that ineradicable resentment so characteristic of evil. Since souls are immortal, there is no escape from this resentment - for the Pride-consumed Man the very existence of his own soul is a source of permanent torment.
*
How do we know the self-damned Prideful man is wrong?
Because of love. If it wasn't because of love then perhaps there would be something to say for the defiance of Pride - but Pride is a rejection of the possibility of love.
Pride is defeated, ultimately, by choosing to love God and his creation - love is the reason to obey God, perhaps the only good reason.
*
But to choose Love is a choice, a real choice. We could - instead - choose Pride. And this choice has vast and ramifying consequences.
*
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
A threshold crossed and explicit, specific, official, aggressive anti-Christianity emerges in England
The biggest public event arena (11,000 capacity) in my city of Newcastle upon Tyne, under pressure from the leader of the local government heading pressure from the usual suspects, and for the usual (fake, lying) reasons; has forbidden Billy Graham's son Franklin from speaking; has illegally cancelled the booking without compensation. The same has happened at all the other large venues throughout the UK.
This feels like another threshold crossed in the UK - because now the attacks on Christianity have become explicit and specific; there is now a high profile precedent for suppression of all public Christian meetings of any kind and size.
Up until now; the specificity of preventing Christians from gathering and evangelising has been indirect; masquerading as political (not religion) suppression - as being about the promotion of the sexual revolution agenda.
But this is undeniably specifically Christian; because while Christian evangelism is crushed to uniform approval from The Establishment and its mouthpieces; other religious that advocate (from the secular perspective) exactly the same sexual morality - Judaism, Islam, Sikhism etc - are by contrast publicly celebrated, government/ charity/ educational institution subsidised.
There are many officially propagandised and paid-for mass celebrations, festivals and consciousness-raising events in favour of these other religions.
The contrast between Christianity and the others - suppression versus promotion - could scarcely be starker! (To forbid Billy Graham's ministry; in England - for Heaven's sake!) The continued hypocrisy of denying this fact could scarcely be clearer.
So officially-sancioned and officially-led and Establishment-supported anti-Christianity is here to see, for everybody with eyes to see.
The question now becomes whether one actually has eyes?... And clearly not many Britons do.
This feels like another threshold crossed in the UK - because now the attacks on Christianity have become explicit and specific; there is now a high profile precedent for suppression of all public Christian meetings of any kind and size.
Up until now; the specificity of preventing Christians from gathering and evangelising has been indirect; masquerading as political (not religion) suppression - as being about the promotion of the sexual revolution agenda.
But this is undeniably specifically Christian; because while Christian evangelism is crushed to uniform approval from The Establishment and its mouthpieces; other religious that advocate (from the secular perspective) exactly the same sexual morality - Judaism, Islam, Sikhism etc - are by contrast publicly celebrated, government/ charity/ educational institution subsidised.
There are many officially propagandised and paid-for mass celebrations, festivals and consciousness-raising events in favour of these other religions.
The contrast between Christianity and the others - suppression versus promotion - could scarcely be starker! (To forbid Billy Graham's ministry; in England - for Heaven's sake!) The continued hypocrisy of denying this fact could scarcely be clearer.
So officially-sancioned and officially-led and Establishment-supported anti-Christianity is here to see, for everybody with eyes to see.
The question now becomes whether one actually has eyes?... And clearly not many Britons do.
Friday, 12 November 2010
Abolition movement as a precursor of political correctness
*
The evolution of political correctness was an exponential process going back a thousand years and more, but (as with all exponential processes) the early stages are hard to detect because the size of the phenomenon was so small.
But (like all exponential processes) once the phenomenon had became visible for sure (late 1960s), it grew very fast.
(Also the doubling-time shortened as the process advanced - so in fact it is not really exponential at all! Just figuratively.)
In this context, I think perhaps the first really evident jump into PC was the abolition movement which originated among English Quakers and spread to evangelicals, then to mass support in England.
*
Of course, everybody regards slavery as an evil nowadays. At least they do in a theoretical sense - although nothing is done(not even cheap and easy steps) to abolish resurgent slavery abroad; and even within the West (where slavery is tacitly tolerated by the authorities when it happens in some ethnic groups - presumably on 'multi-cultural' grounds).
Nonetheless, if you look at the abolitionist movement, it clearly has many of the characteristics of modern political correctness in embryo.
Furthermore the abolition movement was ruthless in its self-confidence, its desire to impose its reality globally: slavery was abolished everywhere in the world (except for some tiny, shrinking pockets in sub-Saharan Africa) in a long and dynamic (not to say ruthless) campaign stretching over many decades, and mostly by military coercion when the British Empire was at its height.
The passing of the acts of parliament to abolish the slave trade, then to abolish slavery in the Empire were merely the beginning of the process. The actual abolition of slavery everywhere had to be imposed by unrelenting, long-term political and military pressure, and backed-up by the guns of the Royal Navy which had a long reach.
*
In this respect the abolition movement was the antithesis of the feeble submissiveness of modern political correctness. Nonetheless, abolition shared the presumption of PC that ethics were susceptible of discovery and advancement - not by divine revelation, but by human social consensus.
*
Abolition showed that there might be an avant garde of elite opinion, and that the mass of the public might be brought around to views that they found initially incomprehesible, abhorrent or dangerous.
In particular, abolition was built on the 'discovery' (initially by Nonconformist Protestants and Anglican evangelicals) that slavery was utterly unacceptable and must be stopped at any cost was a realization that entailed overthrowing 1800 years of Christian morality.
*
The 'discovery' that Christianity ruled-out slavery entailed the assumption of moral progress, that modern abolitionists were more morally advanced than the ancient Greeks and Romans, than the Apostles, Saints and Holy Fathers and the greatest theologians of all previous eras.
Until the abolition movement, all societies in history had accepted slavery as a fact. Slavery was universal wherever it could be afforded.
It was only in England, among a small group of protestants in the late 1700s, that the discovery was made that slavery was intolerable, was indeed the worst of sins, and must be eradicated at any cost.
Abolition can thus be seen as an early example of progressivism - despite the contrast with PC that abolition was being advocated and implemented by muscular and militaristic Christians.
*
What was different about abolitionism was a fanaticism based on abstractness and universality of ethics.
Abolition was not primarily self-interested but was genuinely altruistic - in enforcing abolition upon the world the British Empire gave up a considerable amount of profitable enterprise, expended vast amounts of treasure in military action and in compensation of slave owners, expended prime manpower (and suffered heavy casualties) in the slave wars.
For instance the British military station in Sierra Leone, specifically for enforcing abolition, suffered a mortality rate of 50 percent per year due to tropical disease - a stunningly high number, such that to be stationed there was almost a death sentence - justifying its nickname of 'the white man's grave'.
And the costs were immense for many slaves, who were killed during these military actions, were slain by slavers and thrown overboard from ships to avoid incrimination, and who in many instances suffered death and extreme hardship following liberation .
*
So abolition has this dual face. In some ways it was the greatest altruistic moral achievement ever (in so far as costly altruism is supposedly the ultimate virtue for secular liberal morality).
In other ways abolition was the beginning of reality-proof morality, the morality of designated 'good acts' (regardless of ensuing consequences) and of the modern style prideful, hate-filled, self--gratifying justification-by-motivations - and therefore a precursor to political correctness.
*
The evolution of political correctness was an exponential process going back a thousand years and more, but (as with all exponential processes) the early stages are hard to detect because the size of the phenomenon was so small.
But (like all exponential processes) once the phenomenon had became visible for sure (late 1960s), it grew very fast.
(Also the doubling-time shortened as the process advanced - so in fact it is not really exponential at all! Just figuratively.)
In this context, I think perhaps the first really evident jump into PC was the abolition movement which originated among English Quakers and spread to evangelicals, then to mass support in England.
*
Of course, everybody regards slavery as an evil nowadays. At least they do in a theoretical sense - although nothing is done(not even cheap and easy steps) to abolish resurgent slavery abroad; and even within the West (where slavery is tacitly tolerated by the authorities when it happens in some ethnic groups - presumably on 'multi-cultural' grounds).
Nonetheless, if you look at the abolitionist movement, it clearly has many of the characteristics of modern political correctness in embryo.
Furthermore the abolition movement was ruthless in its self-confidence, its desire to impose its reality globally: slavery was abolished everywhere in the world (except for some tiny, shrinking pockets in sub-Saharan Africa) in a long and dynamic (not to say ruthless) campaign stretching over many decades, and mostly by military coercion when the British Empire was at its height.
The passing of the acts of parliament to abolish the slave trade, then to abolish slavery in the Empire were merely the beginning of the process. The actual abolition of slavery everywhere had to be imposed by unrelenting, long-term political and military pressure, and backed-up by the guns of the Royal Navy which had a long reach.
*
In this respect the abolition movement was the antithesis of the feeble submissiveness of modern political correctness. Nonetheless, abolition shared the presumption of PC that ethics were susceptible of discovery and advancement - not by divine revelation, but by human social consensus.
*
Abolition showed that there might be an avant garde of elite opinion, and that the mass of the public might be brought around to views that they found initially incomprehesible, abhorrent or dangerous.
In particular, abolition was built on the 'discovery' (initially by Nonconformist Protestants and Anglican evangelicals) that slavery was utterly unacceptable and must be stopped at any cost was a realization that entailed overthrowing 1800 years of Christian morality.
*
The 'discovery' that Christianity ruled-out slavery entailed the assumption of moral progress, that modern abolitionists were more morally advanced than the ancient Greeks and Romans, than the Apostles, Saints and Holy Fathers and the greatest theologians of all previous eras.
Until the abolition movement, all societies in history had accepted slavery as a fact. Slavery was universal wherever it could be afforded.
It was only in England, among a small group of protestants in the late 1700s, that the discovery was made that slavery was intolerable, was indeed the worst of sins, and must be eradicated at any cost.
Abolition can thus be seen as an early example of progressivism - despite the contrast with PC that abolition was being advocated and implemented by muscular and militaristic Christians.
*
What was different about abolitionism was a fanaticism based on abstractness and universality of ethics.
Abolition was not primarily self-interested but was genuinely altruistic - in enforcing abolition upon the world the British Empire gave up a considerable amount of profitable enterprise, expended vast amounts of treasure in military action and in compensation of slave owners, expended prime manpower (and suffered heavy casualties) in the slave wars.
For instance the British military station in Sierra Leone, specifically for enforcing abolition, suffered a mortality rate of 50 percent per year due to tropical disease - a stunningly high number, such that to be stationed there was almost a death sentence - justifying its nickname of 'the white man's grave'.
And the costs were immense for many slaves, who were killed during these military actions, were slain by slavers and thrown overboard from ships to avoid incrimination, and who in many instances suffered death and extreme hardship following liberation .
*
So abolition has this dual face. In some ways it was the greatest altruistic moral achievement ever (in so far as costly altruism is supposedly the ultimate virtue for secular liberal morality).
In other ways abolition was the beginning of reality-proof morality, the morality of designated 'good acts' (regardless of ensuing consequences) and of the modern style prideful, hate-filled, self--gratifying justification-by-motivations - and therefore a precursor to political correctness.
*
Friday, 2 December 2016
What is the biggest threat to Western Man? (What is our Tower of Babel?)
First I need to clarify that I am talking about the threat to our souls - or, the threat to our salvation; and that I am talking here about material means to the end of spiritual corruption.
And the main answer to this question is (in three words) The Transhumanist Agenda. In other words, the agenda working (by steps) towards a centralised system of complete technological observation, monitoring and control.
I am talking about the embrace and celebration of that vast and interconnected network of personal electronic communication devices from mobile/ especially smart phones, navigation devices, tablets, e-books, credit cards, smart TVs, ear pieces, the Internet of Things... the whole lot. Moving onto smart spectacles, and more-or-less implanted electronic and computational devices. And adding in the bio-manipulations - psychoactive drugs, potntially genetic engineering, modification of human bodies and brains etc...
This is not generally understood to be the worst problem or threat to Mankind; in fact this is (to a large extent) exactly what many people most want - which is exactly why it is the worst problem (as a problem it is invisible, denied, ridiculed).
The reason people want these things is because they are regarded as tools that are 'enhancements'. The danger is that the can be, and are being, used not as tools or enhancements but as personal-monitoring, reality-filtering, and ideological propaganda.
People already live (mostly) inside the mass media, which edits and structures their reality - and they seem to like it, to prefer this to real life. But even if they don't like it, even if it makes them feel bad - they are anyway addicted to it, and increasingly unaware of reality outside of the mass media/ officially approved persepctive.
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
And this is the real and present danger.
There is, in our culture, a deep and visceral desire for magic; and this desire is a good and valuable compensation and yearning - however it is often perverted to a desire for 'super powers' that can be used the better to 'get what you want' - and this is probably why The Establishmet allows and indeed supports an infrastructure of Fantasy in TV, movies and fiction - and why so much of this is channelled through 'cool' Special Effects.
These inculcate passive, literalistic, wish-fulfillment fantasies that are connected (implicitly and explicitly) with the technological advances of the Transhumanist agenda. 'You too' can (first in imagination, later in actuality?) become an X-Man by genetic engineering; or get Bat/ Spiderman enhancements by novel technologies; or experience the spectacular other-worlds of Star Wars/ Trek...
At the minimum - the promise is of a 'virtual' reality in which these things will seem completely-real; which amounts to handing-over the entirely of our perceived reality to... whoever controls the virtual reality media; and serving whatever agenda they choose to implement.
Do people trust the mass media, big business and bureaucracy? At one level they don't; but they have been induced to ignore their legitimate mistrust by their greed for gratification here and now; by the hope or promise of a personalised virtual reality that can and will provide full control over their own perceptual world; and even (via drugs and genetic manipulations) control over their own emotional responses (unlimited and unconfined sex, adventure, power).
To agree to live in virtual reality would be a one way ticket to a world in which Men would be very-completely manipulated. Men would still be 'free' in their souls - but they may live a life when they were almost never aware of the soul's existence; and where they may be induced to doubt the reality of their true selves.
Hence the Tower of Babel comparison.
If it gets to the point where the virtual world is an incipient reality; then that would (I guess) be the point at which God would intervene to destroy any society which was on the verge of implementing it. Because God would surely not sustain (for Satan's benefit) a world in which the probability of chosen self-damnation for so many people (especially those brought up in it from childhood) was so very high.
In sum; my belief is that if we do not voluntarily reject the promise of a virtual world of total perceptual control; then we will - for our own good - have even the possibility eliminated. At the cost of vast destruction, I presume.
And, so pervasive and embedded in modernity are the trends towards Transhumanism; that to reject the virtual world entails a radical re-conceptualisation of the human condition: a spiritual awakening as I term it
Non-negotiably so.
And the main answer to this question is (in three words) The Transhumanist Agenda. In other words, the agenda working (by steps) towards a centralised system of complete technological observation, monitoring and control.
I am talking about the embrace and celebration of that vast and interconnected network of personal electronic communication devices from mobile/ especially smart phones, navigation devices, tablets, e-books, credit cards, smart TVs, ear pieces, the Internet of Things... the whole lot. Moving onto smart spectacles, and more-or-less implanted electronic and computational devices. And adding in the bio-manipulations - psychoactive drugs, potntially genetic engineering, modification of human bodies and brains etc...
This is not generally understood to be the worst problem or threat to Mankind; in fact this is (to a large extent) exactly what many people most want - which is exactly why it is the worst problem (as a problem it is invisible, denied, ridiculed).
The reason people want these things is because they are regarded as tools that are 'enhancements'. The danger is that the can be, and are being, used not as tools or enhancements but as personal-monitoring, reality-filtering, and ideological propaganda.
People already live (mostly) inside the mass media, which edits and structures their reality - and they seem to like it, to prefer this to real life. But even if they don't like it, even if it makes them feel bad - they are anyway addicted to it, and increasingly unaware of reality outside of the mass media/ officially approved persepctive.
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
And this is the real and present danger.
There is, in our culture, a deep and visceral desire for magic; and this desire is a good and valuable compensation and yearning - however it is often perverted to a desire for 'super powers' that can be used the better to 'get what you want' - and this is probably why The Establishmet allows and indeed supports an infrastructure of Fantasy in TV, movies and fiction - and why so much of this is channelled through 'cool' Special Effects.
These inculcate passive, literalistic, wish-fulfillment fantasies that are connected (implicitly and explicitly) with the technological advances of the Transhumanist agenda. 'You too' can (first in imagination, later in actuality?) become an X-Man by genetic engineering; or get Bat/ Spiderman enhancements by novel technologies; or experience the spectacular other-worlds of Star Wars/ Trek...
At the minimum - the promise is of a 'virtual' reality in which these things will seem completely-real; which amounts to handing-over the entirely of our perceived reality to... whoever controls the virtual reality media; and serving whatever agenda they choose to implement.
Do people trust the mass media, big business and bureaucracy? At one level they don't; but they have been induced to ignore their legitimate mistrust by their greed for gratification here and now; by the hope or promise of a personalised virtual reality that can and will provide full control over their own perceptual world; and even (via drugs and genetic manipulations) control over their own emotional responses (unlimited and unconfined sex, adventure, power).
To agree to live in virtual reality would be a one way ticket to a world in which Men would be very-completely manipulated. Men would still be 'free' in their souls - but they may live a life when they were almost never aware of the soul's existence; and where they may be induced to doubt the reality of their true selves.
Hence the Tower of Babel comparison.
If it gets to the point where the virtual world is an incipient reality; then that would (I guess) be the point at which God would intervene to destroy any society which was on the verge of implementing it. Because God would surely not sustain (for Satan's benefit) a world in which the probability of chosen self-damnation for so many people (especially those brought up in it from childhood) was so very high.
In sum; my belief is that if we do not voluntarily reject the promise of a virtual world of total perceptual control; then we will - for our own good - have even the possibility eliminated. At the cost of vast destruction, I presume.
And, so pervasive and embedded in modernity are the trends towards Transhumanism; that to reject the virtual world entails a radical re-conceptualisation of the human condition: a spiritual awakening as I term it
Non-negotiably so.
Thursday, 1 November 2018
Church convergence-corruption and a spiritual-direct practice of Christianity are two sides of a coin
The collapse and corruption of most Christian churches is an aspect of the convergence of modern Western institutions, and consequently many Christians cannot find a church which both
1. Will accept them as a convert, and
2. Is worth joining (i.e. really Christian rather than a Leftist political fake, as is usual);
This means that there are going to be many lone Christians - that is, many Christians who pursue their religion rooted outside of any church.
'Rooted outside' means that someone may attend or support a church, or several churches, with varying degrees of intensity and seriousness - but he does not consider himself to be an obedient or devout member. His belief is primarily individual rather than institutional. Such a situation is de facto the case even with respect to many devout church members - in actuality they base their faith and practice upon their own discernment and judgment.
Lacking the benefits of institutional membership, protection and support - there must be some up-front, proximate compensation for these 'lacks' - or else real Christianity will be so negative, so bleak, so unrewarded, so unappealing as to be a non-viable life-path.
This means that the individual modern Christian normally requires to be sustained by a much greater spiritual-experiential element than was the case in the past - the lone Christian needs to experience direct contact with the divine in prayer, meditation and other aspects of daily life.
And this awareness needs to be conscious and explicit.
For example, we all experience everyday miracles, but very few people are explicitly aware of them - however, the lone Christian needs to become conscious of these many ways in which God intervenes in his daily life. And all Christians have an unique destiny, due to the uniqueness of their-divine selves - but the lone Christian needs to be aware of treading this path - and of when he has stepped-off it.
Having spiritual ('mystical') experiences used to be very much an 'optional extra' for observant church-obedient Christians of the past - indeed 'esoteric' experience was often regarded as a hazardous (because self-indulgent) possibility, and better avoided.
But things have now changed; and more and more serious Christians will need to develop their capacity for, and awareness of, spiritual experiences - if they are to remain Christian.
1. Will accept them as a convert, and
2. Is worth joining (i.e. really Christian rather than a Leftist political fake, as is usual);
This means that there are going to be many lone Christians - that is, many Christians who pursue their religion rooted outside of any church.
'Rooted outside' means that someone may attend or support a church, or several churches, with varying degrees of intensity and seriousness - but he does not consider himself to be an obedient or devout member. His belief is primarily individual rather than institutional. Such a situation is de facto the case even with respect to many devout church members - in actuality they base their faith and practice upon their own discernment and judgment.
Lacking the benefits of institutional membership, protection and support - there must be some up-front, proximate compensation for these 'lacks' - or else real Christianity will be so negative, so bleak, so unrewarded, so unappealing as to be a non-viable life-path.
This means that the individual modern Christian normally requires to be sustained by a much greater spiritual-experiential element than was the case in the past - the lone Christian needs to experience direct contact with the divine in prayer, meditation and other aspects of daily life.
And this awareness needs to be conscious and explicit.
For example, we all experience everyday miracles, but very few people are explicitly aware of them - however, the lone Christian needs to become conscious of these many ways in which God intervenes in his daily life. And all Christians have an unique destiny, due to the uniqueness of their-divine selves - but the lone Christian needs to be aware of treading this path - and of when he has stepped-off it.
Having spiritual ('mystical') experiences used to be very much an 'optional extra' for observant church-obedient Christians of the past - indeed 'esoteric' experience was often regarded as a hazardous (because self-indulgent) possibility, and better avoided.
But things have now changed; and more and more serious Christians will need to develop their capacity for, and awareness of, spiritual experiences - if they are to remain Christian.
Friday, 10 October 2014
How could bowling *slowly* be a good idea in cricket?
*
This was always a puzzle to me. Of course, slow bowlers spin the ball, but that seemed like small compensation for bowling slower. After all, the faster the ball is delivered, the less time the batter has to react, and very fast bowlers are nearly always successful so long as they have reasonable aim.
(Faster bowlers are also much scarier than slow ones, and the batter is in greater danger of getting hurt, and hurt badly.)
Yet the very best bowlers in history have actually been slow bowlers - I am thinking of the likes of SF Barnes, Muttiah Murilitharan, and Shane Warne.
What happens with the best 'slow' bowlers is that the energy that would have been used to impart velocity on the ball is instead imparted into spinning it - and a spinning ball does all sorts of things which make it difficult to hit, and even more difficult to hit with control.
Most obviously a cricket ball typically bounces before it gets to the batter, and the ball will 'turn' or move off the straight line according to the direction of its spin. If the ball is spinning clockwise it will go to the right, anticlockwise will go to the left; if it has top spin it will jump forward, back spin will slow its velocity (or sometimes make it skid low).
But that is only half the story, in fact probably less than half the story - because a rapidly spinning ball will swerve in the air even before it bounces. The ball spinning clockwise will swerve to the left - and the swerve will increase as the velocity declines. So a clockwise spinning ball will swerve to the left more and more as it approaches the batter - and then will turn to the right - very tricky to hit!
The situation is reversed for an anticlockwise spinning ball. And forward and back spin have other interesting effects. A forward spinning ball (top spinner) will swerve downwards - so the ball will bounce closer to the bowler (and further away from the batter) than expected. So the ball will come towards the batter, then at the last moment drop further away than he expects, and then bounce rapidly towards him.
The back spinner will look as if it going to bounce in a particular place - but will keep going, and 'float' closer to the batter than expected before it hits the ground - then it might stop and bounce higher than expected, or else skid along the ground.
So, if he can do one or more of these things, a spin bowler can make life very difficult for a batter - especially he can switch between different directions of spin - and also unexpectedly mix-in non-spinning and faster deliveries.
But there is even more! If the spinning ball is angled at about forty-five degrees, the ball will swerve in two planes! For example, if a clockwise spinning ball is angled so the rotation is forward at 45 degrees to the right, then this introduces an element of top-spin. So the ball will do the following: 1.Swerve to the left because of the clockwise rotation, 2 Drop suddenly and land further away from the batter than expected from its early trajectory because of the top spin, 3. Bounce to the right because of the clockwise rotation, and 4. Jump off the pitch toward the batter faster then expected from its velocity because of the top spin!
So a slow bowler can potentially impart very rapid rotation on the ball, control how the ball is angled in the air, control where the ball lands, disguise the various directions and angles of spin so the batter cannot see the changes - and do this reliably many hundreds of times in a row (because slow bowling is less tiring than fast bowling, the spinner can potentially bowl for hour after hour).
To be able to do all this is very difficult and very rare - but IF a bowler can do it, THEN a slow spin bowlers can be most effective and most useful bowler of all.
*
This was always a puzzle to me. Of course, slow bowlers spin the ball, but that seemed like small compensation for bowling slower. After all, the faster the ball is delivered, the less time the batter has to react, and very fast bowlers are nearly always successful so long as they have reasonable aim.
(Faster bowlers are also much scarier than slow ones, and the batter is in greater danger of getting hurt, and hurt badly.)
Yet the very best bowlers in history have actually been slow bowlers - I am thinking of the likes of SF Barnes, Muttiah Murilitharan, and Shane Warne.
What happens with the best 'slow' bowlers is that the energy that would have been used to impart velocity on the ball is instead imparted into spinning it - and a spinning ball does all sorts of things which make it difficult to hit, and even more difficult to hit with control.
Most obviously a cricket ball typically bounces before it gets to the batter, and the ball will 'turn' or move off the straight line according to the direction of its spin. If the ball is spinning clockwise it will go to the right, anticlockwise will go to the left; if it has top spin it will jump forward, back spin will slow its velocity (or sometimes make it skid low).
But that is only half the story, in fact probably less than half the story - because a rapidly spinning ball will swerve in the air even before it bounces. The ball spinning clockwise will swerve to the left - and the swerve will increase as the velocity declines. So a clockwise spinning ball will swerve to the left more and more as it approaches the batter - and then will turn to the right - very tricky to hit!
The situation is reversed for an anticlockwise spinning ball. And forward and back spin have other interesting effects. A forward spinning ball (top spinner) will swerve downwards - so the ball will bounce closer to the bowler (and further away from the batter) than expected. So the ball will come towards the batter, then at the last moment drop further away than he expects, and then bounce rapidly towards him.
The back spinner will look as if it going to bounce in a particular place - but will keep going, and 'float' closer to the batter than expected before it hits the ground - then it might stop and bounce higher than expected, or else skid along the ground.
So, if he can do one or more of these things, a spin bowler can make life very difficult for a batter - especially he can switch between different directions of spin - and also unexpectedly mix-in non-spinning and faster deliveries.
But there is even more! If the spinning ball is angled at about forty-five degrees, the ball will swerve in two planes! For example, if a clockwise spinning ball is angled so the rotation is forward at 45 degrees to the right, then this introduces an element of top-spin. So the ball will do the following: 1.Swerve to the left because of the clockwise rotation, 2 Drop suddenly and land further away from the batter than expected from its early trajectory because of the top spin, 3. Bounce to the right because of the clockwise rotation, and 4. Jump off the pitch toward the batter faster then expected from its velocity because of the top spin!
So a slow bowler can potentially impart very rapid rotation on the ball, control how the ball is angled in the air, control where the ball lands, disguise the various directions and angles of spin so the batter cannot see the changes - and do this reliably many hundreds of times in a row (because slow bowling is less tiring than fast bowling, the spinner can potentially bowl for hour after hour).
To be able to do all this is very difficult and very rare - but IF a bowler can do it, THEN a slow spin bowlers can be most effective and most useful bowler of all.
*
Monday, 28 March 2022
We become what we think - for Good and ill; but what is Real thinking?
It was not always thus; but since around the millennium is has become evident that Men become what they think; and Men can choose what they think...
But we cannot think whatever we choose!
It superficially seems that we could think... whatever we wanted! - but this is not the case. In order to think most of the things that Mass men now think; each Man must choose to switch-off awareness of his own real-divine Self and plug-into external thought-control.
This is why the masses are willingly addicted to the media - because it is the mass media that externally controls each Man's thinking, in the way that he has chosen to allow his thinking to be controlled.
Consequently, Man has mostly become... whatever the dominant world power currently want him to become...
One who denies his own nature as a Man, his own divine destiny - and who instead chooses to regard himself (a bottom line) as a soul-less animal without free agency; an accidental collection of chemicals doomed at death to eternal and absolute annihilation.
Or a frenzied and resentful partisan for one or another of the abstract, demonic, leftist projects that drive -forward the agenda of evil.
The only compensation of Mass Man is from feelings; and feelings are also (and increasingly) controlled by the same external powers - who induce fear and despair or optimism and pleasure; social isolation or purposive-belonging; idealism or pragmatism... according to Their external goals.
But God desires that we each be actively and consciously responsible for our own thinking.
If you decide to do this; you will find it hard to break the habit of allowing external control, and to become aware of your Real Self thinking.
And (far from being able to think whatever we want, and make ourselves whatever we thus think) we become aware that this Real Self is divine, and aligned with God's creative nature and plans.
Thus we can only think that which is Good - yet that Good must still be chosen if we want Good to eventuate from our thinking.
(Nothing Good happens automatically or passively; God works his creation by consent and choice.)
If this inner-awareness of the Real Self Thinking can be attained (albeit briefly and infrequently) you will sooner or later (if alert for it) also become somewhat aware of another external source of guidance - The Holy Ghost.
This is not something we can control: for instance, it is seldom we can get an answer from the Holy Ghost to any old question we try to put to Him. This is because most questions are meaningless or wrongly-motivated.
But when a real and well-motivated question is formed - it is answered instantly and effortlessly. We will get the guidance we need, the knowledge we need - and nothing else!
To ask properly is to be answered. It is the asking of a proper question that is so difficult.
I know of nothing more encouraging and energizing than the sense of range and positive creative value that is intrinsic to thinking from the real self (primary thinking, as I have termed it).
It is that solid assurance which sustains faith. It is a knowing that dispels doubt. It underpins assurance purpose and meaning in this mortal life. It is of boundless scope, and positively-transformative value.
Real Thinking, and that understanding which Thinking enables, is the most important thing we can do; and the most necessary - for our-selves and The World.
Note added: The above discourse sounds as if each individual Man was isolated and alienated - but not so! Primary thinking is also what enables us to 'connect' directly with other Beings in this created universe - consisting-of Beings. Thus we can (to some extent - albeit only as frequently and only for as long as both Beings maintain alignment with God's creative will) experience direct-knowing of other Beings; including (but not restricted to) men and women (as well as the Holy Ghost).
Friday, 18 January 2019
Pie in the sky - the misrepresentation of Heaven
In casual public discourse - even in what purports to be serious stuff, and written by otherwise-intelligent and well-informed people - people grossly misrepresent Jesus's promise of life eternal as a paradisal 'reward' to compensate Christians for the miseries of this mortal life.
Or as a reward for 'being good' in mortal ife.
Christian Heaven is thus falsely presented as a ludicrous, pathetic, or manipulated kind of wishful thinking.
Yet this is literally nothing like what Jesus is reported as saying in the Fourth Gospel.
Jesus says in that Gospel that we can reach the Kingdom of Heaven only via death, by being born again after death - resurrected to a higher form of eternal life, to become - indeed brothers and sisters of Jesus and fully divine ourselves. And this life eternal will be qualitatively greater than this life.
Nothing about a reward, nothing about a compensation, nothing about being good; instead it is a gift or a promise to those who have faith. And we must die to get it.
Death is necessary.
Apart from dying first; how do we get it? By following Jesus through death (as we recognise him as divine and our Good Shepherd, and trust him).
This life eternal entails love - it is implied that the Kingdom of Heaven is a life of love - Jesus describes this in some detail, like a web of love between himself, The Father, and the disciples.
Those who do not want love, who reject love; will not want life eternal, and will not have it forced upon them.
Those who regard this mortal life as all important will not want Heaven; those who believe or want annihilation at the end of mortality, disbelieve is Heaven, do not regard Jesus as divine nor as capable of offering us this gift.
All of these will exclude thenselves from Heaven, because of the different nature of their desires.
Or as a reward for 'being good' in mortal ife.
Christian Heaven is thus falsely presented as a ludicrous, pathetic, or manipulated kind of wishful thinking.
Yet this is literally nothing like what Jesus is reported as saying in the Fourth Gospel.
Jesus says in that Gospel that we can reach the Kingdom of Heaven only via death, by being born again after death - resurrected to a higher form of eternal life, to become - indeed brothers and sisters of Jesus and fully divine ourselves. And this life eternal will be qualitatively greater than this life.
Nothing about a reward, nothing about a compensation, nothing about being good; instead it is a gift or a promise to those who have faith. And we must die to get it.
Death is necessary.
Apart from dying first; how do we get it? By following Jesus through death (as we recognise him as divine and our Good Shepherd, and trust him).
This life eternal entails love - it is implied that the Kingdom of Heaven is a life of love - Jesus describes this in some detail, like a web of love between himself, The Father, and the disciples.
Those who do not want love, who reject love; will not want life eternal, and will not have it forced upon them.
Those who regard this mortal life as all important will not want Heaven; those who believe or want annihilation at the end of mortality, disbelieve is Heaven, do not regard Jesus as divine nor as capable of offering us this gift.
All of these will exclude thenselves from Heaven, because of the different nature of their desires.
Monday, 26 December 2011
Only one political principle for Christian Reactionaries
*
As Christians first, and reactionaries second, there is only room for one single, organising, inflexible reactionary political principle.
*
The Christian society is one organised-around the salvation of souls, or at least that is its ideal.
(Therefore, the Christian society is fundamentally different from the society we have.)
For Christian Reactionaries, political arrangements should be subordinated to retaining and growing the strength and possibility of Christianity.
*
Of course this does not at all mean that Christianity is the only important matter, since life cannot be divided and humans are corrupt, and almost all humans live 'in the world'.
It does not mean that The State/ Church should use 'compulsion' to engineer salvation. That makes no sense - the means must be the same as the end, and the end is that Christian salvation must be chosen, or not chosen.
(That is the necessity of Hell in the divine plan: because souls must be free to reject Christian salvation. This is perfectly explicit, and applies to angelic spirits as well as Men.)
*
Christianity is based on choice, on will; and the political principle must therefore also be based on choice, on will - that is on human attributes.
A Christian politics is necessarily a politics of individual choice - necessarily not (fundamentally) a system.
For the Reactionary Christian, civilisation must be fundamentally a thing of Man, of individual Men; therefore not of laws, rules, organisations, procedures, committees, votes, parliaments, panels, peer reviewing, nor democracy, nor mass movements, nor pressure groups...
Insofar as these things are necessary to civilisation, and they are, they must never be considered fundamental.
*
There is therefore no point, it is indeed counter-productive, to create blueprints for utopia for the perfect society that is Christian and much more.
Matters are too far gone, knowledge is too limited, that goal is too remote.
*
If we fight the battle on too many fronts, it will certainly be lost.
On the other hand, we must try to avoid being out-flanked - however this may not be possible with small forces.
The result may resemble a siege.
*
We cannot save everything, we must decide what it is vital to salvage.
In my opinion, when the nations and civilisations as a whole are anti-Christian then we probably, very probably, cannot save the current nation states and we cannot save our civilisation for the simple reason that Men are choosing not to save them.
*
There is no shortcut to the other side of salvation: we cannot make men want Good and then save them: salvation must come first: and repentance must precede salvation.
*
Societies have personalities (which are not the same, are the antithesis of, the results of votes and surveys and markets).
Modern Western societies must, as personalities, first acknowledge their sins (sin being the state of turned-away from God), and the cause of their sins; must take responsibility, repent, call for Divine aid.
This must come first, and it is pointless, no it is a dangerous delusion, to try and improve society without this; because it could be done only by coercion or trickery, and any apparent progress would swiftly be turned to its own undoing (since the apparent Good would in reality have come from the implementation of Bad intentions).
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(contra Adam Smith, good results cannot ultimately comes from bad motivations but only briefly and delusively as a temptation; since over time bad motivations will thoroughly corrupt any well-intentioned system. Surely that is obvious by now? Isn't that precisely what we are experiencing?).
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Thus the necessity for aiming fist-and-foremost at a state and practice of clear rejection of the world, and a humble acceptance of whatever consequences ensue.
(What possible inducement could people have to do this? - it might be asked. The answer is precisely the need for the conception of the wholeness of Christianity, that perceives the world as full or living intelligences ('angels') and life as Spiritual Warfare. From this perspective, suddenly, we are inside life and life is real with purpose and direction. This would be an infinite compensation for loss of worldly goods - if only we could hold to it; which we cannot, by our own efforts.)
Of course, as fallen Men, resolve will (almost certainly) fail, repeatedly; and need to be renewed; but ultimates outcomes are (as always) in the hand of Providence - and need not concern us.
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As always, to a (simple) man of discernment, things are absolutely simple, what we need to do is absolutely simple.
And that state of simplicity and discernment is what needs to be striven for.
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As Christians first, and reactionaries second, there is only room for one single, organising, inflexible reactionary political principle.
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The Christian society is one organised-around the salvation of souls, or at least that is its ideal.
(Therefore, the Christian society is fundamentally different from the society we have.)
For Christian Reactionaries, political arrangements should be subordinated to retaining and growing the strength and possibility of Christianity.
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Of course this does not at all mean that Christianity is the only important matter, since life cannot be divided and humans are corrupt, and almost all humans live 'in the world'.
It does not mean that The State/ Church should use 'compulsion' to engineer salvation. That makes no sense - the means must be the same as the end, and the end is that Christian salvation must be chosen, or not chosen.
(That is the necessity of Hell in the divine plan: because souls must be free to reject Christian salvation. This is perfectly explicit, and applies to angelic spirits as well as Men.)
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Christianity is based on choice, on will; and the political principle must therefore also be based on choice, on will - that is on human attributes.
A Christian politics is necessarily a politics of individual choice - necessarily not (fundamentally) a system.
For the Reactionary Christian, civilisation must be fundamentally a thing of Man, of individual Men; therefore not of laws, rules, organisations, procedures, committees, votes, parliaments, panels, peer reviewing, nor democracy, nor mass movements, nor pressure groups...
Insofar as these things are necessary to civilisation, and they are, they must never be considered fundamental.
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There is therefore no point, it is indeed counter-productive, to create blueprints for utopia for the perfect society that is Christian and much more.
Matters are too far gone, knowledge is too limited, that goal is too remote.
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If we fight the battle on too many fronts, it will certainly be lost.
On the other hand, we must try to avoid being out-flanked - however this may not be possible with small forces.
The result may resemble a siege.
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We cannot save everything, we must decide what it is vital to salvage.
In my opinion, when the nations and civilisations as a whole are anti-Christian then we probably, very probably, cannot save the current nation states and we cannot save our civilisation for the simple reason that Men are choosing not to save them.
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There is no shortcut to the other side of salvation: we cannot make men want Good and then save them: salvation must come first: and repentance must precede salvation.
*
Societies have personalities (which are not the same, are the antithesis of, the results of votes and surveys and markets).
Modern Western societies must, as personalities, first acknowledge their sins (sin being the state of turned-away from God), and the cause of their sins; must take responsibility, repent, call for Divine aid.
This must come first, and it is pointless, no it is a dangerous delusion, to try and improve society without this; because it could be done only by coercion or trickery, and any apparent progress would swiftly be turned to its own undoing (since the apparent Good would in reality have come from the implementation of Bad intentions).
*
(contra Adam Smith, good results cannot ultimately comes from bad motivations but only briefly and delusively as a temptation; since over time bad motivations will thoroughly corrupt any well-intentioned system. Surely that is obvious by now? Isn't that precisely what we are experiencing?).
*
Thus the necessity for aiming fist-and-foremost at a state and practice of clear rejection of the world, and a humble acceptance of whatever consequences ensue.
(What possible inducement could people have to do this? - it might be asked. The answer is precisely the need for the conception of the wholeness of Christianity, that perceives the world as full or living intelligences ('angels') and life as Spiritual Warfare. From this perspective, suddenly, we are inside life and life is real with purpose and direction. This would be an infinite compensation for loss of worldly goods - if only we could hold to it; which we cannot, by our own efforts.)
Of course, as fallen Men, resolve will (almost certainly) fail, repeatedly; and need to be renewed; but ultimates outcomes are (as always) in the hand of Providence - and need not concern us.
*
As always, to a (simple) man of discernment, things are absolutely simple, what we need to do is absolutely simple.
And that state of simplicity and discernment is what needs to be striven for.
*
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