Overcoming the double-negative conceptualizations of Jesus Christ

Over the past few years, since I spent a year or so multiply re-reading the Fourth Gospel ("of John") in isolation; I have often emphasized the covertly-deceptive way in which double-negative formulations have colonized and distorted our minds and motivations - both in Christianity and in mainstream modern secular 'leftism'.  

A double-negative is not the same as a positive; yet it seems obvious that most people fail to recognize the essentially negative conceptualizations of their own beliefs and ideals: they suppose themselves to be idealists, with some kind of positive agenda; yet they nearly-always are in thrall to some merely double-negation.

For instance, they believe that the double-negations of being against CO2 climate change, or protecting the environment, is the same thing as loving and cherishing our relation to this natural world. And the consequence is massive destruction of nature and the severing of Men from the natural. 

The supposedly 'ecological' doubled double-negative of "stopping climate change" and "protecting the environment" leads to an explicit (albeit deceptive) vision of humankind crammed into pods of '15 minute' mega-cities, eating processed bugs delivered by drones - and experiencing nature only virtually, via media. 

(The double-negative attitude towards nature leads inexorably to the negation of Man - i.e. his extinction.)

Unfortunately, this kind of double-negation applies to many Christian understandings of Jesus Christ.

This is evident from using the synonym the Saviour to describe what is regarded as the essence of what He did for us. And that essence of what Jesus did is summarized as the Atonement - which is another double-negation. The same could be said about calling Jesus the redeemer, and describing the crucifixion as a redemption; all terms betray the primacy of double-negative theology. Conceptualizing Jesus's goodness as primarily sin-less-ness is another such.  

I am sure that this is mistaken, and also stands as an obstacle to modern understanding of Jesus Christ. Partly because because it is obvious that modern Man feels no spontaneous need for saving, atonement or redemption. 

If modern man must first be convinced of his default damnation from sin; he cannot begin to understand what Jesus is supposed to have done for him - thus evangelism is crippled. 

Yet the Fourth Gospel seems to tell a different story - at least if read straightforwardly, as our primary source of knowledge of Jesus's life and teachings (by which I mean; trying to understand the IV Gospel without subordinating it to the other Gospels, other parts of the New Testament, and the Bible as a whole). 

Of course; the IV Gospel can be interpreted in a double-negative fashion - as about Jesus as Saviour - since all positives can be reframed in a double-negative form. 

But reformulating a positive as double-negation always and necessarily leaves-out that which is truly positive; because in real-life (unlike mathematics!) a positive cannot emerge from negations. 

Being "against sin", does not tell us what to do instead-of sinning; just as being against "Anthropogenic Global Warming by CO2" does not tell mankind anything about how to build a good relationship with the natural world. 

(The double-negation of Jesus's teaching and work, leads to a negation of this mortal life - such that 'goodness' becomes the negation of sin, life the avoidance of damnation - life itself a thing to be got-through without falling and failing.)   

Jesus in the IV Gospel is presented, perfectly straightforwardly, as the giver of life everlasting*. Which is presented as a positive addition to human possibility. 

Yes, this also means negatively that Jesus "overcomes death" (a double-negation) - but this is only half the story, and the least helpful part. What Jesus offers positively is resurrection to eternal life in Heaven. 

And what this means is set-out in many points of the Gospel, albeit in ways that we tend to regard as poetical or allegorical - but, at the time of Jesus this was very probably the ordinary way that language was used. 

(Ancient languages had, what seems to us 'moderns', multiple and simultaneous meanings; they did not have the narrowly and precise, 'technical' and specialized - but utterly un-poetic! - language systems that we know from sciences, law, and bureaucracy generally.)   

Double-negatively expressed Jesus "overcomes death" - and death meant something different in Jesus's time and place than it does for us; yet 'death', then and now, shared the core meaning of the ending of self, a situation caused by the death of our body. 

When we die, our self will cease to be. For the Jews of Jesus's time this probably meant that soul was severed from body such that we would become witless, demented ghosts in Sheol. 

For modern Man death means utter annihilation - body and mind - forever. But in both instances we, as unique selves, are finished. 

 

But positively understood Jesus adds-to the human situation as it is understood to exist. 

Instead of things happening as they do without Jesus; Jesus makes possible something new and extra. 

Essentially; Jesus is the Giver of Life Everlasting, not the Saviour; because a positive trumps the partiality of a double-negative; because a giver is greater than a saver. 

*I argue elsewhere that in the IV Gospel "sin" means something closely equivalent to "death" - so that references to Jesus taking-away or overcoming "sin" are intended to refer essentially to death. But it is also true that sin in the sense of disharmony with God's motivations and methods, dis-alignment from the ways of divine creation, must be overcome before life everlasting, resurrection to Heavenly life eternal, can happen.

The double-negative morality of Leftism

The actuality of Leftist morality - and that it is inversion of the true, beautiful and virtuous - is revealed by describing the double-negative reality concealed by the pseudo-positive moral 'principles' used to justify Leftist evil. 

Here is the way it works:

To be a 'racist' is = not to be anti-white

To be a sexist = not to be anti-men...

You see the way it works? Leftism is oppositional, being defined as 'against' various 'evils'. Most of the Leftist 'evils' (often expressed as '-ist' or '-phobic') can accurately be described in a similar double-negative fashion:

Not to be anti-native inhabitants of a country...

Not to be opposed to biologically real, reproductively-adaptive sexuality...

Not to be anti-Christian... etc.

The double-negative formulation is a necessity for Leftism, since Leftism is indeed ultimately oppositional (opposing God and divine creation; opposing the true, beautiful and virtuous); thus its 'positive' content (i.e. what Leftists want) is protean and labile, self-contradicting and incoherent. 

After all, there are an 'infinite' number of ways of opposing The Good. 

To be morally excoriated by the Left, all that is required is to be against opposing the Good, in any particular respect.  

Added - Double-negative denialism

For the sake of completeness, and to include two of the biggest recent double-negative global crusades. What do accusations of denialism amount to? 

Climate denialism: Hatred of those people who do not regard carbon as the greatest threat to life on earth

Birdemic denialism: Terror of those who are not afraid of close proximity to human beings

 

Note: This idea was triggered by a post by William Wildblood, where he give a double negative definition of 'racist'. 

Three errors of traditional Christian theologies

Error 1. An exclusive focus on salvation - when theosis should be the main activity of mortal living

Traditional theology has tended to make salvation a problem, a difficulty, the proper main focus of our mortal lives. When actually salvation is as easy as wanting it and committing to follow Jesus through death into Heavenly life eternal. 

This is clear from the Fourth Gospel (of 'John') - but traditionally Christianity chose to subordinate the Fourth Gospel into a framework provided by Matthew, Luke and Paul.

Salvation is in truth therefore a choice - and that choice is finally made after death; our nature and what we do in mortal life contributes to the outcome of that choice. 

But salvation is not 'a problem', and attaining salvation is certainly not supposed to be the focus of Christian life. Each Christian is meant to have the happiness that comes from hope - and the hope which comes from faith - and to derive happiness and security from his decision to follow Jesus. 

Christians are Not supposed to be fretting and worrying (or despairing) in doubts concerning the certainty of our salvation.  

The proper focus of Christian life should therefore be 'theosis' or becoming more divine (more God-like) - more divine not temporarily in this mortal life; but eternally after resurrection. 

In sum, this continued mortal life exists in order that we may become more God-like after resurrection: that is the reason of mortal life (and why we do not all die as soon as incarnated, while innocent - and before we have a chance to fall into damnation).   

Error 2. Double-negative theology of mortal life - when it is actually an education

Traditional theology has sometimes included theosis, but only in a 'double-negative' context. 

Original Sin is an example of double-negative theology. This posits that damnation (and Hell) is the default for all humans of whatever age, time or place - unless they are saved (by faith, the church, good works - or whatever). The negative is assumed, and Christianity posited to remove that negative. 

For another example of negative theology; Medieval Roman Catholic theology and practice developed the idea that the post-mortal state of purgatory could be shortened and ameliorated by the activities of the living (prayer and other offerings). By the actions of mortal life, post-mortal life would be less-bad - which is what I mean by a double-negative conceptualization. 

This is a negative theosis - we are not becoming better Men with a positive pay-off after death; not becoming more like God - but are alleviating various sufferings imposed by God. 

The nature of mortal life was often conceptualized especially by Protestants in terms of salvation almost-purely (leaving out theosis) - so that by wrong choices in this mortal life would could fail to commit to following Jesus and be damned, or could sin and fail to repent and be damned... 

At the extreme, our eternal state was dictated by our spiritual state at the moment of death - and the rest of life had no effect. Mortal Life was therefore a test; something that could be failed - but not something by which we could be spiritually and eternally improved. 

Such a view of mortal life devalues it into a problem 

But - especially after we have realized that salvation is not a problem - once we want it, and are prepared to do whatever is necessary to follow Jesus after death; then Mortal Life should be seen positively. 

Our mortal life should be seen as potentially incremental and building towards a positive post-mortal outcome. We have experiences (provided for us by God, the creator) - and we may learn (what God intends) from these experiences - and thereby undergo theosis; and become better equipped for a more God-like life after death and resurrection. 

   

Error 3. Regarding only Men as alive and conscious - when universal consciousness of beings is the reality

This error was already present at its foundation but has become much more severe over the history of Christianity. Until by now, Christianity is assumed to be only about men and women (Men) - human beings; and the rest of creation is assumed to be unconscious, lacking purpose - and most of the world is regarded as 'dead' - i.e. the 'material' world of physics which operates only by deterministic causes or 'randomness'. 

This has led to the present usual idea of Christianity as being almost exclusively about 'morality'; as a moral play acted-out against a backdrop of dead and/or unconscious stuff. 

But the truth is that this is a universe of Beings, who are all - in different ways - alive, conscious and with purpose. The drama of salvation and theosis plays-out for all Beings - in different ways. 

As ancient Men knew, and as human children are born knowing; Man lives among Beings - and all that we know, we know about Beings. 

When God created reality - God created Beings - and Beings are what God created - God did not create merely dead/ unconscious/ inert stuff

A corrected Christian theology

When these traditional errors are corrected we can realize firstly that - for those who have become Christian, and chosen to follow Jesus through death to resurrection as their primary commitment - this mortal life is mainly about theosis. Secondly that this theosis is positive - which means that the lessons we learn in this mortal life have a positive benefit for our post-mortal, Heavenly life. And thirdly that the drama of our mortal lives is enacted in a living and conscious world of purposive Beings - most of whom are not human.  

Was Jesus 'without sin' - and what does that mean?

Yes, Jesus was indeed without sin. But the question is what that means? 

'Sin' is misunderstood in a negative way, as transgression of 'law'. To say 'Jesus was without sin' is therefore a double negative.

A double negative is formulated like: all Men sin, and sin is bad; but Jesus didn't do it, therefore Jesus is good. 

But this is inadequate, being both indirect and inaccurate (since a double-negative is not identical-with a positive). We need to know what is the positive statement that this formulation indirectly refers-to. 

We need to be able to say that Jesus was wholly-Good - and we need to be able to say what wholly-Good means. 

Sin should properly be considered in reference to the positive ideal of being wholly-aligned-with God the creator; being fully in harmony with God's motivations, will etc. in terms of God's ongoing creation. 

To be sinful is Not to be aligned with God. Not to be sinful is therefore best thought of as being wholly aligned with God in the work of creation. 

Therefore - Jesus was 'without sin' only in a secondary and negative sense of what Jesus was Not. Stated positively, Jesus was wholly aligned with God his Father in terms of God's ongoing work of creation. 

To enter Heaven (and for Heaven to remain Heaven) all those in Heaven must be in harmony with God and creation. What Jesus had to do for Man was to enable Men to get into harmony with God, so as to be resurrected and enter Heaven. 

This is not a double-negative and roundabout matter of ridding Men of of their sins, but is instead a matter of bringing Men into harmony with God's motivations etc. 

By choosing to love and follow Jesus, we become aligned-with God's will; we freely assent to the transformation of resurrection that enables us to enter Heaven.

This is why the Fourth Gospel so often seems to equate 'sin' with 'death'. If we are in a state of sin, we do not want what God wants, therefore we cannot be resurrected and go to Heavenly life eternal: we (our-selves) will therefore die. 

And this is why theories of atonement are redundant to the essence of Christianity. 

Problems with double-negative theology and the idea of being 'purged' from sin

I have often commented on the deep problems with the double-negative theology in mainstream Christianity. 

It is double-negative because it regards the problem of this life as sin, and the work of Jesus Christ as purging us of this sin - of removing this sin from us. 

This mortal life is therefore conceptualized negatively, as dominated by sin; and Jesus's work is the negation of this negative - i.e. removing sin, so that we can be resurrected into Heaven: a double-negative. 

This concept regards Heaven as a perfection, and mortal Men as imperfect due to sin; so we cannot enter Heaven until we are ridded of sin - and that is what Jesus made possible. 

So, by one means or another (and this means differs between Christian denominations), before we get to Heaven we go through a process whereby sin is removed (purged) from us, and what is left-over is wholly-good, and therefore we are allowed to enter Heaven.

To enter Heaven is understood as a willingness to undergo this purgation, this 'amputation' of our sinful elements.   

I find many problems with this set of ideas - which boil down to this concept being an implicit an assertion of the idea that God (the Creator and our loving Father) has put us into a sinful world, ourselves being riddled with sin; and that to reach Heaven we must have this sin stripped out from us - implying that what is allowed into Heaven is an incomplete version of ourselves... 

(Indeed, perhaps, for very sin-full people, there will not be much of ourselves remaining, by the time we are suitable for Heaven.)

The purpose of this mortal life - according to such theology - is to reject sin: a negative purpose.  

I find this kind of behaviour - imputed to God - incompatible with him being a loving Father; who might have created things differently and better.

And I find the idea of this mortal life as a negative motivation (against sin, which sin is against-God) both inadequate and somewhat repugnant. It points at the via negativa - a life of rejection that amounts to life turned-against life.

Whereas I feel in my heart (and from the example of Jesus Christ, who was incarnate, active, positive), that this mortal life is - or ought to have - a positive purpose. We ought to be able to become better through our living (experiencing and learning), rather than merely 'avoiding becoming worse'.   

Instead, I see 'sin' as essentially meaning 'death' (which is clear from the Fourth Gospel) - and also the other forms of anti-creative innate corruption and decay that lead up to death (and which modern physics terms entropy). 

Sin in this sense, is the severing of our souls from our bodies at death - and it is this 'death' which Jesus overcame himself, and made possible for those who followed his path. 

Sin, more broadly, is a turning-away from what God desires from us. And a turning-away is not dealt with by purgation but by turning us in the right direction - permanently!

In other words, the main thing that Jesus did is to bring the possibility of eternal life; and this life as a resurrection of our real selves, and with a body - destined for a Heaven where all beings are turned in a direction in harmony with divine creation. 

All beings in Heaven have made an eternal commitment to God's creative goals. 

Rather than a purgation of all that is worst in our-selves; I see the work of Jesus in terms of an amplification of our-selves at their best. 

In this mortal life we find ourselves, intermittently and infrequently - turned in a Heavenly direction. So we know from experience what it is like to live in harmony with divine creation - to work with (rather than against) God.

(We also know what it is like to be turned-away from God and creation - what this feels like, where it leads; and we may learn something of how to overcome this turned-away state in ourselves) 

To prepare us for life in Heaven is therefore something like making it possible for us to stay permanently turned in the direction of Heaven and Creation, in permanent harmony with God's creative will. 

For this to happen, we each must choose whether to allow it to happen. 

Do we want the best in ourselves to become our whole self - or not? 

(This naturally entails leaving-behind those things that can only be achieved by going against God and creation - but the positive reason is that we desire wholly to be our best selves; and because we want to dwell eternally in a situation where we can whole-heartedly and actively work for such goals.)

It is a matter of what we want, and what we want most. 

By analogy; if this mortal life is a walk; then it is a walk when we spin around: sometimes walking with God, sometimes off on a tangent, sometimes pushing against the direction of God. 

Those who choose to follow Jesus Christ, are those who value most - indeed, at root, deeply-value only - those times when they are walking with God (times when they are motivated by love, and participating in the work of divine creation). 

Those who choose Heaven are those who want to do this walking-in harmony with God and sharing God's goals all the time - because they value love and creativity above all else; and indeed these are ultimately the only things of mortal life that they truly, everlastingly value. 

Embrace the simple-clear positive; eschew the complex double-negative

Christians do themselves, as well their cause, long-term harm by their habitual (addictive?) use of double-negative theology. Indeed there is a very influential branch of theology and Christian practice that has elaborated this into a vast systematic edifice (the negative path, or via negativa) - plus, this is the basis of much 'eastern' religious philosophy in Buddhism, Hinduism (and Sufism).  

I think we can see the collapse of double-negative thinking in the 21st century; because its lack of simplicity and clarity render it incapable of dealing with the protean and pervasive challenges to faith of this era, as emanating from globalist totalitarianism with its linked-bureaucracies of governance and mass media. 

Negative motivations are counter-productive, because when all is illusion then individuals are (in practice) rendered passively obedient to that which is dominant. And, anyway, the number and strength - and fluidity - of deceptions are now too great to be individually discerned, diagnosed and rejected. 

In a world where (for many or most people) it is a case of me-against-the-world: - my Christianity against a world of demonic- materialist ideology - it seems we must be clear in our own minds; if we are not to be confused and bamboozled, and simply worn-down to impotent exhaustion by the relentless and increasing weight of error and evil.

For us, it is a case of motivation, motivation, motivation! 

Thus, we cannot anymore be motivated by such double-negatives as the avoidance of sin - most Christians who imagine this is possible are simply denying their own vast scale of sinning in domains such as dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Avoidance of sin is now effective (hence valid) only when there is a primary positive impulse towards Good. 

But most people's idea of The Good is some notion of altruism/ unselfishness/ helping-others - which is another negative value. In a world based on utilitarian hedonism, where 'other people' live materialistically - 'altruism' reduces to me trying to 'make' people happy, which is impossible; so it ends-up with the negative goal of diminishing suffering. 

(In practice, altruism at the political level entails a small class of super-powerful/ super-privileged/ super-rich individuals pretending to administer the world on behalf of the 'oppressed' by monopolizing and confiscating all resources - supposedly because this globalist-establishment are the 'agents' of 'social justice.)   

We cannot (if ever Men could) be motivated by a desire for 'freedom' - because freedom is a negative value that only gains motivating-power for Good, when there is some existing positive motivation towards Good that is being thwarted. 

We cannot, if we intend to accomplish Good, be motivated primarily by obedience to any external authority or institution; because all such are so corrupted that in practice Goodness can only be discerned and practiced by the independent thinking of individual persons, and their autonomy of thinking. 

And that returns us to the primary of personal motivation. 

In other words; it is now imperative for Christian Good both that individuals are motivated to think for themselves and do-so, and that they operate from baseline assumptions that are positively-motivating - which means simple and clear enough to be effective. 

In practice; each must discover these for himself. They are not available off-the-peg and will not be the values that get-inculcated-into the passively obedient or non-conscious, routine-thinker. 

Since the problem is insufficient motivation, we need to begin from whatever positive and good motivations we already have; and follow these motivations through, with honesty and diligence to... wherever they will lead. 

The Big Problem is that so few people seem to have the motivation even to recognize a problem with The World Now. 

This could - in theory - be because the world is now so pervasively and persuasively evil that Modern men are helpless against its temptations... But that would be to assume God has failed to give Men a reasonable chance of salvation...

Alternatively, it may be that Modern men are of innately poorer quality than Men of the past; that a mass of Men (especially in The West) are innately more dominated by evil, more prone to evil - and feebler in their strength of Good motivations than before. 

I regard this 'worse Men' as the most probable explanation for a world full of Men who do not even want to be Good; but who instead legislate and enforce inverted-true values, such that great evil is now called great good - and praised, rewarded and accorded the highest status. 

In other words: I assume that God is as Good as ever, as powerful a creator as ever; but the 'quality' of pre-mortal souls available for incarnation into this mortal life is lower than in the past. A lot of incarnated souls nowadays are less naturally-good/ more heavily disposed-towards evil, compared with the past. 

And therefore (here-and-now) all the major (large/ powerful/ wealthy/ high-status) human institutions of The Hegemonic West (including churches) are net-corrupted; are overall affiliated to the side of evil in the spiritual war of this world. 

Quite likely - you and I are similarly misaligned and enfeebled compared with Men of the past - although I would not be writing, you would not be reading, this - unless there we had at least some motivation to be motivated for Good... 

However... What worked for our ancestors may not work for us: since we are worse, and so is The World. 

We need things to be simpler, clearer and easier than They did; if we are to be able to develop and strengthen our embryonic Good-motivations into something positive by-which we can navigate our path against the current of a hostile evil-world of apparently overwhelming strength and scope. 

 

If this world is ruled by evil Men, affiliated with Satan - what does this tell us about God? (Concerning negative versus positive Christians)

It is important for people to realize, to acknowledge, that the global leadership class of 2023 - especially those of The West - are affiliated to evil; i.e. are allied with Satan and against God and divine creation. 

But making this acknowledgement is not sufficient to be Christian, because the Christian God is Good - and Good by (the best and highest) human standards  of Good - as exemplified and taught by Jesus Christ. 

In other words; to be Christian, we must also correctly understand how it is that God, the creator, who is wholly-Good - makes things, such that this world is ruled by evil Men who serve the agenda of Satan. 

In other words; we need to understand enough about the nature and motivations of God to make sense of the current fact of things-now being substantially under evil leadership. 

And there are (from a Christian perspective) right and wrong ways of understanding this.

As so often nowadays; this line of reflection almost immediately gets-down to fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality - especially the nature of God (in other words - to metaphysics). 

And as so often nowadays; such reflections operate as a stress test on some of the historical incoherences of Christianity - in this instance, the dogma that the Christian God is an Omni-God (omnipotent, omniscient, and creating everything from nothing).

When the Omni-God concept is made primary - then there is no real Good or evil; because everything is of-God. 

Our human ideas of Good and evil are then merely the delusions of Beings who have been made depraved and weak, and forced (for incomprehensible reasons) to dwell in the realm of an evil dictator - with the only goal the negative one of acknowledging our own depravity and that evil of our situation. 

Somehow; this acknowledgement of evil is supposed to be the only path to our personal salvation. And yet this (we must believe) was the only and best way that we (who are supposed to be completely made by God, in complete accordance with God's designs, and having experiences completely dictated by God or God's servants) can escape eternal torment.    

I have noticed that some of the Christians who pass the Litmus Tests of our time - and who therefore appear to be 'good Christians' - are doing so negatively rather than positively. In other words - such Christians recognize the evil of the Litmus Test issues - but only because they regard this whole world as essentially evil. 

Such negative Christians regard Men as essentially depraved creatures who inhabit a world that God has given to the rulership of Satan; and which Satan - who is a sadistic, lying tyrant - operates as a prison of torment.   

In other words; such negative Christians regard God as Good (in some ultimate and abstract sense) but one whose Goodness is morally-incomprehensible - because God (as an Omni-God, qualitatively utterly distinct from men) operates by values that are beyond human comprehension and empathy. 

Because if a Man were to treat his children in this way, he would be regarded as a moral monster! 

An analogy might be parents who deliberately choose to send their son to a boarding school whose headmaster is a sadistic tyrant, and who employs sadistic tyrants as teachers; and these teachers ensure that the most sadistic and tyrannical of the boys are praised and rewarded, and encouraged to torment the children at the school and expunge anything in them that is Good or joyful. 

Even more extremely; since these parents are 'omnipotent and omniscient' - we must assume that they might not have sent their son to boarding school at all, but chose to. And they might instead have picked a better Headmaster who had some Good motivations and employed a better staff and encouraged Goodness in the boys... 

But no! These parents chose to force their kid to inhabit torture-school...

And further - these parents must be regarded as having made their son such that he was by nature depraved, that he was corruptible by evil; he is set-up (by his creation-from-nothing) such that he cannot resist corruption.  

Such choices are de facto imputed to the Omni-God - and belief in Omni-God is then made mandatory for Christians... 

Negative Christians are driven to such extremes by their dogmatic adherence to the Omni-God. 

In the past, it was possible, indeed not unusual, for Christians who believed in an Omni-God to operate in a way that was inconsistent with their belief - and which instead focused on the nature, example and teachings of Jesus. 

But nowadays, because of the stresses of these times - the contradictions of mainstream, orthodox Christian theology have been brought to the surface, and confronted by a more evil world than ever before - a world in which the organized institutional 'Christian' churches have (almost-) all chosen to obey the totalitarian agenda of evil, and who actively-support many or most of the globalist-leftist Litmus Test issues. 

Yet to regard this world and Men as essentially evil is to reject that which is specifically Christian, and to adopt a Judaic/ Old Testament/ Islamic - or even quasi-Gnostic - view of God; as incomprehensible or even apparently evil by even the best human standards. 

(The Gnostics believed, in essence, that this world - and all 'matter' - was created and operated by 'the devil'; and was therefore wholly negative, operating only as a test to elicit a spiritual and other worldly desire. For the Gnostics, we Men could not learn anything positive from our experience in this world - we could only learn the negative lesson of its evil, and experience the desire to escape from matter into pure spirit. Meanwhile - for Gnostics - knowledge of God could only be negative ('negative theology') - we could say what God was not; but could state nothing positive and substantive about God. In other words; this is a double-negative theology - in which 'Good' is only the negation of evil. While there are no modern day Gnostics - it can be seen that this negative metaphysical attitude has been, and still is, a feature of many religions and spiritualities. This is also revealed by the commonly-expressed double-negative conception of salvation; which is so often described as as an escape from default-torment - e.g. "Jesus came to save Men from Hell".) 

It seems obvious to me that Christians - i.e. those who follow Jesus Christ - cannot (and should not) follow this path of regarding this world as created by God as a prison ruled by a tormenter; and of God's nature as utterly unlike even the best aspects of the best of of Men.

The test of these times involves both accepting that this world is indeed ruled by evil men who serve Satan; and also understanding that God is Good - and Good by the best standards of the best of Men in this actual world. 

This means that (in 2023) Christians are being compelled explicitly to reject the old error of the Omni-God in Christianity - failure to do so is pushing Christians towards a kind of double-negative pseudo-Christianity, in which God and the ultimates have more in common with the world-view of Judaism, Islam, or even the Gnostic...

In other words; we are called-upon explicitly to reject a type of 'Christianity' that demands (above all else) complete obedience to the incomprehensible and (to us ultimately depraved humans) apparently-immoral demands of all-powerful and abstractly inhuman deity.

Such a Christianity has no essential role for Jesus Christ as such - its theology and demands are wholly-derivable from God as-was before the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: Jesus has been wholly-absorbed-into the Omni-God (as must all of creation be absorbed into an Omni-God). 

Such a pseudo-Christianity is an Old Testament religion (plus/ minus various Greek and Roman philosophical assumptions) - and such remains the case no matter what lip-service is paid to the importance of Jesus.  

In one version; Jesus has been absorbed into an already-existing Old Testament project, without any qualitative break or inflexion; in another version Jesus is just treated as-if he was simply God the Creator.  

To be a positive Christian in 2023 therefore entails more than just rejecting the temptations of the Litmus Tests on the basis that the world world is evil and God made it this way. 

We cannot negative our way out of trouble! 

Good comes from Good, not from a vast piling of evil upon evil. When Christians find themselves talking as if Good could come from evils, they ought to regard this as a reductio ad absurdum - and examine their assumptions that led to this non-sense! 

Christians need to be led by Jesus Christ, not by a pre-Christian conception of an Omni-God. 

A Christian in 2023 needs to detect and reject evil - yes!

But only as a means to the end of pursuing positive Good. 

**

Note added: The reader may notice that I emphasized 2023 throughout. Negative Christianity often worked well in practice in earlier eras - and this is also useful to understand. Firstly, Men had a different and more group-ish (immersive, passive, un-conscious) form of consciousness in the pre-modern era; and this resulted in society-wide forms of religion. The positive aspects of even the most negative theologies were therefore sometimes ameliorated by positive social practices - particularly those handed-down by tradition. One example would be that of Eastern Orthodox Christianity as found in the Byzantine Empire, or Holy Russia. As well as an ascetic and meditative monasticism rooted in negative theology; there were all kinds of ritual and symbolic practices that were part of everyday life and provided a counterbalancing of warmth, aesthetic satisfaction, colour, energy - often the veneration of Mary, the Mother of God was a particular route for this. Something analogous can be seen in some Medieval Roman Catholic societies of Western Europe. But things have changed - modern Men's consciousness is more autonomous and individualistic and consciously aware of things once taken-for-granted so that we must choose much that was previously spontaneous; automatically absorbed from society. Now (2023) there are no Christian societies that provide that kind of communal and primarily-motivating religious life. Each Christian is, in an existential sense, "on his own". Therefore the long-standing flaws of mainstream Christian theology have been unmasked. Thus life in 2023 is always and everywhere a testing-time for Christians; in ways that 1223, 1523, or even 1823 - were not (or not always).  

The double-negative values problem - so Very tempting...

By Domenico Fetti

 (Wrong illustration of double-neg values on so many levels!)

I have been banging-on about the inadequacy of double-negative values (including double-negative theology) for such a long time (it seems) that it might be supposed that I am myself immune to this specific deception. 

Far from it! It really is so much easier to be opposed to bad stuff, to discover ever-more bad stuff, and to express this opposition - than it is to have positive values and aspirations; that this is a temptation which never goes away!

More than a temptation, double-neg thinking can become a mind-set; so that we end-up scanning our relationships, life (and the mass media, and System-outputs generally...) for things we can oppose. And they're so very easy to find!

And this mind-set gets to be a habit, because it is reinforced. We feel good about ourselves for pointing out bad stuff and our opposition to it; and other people think we are good for doing so. 

Even when the bad stuff isn't very bad, we can get self- and other-credit for pointing out that it can become bad - that it is full of hazards, highly risky, may be a slippery slope.

And all the time we can disguise from ourselves and others that either we lack coherent positive ideas; or that our own positive ideas are open to exactly the kind of double-neg critique as we inflict upon others. 

After all, how many positive ideals are not open to potential problems? 

How many positive values cannot be abused, misunderstood, or exaggerated into something bad? 

How many people are there who aren't harbouring sinful motivations? 

This, I take it, is the real meaning of the mote and beam in the eye parable in the Bible - which I would guess is indirectly from Jesus's true sayings, but seems to have been misinterpreted, and misleadingly-explained by the evangelist. 

The point of acknowledging the beam in our own eye is surely Not so that we can better perceive and cure the motes in other people eyes; but in order that we should cease to focus on the endless and addictive temptations of a double negative value system; and instead strive to build our lives around positive values...

Despite that this really does open us to infinite criticism from the multitudes of highly-motivated mote-detectors! 

And even when these positive ideals are (or seem) simplistic and incomplete - better that, than to live by negations.*

*Because, one great and decisive spiritual advantage of positive ideals is that - when they fail or reveal serious limitations - they can be improved by learning from experience. 

Dystopias reinforce double-negative values

One reason that we are fed a relentless diet of dystopian books, movies and TV - i.e. why this theme is so lavishly funded by The Establishment; is that consuming dystopian fiction demonstrably has zero benefit in terms of prevention (but instead facilitates actual dystopias by psychological and spiritual means); while portrayal of dystopias reinforces the bottom-line double-negative value system that is destroying modern Man. 

By the depiction of horror and misery is inculcated the (mostly-unconscious) idea that if-only these horrors and miseries were removed (or, at least, greatly reduced) then everything would be fine. 

The news reports and analyses of ongoing wars have a similar role and effect: indirectly pushing the idea that if-only there was peace; then everything would be fine...

(It should be noted that the same people who believe this kind of pacifism, are in-real-life nearly-always active in support of whoever is the worst side in those foreign wars that have been promoted and escalated by The West.)

Of course this idea that everything would be fine without war is not made explicit, because it is obviously absurd; but it is implied; often in a disguised form where the double-negative is presented as a positive. 

For instance "peace" - which is really the mere absence of war - is talked-about (written and sung-about) as if it was a positive concept, a positive value, an end rather than a means. 

This should be tediously familiar to anyone who has sampled the late 1960s-early 1970s pop and academic culture - ranging from ubiquitous "Peace" signs and symbols, through songs about peace phrased as if it were a positive thing, to academics working in "peace studies"...

Because, in a society without positive values, it is not just a safe-bet - but the only possible stance - to oppose some or another form of suffering as-if this was the was self-evidently the best possible belief and activity; the highest human value, the reason for our being, the purpose of life...

(And it can easily be inferred, and observed, that when the prevention of suffering becomes the highest value, we have an ethic of unbirth, death and suicide.) 

Indeed; it can be hazardous nowadays to espouse any positive goal for one's own life - such as a religion, or nationalism. This is increasingly regarded as dangerous, and a form of terrorism; unless it is religion or nationalism for someone-else, in some other-place. 

That's allowable, because it is conceptualized either as just-another double-negation, such as freedom-from-oppression; and is "altruistic" hence conforms to the supreme modern Western values of self-hatred and -destruction. 

If one takes a step back and considers; it really is inevitable that our culture is so fixated upon dystopias, exactly because that we have no motivating utopias; in other words, we fixate upon hoping to avoid dystopia, exactly because the double-negation of avoiding-dystopia is the highest value we can conceive as real. 

Genuine utopias have become (literally) incredible to modern consciousness, and rightly so; because modern Men acknowledge only this-world and mortal-life, and this-world is characterized by evil and entropy such that no genuine and positive utopia can ever happen.

This-worldly pessimism about the possibility of u-topia, then turns into this-world fear of dys-topia - and here we are. 

The sequence is almost inescapable, unless there is a profound reorientation of metaphysics. Unless (that is) we personally, and then culturally, acknowledge and believe-in the reality of post-death personal existence; then we cannot even begin to escape from the futile paradoxes of double-negative values. And we will continue to obsess over dystopias and wars.  

Real Science - where do the new good ideas (true hypotheses) come from in the first place?

One of the most significant - and almost-never asked - questions about real science is: where do the new good ideas come from? 

Anyone can 'generate' new but false hypotheses - but where do the new and true hypotheses come from?

This key question has been obscured by several generations of focusing on the supposed ability of 'scientific method' (there is no such thing) to disprove false ideas. 

In other words, the ways of explaining science posit a double-negative method of eliminating-false ideas. 

But even if there was a method for disproving false ideas (and the history of science, of actual major scientific breakthroughs) suggests that there is no such method) that would not serve to do anything at all to generate the true ideas - the ones that are either confirmed by further observations and/or not-rejected by further testing.  

This is because the explanations of the value and validity of science are typically derived from within the basic (metaphysical) assumptions of science-in-general (or else some specific branch of science). 

Whereas in the first place this is an intrinsically invalid way of validating! - because there is no way that scientific research done on the assumption that the assumptions of science are correct, could ever validate the assumptions under which the science was done! 

One cannot simultaneously assume that assumptions are true, and also test those assumptions! 

But - although not a valid way of reasoning - this way of discussing science using scientific assumptions can indeed provide a coherent pseudo-explanation of how it is that false ideas get rejected; yet it does not even begin to touch the primary problem of where not-false ('true') ideas might come-from... 

Because, on the one hand there are an 'infinite' number of false ideas that might be proposed (and these might even be 'randomly generated' by a mechanical process of combination, extrapolation and interpolation of already-existing ideas. 

However, there is no imaginable way in which the one true idea could be found from among this infinite number of false ideas.

And even so this suggestion requires that already-exiting ideas already exist! Yet these need to have come from somewhere. So double-negative theories are often no more than kicking-the-can - leaving untouched the primary problem of where good ideas come from.

In other words; if a true idea is the needle, then there is a haystack of false ideas of limitlessly-vast size that would need to be searched in order to find that needle. 

Yet true ideas have-been found! 

Therefore, any hypothetical double-negative method of finding true ideas cannot suffice. 

What this argument tells us is that there must be a positive method for finding true ideas in science; and the history of science tells us that some of these true ideas have been substantially counter-intuitive, unnatural, non-obvious - as evidence by the fact that many decades, centuries or even millennia have elapsed before these true ideas were discovered.

Where does the needle come from? - or, if the good-idea needle is made up of component good ideas, then where did these components come-from? 

A valid and coherent positive answer to the question of where good scientific ideas come from also explains why such answers have been ruled-out; and the primary question buried by distracting and inadequate secondary theories of a double-negative type.   

The answer to where the good ideas come from is one that takes us out of science - as is indeed logically necessary - and into the realm of transcendental values: the realm of ultimate truth, beauty and virtue; but here (in science) with the emphasis on truth. 

And this is a spiritual-religious question: the matter of the nature of truth, beauty and virtue. We are not just asking about how Men can know transcendental truth when presented with it - which is a secondary question... 

What we are really asking is along the lines of: how can Men generate new transcendental truths? 

The generation of transcendental truth is necessary for science, but is not restricted to science; it encompasses all truths of all kinds. 

The origin of scientific truth is therefore seen to be a specific instance of the general matter of Man's capacity to discover any truth about any thing; when that truth is not already accessible and Man must create that truth. 

Creation! And with creation we have finally reached our destination; we have reached the bottom-line of explanation.

The discovery or invention of new and true ideas is a type of creation; and the matter of new good ideas in science can only be addressed within a framework in which creation is real, and also possible to Men.   

We arrive at an understanding of Men that must account for individual Men operating as genuine creators; in a sense that is associated with the attributes of a god. That is a generative source of creation, a source that does not depend entirely upon inputs for its output. A source that can make something new which is not merely caused by prior inputs...

Thus we arrive at a conceptualization of the creativity of real science as necessarily part of a theistic world view.  

Far from science being opposed to 'religion' or excluding 'god' - it turns-out that the reality of scientific discovery depends on the reality of god. 

Interesting, that - isn't it? And it suggests an immediate reason why real science has disappeared (to be replaced by bureaucracy) except as a rare, individual and amateur activity. 

As god has been deleted from public discourse - so has science... 

And so have all genuinely-creative human activities - as described by the term genius. (Whether in science, the arts, philosophy or anywhere.)

An age which genuinely, as a matter of assumption, denies god; is also necessarily an age that has destroyed its capacity for generating the new good ideas that are the basis of creative science; and indeed where real science of any kind is impossible; and indeed where real truth of any kind is impossible - and where real beauty and virtue are also impossible. 

(This is the nature of The System.) 

Truth is now lost... just like that needle, buried somewhere in the limitless haystack of error and falsehood. 

**

Note added: It took me a (worryingly?) long time to reach the above conclusion; having to un-learn so much conventional wisdom first. I eventually did so in course of writing my last significant scientific publication - although now I would take the argument even further in the same general direction. 

Resisting evil... Is double-negative morality a viable option?

The internet is full of schemes and plans by which specific evils (you know what I mean...) might more-or-less-easily be resisted - individually or en masse. 

Yet this very seldom actually happens - either individually or en masse. 

And if they do happen-to-happen, it is never sufficiently intense or sustained enough. 

Rather than continually coming-up with new tactics - we need to understand why checklists are irrelevant if nobody want to follow them. 

It is not a matter of people desperately wanting to resist evil, but not knowing where to start, and seeking guidance...

It seems as if the problem must lie deeper than merely 'not knowing how' to resist evil.

The main problems are related to motivation - to the reasons (or rather the lack of reasons) people have for resisting evil; and this indeed cuts very deep. 

(Or would if motivation were not a problem - it is the very lack of depth that is the root of it.) 

In order to address the widest possible audience; those who describe how to resist evil usually present the problem in that double-negative form: Resisting Evil. 

That is: Evil is a negative, so resisting evil makes it a double-negative. 

The planners and schemers who seek to make something happen are compelled to focus on evil because there is no general social consensus about what is Good. 

For instance; the most general dissenting 'affirmation' is usually to campaign for more Freedom - yet Freedom is actually itself a negative: Freedom-from... some bad restriction. 

The 'fighting evil' discourse assumes a lot. It first assumes that people can indeed recognize evil - at least, when it is helpfully pointed-out. 

But why didn't the people already notice the evil - why did that have to have it explained to them? That does not bode well... 

It seems, indeed, to be the case that even gross and in-your-face evils - like kidnapping, poisoning and mutilating innocent children, or sexually grooming and abusing them - cannot be recognized as such by the mass of people; not they are called something 'good' by officials and the mass media, or 'protected' by the inverted values of Leftism. 

Surely if people need such extreme evil to be pointed-out and explained; then there cannot be any consensus that objective evil exists at all? 

So why would people be motivated to resist evil? 

But even when evil is recognized; people lack courage to think, say or do anything to oppose it - because evils are nearly-always backed up by Power, Status and Money. 

People are (quite reasonably!) afraid of opposing power, status and money; therefore they need courage to fight evil. 

And courage is just what most modern people lack: producing a fatally inhibiting combination of moral blindness with will-sapping cowardice.

Before evil will (not 'can theoretically') be resisted; Men must know good - and trust in something beyond this world of Power, Status, Money and lies. 

When Men both know and want good: that will be the time for plans and schemes and tactics...

But if then; plans/ schemes/ tactics would not be needed. 

Schadenfreude derangement syndrome

The current orgy of Schadenfreude continues to escalate - energized a few days ago by a staged, acted and broadcast PR pseudo-spat over the Fire Nation war; a news-event which has been uncritically accepted at face value, and thereby ecstatically celebrated, by (apparently) hordes of people; individuals who, just a few weeks ago, expressed deep scepticism over the machinations of mainstream politics and the mass media. 

Yet another Litmus Test massively failed! 

It is becoming clear that the double-negative agenda is alive and well, dominating and sweeping-aside what has thereby been revealed as a shallow, feeble, self-gratifying, and this-worldly Christianity.   

Double-negative values are a hallmark of The Left - which is united only by its opposition to (ultimately) God and divine creation. 

The self-identified political "Right", including advocates of an imaginary and impossible "nationalism", have recently come-out as crypto-leftists - which, indeed, is the inevitable convergence of all primarily this-worldly and double-negative ideals.

In sum: The Right is united only by its rejection of The Left (i.e. particular-labelled individuals and institutions) - such that the only powerful source of Right triumphalism is when their Left-identified enemies appear to be getting humiliated and destroyed. 

(Note: In our world, all is of-the-left - except where religion is put first - and where that religion is motivationally-rooted beyond this world). 

There is a strong lure in religion that seems to combine success and status, power and prestige, pride and self-esteem, progress and historical inevitability, with aspects of real Christianity that is "not of this world". 

The proposed syncresis of this and next-world benefits appears in many guises through history - and dominates much of online Christian discourse; which is the reason behind current ecstasies of virtual Schadenfreude. 

The "prosperity Gospel" is indeed much more widespread than its crudest evangelists: the idea that the path to economic, or sexual, success lies via Christianity is a very popular and influential one online. 

Of course, Christianity must and should be-of-this-world as well as the next: not least because the incarnation and mortal life of Jesus Christ is evidence of this. 

In other words our mortal lives have purpose for as long as they are sustained by God. So a retreat from The World is not even a theoretical option for Christians - we must and should engage. 

But... in a civilization and society so completely built upon materialism and the denial of the spirit; in a world dominated by corrupt, and demonic-allied, institutions; it ought to be perfectly clear and evident that goodness cannot, therefore will not, emanate from, nor be gifted top-down by, those with institutional and official power/ wealth/ social status.  

It ought to be evident that politico-media-events intended to demonstrate the humiliation or destruction of people, organizations, nations - are not going to be evidence of, nor harbingers of, goodness. 

Indeed, the likely reality behind the façade of apparent destruction is not even difficult to discern for those with a bit of accurate knowledge who stand-back from the contrived frenzy - even when these people have no religious basis. 

(In a geopolitical world of puppet leaders; the spectacle of one puppet berating another for the cameras, should be obvious as what it is: a puppet-show.)  

The spiritual war of this world is essentially about "hearts and minds" - and the great aim of the various factions of evil is not to impose physical/material slavery or misery; but to induce individuals to choose to commit themselves (hearts and minds) to one or another of the agendas of evil. 

Evil is only spiritually effective when it has been freely embraced. That is why our enthusiasm, support, and hope; are so assiduously cultivated by The Establishment. 

And that embrace of evil is precisely what we are observing, in real time, on a day-by-day basis. People who were, until recently, apparently Christian; are changing sides; abandoning salvation as their primary goal -- 

And instead they are committing more and more of their support, energies, enthusiasm, efforts (and, worst of all, hopes) on what is at root a negative, destructive, demon-motivated agenda. 

The double-negative world of oppositional morality is ruled by demonic purpose

In this Western civilization, in which morality is double-negative; and consists of a multitude of oppositions to real or fake (it doesn't matter which - although fake is better) problems (abuses/ emergencies/ crises) - this world, is ruled by covert strategic purpose at the highest level. 

(This also happens within institutions, including within churches.) 

The "little people", the masses are kept occupied, and feeling good about themselves; by fire-fighting the latest problems; meanwhile the vacuum of purpose is filled from above, by the demonic agenda.

There are numerous examples. The demonic agenda of totalitarianism (ever-expanding bureaucracy, omni-surveillance, micro-control) proceeds via the moralistic frenzies of a multitude of "activists" who oppose... well, it doesn't matter what they oppose - whether it is slavery, war, climate emergency, famine, class/sex/race discrimination, social inequality, the latest bogey dictator/ nation/ religion. 

In the end, all such double-negations, oppositions to some perceived or real badness, are framed and directed by the overall agenda. 

The frenzy of opposition is led towards "solutions" that may not work, may not be relevant - but always forward the overall agenda - which has for many decades been totalitarian; but now is becoming more and more spitefully destructive: chaos inducing.

Thus the terminus of double-negative thinking, is the negation of double-negation! Using anti-war movements to promote actual wars; the environmentalist crusade to destroy the actual environment, deploying healthism to legitimize killing - and so on. 

Without God, Men are mentally sick; because without the divine there can be no purpose. 

And without purpose Men destroy themselves, and everything else. 

And without God - they do not even notice!

    

A world of micro-motivations

I have often repeated my belief that demotivation is perhaps the biggest negative reality in the world today. Its causes are obvious enough - in that 'religion' has been Man's primary motivation throughout human history; and a world without God defaults to much lower-level motivations of a selfish nature, which mutually conflict - and invariably weaken due to repetition, habituation and boredom. 

Finally the nihilism of Godlessness leads to the ultimate demotivated state (and self-damning sin) of incurable despair. 

For a few generations after religion was discarded but before it lost its cultural and psychological effect; there was a partially successful attempt to replace religion with nationalism and/or socialism - which initially had positive goals that could provide some social coherence and meaning. But these motivators always weakened as the implications of no God, no spirit, no afterlife began to become fully accepted and assimilated. 

We now find ourselves in a world with no positive purposes and instead only a range of futile, incoherent, negative oppositional projects - e.g. trying to 'eliminate' the birdemic, sexism, racism, climate change, and the various *'phobias'.

Or, for a minority; opposing these oppositional projects - by protesting in favour of 'double-negative' goals eg. against censorship, cancel-culture or other recent negative restrictions. Others are against mass immigration; against the destructive and mutilating 'trans- agenda, against the closure of churches... All valid values; yet multiple double-negative motivations cannot replace an over-arching positive one. 

As for positive motivations; there are now only a sequence of micro-motivations, to be taken-up and set-aside in a open-ended series and going nowhere in particular. 

Little things like hoping to go abroad, visit some particular person; and in lots of little ways return to (semi-) 'normal' life by eating-out, sitting in cafes, going to a bar, driving a car, attending the cinema or a lecture, resuming a sexual life... whatever. 

Even the known-to-be-unsatisfactory delusional life goals of the past few decades - like a 'rewarding career' - are now destroyed as genuine possibilities; although people still pretend to be interested by them. Perhaps the only currently-valid long-term job option is to join the growing hierarchy of the secret police, or rise to seniority among the burgeoning concentration camp guard bureaucracy. 

But this is a downward spiral leading to civilizational collapse, and the better that people 'cope with' the new totalitarian world by pursuing ever-more-micro gratifications - the faster it will spiral down towards destruction. 

Because without strong motivation there is no courage - as can be seen in the world leadership in all the different institutions: government, politics, the media, the churches, law, medicine, science, education, the police and military etc. They are all unprincipled cowards because none have a strong and primary religious motivation. 

Without motivation, no courage; without courage only expediency - and in the totalitarian world expediency leads (by various but converging routes) to the Satanic agenda against God, divine creation and all that is Good.  

The only escape is to find motivation in the divine - and the only realistic motivations must be rooted out-with the Global System - which means rooted in the life beyond life. 

Courage needs hope, and hope needs faith - which must become our first priority. 

If faith is not first, it is nothing. The first commandment for a Christian is to love God - and God is our Father, the creator. 

The only escape from the self-destroying System is to follow Jesus Christ, and he leads us through death to resurrected life eternal. 

If we are to have the hope that provides motivation and courage to do anything Good; resurrected heavenly-life eternal must be the destination. It should be the source of all strong motivation.  

Musk, Twitter and the bankruptcy of the "based" secular "Right"

When I began this blog on a frequent basis, in the middle of 2010, there was (supposedly) a new, vigorous, and intellectually-rigorous movement of the secular "Right" - variously termed Alternative/Alt Right, Neoreaction, and similar 

(The 'rump' of this movement is sometimes nowadays termed "based" - and can be sampled via this branch of Synlogos.) 

One of my earliest themes was that this movement was not actually "Right" but was just part of the Left; because they wanted essentially the same thing as the Left (i.e. optimal happiness and minimum suffering in this mortal life - the 'hedonic' calculus); and the secular "Right" therefore only differed in terms of their priority groups (eg. white native men) and the methods employed (e.g. new kinds of monarchy). 

Same ends, different means. But is the end that is definitive. 

I then argued that the only genuine alternative and opposition to The Left was religion. 

So, the truth was that the Left-Right axis was all-Left; and the only true axis of opposition was Left-Religion. 

For those who opposed The Left, I said; their only valid choice was: which religion? 

This has proved to be correct over the following decade, as evidenced by the fact that the self-identified secular Right are still merely negatively responding to what the mainstream Left are advocating or doing; much as 'fascism' did in the 1920s and 30s; . 

Since the Left is actually a negative and oppositional ideology; this means that the secular Right are a double-negative ideology. 

And since the Left's policies are already double-negative - e.g. anti-racism anti-men (feminism)  - the secular Rights policies are triple-negative anti-antiracism, anti-feminism...

Something like this explains the astonishing obsessions of the secular Right; who remain utterly focused-on everyday mainstream politics such as elections and the Twitter takeover by Musk (what!); but in this extra-negative way of opposing the destroyers instead of proposing positive creation; which the secular Right cannot do because they are secular.

The amount of internet-ink spilled over the Musk-Twitter business is especially gratuitous. Twitter is a Bad Thing, Musk is a Bad Thing - why discuss the business as if some Good would come out of it? 

The answer is: one regards this as a major issue, only when one is operating on the basis of mainstream assumptions of Good.

Just as the election-obsessives implicitly, by revealed-preference, believe (whatever they say) that we can vote our way out of trouble; so the Musk-Twitter obsessive believe we can Tweet our way to a Better World.      

So that Better means, for them, just more of the same stuff - but directed at groups they like. 

And they believe this because they have nothing better to offer. 

But what of the proper opposition to the Left: I mean The Religious? 

Well... In 2020 the major churches of the world - of (apparently) all religions and denominations - overwhelmingly made clear their convergence with the this-worldly and hedonic values of the Global Left: they made this clear by massive closures and cessations of their core activities. 

(It may be that the Government and Orthodox Church of the Fire Nation has since reversed that convergence with global Leftism: where that may lead has yet to be seen; but anyway, such a direction is not a possibility, nor desirable, for The West.) 

So the churches, of all religions, were revealed as just another part of The Left.  

So the situation is that even the Left versus Religion axis, which seemed a possibility back in 2010; is not a possibility. 

My hoped-for (albeit slender, pessimistic) possibility of a church-rooted religious revival to become culturally dominant; has since been revealed as a false hope. False, not merely because of the political weakness of the churches, but mainly because the churches do not even desire it, but instead seek assimilation to the Left (and as fast as the church leaders can persuade the laity).

Therefore; these times are far more desperate than the "secular Right" imagine; and far more desperate than church-orientated Christians acknowledge. Because (at least in The West - albeit the Fire Nation in the East may have chosen a different path of destiny) there is nowhere to turn in the world of powerful, high status, influential public discourse. 

We can neither vote-in a saviour (because none are available to vote-for, and because the bureaucracy-media control everything of social significance), nor can we engineer a way-out by participation in high-impact social media (because the medium is intrinsically evil-promoting; in form as well as its allowed-content).     

What we can do is at the individual level, not in institutions; is spiritual, not material; and is rooted in understanding correctly - which means honestly and with full acknowledgment of its scope - the nature of our situation and responsibility. 

Trolling us with abstractions; tempting us to reframe and re-define...

There is nothing the modern demon loves more than to ensnare people into discussing abstractions.

To trap one group of people inside an abstractions such as racism or climate change (two of the most successful) - and then to suck-in more people to analysing, reframing, by re-defining what racism and climate change Really are (or ought to be). The business goes on forever.

Now that the evil-abstraction-mongers control almost the entirety of the communications system - from the mass media, through publishing and retail; to schools universities and research institutions - intellectual Life seems to have become a continual 'defence' against being-trolled with ridiculous wicked nonsense (equality, diversity, feminism, white nationalism/ supremacy...) that 'cries out' for our immediate and personal clarification and correction...

Yet this never does any good, and the 'need' for it never ends...

And then suddenly death looms, and we realise that have wasted our lives discussing The Enemy's agenda...

Just exactly as They wanted us to...


Note: of course (as well as abstractions) there is A Lot of trolling with specific egregious concrete abuses against Christians (especially - and the not-sufficiently-Left more generally); and much of the anti-Left media do considerable harm (overall) by linking to these, and by thus maintaining a continuous, daily diet of Their agenda. There are some benefits from developing a critique of standard strategies of evil, by decoding and reframing news stories - for example. But overall - since This Never Stops - drawing continuous attention to abuses amounts to a (mostly-inadvertent) collusion with the agenda of the Enemy. Which is one reason why I try to avoid topical discussions here, especially of the "Look at this stupid/evil!" type.

Further Note: A double-negative is different-from a positive; because only a positive induces sustaining courage. We have a lot more double-negative propaganda than is good for us; and it doesn't add-up to anything substantive - as can be observed. Double-negative thinking, at best, induces fear-driven desperation - not courage. But sustained fear is susceptible to habituation (the same dose loses effect), and paralyses rather than energizes. That is why only 'religion' can save us; because Men are innately religious creatures. Without religion we are fatally and incurably maimed - but any saving religion simply must be believed. To plan an 'expedient' religion, 'designed' to save civilization, will fail with 100% certainty; will, indeed, make matters worse quicker.