The problem of Christian moral teaching in a secular, hedonist context

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My general perspective is that modern Christian evangelism should (probably) focus on addressing the alienation of modern man, rather than on ethical issues - that what requires emphasis is the mystical, existential, even metaphysical aspect of Christianity, with sin conceptualized as being turned-away-from God rather than as a list of rules.

And the Christian mystical perspective being described not in terms of what makes you happy, but what is real and therefore productive of meaning, purpose and relation with the universe.

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For instance, that when an orthodox Christian looks at the stars he knows that the Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handiwork;

whereas for a secular modern like Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) the stars induce the cry:

"I'M SIGNIFICANT... screamed the dust speck."

This cartoon perfectly encapsulates the overweening spiritual pride and underlying utter nihilism of modern, secular man.

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I was led to this idea of focusing on the mystical partly my my own response, when an atheist, to Christian ethical teaching.

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Not by its own choice, Christianity has been brought into conflict with the modern world primarily on matters of sexuality and reproduction.

Naturally, therefore, among-ourselves, Christians must say NO to many things which the modern world first tolerates then encourages.

And this can be done rigorously, and through argument, since Christians share a belief in both natural law and revelation.

(Natural law being the spontaneous, instinctive human morality and spirituality - common to mankind).

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Yet, the fact the Christians must strive to resist modern sexual and reproductive ethics in their internal operations, does not mean that this can effectively be done in the social arena.

It is precisely the triumph of modernity that in the social arena there is no belief in, indeed denial of, not just Christian revelation, but even natural law.

Without even a common basis in natural law, how can specific matters of sexual and reproductive ethics be discussed from a Christian perspective?

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The answer is sexual and reproductive ethics cannot now be discussed from a Christian perspective - but only from a secular and hedonic perspective, concerned with this worldly individual happiness and misery.

Yet to discuss sexual and reproductive ethics from the perspective of what makes people happy or miserable, is precisely to reinforce the secular hedonic perspective.

Even if a Christian were to prove that, say, easy divorce usually led to misery - he could never prove that it always and necessarily led to misery, and the very act of evaluating in terms of here and now misery (or happiness) is precisely the evaluation used by the secular modern world; and precisely not the primary evaluation of Christianity.

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So Christians can merely say what they believe (answer NO whenever the matter comes-up), stick to what they believe (still say NO even when persuasion or coercion is brought to bear); yet decline to explain their sexual and reproductive ethics in terms of secular hedonism

- simply to state that this is how things are from a Christian perspective; in light of natural law and revelation.

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This is, of course, how other and non-native religions always have behaved in The West when trying to hold-out against pressure - not explaining; but instead saying, in effect 'it is not our custom', we cannot comply, we are commanded to refuse this.

And this has indeed proved far more effective than trying to fight coercion using the enemy's weapons.

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In sum, Christians need to internalize that we are living in an alien culture which cannot understand us.

When resisting that alien culture, there is therefore no way to explain the true reason for resistance; merely the fact of it.

Those who truly want to understand must first become Christian.

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Why atheism leads to (increasingly short-termist) hedonism, then despair

If there is no God, and this world is a merely-determined/ accidental and purposeless happening; then life is also purposeless.

If life has no external and shared meaning, then all that matters is how we feel about it - so life reduces to psychology.


Our innate psychology includes all kinds of instincts including loyalty, courage, appreciation of beauty, natural virtue... but with atheism these are accidental and contingent consequences of our past evolutionary history - and their meaning is in-the-past; and that meaning was only to enhance our differential genetic replicative success (because people are organisms, and organisms are only disposable contingent gene-controlled robots that exist to promote gene replication).

We may feel the pull or push of natural ethics or 'higher instincts' but they have no validity for 'my' actions, 'here-and-now'.

Therefore psychology reduces to the pleasure-suffering axis.


In other words; the only psychology that can be justified (for me, here, now) is my feelings, now = hedonism (the principle that the axis of my pleasure-suffering is the only 'ethic').

Current - here-and-now - feelings are the only relevant factor; because the future cannot be reliably predicted and the past may be forgotten or memories may be false.

Hedonic feelings are the only self-justifying feelings, because (by circular definition) feeling good is better than feeling bad. And because (with atheism) nothing else matters.

So with atheism hedonic feelings are the only thing left-standing.  


And when short-term pleasure/ happiness, gratification is the only bottom line; then as soon as it is absent, life is worthless.

If we come to believe that our own personal happiness is in decline or impossible - or simply currently insufficient: too weak or too infrequent - then we shall (we realise) despair - sooner or later. And there can be no reassurance against this despair, because such despair is rational.

Under such circumstances, only the deluded manic or the manipulative psychopath can be consciously happy with life - and even they are vulnerable to downswings.


What happens then? Look around.

We see a society incrementally being overwhelmed by a tidal rise in despair; caused by atheism and the ethic of hedonism.

Amping up the pleasure is ineffectual - unless it could be made overwhelming and continuous (which is the false promise of transhumanism - a world of engineered permanent euphoria). And all pleasure is (apparently) subject to 'habituation' - pleasure fades unless there is novelty, or increased dose. This seems to be a biological built-in.


(This is why atheism so quickly devolves from pleasure-seeking - like the middle 1960s radical-leftist, libertine hippie ethic of promiscuous sex, hedonic drugs, and rock & roll... To the 1970s-and-onwards ethic of suffering-avoidance - with its hopes of a 'therapeutic' totalitarian world government that will prevent any kind of personal, social, planetary suffering. The change is from pleasure-seeking to pain-avoidant: from stimulant and euphoriant abuse to mass mediation with tranquillisers, mood-stabilisers, and antidepressants; from aiming-at a positive and pleasurable socialist utopia - to a society structured-around preventing the angst caused by global warming, microaggressions, racism, sexism, unbiological sexuality and sexual identity etc.)


Atheism, as it becomes mainstream, then mandatory (in public life) leads to rational and increasing  despair; from which there can be no escape while atheism prevails.

The solution should be, but isn't, obvious: to re-examine our arbitrary and evidentially-unfounded assumptions regarding the fundamental nature of reality.

(These ultimate assumptions concerning the nature of reality are termed metaphysical.)


But once a person, or a society, is already-in the depths of atheism-induced despair; then it becomes increasingly difficult to make the metaphysical effort to escape, because real escape seems impossible, hence effort is futile and (here-and-now) counter-productive. 

Despair is the fruit of atheism, and despair is perhaps the worst of sins; because it destroys the belief that escape is possible.

Hence mass human despair is the sin most deeply desired by the devil. 


Note: In psychiatry - the highest rate of suicide - and of death from refusal of drink and food and lack of self care - is among the severely depressed: i.e. those who are in the grip of self-fulfilling despair. Captive animals in despair cease to reproduce despite protection from predators and adequate provision of food and shelter - precisely analogous to the modern atheist populations of The West. 

Further note: If you join the same dots in a different way; you can see why atheism tends strongly to supporting the demonic agenda of subversion all good values; and opens the atheist to the ultimate demonic goal of value inversion (evil is virtue, ugliness is beauty, lies and fakes are truth) - in the sense that when value inversion becomes socially-expedient (as it is now) there is no strong reason to resist it, and many reasons to embrace it. 

Is Christianity just after-death utilitarianism? The pursuit of "happiness" in Christianity versus modern atheism

When I was an atheist (i.e. for most of my life) - I had several views about happiness, and its status as a goal for living. Yet, happiness, in one form or another, was a kind-of ultimate index for my life and for human society. 

Sometimes it was a long-term sense of deep personal fulfillment that I sought - sometimes very much the here and now, because it was much more certain than the future and contingent. 

Sometimes I was seeking positive happiness, but often I was mainly seeking to avoid suffering; and this negative-happiness has always been a strong, and growing, element in secular left morality. 

Indeed, modern, mainstream and hegemonic leftism has given-up on the old utopian ideals, and is focused entirely on the (supposed) objective of reducing various forms of suffering in an ever-expanding array of 'victim groups'. 

Thus 'happiness' is sought by purportedly eliminating the supposed causes of misery - such as sexism, racism and *phobias.   

But there has always been a view among atheists that happiness ought Not to be the main aim of life. 

This has been argued both on the pragmatic basis that aiming directly at happiness doesn't work as a strategy for becoming happy; because happiness is a (temporary) by-product of other kinds of aim. And also because other kinds of aim should come before happiness - a modern example would be 'social justice'; and the assertion that happiness should be sacrificed to its attainment.

Yet, further analysis will find that the purportedly not-happiness aims, will always boil down to a happiness justification - thus, the primacy of 'social justice' is argued on the basis that it will make the sufferers from injustice less miserable (or more happy). 

And, indeed, if my own happiness is regarded as selfish, while some more general happiness is regarded as more altruistic - there is the problem of justifying altruism as an ethic when it impairs my here-and-now happiness For Sure, on the basis of only conjectural and probabilistic improvements of happiness in other people. 

It seems much more certain and solid to pursue personal happiness, than to make guesses about the possible future states of others in response to conjectural and multi-step causal effects of my present actions.  

In other words, if any happiness-based ethic is termed utilitarianism; then we can see that all secular moralities are - sooner or later - made into versions of utilitarianism. And utilitarianism ultimately depends on whether it makes Me happier, here and now - because if it does not, then we might create more misery i the short term, in the attempt to reduce it in the long term. 

But how about religions, and how about Christianity in particular? As an atheist I used to regard Christianity as merely another utilitarian ethic; which aimed at the positive happiness of Heaven and avoiding the negative misery of hell... But with the Christian enhancement of happiness displaced to a supposed eternity that purportedly came after death; rather than to the immediate here-and-now of this mortal life.  

If Christianity is factually true, and if one could be reasonably confident of attaining Heaven and/or avoiding hell by being a Christian - then it would be rational to trade temporarily sub-optimal happiness for permanently greater happiness and/or avoiding the torments of hell.

However, even if Christianity was true; I did not regard it as a 'higher' form of morality; because - by the above analysis - it was still reducible to a selfish desire for happiness. 

 

Are we then doomed inevitably to be utilitarians of one sort or another - is everything truly reducible to an 'hedonic index'- and is happiness therefore just a matter of feelings?

Well, it is only true if these are our foundational (metaphysical) assumptions. If we define happiness as a feeling, and if we decide that optimizing pleasant feelings and minimizing aversive feelings ought-to-be the prime goal of life: then we have already decided that utilitarianism is necessarily true, and there is no 'higher' goal in life than the hedonic. 

But if we assume something else than happy feelings is primary, then happiness will not be primary. 

For instance, if we regard happiness as an objective state of being, rather than feelings, then we will get a different kind of ethics altogether. 

Or, if we regard happiness as secondary - such as being a psychological reward for virtue, or for creativity - we get the idea of happiness as a (fallible, but potentially valid) form of guidance; rather than an end in itself.  

Or we might assume that happiness is not reducible to one variable, to a single index; but that there is instead a collection, spectrum or hierarchy of positively rewarding states of being - with different degrees of rewardingness. 

We might, as Christians, posit that there are spiritual forms of 'happiness' that are not descriptive of body states; but independent from them; and these spiritual forms of happiness might have other properties - such as being indivisible from Christian values (such as truth, beauty and virtue). 

This thought-experiment reveals that the mainstream modern and materialistic understanding of happiness assumes that it is dependent on the body. This 'transhumanist' concept of happiness (very common nowadays, albeit mostly implicitly) also assumes that happiness is something that can be (and should be) detached, separated-from other values - and pursued directly.

For instance - if happiness is regarded as a feeling, and separable; then it can be enhanced by modifying the human body (e.g. with environmental engineering - such as 'social justice', or euphoriant drugs, or potenitally by genetic engineering) to generate whatever happy/ not-suffering body states are preferred. 

But the validity of this project depends on both the assumptions with which 'happiness' is set up as a goal, and the assumed definitions of happiness.    

In other words; we can conclude that the atheist idea of Christianity as just-another version of utilitarianism is not rooted in any kind of 'objective fact' or 'observation'- but instead depends on atheist assumptions. 

If the atheist assumptions are false, and are rejected, then the 'happiness' of resurrected eternal life in Heaven may be a different thing altogether than the aim-at situations of materialistic utilitarian leftism. 

What's wrong, and right, about "collective" values as the bottom-line validation for our life?

It strikes me that most kinds of atheism have some kind of psychology or sociology as the bottom-line explanation and justification for judgments of value. Purpose and meaning are regarded as products of humans; and particular judgments regarding values such as truth, beauty and ethics reach their final explanation in terms of psychological concepts such as the human mind, human instinct; and in terms of collectives or groups of people and their psychology. 

In other words; when individual psychology seems too diverse and conflicted to rationalise values - for many generations people have reached for collective values to make their bottom-line judgements. 

For instance; when it seems obviously inadequate to relate a prohibition on murder to what is best for or wanted by a single person; it seems natural that when the problem is restated collectively - as what is best for or wanted by some large (or universal) conceptualized of many-people (some community) - that this is a more "objective" explanation and justification. 

Consequently, many of the most influential kinds of atheism have some collective value as their bottom line. Utilitarian philosophy is stated as aiming at the greatest happiness (or "utility") of the greatest number. This usually led to economic conceptualizations of society (as with communism and other types of socialism) - since the group utility was described and manipulated in terms of statistics about income, wealth, working-hours and the like. 

Nationalism regards the well-being of the collective nation as primary; and the value of individuals of that nation as derivative of the national "spirit"; so that the individual may be (and should be, when required by the collective nation) sacrificed to the imputed nation - potentially even to the point of near extinction of the individuals of the nation. 

The kind of public health thinking that (for instance) underpinned the Birdemic-response was rationalized on the basis of what was best for the health of the collective - in which health was analyzed and expressed statistically; in terms of measures such as disease numbers and rates, and death numbers and rates. 

Another example is Jung's collective unconscious - which was conceptualized as a universal group mind; so that what might have been individual, experiences, instincts, needs etc. were restated as deriving from a shared, group reality. 

This was regarded as more spiritual, because such things were not detectable or measurable by perceptual means, nor were there measurements; but instead via qualitative phenomena such as archetypes, and evidence came from inter-personal communications of dreams, myths, artistic productions and the like.  

But although often regarded as "spiritual", the collective unconscious seems to be - in reality - a quasi-biological entity. 

I wonder why it is seen as too subjective to have individuals as bottom-line, whereas it is more objective to have a collective bottom line - despite that the collective is dependant (ultimately) on the individual? 

It seems, on the face of it, irrational that people seem ready to reject the significance of the individual experience or evaluation, as "merely" personal and subjective; whereas the same people seem not just willing but more highly motivated to suppose that there is an objective reality - and an imperative value, that we should be guided by it - about the collective. 

This would hardly be likely if the collective was nothing-more than the collecting-together and combining of many individuals.  

Yet this is so; and (apparently spontaneously) we actually do regard group phenomena as (at least potentially, ideally) in some way more objective, more binding on our values. 

My interpretation is that there is a fundamental underlying truth behind this "collective" way of thinking - even for those (like communism or "healthism") badly distorted by abstraction, which is what lends such systems a degree of motivational effectiveness. 

There is also an untruth - which is why none of the atheisms have proved sufficiently effective social motivators - none have come close to replacing religion, none have been able strongly to motivate men to acts of courage and self-sacrifice for long-term goals. The consequences we see all around us, in mainstream hedonic nihilism, and the prevalent self-loathing and covert suicidality of Western civilization.

In sum - the collective is, in practice, as well as theory - not just a collection of individuals; but what exactly it is (or could be) is distortedly and incompletely formulated by the most influential kind of atheism. 

Conclusions? I think we have a vague but true sense that we are justified in some kind of groupish and collective way. 

To some extent this is a mistaken attempt to overcome the nihilistic meaninglessness of atheism - partly by a sleight of hand, and also by a kind of averaging process in the group. Individuals generally change more rapidly than do groups, and individuals usually have a shorter lifespan than groups - so that the sheer lability and instability of individual life is ameliorated by immersing individuals into a conceptualized group. 

In other words; while collectives are not more objective than individuals; groups seem somewhat more objective: quantitatively, not qualitatively. Compared with a single person; groups are bigg-er, strong-er, wealthi-er, more powerful, long-er-lasting... In a sense, this makes groups feel "more real". 

But deeper than this lies the potential of a profound truth about "the collective". 

If the true collective is the totality of divine creation - rather than merely some group of humans - then it would seem that there is a valid and ultimate sense in which a big question about life is whether or not we affiliate our-selves to the collective that is creation: whether we join our individual person to God's creation and God's creative will. 

By the decision and act that Christians term "love"; we can choose to put "creation" above our individual selves; and to derive our values from the totality of our-selves in loving-alliance with creation - in a mutual relationship. (Mutual because we love God, God loves us.)

Instead of the relatively great-er objectivity of human collectives compared with the individual person, there may be an everlasting and qualitative objectivity of the resurrected individual Man, in the wholly divine reality of Heaven.  

Why Liberalism/ PC is immune to reason and evidence - Seraphim Rose

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From Nihilism by Eugene (Seraphim) Rose c 1962 

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/nihilism.html#2 

Italics were added.

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"In the Liberal world-view, therefore - in its theology, its ethics, its politics, and in other areas we have not examined as well - truth has been weakened, softened, compromised; in all realms truth that was once absolute has become less certain, if not entirely "relative."

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"Now it is possible - and this in fact amounts to a definition of the Liberal enterprise - to preserve for a time the fruits of a system and a truth of which one is uncertain or skeptical; but one can build nothing positive upon such uncertainty, nor upon the attempt to make it intellectually respectable in the various relativistic doctrines we have already examined.

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"There is and can be no philosophical apology for Liberalism; its apologies, when not simply rhetorical, are emotional and pragmatic.

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"But the most striking fact about the Liberal, to any relatively unbiased observer, is not so much the inadequacy of his doctrine as his own seeming oblivion to this inadequacy.

"This fact, which is understandably irritating to well-meaning critics of Liberalism, has only one plausible explanation. The Liberal is undisturbed even by fundamental deficiencies and contradictions in his own philosophy because his primary interest is elsewhere.

"If he is not concerned to found the political and social order upon Divine Truth, if he is indifferent to the reality of Heaven and Hell, if he conceives of God as a mere idea of a vague impersonal power, it is because he is more immediately interested in worldly ends, and because everything else is vague or abstract to him.

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"The Liberal may be interested in culture, in learning, in business, or merely in comfort; but in every one of his pursuits the dimension of the absolute is simply absent.

"He is unable, or unwilling, to think in terms of ends, of ultimate things.

"The thirst for absolute truth has vanished; it has been swallowed up in worldliness. "

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[Note: 'worldliness' means the hedonic perspective: the primary focus on human happiness and suffering in this world. It can be seen that almost-all modern Western people and institutions, including almost-all Christian denominations, are primarily (most-often exclusively) concerned with worldliness. Almost-all modern Western people and institutions are therefore Liberal - including almost-all of those who consider themselves to be Libertarian or Conservative.]  

The West in 2024 is Not like a city under siege - it's much worse than that...

Back in 2011; I published a pessimistic little book about "political correctness" (i.e. mainstream totalitarian leftism) called Thought Prison; and at one point I compared the nations of The West to a city under siege in which the rulers of the city loathed the ordinary people; and therefore always took the side of the invaders. 

These rulers covertly aimed at the destruction of the city; opened the doors to the besiegers, gave them privileged status in the city; and confiscated shelter, food and clothing from the natives of the city to support the invaders. 

But, in 2011, I was way too optimistic!

Our situation in 2024 is much worse than the besieged city analogy; because I assumed in 2011 that the natives of the city would - at least - notice and understand what was going-on... 

But they don't see, and they don't get-it! 

The ordinary citizens of 2024 don't even recognize that their rulers - All The Rulers (all who actually or even potentially have power) - despise and hate them, and want them dead and gone! 

This failure of recognition is because the citizens hate and despise themselves - and for good reason, since their value-system is short-termist and merely hedonic: the ethics of the barnyard - peace, convenience, comfort, entertainment... 

An ideal for animals, not for Men. 

And it is a fact of history that such a materialistic value-system never has, and never shall, inspire men to courage and coherent action. 

This was recognized by George Orwell in 1941 comparing the sensible, materialistic HG Wells with Adolf Hitler: 

What has Wells to set against the ‘screaming little defective in Berlin’? The usual rigmarole about a World State, plus the Sankey Declaration, which is an attempted definition of fundamental human rights, of anti-totalitarian tendency... 

What is the use of pointing out that a World State is desirable? What matters is that not one of the five great military powers would think of submitting to such a thing. All sensible men for decades past have been substantially in agreement with what Mr. Wells says; but the sensible men have no power and, in too many cases, no disposition to sacrifice themselves. 

Hitler is a criminal lunatic, and Hitler has an army of millions of men, aeroplanes in thousands, tanks in tens of thousands. For his sake a great nation has been willing to overwork itself for six years and then to fight for two years more, whereas for the common-sense, essentially hedonistic world-view which Mr. Wells puts forward, hardly a human creature is willing to shed a pint of blood... 

Similarly, why are the Russians fighting like tigers against the German invasion? In part, perhaps, for some half-remembered ideal of Utopian Socialism, but chiefly in defence of Holy Russia (the ‘sacred soil of the Fatherland’, etc. etc.), which Stalin has revived in an only slightly altered from. 

The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions — racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war — which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action.

Our situation now is even worse than 1941: much worse; since the West has been gutted even of the "emotions" so that the masses are utterly demotivated.

(Self-destructive - because blind and ignorant - toddler tantrums don't work as a motivation; not when The System is structured against you.) 

Meanwhile; the globalist totalitarian leadership class (the modern HG Wellses and their multi-billionaire sugar-daddies) have lost all residual positive desire or pretence genuinely to create peace, convenience, comfort, prosperity...

And instead glory in the sadism of engineered destruction - while deceiving the masses (and their own loyal middle management class of intellectual-workers) with a fantasy, fake, virtual world of sound-bites, pseudo-narratives, media-fuelled distractions, and moralized chaos. 

Big Brother loves us - or so (nearly) everybody believes

Mr Punch (on the puppeteer's right hand) defunds the police (on his left hand)...

It is characteristic of modern, Godless, Man that he is incapable of connecting his thinking, incapable of following a line of reasoning, incapable of noticing inconsistency between ideas. 

This incapability is not a matter of unintelligence, although modern Man is much less intelligent than he was 150 years ago. It is not about illness either, although modern Man is riddled with genetic mutations that have damaged instinctive socially- and sexually-adaptive behaviours.

Modern incapability is existential, spiritual, metaphysical: its ultimate origin is a false and incoherent world view. Since our everyday thinking is 'underpinned' by the fundamental incoherence that this world has neither purpose nor meaning - thinking has rotted from the bottom-up. 

For a while, this incoherence was concealed by unconscious traditions and habits from earlier generations; but these traditions and habits were systematically and incrementally destroyed. Unstoppable metaphysical putrification set-in as soon as tradition and habit was consciously examined and challenged. 

The lack of any ultimate basis of meaning, worked-through to our current lack of proximate meaning for anything. 

 

Consequently, incoherence rules public policy and discourse. 

Known habitual liars are believed and trusted. Those identified as selfish and short-termist are given charge of global strategy. The explicitly amoral and hedonic are given charge of public ethics and law. And the masses combine theoretical radicalism and sensation-seeking with unprecedented passivity and obedience to arbitrary diktat. 

And the whole situation is incorrigible - unreformable, incurable; since the incoherent masses can neither detect nor oppose evil - even when evil is being inflicted upon them on a daily, hourly, escalating basis. Psychosis (living in an unreal, subjective - virtual - world) and dementia (decline across many cognitive and intellectual functions, disorientation) are the norm - and worst in those nearest to power, status, and prestige. 

 

In 2020 the New Normal is of an international totalitarianism, and the experience of life under an Establishment, omni-bureaucratic, mass-media-manipulating Big Brother; who regards us partly as tools, partly as experimental animals, and partly as potential victims for lust and torture. 

Yet the mass of people love their opressor: love Big Brother - under his many fronts, guises and manifestations: UN, WHO, EU, World Economic Forum etc. Officials spokespersons of all stripes. The 'voice' of the major mass media corporations. The national political mouthpieces, mannequins, suits and scarecrows. Institutions, pseudo-radical pressure groups, self-described victims, pseudo-scientists, concerned celebrities...

The masses have-faith-in, trust implicitly, the mostly-anonymous billionnaires and media moguls who rule this world from the shadows. 

Such vague, impersonal abstractions are where the Establishment flunkies and functionaries, servants and serfs, seek their version of 'salvation'. 

All the little-people demand is a voting choice between those various Establishment tools who they are allowed to vote-for: a choice between Punch, Judy and the Policeman (despite that all are controlled by the same puppeteer).

 

And - from their point of view, given what they believe - why not? 

In a universe without direction, purpose or meaning; then coherence is impossible whatever. 

If one's life is based on fear, resentment and despair; if the future being planned is one of mass misery and suicide; if there is nothing to look-forward to but annihilation; if the actual God-of-this-world is the devil... Well, why not? 

To ask why is a question that has no meaning in an incoherent world; there can be no answers to sense-less questions. 

Is there any *right* to have a "pain-free and peaceful death"? (aka wholesale humane murder)

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From today's issue of The Independent (the most Leftist of British mainstream newspapers):

Locked-in syndrome sufferer Tony Nicklinson, who lost his High Court battle last week for the legal right to end his life when he chooses with a doctor's help, died today...

Last week following the legal ruling, Mr Nicklinson's wife, Jane - standing by her weeping husband's side - described the decision as "one-sided". She said: "You can see from Tony's reaction he's absolutely heartbroken." They said they intended to appeal against the decision.

Mr Nicklinson's daughter Lauren said last week that the family would keep fighting to allow her father to die "a pain-free and peaceful death". "The alternative is starvation," she said.

"Why should he have to starve himself to death when he could go (die) in a safe home with people that love him? "To think that he might have to waste away and starve himself to death is horrific and it makes me feel quite ill, to be honest."...

After the ruling, Mr Nicklinson said in a statement issued by his solicitors, Bindmans LLP: "I am devastated by the court's decision.

"I am saddened that the law wants to condemn me to a life of increasing indignity and misery."

Asked what would happen if the appeal fails, his wife said: "Tony either has to carry on like this until he dies from natural causes or by starving himself."
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Almost all of the British mainstream media, and especially the BBC, are campaigning for euthanasia on request - starting-with some rare cases of chronic paralysis such as the above - but as the speaker makes clear, what is being asked for is nothing less than the legal right to "a pain-free and peaceful death" - which is de facto the legal right to being humanely murdered, including the legal right that somebody act in the role of humane murderer.

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This is not at all shocking to the modern secular Leftist, because their evaluation of life is purely hedonic - and when the balance between pleasure and pain tips too far in an adverse direction they regard it as the duty of the State to end things - simply out of compassion for suffering.

Of course, the vast majority of humans throughout human history have had painful deaths, unpeaceful deaths - deaths without 'dignity'.

For example, two of my greatest Christian heroes Blaise Pascal and Fr Seraphim Rose suffered horrible terminal illnesses lasting for some weeks. They would have been prime candidates for humane killing.

But in fact, most people have bad deaths - and by the criterion of 'a pain-free and peaceful death' would be 'deserving' of humane killing.

So this is not a trivial or minor matter, not at all - once the principle in is place that deaths ought to be pain-free and peaceful then the vast majority of people will be humanely killed - not least to be 'on the safe side' when suffering seems a likely prospect and to prevent it.

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Of course there have been pagan societies of the past - such as Ancient Rome, or the Japanese in the Samurai era - when suicide became almost the normal way to end life.

But these societies did not kill themselves in order to avoid pain and be peaceful - (as I understand it) the Patrician Roman killed himself to avoid all his property being confiscated by the state if he were executed; a Japanese noble in order that his death be equivalent to death in battle.

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Mr Nicklinson, 58, died at his home in Melksham, Wiltshire, this morning following a rapid deterioration in his health after contracting pneumonia over the weekend. He had suffered from locked-in syndrome following an accident in 2005 and wanted a doctor to be allowed to terminate his life...

Professor Penney Lewis, professor of law at the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King's College London, said today that Mr Nicklinson's plight would continue to raise questions about a change in the law, after being denied the right to die by High Court judges last week in a landmark ruling.

(Emphasis added.)

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What is clear is that this has nothing to do with a 'right to die'. It is clearly acknowledged that this man could refuse food, as he apparently did for the days leading up to his death (reported elsewhere), and then he would die - and in fact he died within a few days of refusing food.

The whole crux of this campaign is not the right to die, but the right to die painlessly - which is de facto the right to be killed before there can be any suffering.

It has a conceptualization of life that regards any form of suffering, even temporary and terminal suffering such as humans have endured through all history - as utterly intolerable, such that nothing is worse, such that being murdered humanely is a right and to murder humanely a vital social function.

This just has to be the most clear cut example of moral inversion which can be envisaged; going against the most basic and uncontroversial and universal Natural Law.

And yet this is now the mainstream, normal, enlightened viewpoint among modern Western elite opinion - such that those who hold it are moralistically angry and outraged that anybody could object to their proposals.

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Just take this on board.

The campaign to legalize wholesale humane murder is not an extrapolation, not science fiction - this is what is happening now.

This is the state of cutting edge, widely-supported secular morality.

This is not something being covertly or indirectly argued - it is a straightforward proposal supported by many or most high status people, pretty much all the mass media and university ethicists and experts of many stripes.

People feel good about themselves for supporting wholesale humane murder, because as good secular Leftists they regard suffering as the worst thing.

People feel very angry against those who block wholesale humane muder, they hate the people who oppose wholesale humane murder - because these people are cruel, they are deliberately inflicting suffering upon helpless people at the end of their lives.

*

The situation is beyond parody: the situation is an everyday fact of modern life.

*



Note - I would not like to give a false impression: I remember clearly what it was like to believe that wholesale humane murder - properly done, by decent sensible properly-trained people - would indeed be a vital element in continued human progress. To my former secular hedonic self, removal of that basic terror of the process of death seemed like a fine thing, crucial to peace of mind. To object was evil, reactionary, insensitive, indifferent. We moderns had got beyond such barbaric harshness. Only since I became a Christian did the scales drop from my eyes.

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When absurd projection becomes routine - People behave as if lies were specific, while truth is systemic.

The term 'projection' was originally given a false causal explanation in terms of nonsense psychodynamics; but the phenomenon is real, and the term is useful. 

People really do accuse others of their own faults, their own illicit desires, their own misdemeanors - and on the perfectly understandable grounds that their own character and behaviour is their 'model' for how the world works. 

So, projection may be perfectly sincere - the projector may really believe that his enemy is exactly the same as himself, as bad as himself - only worse, for not being the projector, because he is The Enemy. 

Currently The West, the global totalitarian leadership class; is accusing its enemies of its own evils all over the place, in an automatic and routing fashion, and without regard to plausibility. 

And getting away with it, being believed... Insofar as anybody really believes anything in this post-God culture: belief is now a passive, externally-driven, and labile state.

Believed because The System echoes back the lies from all directions; especially the mass media reflect back the evil assumptions and hostile projections of the political leadership. 

The masses realize that the leadership class are liars; and the masses even 'notice' (i.e. have pointed-out by the mass media) a few of the more trivial lies of their leaders. 

But the assumption behind all this activity is that liars are the exception among leaders; rather than the truth that only those who will lie to order are eligible for leadership positions. And that while there are specific lies devised, pushed and sustained by The System - these happen against a background of valid assertions, and good motivations. 

People cannot, or will not, assume that The System as a whole is evil motivated, or that it is anti-human. They cannot grasp (and find the idea too despair-inducing) that the leadership class uses the masses, cares functionally-nothing for any peoples or nations, for 'rights' or 'freedoms', for 'law' or 'peace'. 

Any such private sentiments (which are never strong in those selected for system-leadership) are stripped away (if not simply sold) by the realities of wielding and retaining power in an evil-orientated System.  

To notice such matters is regarded as cynical, conspiracy theorizing, and despair-inducing; because in a this-worldly sense all these are true. 

If this mortal life and world are all that there is - then it is needlessly cruel to point-out miserable truths - especially when nothing effective can be done to correct or better them them: at least, nothing in a mainstream, socio-political, materialist way. 

If mortal life is everything and socio-political reality is that we are ruled by heartless, selfish, and cruel people - then maybe it really is better to be unaware of the truth - better not to think about such things? 

This is the 'therapeutic' view of human life, a variant of utilitarianism (in which morality is calibrated against an hedonic calculus) - which traces ethics back to human psychology; and regards the primary duties as reducing suffering, and enhancing gratification.

If this life and world are everything, and yet that everything is hostile and cruel; then it is probably best to regard our discourse as a palliative therapy - the kind of terminal health care provided to those who who are dying, who cannot be cured - but can be helped to suffer less, and maybe experience a few more pleasures. 

In other words; the prevalent morality is one of: "eat, drink, and be merry; because tomorrow we die". 

In such a situation; one who points-out the situation - who increases conscious awareness of the miserable nature of life - is an enemy. 

Only if our world view is rooted in the eternal, and if we our-selves are confident both of our post-mortal salvation, a job-to-do while we still liv. Only when others may share this life-beyond-life if (and only if) they understand and choose spiritual truth... Only then is it worthwhile looking beyond the therapeutic perspective - and to matters of reality.