Bruce Charlton's Notions

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The above was - for me at any rate - a truism of science.

An hypothesis which explains everything is un-dis-proveable. It could be so inclusive as to explain whatever happens - to include all opposite happenings; or (and this seems common) an hypothesis is so vague and imprecise, or so highly abstract and remote from experience and observation, as to be essentially disarticulated from any possible counter-evidence.

How about religion, theology, and Christianity in particular - does the above maxim also apply?

Yes it does apply. Any religious theory or belief which explains everything is immune from counter example, which means that it is detached from observable reality - past, present or future.

I think it is inevitable that metaphysical beliefs are of this kind - that they are assumptions which structure our interpretation of experience and observation, but can neither be confirmed nor refuted.

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What of the nature of God? Is knowledge of the nature of God a metaphysical assumption which explains everything and is immune to all possible eventualities; or is understanding the nature of God a matter of experience (including revelation) and observation (things that happen to us and which we perceive), which can therefore be modified by experience and observation?

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For classical theology, the nature of God is (par excellence) described in terms of an hypothesis which explains everything - God is described as containing everything, the creative source of everything, sustaining of everything - all powerful, present everywhere, all-knowing...

Therefore this is an hypothesis which is immune to all possible experience and observation (including being immune to all actual and conceivable sources of revelation - such as scripture or personal revelation).

Therefore the classical theological explanation of God is on the one hand irrefutable, and can be believed with absolute security - but at the cost of explaining nothing (and, by the way, rendering revelation superfluous).

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The 'pluralist' understanding of the nature of God is a consequence of experience and observation - especially of actual revelations as derived from specific writings and persons (potentially including ourselves).

The pluralist God does not explain everything - and therefore the understanding of a pluralist God could be shaped and even refuted by events.

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To believe in a pluralist understanding of God is to acknowledge a radical insecurity in terms that contradiction, exposure of error is always theoretically possible - not that it is a realistic possibility for a person of solid faith.

A Man may have total confidence in his knowledge of God and his relationship with God - but this confidence is not a confidence which comes from knowing a priori that whatever happens could not in principle refute him.

The confidence of a Man of solid faith in a pluralist God is that some things will not happen. Total confidence that future events will not, as a matter of fact, be such as to refute his understanding.

Not because future events cannot refute faith, but because they will not refute faith.

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A pluralist understanding of God needs to explain why the universe is Good, and why Good and evil cannot simply be reversed.

In a pluralist universe of the kind I envisage - Good 'Just is- it is part of the basic set-up which preceded God - it is akin to existence of matter and the laws of nature.

Evil is not primary, because evil is the rejection of Good - the intent to destroy Good - it is Pride conceptualized as the chosen preference for the self and for self-definition above reality.

Thus Good exists and is a part of reality, then one or more free agents (which are also part of reality) choose to work against Good, against reality.

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Thus God is Good - at root - because He adheres to the nature of reality - rather than reality being Good because it is of God.

God is wholly Good by choice, not because Good is a property of God.

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This seems to be the necessary Christian concept of Good.

For a Christian, God is not simply reality to which we must submit - whatever it might be; but God is a reality to which it is Good that we submit.

Good is real - and God is much, much, much more Good than we are (totally Good) - but not simply by saying that everything that God does is automatically Good-by-definition... No - it is that God always does do Good.

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To a pluralist, there is a sense in which the triumph of Good over evil is contingent, and a matter which must be settled; Good actually has to win the war.

The result of the war of Good and evil is settled by superiority of forces.

But there is a kind of in-practice, 'pragmatic' necessity to the victory of Good.

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A thought experiment:

1. Evil is to be understood as the destruction of Good, the pride-full defiance of reality. Evil is chaos.

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2. Hence the triumph of evil in war is a triumph of destruction and falsehood - chaos eroding order (that order being Good and real). Evil (chaos) weakens itself, even as it defeats Good (order) - and insofar as evil (disorder) strengthens itself (organized, principled evil) - it lets Good in again by the back door.

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3. Hence evil cannot utterly destroy Good in a pluralist universe - because the basic stuff of things (matter, laws of nature, moral laws, and the spirit foci of intelligence which were the basis of humans and of God) are indestructible; indestructible because they are prior to evil.

Evil can weaken Good, simplify structure, reduce complexity - can create false models of reality (but these are still models, hence structures).

Evil can reduce and reduce the amount of Good but since power comes from structure, evil cannot eliminate Good.

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Thus if the forces of evil were, at some point in the history of things, stronger than the forces of Good, reality would be made more chaotic - but order could not be eliminated.

The emergence (the evolution) of higher levels of Good could be delayed. But if ONCE a wholly Good entity became dominant - became God - then His ultimate victory would become inevitable (although that victory could be delayed); however that victory need not be complete - evil will not be eradicated (because some or many foci of intelligence may choose to refuse to acknowledge it, and they cannot be compelled) - and that victory may not be permanent in the sense that evil may at times grow again and inflict more damage again, and need to be defeated again.

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It can be seen how, in this sense, God must be Good (or else He could not become God - could not attain the power of God) and - by the time that God IS - then Good must be stronger than evil and must win in the end.

(Win by making things right except for those who do not want themselves made right (those who choose hell); and making things right by healing the effects of evil, rather than any total and final obliteration of the possibility of evil.)

The war of Good and evil can only end finally if-or-when every single consciousness in existence has chosen to subordinate themselves to our Good God. If that cannot or does not happen, the War in Heaven will continue; or at least it has the potential to begin again.

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But we can also see that War in Heaven, Spiritual Warfare, is a reality - and an eternal fact of the universe - it is a real war, and must be fought, and not to fight it would lead in the victory (but not the ultimate victory) of evil; and it is but at some times it will be much larger and more destructive a war than at others.

(Because this is a plural universe that we have assumed, after all.)

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http://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-10-066-jesus-heals-a-man-born-blind?category=bible-videos-the-life-of-jesus-christ

Another marvellous New Testament video segment from the lds.org web pages. This one is distinguished for me by the scenes in which the man's sight is restored - compelling visual acting and directing/ editing.

As so often with these pieces, I find a sudden appreciation of the impact of Jesus on his contemporaries.

Also, I marvel yet again at the Gospel of St John - and its amazing eye-witness verisimilitude. I would find it hard to take seriously anybody who asserted that this Gospel was not written by the Apostle. Such a person would need a tin ear for the nature of writing, as well as an axe to grind.  

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It happens a lot. And in the history of literature there are broad phases.

In the early and mid twentieth century there was a lot of stuff of the writer writing about writing (nothing to say).

Then there was a lot of stuff of writers writing about the fact they had nothing to say - and this was pretty mainstream in the sexities and seventies when I was a youth.

After quite a bit of this, then writers got used to the fact that had nothing to say; and since they had been brought-up in this situation, and had never known any differently; writers for the past few decades say nothing because (as they perceive it) there is nothing to be said.

That is the subtext of what the Mass Media scream at us every day, and what we encounter in the highbrow world of serious novels, art movies, ambitious TV programmes - writers are simply messing around, trying to grab and hold attention, producing positive and negative feelings - just passing the time.

They have nothing to say and they believe there is nothing to be said - and they are just filling-in time: their own and everybody elses.

Filling-in time with time-filling is not, however, morally neutral - nor is it passive; it is actively destructive of good.

Thus writers are generally become agents of evil, so are books, TV and movie narratives.

Art is destructive now, as is science and academia - indeed much that once was good (on the whole) has become bad (on the whole) - including education and socialization which now make people dumber and worse citizens (on the whole); because with the mass social communications media almost everybody is now a writer, and they have nothing to say, and believe there is nothing to be said - but say it anyway; louder, more frequently, more manipulatively, and with ever-smaller breaks in-between.   

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Infinite regress

Modern (secular) science tends to see things in terms of an infinite regress - but this is implicit, demonstrated by how scientists behave and not by their expressed beliefs.

Infinite regress means that A was caused by B which was caused by C - and so on forever.

This is very much a linear and causal view - linear causality is the primary metaphysical assumption about the nature of reality. 

This is of course paradoxical, since if there were an infinite number of previous causes, then it would take eternity for them to operate - so nothing could ever be caused.

However, all ultimate explanations are paradoxical - so it is not as if there was any non-paradoxical alternative.

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Mind of God

Mainstream Christan theology takes the (ultimately Platonic) attitude that the ultimate explanation is the mind of God - God's will, God's decision.

This is regarded as inexplicable, because in this conception of God He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent - causes everything and thus sustains the universe, and is free of all passions, impassive, unchanging - yet, somehow, Loves us and we are supposed to Love (as well as worship) Him.

(To worship and fear such a concept of God is easy; to Love Him and believe He Loves us - especially given that He is directly responsible for - wills - absolutely everything that happens... well that is not so easy.)

So asking about the ultimate cause of A may be followed by B and C but does not go on forever - sooner or later the causes come to terminus in the mind of God, in the uncaused direct will and action of God.

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For this view, everything is necessary - absolutely everything.

Nothing could be other than as it is.

(Which leaves no space, not one Angstrom of space, for real, actual, free will. So Christianity is impossible...) 

But this is not really an explanation - rather it is a limit to explanation. A stop sign.

So there is a paradoxical quality about using the mind of God as the ultimate explanation - especially for a Christian.

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It just is

But there is another alternative, seldom given much attention but in fact the one to which I adhere; and which is the pluralist alternative; and it is like the mind of God explanation except that ALL causal pathways do NOT return to the mind of God, but some of them terminate in 'It Just Is'.

So some 'A's do have a line of causality leading back to the mind of God (to God's uncaused will and action). But other A, B, C sequences terminate in the assumption that that Just Is 'how things are' and presumably 'always have been' - in other words the nature of reality.

Therefore, two classes of explanation: two types of ultimate cause - God, and It Just Is...

(Implying a reality which contains God, rather than being contained-by God).

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On this view, some things are ultimately caused by God, and other things are not.

(Some things are Good, and other things are not - either being neutral, such as forces and laws of nature and substance; or evil, which means anti-Good, destructive of Good.)

Reality is therefore not ultimately a harmony or stasis; but instead some kind of dynamic conflict or process, between ultimate realities, ultimate causes (of which God is one); there is 'opposition in all things'.

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Another way to contrast the mind of God from It Just Is, is to consider the origin of Forms.

Most philosophical and scientific analyses necessarily assume forms are real, and lie behind appearances. This applies to Plato and even more to Aristotle, to Thomism, is a recurrent and continuous feature of science (especially biology), and has reappeared in our time in the work of Rupert Sheldrake.

(The modern theory of evolution by natural selection depends utterly on assumptions about form, but its flaw is that it cannot see this, and denies and ridicules such discourse. Hence form is an unexamined assumption of natural selection, shaping all discourse but opaque to perception.)

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But where do the forms come from?

The two answers are essentially: 1. They are present in, and a decision of, the mind of God (Aristotle, Aquinas); or 2. They Just Are (which has been the implicit view of most scientists interested in form, including Sheldrake.)

But how do we know about forms, how do we know how many there are and their characteristics, how can we detect a form or decide what form applies in a particular situation?

If forms come from the mind of God then we can assume God plants the necessary knowledge in our own minds (the view of Aristotle and Aquinas).

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But if forms Just Are, then how would we know about them? And how could disputes about form be settled (even in theory) when there was any disagreement about the number, nature, identity, characteristics of form?

For the Just Is understanding, the implication is that we know about things like form partly by them being built-into us, by necessity - since these things are ultimate causes; partly by revelation from God.

But then how does God know?

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I think the implication is that God must himself be a kind of philosopher and historian and scientist.

He is Himself one of the ultimate realities - but knows about the other ultimate realities only conjecturally; in terms of unrefuted hypotheses that seem to work.

So, God created (shaped, ordered) the universe, and knows what it is to work-with the ultimate realities - but He does not (on this view) know their number and nature directly or for certain.

He knows far, far, far better than we do what are the nature of the ultimate realities (perhaps matter, and the forces and laws of the universe, and the ultimate forms), because of his vastly greater (to put it mildly!) experience; but He does not know in the way a God who is himself everything would know about what went on inside himself.

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The infinite regress view is respectable among scientists, and the God's mind view is respectable among philosophers and mainstream among Christian theologians - both are respectable despite having big, big, BIG paradoxes and problems.

So also does It Just Is have paradoxes and problems. But It Just Is does have has the BIG advantages (for a Christian) of leaving space for real free will, and also distinguishing between the ultimate origins of Good and evil.

But, at any rate, some people - and I am one, and many tribal peoples and probably most children are others, are apparently satisfied to stop asking for further explanations when they reach something they can believe Just Is...

...The universe has always been, it has always had this stuff in it, the stuff has always operated and reacted and moved in this way and by these rules; God has always been, and we humans have always been and we always will be (some kind of thread of consciousness extending back in time forever, perhaps very thin at times but never severed, always continuous) - But we have changed; and we continue to change, according to the constraints of the stuff and the rules and in love and obedience to God; who, as Father and of his Goodness, shaped us and gave us self-awareness, personhood, godhood; all ultimately because we Just Are, God Just Is, and we and God lived and live among many other things that Just Are.

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I have written about this phenomenon in my own life; but it is striking how many of the secular ideologies are pre-immunized against Christianity: they are built on the assumption that whatever is the answer, Christianity is not the answer; that Christianity is at best useless, and at worse a major cause of the problem.

Their participants are 'free-thinkers' in all other respects, but making the simple philosophical 'move' that the correct answer being sought is 'anything but Christianity' -

(and they make this move because they believe that Leftism is a Christian heresy - when in fact Leftism is a Christian apostasy - always remembering that modern mainstream Christian Churches counts as significantly Leftist, hence mostly apostate)

- ensures  that in the end they will follow the same nihilistic trajectory described in Eugene Rose's Nihilism - the trajectory of Liberalism, Realism, Vitalism, Destruction...

http://www.oodegr.com/english/filosofia/nihilism_root_modern_age.htm

The current secular (Neo) Reactionaries are getting terribly excited about having made the transition from Liberalism to Realism, and a few have gone further along the path - but it is an old, old story. 

Nihilism-lite certainly doesn't work at a societal level - except as a temporary distraction, and it surely does not work at a personal level - except as a temporary distraction.

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Notes:

Being immunized against Christianity is sufficient to ensure nihilism in the West; because nihilists never convert to other serious religions with serious obligations - Western reactionaries just don't take the non-Christian religions seriously enough. They just play-at them. The exception is Orthodox Judaism - but this option is only open to Jews.

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Q: How can we tell what works? A: Who chooses Marriage and Family (coercion doesn't count).

Whatever is the answer must (at minimum - not sufficient) be an answer that gives people and societies the basic perspective from which they are motivated to commit to marriage and the family as the primary social unit, have more than two children (if possible) and raise them (if possible).

The tiniest coherent sect which achieves this level of positive, constructive motivation, is worthy of more serious consideration as an ideology than any number of expedience-wedded, self-distracting, sterile theorizers.

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My minimum threshold for the seriousness of anyone who disputes the Marriage and Family Test is that they explicitly repudiate the sexual revolution - in other words, that since they will not marry that they personally make a vow of celibacy. 

If not either committed either to marriage or to celibacy, a man is just a dilettante, a flaneur; insincere in thought and weakly expedient in action - and someone who should be disregarded by those who are serious about life. 

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When I was in my early teens I was trained to act in the classic style that dominated English theatre from the time of WS Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan) through the era of the 'well-made play' and up into the mid 1950s - when it was challenged by the supposedly more authentic style of Kitchen Sink drama pioneered by John Osborne with Look Back in Anger.

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The school teacher who trained me had been some kind of a professional actor at some level - and seemed to us extremely eccentric.

He looked a bit like Charles Gray, and had the same accent and mannerisms - essentially he never stopped acting, whatever he was doing.

In classes, his big thing (pretty much the only thing) was to teach all the pupils correct pronunciation - received pronunciation (aka BBC English) - and this was done by mocking and mimicking the local Bristol/ Somerset accent and various other regional accents. Anyone who spoke in a rustic dialect was called a Garge (the pronunciation of George) with the R very strongly emphasized.

In his era, teaching people to speak properly had been regarded as a major part of what happened at school - and this included the non-academic (secondary modern) schools where he had been teaching.

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When we were rehearsing, he would don his casual uniform of open necked shirt and cravat, blue jeans (rolled turn-ups), sandals with socks; talk about the famous stars by their first names (especially 'Larry' Olivier); swear at moments of pressure (saying 'bloody' in a rapid and clipped way) then apologize with 'Pardon my French' - and would chain-smoke cigarettes nervously throughout the day, and drink too much coffee.

In short, he would behave exactly as an actor was expected to behave in his youth.

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The way a play was put-on in this classic style was very labour intensive - the director worked hard, and the actors worked hard. There was one right way to do anything and everything - the directors job was to know that one right way, and be able to demonstrate it; the actors job was to be able to follow the director's instructions exactly but apparently effortlessly and gracefully.


The play was The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde - and I was playing the butler Lane - who doesn't have very much to say or do, but is the first person on stage, and has a few classic lines.

But, despite having such a minuscule role,  I was trained and rehearsed with the utmost seriousness, as part of an elite troop, I was present at every rehearsal - and in the end could quote the whole play from memory

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The stage was set-up exactly, with measured spaces and precise angles; and we we told not only where to stand, but how many paces (of what length) to take for each move; and of course we always set out on a move with the upstage foot (the foot furthest from the audience) - this was drilled and drilled, until it was second nature. "Never turn your back on the audience."

Another thing you must apparently never do in this style of acting is have two actors moving in towards each other and crossing over - as a rule, one actor at a time would be moving, or two would move in the same direction. Obviously, one actor should not move when another actor was speaking (that would be 'upstaging' them - i.e. taking the audience's attention away from them - for an actor, a heinous crime...).

Thus the play was constructed in a balletic fashion - with sequences of moves, rapidly picked-up cues, and each speech made lucid; ideally to be perceived by the audience as flowing, smooth and apparently effortless - but actually drilled and drilled until it was second nature.

(The idea was to prevent the audience being distracted from the proper focus of the drama - which was whoever was speaking.).

In general, the stage was treated like a balanced tableau - with the actors spread across in an open stance, facing the audience; continually rearranging themselves from one tableau to another, by carefully crafted sequences that usually involved moving just one actor at a time.

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As for speaking - the precise accent and inflection of every single word, and the rising and falling intonation of each line, was told us by the director; and we had to learn it.

We were told and shown how to project our voices so every syllable was audible at the back of the theatre - and the intonation of words and lines was adjusted accordingly.

If we erred in any respect during rehearsal, then we would be stopped there and then, and have to do it again.

In sum, we were told and shown (the director would demonstrate) everything we had to do - and being a good actor was being able to do exactly what you were told, and do it very well, in an elegant and controlled manner. 

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Facial expressions were also learned - the director being our 'mirror'.

And in the show week, we were individually taught how to apply our own stage make-up - in a standard way with standard greasepaint colours and powder. 

I particularly remember how strange was the eye make-up, with a surprisingly large red dot on the inner canthus, and a white one on the outer canthus. 

In the end our features were exaggerated, and our faces powder-caked, in a manner perhaps suitable for performing somewhere vast like the Bristol Hippodrome with remote 'gods' (upper circles of seating) rather than our miniature school theatre.

But that was the proper way to do make up - so that is what we did.

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In fact, our school theatre was superb - it was a real theatre - perfect, purpose built; a mini-proscenium arch theatre; with pretty much everything expected in such (dark velvet curtains, flies, trapdoors, an orchestra pit etc).

The main entrance to the school was indeed set up as a theatre foyer, with doors to the stalls in front of you and stairs to the balcony on either side!

I have never seen a better school theatre - but at the time I just took it for granted, and assumed all schools had something like it.

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After the last night of the show, when it was all over, I experienced the most extraordinary crash of mood - everything seemed dull, uninteresting, unimportant.

The only thing I wanted to do, was start rehearsing another play (preferably by Oscar Wilde) - or even better do it all over again!

I was actually carrying the script of Earnest around with me, and the programme signed by the other cast members.

I was in mourning.

Yet I was only a butler, and hadn't had much to do! But this experience (and others afterwards) gives an impression of the absorbing and addictive quality of the stage.

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About 15 years later and 300 miles North, I was Algernon in the same play, coming in late to replace somebody who had dropped out, and doing the whole thing - one of the five main parts - in six weeks, three nights of rehearsals a week (while writing up my doctorate!).

It went well, and was indeed by far the best performance I ever gave (at least, judging by the audience response).

However, it was so time consuming, I never did another play - although I did at other times take principal roles in several Gilbert and Sullivan or Edwardian musicals.

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All these later shows were an excellent experience, and I used a lot of my earlier training - but in reality no other play was anything like so carefully staged as the one at school.

There was always insufficient rehearsal time, inappropriate rehearsal facilities, and not the least of problems was that most adults could not 'take direction' as we had as youths.

Adults amateur actors miss rehearsals, fail to learn their parts early enough, and rigidly continued to say their lines pretty much as they first came out in the first rehearsal - they could not re-learn how to speak a line.

Anyway, I was always grateful to that old drama teacher from school. Although he was a kind of caricature and very pretentious; he worked hard (when doing a show, anyway) and was very thorough - and taught us well the craft of the theatre.

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How much experience does a writer need?

Lyric poets in partcular seem to be able to write just fine without having exprienced anything beyond childhood and adolescence - because, in terms of subjective time and strength of emotions and perceptions, childhood is the main time of life.

Hence, poets can produce first rate work at a young age, and many excellent poets never get much beyond the subject matters of chidlhood and adolescence (e.g. Dylan Thomas).

Adolescence is useful because the experience of being in love opens up a lot of possibilities; experience of marriage and having a family completes the requisites and perhaps exceeds them even for a novelist with a broad social canvas; since writers as great as Jane Austen have not themselves been married or had children (although they have experienced these vicariously, via family).

Adult experience is - by contrast - generally a shallow and inessential thing to a writer; in fact it is more often a snare than a help - probaby because it is neither so intense nor so fully assimilated as early experience.

Writers that write mostly about their adult experiences are generally below even the second rank, and among the best writers adult subject matter usually corresponds to their lesser works.

For instance, when Saul Bellow writes about his childhood and teen years, he is a great and magnanimous writer; but when he write about adult things he is pretentious, spiteful and petty.

Another example: Robert Frost's later satirical and topical poems (from his experiences as a famous man) are at a generally lower level than his earlier work; although Frost's greatness - his much greater strength-with-range than most other lyrial poets - came from his having retained an extended child-like sensitivity to experience (an innocence) until he was about forty, when he began publishing poems.

The common practice of gathering experience in order to write about it (like the genre of 'travel writing') is fundamentally a fake activity; and that comes through into the writing as the flaw of dishonesty, which works like a crack in a china vase - the writing does not ring when tapped, but merely emits a dull crunch.

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President (1995-2008) Gordon B Hinckley CJCLDS

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/the-stone-cut-out-of-the-mountain?lang=eng&query=


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Understanding is a subtle thing, or maybe it is a very simple thing!

At any rate, the world is full of people who say they understand, who believe they understand - but apparently don't.

The human grasp of reason is so shaky, and human pragmatism so strong, that by and large people say and believe what is practically-expedient - and there are very very few (and in some times and places zero) people who do otherwise. 

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And some statements that claim to elucidate or explain are in reality un-understandable - and the people who understand most deeply know this.

(I am reminded of Einstein who knew that quantum theory was un-understandable, hence could not be regarded as a statement of reality. Many lesser minds, however, claim to understand it!)

I have often experienced the situation when I thought I understood something, but as learned and pondered more, I realized that I did not understand it and never had understood it - that I had been fooling myself (although I would have sworn in a court of law, or before God, that I did understand it - I had been mistaken).

This was the basis of most good science I have done - first the recognition that I did not understand what others claimed was clear and obvious and true; then finding an explanation that accounted for the primary observations and that I did understand.

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What is the status of an un-understandable statement? Well, it can have many functions.

It may be the result of confusion, or an attempt to mislead.

In Christian history, an un-understandable statement may be a deliberately-crafted ambiguity whereby two or more intractably-warring factions read into the un-understandable statement what they seek, and each chooses to pretend they understand its meaning correctly.

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More often the un-understandability is at the level of a non sequitur ("it does not follow") - several understandable statements placed side by side, but with no understandable link between them

Non sequitur is how the historical Christian church (more or less) 'solved' the vicious and intractable Christological ('nature of Christ') disputes of the early centuries - these disputes themselves being an artefact of the inflexible insistence of expressing Christian doctrine through philosophical spectacles manufactured to Classical Metaphysical specifications. 

This technique of dispute resolution resulted in the usual mainstream formulations about the Holy Trinity being both One AND Three; and Jesus Christ having been both God and Man at the same time, despite that God and Man are being conceptualized as utterly different kinds of entity.

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These things are stated very firmly, very solemnly, they are absolutely insisted upon and often made definitional of being-a-Christian - but they are un-understandable; they are unconnected statements placed side by side and claiming to make an argument - which allows what people really believe inside their heads (i.e what they actually picture or comprehend) to range very widely.

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On the other hand, such non sequiturs may kill understanding, and faith, by placing un-understandability at the very heart of what Christians (supposedly) must believe.

For some, this is intolerable - they need to understand the most important things; rather than having the most important things expressed in forms that are intrinsically un-understandable.  

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In reality such 'understanding' as comes from the non sequitur is more of the nature of a truce, or an agreement to go no further along that line of argument.

That is understandable, and it may be expedient in situations of intractable conflict - but it is also hazardous, spiritually - and leads to those in authority solemnly insisting upon solemn non-sense (i.e. intrinsically un-understandable statements), and allowing a kind of dishonesty into the very heart of Christianity.

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For me, one of the most wonderful aspects of Joseph Smith's Restoration of Christianity was his work in putting clear, comprehensible explanations back at the very heart of Christian doctrine - in clearing-out the major non sequiturs.

Of course, its honesty, clarity and understandability exposed Mormon doctrine to ridicule; but Christianity is indeed intrinsically absurd (or blasphemous) to those who do not believe it (hence the temptation to hide its absurdities by retreating into abstraction and un-understandable non sequitur - whether or not re-framed as 'mystery').

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I believe that humans are incapable of a metaphysical system which is both sufficiently concrete and commonsensical to be understandable, and yet also comprehensive.

All comprehensible metaphysical systems therefore run into problems (e.g. infinities of regress, zeroes, stasis) when pushed further than explaining the appearances.

But I think it reasonable to prefer a system which solves the up-front and core problems of Christianity - and these are the Christology problems.

And they were solved by Joseph Smith - by means of chucking-out the philosophical (specifically metaphysical) presuppositions of Classical Theology. This 'move' would perhaps not have been acceptable in the early centuries of the Church, but it is acceptable now.

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To solve the Christology problems, it is necessary to understand God the Father, Jesus Christ, and Man in a way which makes understandable that Christ could be both God and Man - this Joseph Smith achieved, by recognizing (taking literally the Biblical descriptions) that God, Christ and Man are qualitatively of the same kind, despite truly-vast quantitative disparities.

And this was a great achievement, greatly valued by those who benefit from it.

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But I expect that the whole thing started with Joseph Smith knowing that he did not understand the existing explanations of Christianity, and refusing to accept proffered explanations that he did not understand.


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Yesterday I was walking along an ordinary residential street in town in the deepening dusk, not fully alert, lost in reverie; when I was shocked to see something I could barely believe - a 'person' walking towards me with a face that was light green and glowing. The undead. A zombie.

Horrified, I looked again, the face was glowing with the kind of light emitted by putrefying vegetation, its eyes were glassy and seemed illumined from within. The gait was shambling.

The figure came closer; I looked again, more intently; and saw it was a pudgy-faced girl staring at a mobile phone display, the phone having its back to me. 

So I was right first time: it was an undead zombie.

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From considering some of the points in this post

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/why-is-decline-in-average-intelligence.html

it is clear that the ageing population, the change in the age structure (as represented by a population pyramid) has been a factor in reducing average intelligence.

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Almost all nations at present have grossly distorted population structures resembling one of another of these extremes:


In terms of the median (average) age, Angola is in the late-teens, Japan is in the mid-forties.

Such extremes of median age have not been seen in human history, and such an extreme difference between nations is highly significant.

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The population structure ideal is something in between, and closer to the 'stationary' shape - therefore probably it would be roughly 'pyramidal', but with a much narrower base than Angola.

The developed world nations all approximate to the top-heavy Japanese shape among the indigenous population - very few children at the base of larger proportions of the elderly.

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As a person ages they suffer a decline in intelligence - which is objectively (but only approximately) measurable by a slowing of simple reaction times.

Reaction times get faster from young childhood up to sexual maturity as intelligence increases throughout childhood and up to about age 16 for girls and 18 for boys.

Adults are more intelligent than children - and a population grossly-over-dominated by children and early teenagers, like that of many of the developed world nations, will therefore natural have a lower average intelligence.  However, such populations would expect to get more intelligent over the short to medium term (forthcoming years to decades) as current children mature into adulthood. 

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The opposite applies in the developed nations.

The reaction times/ intelligence does not change much during early adult life; but seemingly decline gets faster and faster in the thirties or forties; so the decline in intelligence from age forty to fifty is much greater than from thirty to forty, and continues to accelerate.

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(The actual amount of decline is only imprecisely known, I think, because it would require longitudinal studies lasting many decades. But as a very approximate ballpark figure, I would suggest a loss of about 10 IQ points (2/3 of a standard deviation) from age 20 to 70. Therefore the decline would go something like 30-40 - 1 IQ point lost; 40-50 - 2 IQ points lost; 50-60 - 3 IQ points lost and 60-70 - 4 IQ points lost.)

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The developed countries currently have a median average age in the mid-forties, which means that average intelligence has already declined - but as the median age gets above 45 and continues to rise, the rate of intelligence decline will increase further, and further.

At a national level, there would appear to be an apparently sudden, because more rapid, and unavoidable decline in national capability to accomplish functions requiring a population of high intelligence.

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Of course, intelligence is not the only thing that changes with age - physical ability declines, and personality also changes - but the objective nature of reaction times makes the picture simpler and more objectively measurable, in principle.

(Objectively measurable, that is, at the population level where the imprecision of simple reaction times for estimating individual intelligence, is overcome by averaging of larger numbers.)


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The point is that a population with a top-heavy population pyramid, a population with a median age in the forties and increasing, is a population with:

1. Reduced average intelligence compared with the optimal population structure - and the transition of population structure to the top-heavy form would be accompanied by an increasingly rapid reduction in average intelligence from this cause;

2. And a population with high median age/ top-heavy structure is a population where further and more rapid decline in average intelligence is to be expected over the short to  medium term (the coming years, and next few decades; due to the small proportion of the population contained in those age- cohorts that will be moving into young adulthood (with peak intelligence) in the near future.


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Note: Of course, the Leftist media propound sustained mass immigration as a solution to this problem; but of course it is not a solution to this problem and very obviously leads to multiple other and intractable problems.

Suffice to say, any potential immigrant groups that could theoretically improve the cognitive deficit will not improve (and probably worsen) the reproductive deficit - and vice versa. 

In the long term, the current top-heavy population structure of the developed nations will self-correct, because it is unsustainable in multiple ways; and thus the ageing-contribution to intelligence decline will cease. 

However, the intelligence level of the population which stabilizes will, of course, be significantly lower than it was 150-200 years ago - due to the substantial intelligence decline over that period.

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http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/notes-on-creativity-as-sensitivity-to.html
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In my mid teens I listened through several of the operas of Vincenzo Bellini - which were rather riding high in reputation at that time.

I have never seen any Bellini operas live, nor have I listened all through to any of them again - so I don't really know how they stand-up.

But Bellini wrote some of the most glorious arias ever for a truly great singer in the Bel Canto style, who can sustain the long, fluid melodic line; and can 'rise' to the wonderfully well-prepared high notes.

In this aria from I Puritani, Pavarotti unleashes one of the most thrilling tenor high notes captured on vinyl - a C-sharp. It works best if you listen to the whole thing, and certainly the second verse run-in - but the actual note comes about 2.45:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMnC0W26Hkw

Probably Bellini's best known aria is Casta Diva from Norma which is a big favourite among the best dramatic sopranos - here is a version from the best of the best:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK2LwLyZAlc

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1. Intelligence

2. Honesty

3. Creativity

4. Knowledge

5. Diligence

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Notes: 

1. Intelligence is declining in most (not all) groups, and so is diligence (hard work, conscientiousness) - but there are other components of achievement which can compensate in terms of leading to sustained or greater achievement.

2. Honesty - the habit of truth, in all things, large and small. This is related to...

4. Knowledge - an accumulation of knowledge is very valuable BUT that knowledge must be of real things, true things. Modern society is characterized by vast knowledge of lies, nonsense, trivia etc - which is worse than useless - much, much better to know just a few true, real things.

3. Creativity, whatever it is, it is a gift - mostly. But it can be used or not, it can be amplified (by work habits, lifestyle etc) or suppressed.

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HOWEVER - it can be seen that in modern society we have:

1. Dysgenics lowering intelligence and diligence.

2. A culture of lying; and which both dis-values and suppresses real creativity.

3. A culture full of addictive and distracting lies, trivia, and evil (reality denying) stuff - this utterly overwhelming knowledge.

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In a nutshell: We Are Doing Everything Wrong.

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http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/why-is-decline-in-average-intelligence.html
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British weather is, by the standards of almost anywhere else in the world, extremely temperate - lacking in extremes, unglamorous, un-sexy.

Its distinguishing feature is intermittent and unpredictable tepid rain.

Nonetheless, recently, British weather has been front page, headline news in many of the major big circulation newspapers.

To me this smacks of sheer desperation. I imagine that to lead with a weather headline (at the level of "some houses somewhat flooded somewhere") must represent something close to utter humiliation for a journalist. Only to be done when there is absolutely no alternative.

And yet that is what we are getting - in newspaper, on TV and the radio.

The beginning of the end?

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In reflecting on the dishonest incoherence of the mainstream notion of 'racism', and the same would apply to the other fetishes (one cannot accurately call them moral principles) relating to sex, class and so on; it dawned on me that the fact of its dishonest incoherence was precisely what made 'racism' so valuable to the Left and to the forces of evil in general.

Because the concept is both dishonest and incoherent, it is unique to our modern anti-religious society - and this means that there never has been anything like it in the history of the world before.

So we have a situation when any mainstream, evil, unrepentant, selfish, short-termist, hedonistic, cowardly, irresponsible, dumb modern person is in possession of a moral principle by which they are superior to everybody in history (and everybody not living in The West, and also everybody in The West who is not a servant of the secular Left).

And these modern dishonest, incoherent pseudo-moral principles have wedged-into Christianity, where you can see them doing their wicked work of building-in the assumption that in terms of racism, sexism and the rest of it - any random modern person is entitled to put on trial even the greatest of Christian figures from the past.

And in such a trial, using such an evaluation system, there is only one possible outcome: which is to convict all of history and the rest of the world, to subvert real Christianity, tradition, and common sense; and to confirm the qualitative superiority of modern, secular Leftism in general and every modern mainstream, evil, unrepentant, selfish, hedonistic, short-termist, cowardly, irresponsible, dumb modern person in particular.

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I have noticed several examples of how pandering to particular groups destroys the meaning of language (Note: I am talking from a British perspective here).

1. Pupils to students.

Kids want to be thought of as older than they are. Children at school used to be called pupils, now they are called students - whereas 'students' used to be reserved for those at college or university. Now there is no generic terms to differentiate those at college from those at school.


2. Middle aged.

After the age of about 25, adults want to be thought of as younger than they are. Hence the term Middle Aged seems to have disappeared altogether; because of the delusional concept of modern middle aged people - not only women - who resent not being thought of as 'young'. Yet just 30-40 years ago, middle aged began by 40 at the latest - now, it would be regarded as insulting to call a 45 year old middle aged.


3. Old people.

For the same reason as the above, apparently nobody wants to be referred to as 'old' - yet this term used to be used from about age 50-55. Enforcement of this 'nobody is old' rule amounts to a pretended selective-blindness - and we are supposed to feign that we believe old people to be a couple of decades younger than their chronological age. But no matter the age, nobody wants to be thought of as old. This has now reached ridiculous proportions - a 90 year old recently felt she had to reassure me that she personally 'did not mind' being called old.


4. 'Young Adult' fiction, a 'hot' category in publishing, which used to mean college-age books like Catcher in the Rye; is now used to refer to books such as The Hunger Games (read by many 10 year old kids) and even Harry Potter (read by 8 year olds).

'Nuff said.

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I seldom look at You Tube comments because I usually browse in Safety Mode - but the other day I did; and it struck me that most of them seemed to be revelatory of a very refined form of evil.

The You Tube comments were the product of people who were themselves deliberately wasting time; and the deliberate motivation of the comments was to waste the time of others.

This combination is extremely wicked, and its near-ubiquity on the internet is a damning indictment of something or other...

Yet, of course, You Tube is only one branch of the Mass media; and deliberately wasting time/ wasting the time of others is precisely what 99% of the Mass Media is doing 24/7.

What a world! - a world of time-wasting wasters!

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First - there does not need to be a theory of Christ's atoning sacrifice which saved us from sin and gifted us eternal life.

Indeed, the above summary is already a theory in that it extracts, summarizes, uses a technical terminology - and, being thus incomplete and biased, like any summary of reality it artificially creates problems: philosophical problems.

Yet there are theories of what happened with Christ's Atonement, great emphasis is placed on some of these theories by some denominations; and there are explanations as to why it happened - why it was necessary, what difference it made...

I find it is hard to avoid having an opinion on this subject; it is hard to avoid worrying about it and trying to explain things to myself.