Bruce Charlton's Notions

I notice that it is now more than four years since Justin Welby was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury and 'leader' of the Anglican communion - which is the third biggest denomination of the largest religion in the world.

Throughout this time I have often commented on the chap - the collection of posts can be viewed via this link - and I thought, in particular, it was interesting to re-post one of my earliest evaluations - from 22 March 2013 - to see how well I was able to predict what was to come...

Much is made, by the media, of the supposed fact that Justin Welby - the Archbishop of Canterbury who was enthroned yesterday - is an 'evangelical'.

But, what does this really mean?

For example, what does it mean in contrast with his predecessor, Rowan Williams?

Well, both are Leftist bureaucrats first and foremost - but Williams was like a university administrator while Welby is more of a health service manager.

Furthermore, Williams was so hostile to Christianity that he would avoid talking about it altogether, if possible.

But Welby, being an 'evangelical' is quite happy to mention Christian themes from time to time - woven into his socialist propaganda.

So that is the definition of an evangelical - as applied to Church of England Bishops and Priests: an 'evangelical' is a Leftist bureaucrat who is not actively hostile to Christianity; while the others are Leftist bureaucrats, pure and simple - and mention Christianity only to discredit or invert it.

From Justin Welby's inaugural sermon:

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5038/out-of-our-own-traditions-and-into-the-waves-the-archbishop-of-canterburys-inaugural-sermon 

For more than a thousand years this country has to one degree or another sought to recognise that Jesus is the Son of God; by the ordering of its society, by its laws, by its sense of community. Sometimes we have done better, sometimes worse. When we do better we make space for our own courage to be liberated, for God to act among us and for human beings to flourish. Slaves were freed, Factory Acts passed, and the NHS and social care established through Christ-liberated courage. The present challenges of environment and economy, of human development and global poverty, can only be faced with extraordinary courage.

You see? The primary achievements of Christianity in 2000 years have been Abolition, Health and Safety, the health service bureaucracy and dole for most of the population.

The future of Christianity is fighting Global Warming, Fair Trade and making-Africans-smile.

What extraordinary 'courage' and liberation it takes for JW to articulate such counter-cultural sentiments!... Not.     

Yet at the same time the church transforms society when it takes the risks of renewal in prayer, of reconciliation and of confident declaration of the good news of Jesus Christ. In England alone the churches together run innumerable food banks, shelter the homeless, educate a million children, offer debt counselling, comfort the bereaved, and far, far more. All this comes from heeding the call of Jesus Christ. Internationally, churches run refugee camps, mediate civil wars, organise elections, set up hospitals. All of it happens because of heeding the call to go to Jesus through the storms and across the waves.

What is Welby's Church of England, anyway?

Well, apparently it is a really important part of the welfare state. It provides food banks (but I thought the poor were dying of obesity?); shelters the 'homeless' (to be 'homeless' is an official category which does not preclude someone having a 'shelter' such as a house or caravan - indeed being one of the thousands of 'homeless' selling the The Big Issue magazine is such an attractive job that it is hotly competed-for and has attracted Roma from a thousand miles distant to become 'homeless' in Britain); it educates millions - just like local governments; it provides financial advice (!).. and so on and drearily-on.

What is good about the C of E, apparently, is that it is almost as useful as the municipal council.

So at the end of this litany of socialist triumphs, we perceive that the C of E is 'transforming' society in exactly the same direction and by exactly the same means as Leftists everywhere - it is part of the precisely same project as the United Nations, Western governments, the civil service, the NGOs...

But all of these are aggressively atheist - so how come Welby is arguing that All of it happens because of heeding the call to go to Jesus? 

And why does Welby suppose it requires the CoE to go through storms and across waves to do this kind of stuff, when all he is asking the church to do is to float along with the mainstream current of secular Leftism?

The theme of the sermon is 'courage' and 'be not afraid'; but none of this stuff requires courage - rather, it is precisely what The Politically-Correct Establishment propagandizes, rewards, enforces.

What really would take courage, but what Welby of course never mentions, is to use his enthronement speech to make a clear Christian statement of opposition to the sexual revolution.

It is the opponents of bureaucratic Leftism and the sexual revolution who need to be told: be not afraid; because they are the ones who are afraid (and with good reason).   

There is every possible reason for optimism about the future of Christian faith in our world and in this country. Optimism does not come from us, but because to us and to all people Jesus comes and says “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid”. We are called to step out of the comfort of our own traditions and places, and go into the waves, reaching for the hand of Christ. Let us provoke each other to heed the call of Christ, to be clear in our declaration of Christ, committed in prayer to Christ, and we will see a world transformed.

(He means, of course, a world 'transformed' into a socialist utopia.)

But does this man know anything about the state of Christianity in 'this country', this England? If so how could he be optimistic?

Does this man understand words? Does he know the meaning of 'optimism'? Or does he think optimism means the same as 'hope'?

If he does not understand the word he is an ignorant fool, and if he does understand it but misuses it then he is a liar - or perhaps insane.

Happy Easter! (22 March 2013)
 

Evaluation (12 October 2017): I wuz right! Welby combines dishonest mendacity, servility, and managerial incompetence in exactly the manner expected from an over-promoted Leftist ideologue. Thus, he fits seamlessly into the modern British Establishment.

Re-reading the final pages of Brandon Sanderson's marvellous 'Mistborn' fantasy-fiction trilogy; I realised that the author was describing an example of Polarity.

(No spoilers follow - except in the most indirect and abstract, non-narrative sense.)

From the primary forces of Preservation/ Order and Ruin/ Chaos there can be no real creativity - not from either individually (Preservation leading to crystalline stasis; Ruin to a Brownian motion of homogeneous disorder).

But while Preservation and Ruin are indeed distinguishable polar opposites of Creativity; it can be seen that Creativity is more than any possible combination or alternation of Preservation and Ruin. Creation uses both Order and Chaos to create.

But Creation is itself something more than can be captured by Order and Chaos - creation is an uncaused cause, a primary purpose.

Creation (as it were) stands-behind Preservation and Ruin, directing them in the process of creating towards the goals of creation.

*

There is an analogy (and a fundamental identity) with the limited explanatory power of the process of evolution by Natural Selection. Natural Selection can Preserve, and it can Destroy, but not Create.

Natural Selection operates by Preservation of functionality - sieving-out the deleterious consequences of undirected genetic change (Destruction) - i.e. mutation-selection balance, or balancing selection. And it produces adaptations by Preservation of the rare reproductively advantageous mutations thrown-up (un-intentionally) by forces leading-to mutation/ Destruction.

But this is not Creation - it takes for granted that Creation has already-happened.

*

A further example is in the Natural Selection based models of Creativity itself - such as those of HJ Eysenck or Dean Simonton in their discussions of genius. They regard the creative process as an undirected ('random') generation of ideas (perhaps produced, as in Eysenck, by partial brain/ mind pathology - by loose associations characteristic of psychotic/ dreamlike thinking)...

So Destruction/ 'free association' (supposedly) produces multiple ideas, from-which a process of Preservation (such as the analytic and rational processes of high general intelligence, or practical implementation and observation of consequences) then selects the minority of ideas that are useful/ 'true'.

But, a closer metaphysical examination of these assumptions reveals that this is not a genuine creative process (unless we have already decided, as an assumption, that it is the only possible explanation) because it rules-out the purposive nature of creation, which is intrinsic to the concept.

(Modern Biology indeed rules-out 'teleology' as a basic assumption.)

In particular, to explain genius creativity with only natural selection makes it an undirected, 'random', motiveless, inhuman procedure - and it also makes the evaluation of genius into an analogously 'random' process.

Since the selection process is necessarily imprecise, and indeed merely selects the best-reproducing idea in particular circumstances over a finite timescale; there is no valid means of knowing which concepts are right and which are wrong - a different answer will emerge in each different situation; and an answer that seemed correct for hundreds of years (Aristotelian Physics, Newtonian Physics) is always liable to revision or rejection (Einsteinian Physics/ quantum theory).

In the end, creativity and genius has been re-conceptualised away - it is just absorbed into the account of ongoing Natural Selection of everything, all the time.

*

To conclude; the reality is Creation, and Preservation/ Order and Destruction/ Chaos are merely some of its components. To quite Owen Barfield, they can be distinguished but not divided; and if they are divided - if they are treated as separable - this will be false.

(Unless we have a priori made the metaphysical assumption that it must be true; whatever the consequences.)

In a world that is already substantially totalitarian - in terms of the high level of thought-monitoring and thought-control - and where trends are towards more totalitarianism; it is necessary to be clear about the nature and purpose of freedom...

Continued at Albion Awakening. 

Modern, mainstream social discourse and behaviour is dishonest, insane, incoherent and (at root) overall-evil in its motivation -- thus for any real Christian involved with modernity, there will be not merely be conflict; but intrinsically a state of near-total opposition.

Christianity cannot be integrated with mainstream modern life - with the mass media, the interlinked bureaucracies, and social discourse/ social media - since modern culture is materialistic, utilitarian (hedonistic) and regards exclusively-this-worldly Leftist ideology as the deepest virtue.

Insofar as a real Christian has public dealings - so much will that Christian have a fake public facade.

Consequently, to those mainstream people whose ideology embraces modernity (that is, the mass majority of Westerners); Christians will appear like smiling automata - superficial and divided in their nature. That is: Hypocritical (by the modern definition.)

Superficial because their surface public interactions are not underpinned by their deepest convictions; and this is the division in their natures; and this division is understood as a fake public facade masking reality - which is hypocrisy...

It is a fact that a real Christian cannot participate in the modern world whole-heartedly, with the whole of his nature. And when he does, when is is compelled to do so, then the existence of duality, of splitting between surface and depth, is interpreted as a deception, manipulation, a lie, a fake. And this is correct in the sense that the real Christian is not the Christian that we see.

In modernity, one goal is to be authentic, a 'together' kind of personality, naturally integrated across all behaviours and situations, effortlessly yourself...

But real Christians cannot be authentic in their dealings with the modern world - because it would require integrating with purposive ugliness, sin and lies: integrating with the aims of those strategically-evil beings who dominate the Global, especially Western, leadership.

So the problem is intractable. We can only acknowledge and live-with-it; as best we may.

Through most of human history through most of the world; most people dies in the womb or during infancy - plus significant numbers died throughout childhood and adolescence. Only a small proportion reached mature adulthood.

This seems a neglected fact in theology - which generally assumes that Men live a full lifespan.

So - the usual, typical, statistically-normal human condition is to be incarnated (ie. to have a physical body); and then to die either almost immediately (miscarriage); during fetal life (spontaneous abortion); just-before, during or just-after birth (neonatal death), or death in infancy (first year of life - generally before the dawn of consciousness).

This is the human condition. This is the Life that Christian doctrine needs to explain. This is what religious metaphysics or theology primarily ought to make-sense-of...

On the whole; I would say that most versions of Christians do a poor job of it! Mormonism, on the other hand, explains that our pre-mortal spirit selves need to be incarnated, to receive a body - in order to progress to god-hood. (That is small 'g' god-hood.)

Thus, incarnation is vital in and of itself, and regardless of how long someone lives, or how much experience they have in Life. SImply to be incarnated as a embryo and then to die is sufficient for this purpose - after this, the person may be resurrected to eternal life, and it becomes possible that they can (if they choose) progress to full godhood; but without incarnation this is not possible.

For Mormonism, incarnation is superior to spiritual life in that sense of enabling full progression; because incarnation is linked to free agency, to divine personhood.

But the superiority of an incarnate is Not in the sense that incarnated persons are superior in virtue to pre-incarnate spirits - that is Not true.

A pre-mortal spirit may be, probably usually is, far more-Good than an incarnate human - but for a spirit theosis is limited, whereas the mortal incarnate has taken the next step.

For Mormonism, to have received a body is therefore Good from the perspective of enabling further progression towards divinisation, in and of itself; no matter what happens next. And the mass-majority of humans who died in the womb or as children have thereby attained something of crucial value.

The experiences of a long-life offer further opportunities and choices and possibilities - for good and for ill; but in the divine plan and scheme of creation as modified for each of God's billions of children, adult maturity and a full lifespan is Not necessary for most individuals.

People such as you and I are therefore an exceptional case...

'Eastern' religions - primarily Hinduism, also Buddhism, have it that life, the world, experience are Maya - illusion. The Western Platonic tradition has much the same core.

By my understanding; the purpose of experience is for us to grow towards divinity. and this is the 'function' of Life, or The World, of Creation.

It is true that this world of experience is not the world of primary reality; in the sense that it is a world of indirect communication rather than direct knowledge. Nonetheless, it is via this world of indirect communications that we are able to grow.

If the world of experience is discounted, is regarded as merely illusion, then Man cannot become A god; and this is indeed the case for Eastern religions - in which the purpose or hope is not to become A god, but to lose the Self and 'fuse' with the divine.

So, we are not created as gods, and therefore must become gods; and it is by experience, by Life in The World, that we may become gods (and there is no other way).

Therefore, despite that Life is not ultimate reality - and in that sense might correctly be termed Maya; Life is not merely illusion - and is that sense Life is Not Maya.

Life is (mostly) illusory in terms of knowledge, but (potentially) real in terms of function.

Let us understand that a skyhook is a "mind-first" force or power or process, an exception to the principle that all design, and apparent design, is ultimately the result of mindless, motiveless mechanicity. A crane, in contrast, is a subprocess or special feature of a design process that can be demonstrated to permit the local speeding up of the basic, slow process of natural selection, and that can be demonstrated to be itself the predictable (or retrospectively explicable) product of the basic process.

From Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel C Dennett, 1995, The full argument can be read on pages 73-84.


Dennett's Skyhook argument/ joke is famous and popular among 'Skeptic'/ atheists - the sort of person who finds it endlessly amusing to refer to Christianity as a cult of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - as a put-down of religion.

However, if you review the argument and reflect on it, what it amounts to is a denial that metaphysical assumptions are necessary. That metaphysical assumptions are skyhooks, hence nonsense.

By calling them skyhooks, metaphysical assumptions of any and all kinds are being mocked as imaginary, arbitrary, impossible. incoherent, ridiculous.

By contrast, natural selection is put forward as a theory without metaphysical assumptions - here terned a 'crane': that is a theory that builds entirely from the evidentially-known ie. from science. A crane is therefore, is asserted not to be based on any metaphysical assumptions at all.

'Cranes' are an example of metaphysical denialism.

The assertion is made that there exists a 'crane' mechanism for progressive change that does not require any metaphysical assumptions; and - unlike a 'skyhook' a crane is real and actually works...

Whether Dennett truly believes that natural selection in particular, and science in general, are (somehow?) not built-upon metaphysical assumptions is unclear to me.

But I don't think Dennett really cares whether his argument is true; because his motivations are quite obviously, and gleefully, destructive of Christianity in particular and religion in general. To club them to death, any false argument is welcome.


In reality - Dennet must be ignorant, dishonest or evil - or some combination thereof. And Dennett's self-styled skeptik/ atheist fanboys likewise.

If we want to name-call metaphysical assumptions 'skyhooks', then everybody and all theories and all ideologies are necessarily hanging-from skyhooks all of the time - the difference is that some religious people recognise and acknowledge their assumptions, while atheists Never Do.

Communication is experience, of a sort.

(Communication is Not about knowledge; communication is Not about the transmission of 'information' from one person to another. That can only be done by direct knowing, by Primary Thinking.) 

First - it is the experience of the one doing the communication; for instance, the writer. Secondly it is experience for those who engage with a communication - such as the reader.

Communication is much like a relationship: there is one side and another side. Intentions on one side is part of it; then, whether the communication is recognised, in what way recognised, whether acknowledged, whether made a basis for other and reciprocal relationships &c. Much like the range of possibilities of a friendship.

Somebody writes. That is the first experience (it may go no further, but experience is why we live) - and the experience includes whatever and everything that goes-into that writing.

Another person comes-across the writing; perhaps passively, or from seeking; and reads... Perhaps it affects him? Then, there are possibilities in how is it received, how understood, what affect that has, what actions are consequent... (this being a joint act: what went-into the writing and what comes-out - but not directly causal or constrained).

So the life of a writier (qua writer) is primarily the life of writing; and the question is ask is whether that life is Good? Is the experience of writing Good?

The life of a reader (qua reader - because all writers are also readers) is a life of experience from reading - that is, of experience as such.

The questions to ask of writing and reading - i.e. the question to ask of any communication - are the same as for any other kind of experience; e.g. friendship.

(For instance, is it - and if so where is it - Good, Deep, Free and so forth.)

*

Conventional wisdom has it wrong. Our communication is a matter of us providing other-people with experiences. Our responsibility is to provide them with Good and valuable experiences. But it is not to transmit knowledge, concepts or the like - because communication cannot achieve this

More exactly, we can never know whether communication has trasmitted knowledge, concepts or anything else. Communication is disconnected, indirect, multi-step, interpretational and so on and so forth - as a way of transmitting truth it is hope-less...

It is - in contrast - by our thinking (our thinking of the real self) that we may directly share in knowledge; and by our thinking that we make and simultaneously shape reality (and that reality is permanent and universal - including universally accessible).

In sum; it is Thinking (i.e. primary thinking) that actually does what most poeple suppose communication does; and communication really does something altogether very different.

(One implication is that writing is never creative - communication in general is not creative; but thinking may be.)

That's it.

Background in Not Even Trying; my mini-book about the corruption of science.

The world, this world, was created and is sustained for our spiritual progression (yours and mine, and everyone else's); for us to experience, learn and grow towards a more God-like consciousness.

If we do not acknowledge this fact, or if we live in opposition to the nature of reality, then we will suffer. And we will continue to suffer - because this world is made for theosis.

Suffering is not the same as striving. Our life in this world is for spiritual striving. Our nature and capacity is (in its original potential) suited-to a state of striving and spiritual progression - much more so that they are to choices of stasis, reversal, decline, corruption, inversion... all of which cause us to suffer.

Much of the existential angst and alienation of Life is due to us living at odds with the designed-nature of reality - by us trying to live wrongly; usually by our failure to strive for spiritual progression, with what that entails.


The painting is by William Arkle, and the above ideas are drawn from page 81 of William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness, 1974.

It is usual among Christians to regard the mass majority of Leftists in modern societies as well-meaning but misguided persons - that is, basically good and decent people who want the best; but who have erred in their belief systems.

I regard this a 180 degree wrong - and that the stark reality is that the mass majority of Western people who support an ideology that is nihilistic, despair inducing, totalitarian, anti-Christian (and, of course, fundamentally anti-Good) are like that because their motivations are wrong and not because their belief-systems are wrong.

Why? Simply because the way that we infer evil motivation is by errors being in one direction only over a repeated series of decisions. And this is what we find.

*

Take as an example the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby; the assumption is typically that he is a well-meaning individual, a real Christian; but a weak and ineffectual man who is a long way out-of-his-depth in the job. In Christian terms, he supposedly want the right things, but lacks the character to stand-up for them in a hostile world.

This benign diagnosis is usually underpinned by the idea that Christians (for some, not Christian, reason) ought to give people 'the benefit of the doubt' - in assuming they are well motivated. This is nonsense! - we ought to discover and believe the truth of the situation, as best we can know it.  

Justin Welby's most obvious sin is that he is dishonest. When he is not actively lying, he is deceptively misleading. But Justin Welby only ever lies in one direction - which is either his own personal expediency or for the promotion of the (anti-Christian, anti-Good) agenda of the Global Leftist Establishment.

(Needless to say, Welby does not repent his wrong doing - but only apologises for what he regards as the evils of other people and past generations.)

In sum Welby - and in this Welby is absolutely typical and representative of almost the entirety of the modern Western leadership class, i.e. those in position-of authority in all the major social institutions) - is evil in his fundamental motivations. His specific (supposed) beliefs are irrelevant; not least because they change as is expedient.

*

People who are well motivated are not a real problem. Everybody makes mistakes in this world; and the distinction is between those who acknowledge, repent and learn-from their mistakes; and those who double-down on them - and adjust their belief systems to accommodate their sins, so that their sins now become regarded as virtues.

This is seen most clearly in relation to the sexual revolution; where a whole range of sexual sins are now idealised, rewarded, actively-promoted and increasingly enforced; and the inversion of morality is so extreme that genuine sexual virtue is routinely mocked, despised, driven underground, and increasingly persecuted.

So, lets have an end to this nonsense about everybody being well motivated but misguided - if that was the case we would have nothing to worry about!

It is precisely because most people (and almost everybody in power) in the West is indeed wickedly motivated; that we are so deep in spiritual trouble: that we are, in plain fact, The Most Evil society in the known history of the world.

Much of genius is asking the right question - and it isn't easy. Finding the answer to the right question might be straightforward (which is why many people can understand the achievements of genius) - but asking that question is often extremely difficult (which is why so few people are geniuses).

And if you ask the wrong question, you may have entered a fly-bottle from which the way-out is very difficult to find. You will spend perhaps a lifetime buzzing around banging-off the walls but never escaping.

There are many example of wrong questions - such as: Why are some people Religious? This is wrong because people are naturally religious. Essentially everybody was religious until recently; and still the great majority of the people in the world are religious. So the proper question is: Why do some people become non-religious? Or - why are people atheists?

Another wrong question is: Are there differences between men and women? That question assumes that men and women are expected to be identical - unless specifically proven otherwise. But the idea that men and women would be identical is, in general, ridiculously implausible. So the proper questions are something more like: in what direction do men and women differ in this trait? How big is the difference, What effect does this difference have?

Another example is: Why am I unhappy? This assumes that the spontaneous baseline state of humans is a state of happiness, and any dropping below this state requires explanation. Yet the reality is the opposite - we are happy for a reason - and when there is no reason to be happy, we are not.

The above examples also suggest why people so often persist in asking the wrong questions - in that many individuals and groups benefit from people asking the wrong question.

If you make some grossly implausible or impossible assumption such as 'men and women would have equal outcomes if they were treated equally' - then all inequalities can be portrayed as an injustice.

(Almost the entirety of Leftist/ Liberal/ Progressive politics is based upon this false, and dishonest, inference.)

If you assume that religion needs explaining, it is a short-step to regarding religious people as pathological.

If happiness is taken as the norm, then industries can thrive based on the assumption that if everybody is not always optimally happy; then some-body or some-thing is to blame for it. If these problems can be addressed and solved, then everybody would always be happy... which seems-like so desirable a state that it justifies very extreme, intrusive, coercive actions to attain.

Another set of wrong questions is concerned with inequalities - why are there inequalities of wealth, income, health... and should there not be a 'fairer' distribution of such things? Such a perspective begs all the necessary questions (such as the incentive of the distributors to distribute fairly that which they have appropriated for the purpose) and inverts causality (because, typically, the current situation was not caused by 'distribution' of goods).

Unlike things, equally treated, will have unlike outcomes - so the equality debates are all based upon false assumptions regarding the equality/ sameness of persons.

But what when somebody in power keeps on, and on, asking the wrong question? Can they be convinced of their error?

The answer seems to be, only seldom. But even so, the only hope for progress is to become aware of the implicit assumptions which lie behind questions; and to recognise when the wrong question is being asked.

On the one hand we need to make choices and make an effort - what we need to do is neither to surrender to the Zeitgeist nor to relax into dreaminess - but to pursue evolution of consciousness consciously and explicitly.

On the other hand; when modern people make a deliberate and conscious effort - they nearly always do so by becoming focused on a program, a routine, a set of practices... and thereby they are passive but in a different way, thereby they narrow their perspective and become even more 'modern' and materialist (i.e. spiritually adolescent).

This is a reason why genuine spiritual progress is so rare; because even when people realise that is needs conscious, explicit, effort - it simply falls back into more-of-the-same-thing.

The 'answer' (easier said than done) is Not to use the mighty will-power to seek; but the heart. Actively to seek but based on intuitive thinking - and therefore Not to a program.

In sum, we need to be prepared to make fools of ourselves - even by our own estimation. Maybe that is the ultimate humility?

Probably only Christians, and among Christians mainly Mormons, have an adequate metaphysical explanation for 'free will' or agency.

To have a coherent metaphysics seems to me to entail a coherent and purposive universe - which seems to require a single creation - or else (if there were no creation, or many) everything would ultimately be 'random', incoherent, contingent and arbitrary; and agency would have no meaning.

And it also seems to require the participation of agents (e.g Men, in this instance) - that Men are actually engaged with the universe, and can change it by and from their own distinctive natures. This seems to entail that Men are 'gods' - in the sense that they are sufficiently separated from reality not merely to be caused-by it (i.e. determined) - and also that Men are able to change reality from themselves, expressive of their nature - and not merely arbitrarily. In other words, these are the characteristics of gods.

So, the need is for a single creation and also multiple gods inhabiting the creation. In other words (at least by my interpretation) Christianity as it seems to be depicted in the Bible - in which there is one primary creation; but several gods including explicitly the Father and the Son, implicitly the Holy Ghost, and the Sons of God who are presumably also gods (since they are sons).

(Whereas if there is just one God and no gods; then the beings in the universe cannot plausibly have free will, having all been made by the one in their entirety. Or, at least, the free will of Men - and angels - which is absolutely essential to Christianity, cannot be explained and must therefore be accepted as a pure mystery.)

This makes a simple and coherent metaphysical system explanatory of free-will/ agency, understandable at a normal common-sense level.

To assert agnosticism is to be an atheist; because agnosticism denies the centrality of God.

If you believe yourself agnostic but do not realise you are actually an atheist; it can only because you have not fully thought-through the implications; or aren't being honest with yourself.

To assert agnosticism is usually a way of trying to avoid what someone regards unpleasant, boring, inconclusive, futile arguments - to change-the-subject. But this is only possible to one who has already decided that the question of God is unnecessary, irrelevant, unimportant, even destructive.

There are no real agnostics.

...Is a metaphysical one - not a matter of 'evidence'. And that insight (metaphysics not evidence) is the first step.

The situation is that Life is a mixed-picture: the decision is whether Life is validated by its best moments or times; or destroyed by its worst.

As I said, evidence does not help - the question is not quantitative. This is a matter of primary assumption.

And the question is not answerable in isolation - Life can only be validated if Life has 'meaning'; and the nature of validation depends on the nature of that meaning.

On the other hand, if you have already accepted that life has no meaning - is merely determined, or random - then you have already made your Big Decision. (Whether implicitly or explicitly) your basic assumptions ensure that for you Life is defined by its worst aspects - indeed the single, most extreme worst-of-Life is the truth-of-Life (both for individuals, and en masse).

Nothing can be done for you - because any possible Good will be negated by One Bad Thing - even when that Bad is merely the evanescence of Good.

On the other hand; if you understand, and live-by, the conviction that the best of Life is the truth of life (despite that this cannot be continuous) - then you have indomitable strength, assurance, and hope.

Without Primary Thinking there would be nothing but chaos - mere phenomena.


It is by God's thinking that the world of creation was formed from chaos - and it is by Man's thinking that he joins God in the work of creation.


Theosis (a.k.a sanctification, divinisation, spiritual progression) is the purpose of Life on earth - our purpose of Men living beyond mere incarnation and death (and of thereby risking the problems of human life, the danger of us rejecting salvation) is so that we may work towards ultimately becoming full deities - sons and daughters of God on the same qualitative level as God.  


This entails attaining divine Goodness (which is well known, and tends to be the exclusive focus of most Christians); but also attaining divine Thinking - so that we may each participate in creation.


If we attain divine Goodness without divine thinking we may choose to inhabit and passively experience creation (like a child - indeed as a spiritual child in our nature)...


Or else we may reject this - we may choose 'damnation' which is to live outwith God's creation.


But to be fully mature children of God - we must be able to co-create with God.


In brief: the primary purpose of Man is Love. God wishes deeply to share his creation with divine children, and this is why men and women are created (made literal children of Heavenly Parents).


But then what? Having established a divine family, what do we all do for eternity? It would not be satisfactory for God's children passively to bask-in creation for eternity...


The only coherent answer is that we need to create - which is endless. And to create like God, actively to participate-in God's creation - we must think as God does: Primary Thinking.

I recently sat in the same room as an adult explained the difference between conservative and left wing politics to a 15 year old. Conservatives, he said, think the past was good and didn't want to change anything (the clue is in the name, he maintained) while left wing people thought that the future could be better than the past. So they were in favour of change and progress while conservatives just clung to old ways and didn't like anything new...

You might say that plenty of right wing people now have no interest in God but I would counter that this is because they are only on the right in certain matters, economic for example. In most other particulars they are have absorbed the current liberal ethos. The fact is that all true right wing thought recognizes a higher reality and a higher authority than the secular, materialistic world of the left. So, as far as I see it, what distinguishes the two sides is the acknowledgement of God and the acceptance that we are here in this world for a spiritual purpose.

From William Wildblood. Read the whole thing at Meeting the Masters

See my previous posts on Primary Thinking...


Primary Thinking is creation - and this applies to God's creation.

Without thinking is chaos. There are phenomena, but these are meaningless, incoherent, lacking any relationship or purpose.

Phenomena are incomplete - they are completed by thinking.

Reality was chaos until it was thought by God - it was God's thinking which made creation from chaos.

*

Creation is ongoing, as God continues thinking eternally. 

When we Men think from our divine-selves (i.e. Primary Thinking) we participate in this creation.

Our thinking (from that little corner of reality that we grasp) changes creation; changes it universally, for everybody who knows and participates-in creation by their thinking (including God).

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The primal event that made creation possible was the love of Heavenly parents (their celestial marriage) - this was God.

Together our Heavenly Father and Mother thought, and this thinking was creation; and their shared thought could independently be known by each.

This is why the ultimate reality is Love - because love underpins and permeates all of creation (and outside of love is chaos, no meaning, no cohesion, no relation, no purpose).

Only that which conforms with primal love can participate in creation. All Primary Thinking is within-love and conforms with creation - else it is not Primary Thinking, and does not create.


(And what of ourselves - children of God? Yes, we too were thought from chaos; but there was more than this - because we were more to begin with, being also gods - and there was more done than simply to think us into creation, because we are God children, not only God's creation. But this matter is not clear to me...)

This summer I did some travelling in England, keeping aware (as best I could) of the spiritual situation.

My solid impression is that there remain considerable reservoirs of instinctive goodness; but there is near-zero consciousness of the nature of things.

All explicit knowledge is secular, materialistic, and mostly Leftist.

So there is, in Albion, a split between intellect (atheist, materialist, net-evil) and inarticulate gut-feelings (spontaneously pagan supplemented with memories of Christianity) which are the basis of Good.

What is utterly lacking in Albion is precisely what I regard as most necessary: a conscious awareness of the current situation derived from the intuitive knowledge of the heart; a clear, simple, chosen knowledge of how things are and what is (personally) required of each-of-us...

Lacking-which Albion cannot awaken because she cannot repent; and she cannot repent because she does not understand.

She is asleep - drugged, anaesthetised, tranquillised - and in a nightmare; but lacks knowledge of her state, and lacks even the desire to awaken. 

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So, what is to be done? I mean done now, by you and by me - not waiting on some national scheme; not waiting for some kind of organisation or institution.

We are restricted to the mode of 'communication' (by the normal channels, by the senses and by media) because shared direct knowing would require that participants be awake; and Albion is asleep...

Given that The Problem is exactly that the modes of communication - mass media, official channels, public discourse, and increasingly even personal conversations - are all monitored, controlled, and hedged by threats and sanctions... this makes matters difficult. Consequently, there can be no general advice, no standard schemes or systems of how to awaken Albion.

We must await the arrangements initiated by imperceptible divine spiritual beings - and ready for these when they do occur - which is only intermittently; windows of opportunity opening when circumstances have been shaped and put into place. Such alignments of circumstance are potential fruitful because there may be sufficient genuine communication to enable direct sharing of knowledge.

On that basis, individual people of Albion may find themselves confronted with an informed, aware, free choice to discover reality, repent, awaken...

We need to be in readiness for such moments - to develop habits conducive to recognising and living-in such moments - habits of discernment, intuitive awareness, honesty and so on.

There is no formula for making best use of such moments - indeed, what is required is precisely the opposite of a formula. But we may trust that there will be such moments, and be ready for them.

(Cross-posted, unsurprisingly, at the Albion Awakening blog!)

On the one hand I regard Primary Thinking as the single most vital attribute towards which modern Western Man must strive; on the other hand, this is very difficult and there is no recipe for it - because the essence of Primary Thinking includes that it is free, conscious and chosen.

In previous stages of human development, before the modern era (and in the childhood of modern persons), there was an instinctual way of doing things - to a greater or lesser extent. Development was a thing that 'just happened' to people - it came-upon people and overwhelmed them and imposed-itself; whether they liked or wanted it. Development was passive, it did not need to be understood, and it was not free.

But the next stage of human development - that which we here-and-now must seek - is the mode of divine; and it has characteristics which we can infer to be characteristic of the thinking of our God. So Primary Thinking must be consciously self-aware - knowing itself, subject to our will, free and agent, voluntary... In sum Primary Thinking must be thinking of-and-from our real and divine selves, in the divine mode.

(Our real self is divine by virtue of being in its essence eternal and uncreated; it is also divine by virtue of us having become sons and daughters of God; it is therefore divine because it is God-within-us - recognising that God is both universal and also unique to ourselves. We are each a part of God, and each also our unique and divine selves.)

So - the Primary Thinking we need to seek is something that each individual Man must discover and develop for himself. This must happen if he or she is to become more fully divine - adult, agent, autonomous. The alternative is to remain eternally a spiritual adolescent (because we have by now left-behind childhood - and adolescence is meant to be only a transitional state - not a permanent mode of being).

Thus, modern Man is not compelled to take the step to Primary Thinking (you personally are not compelled) - but if we do not make this step, we will remain eternal adolescents; neither children nor mature.

However, Primary Thinking cannot, therefore will not, just happen-to-us. It cannot come-upon us, cannot overwhelm us, cannot compel us... Will not creep-up on us, will not happen in sleep or unconsciously - it cannot be indoctrinated. In sum we cannot be manipulated into Primary Thinking by any means whatsoever.

Primary Thinking is something we Must Do; and also we must do it for ourselves in full awareness of what we are doing.

Primary Thinking must therefore be grasped and known by each person, in full consciousness of its implications; and embraced deliberately and from a free act of the soul.

This is not easy, and we should neither expect nor want it to be easy; and each of us (as an unique embryonic god) must ultimately do it for ourselves - must find our own path to Primary Thinking.