I was surprised but pleased to see that my long-running Tolkien/ Inklings blog The Notion Club Papers features at 10th place in Feedspot's Best 20 Tolkien Blogs - according to whatever algorithms they use.
I suspect that is may be due to its nowadays being linked from some of the pages on Tolkien Gateway, and listed by The Tolkien Society.
To be honest, I don't think it means anything except that I post relatively frequently - but it gave me a bit of a buzz.
Objectivity has always proved difficult/ impossible to define philosophically; but it used to have the operational definition that it referred to public and interpersonal discourse, and was achieved when 'everybody' believed some-thing was true.
Thus; a thing was 'objectively' true when there was unanimity of explicitly asserted belief.
Or, perhaps (in cases of disagreement) especially public unanimity among those of higher cognitive ability who were more-than-usually informed on the matter in hand.
But now public unanimity - especially among 'experts' - means the opposite!
It means that the thing being asserted is Not true.
As of 2022: Public Unanimity = Objectivity = Falsity.
This is a clear instance of the transcendental-value inversion that characterizes end-stage demonic evil; in that Truth is one of the transcendent Goods, and we have here reached the situation where official-Truth actually means un-Truth.
We got here via several decades of the subversion of Truth; where high status persons and institutions taught that 'truth' was relative, a matter of opinion merely; and that everybody's 'truth' was 'valid' (but especially the 'truth' of members of an official leftist victim-category).
Having reduced truth to mere assertion; the concept has been hijacked by global totalitarian power - which ensures that people unanimously agree on Their version of the 'truth' - or else.
Remember a couple of years ago when the mass media was full of stories about how social media was going to ban flat earth and other 'harmful' 'conspiracy theories'?
Why did They do such an apparently stupid thing, and make such a fuss about doing it?
At the time; I presumed it was because They were bracketing an obviously-false theory with actually-true ideas about the birdemic, climate, the transagenda etc. in order to taint the truth by association.
(It's a common enough tactic for Them.)
But this ban, and the associated propaganda, seems like overkill and more likely to backfire than assist Their cause; in that there are very few theories that are less harmful than flat earth - yet the whole exercise was supposed to 'prevent harm'...
I now believe that flat earth theorists are indeed harmful... to The Establishment (which is the true meaning of 'harm' in this context); simply because to be a flat earth believer one must detach oneself from The Narrative, and believe something despite its being of low status and mocked by All mainstream individuals and institutions.
The specific content of the theory is all-but irrelevant; because it is any assertion of any individual person's independence from official propaganda, which is what They correctly perceive to be harmful to Their interests.
Banning flat earth theorists is thus part of the Global Totalitarian (and demonic) policy of zero-tolerance for human free agency.
That we should try and understand creation from God's point of view was a recurrent theme in the work of William Arkle - and one of the valuable things I got from reading him.
In particular, I found it useful to consider why God created in the first place - what was God trying to achieve by it?
But the imaginative exercise also highlights several vital metaphysical assumptions that must be made prior to the procedure.
For instance; Christians know (or ought to know) that we are like God and God like us in some very fundamental ways - for instance, because Jesus (a Man) was fully divine, and because Men are described as Sons of God.
It is this sameness of kind that makes it a valid exercise.
If, on the other hand, we regard God as qualitatively different from us - than the exercise must be misleading. But then, it seems not to be Christian to insist on absolute difference.
When we identify with God before creation, in broad terms God's motivator seems to be something-like loneliness; and God's overarching purpose seems to be to make companions...
And the best possible companions are similar but not identical, free and agent 'divine friends' who are bound-together by love and a common (overall) purpose - for which we have the earthly-mortal analogy of the best kind of human family.
That is, 'creation' is about making individuals and situations, the-result-of-which is intended to be: more Beings of the same kind, and at 'the same level', as God.
Also, we need to decide whether or not God was single and utterly alone before creation.
And if not alone, then with whom? Another god or gods, presumably - by which I mean, others who are different/distinct Beings of the same kind and level.
This is especially relevant because if God was a solitary god before creation; then He could not actually love until after he had created.
This makes a big difference - because if God was initially alone, then embarking on creation seems likely to be necessarily of a self-gratifying, gratuitous, 'playful' and indeed experimental act - indeed this was how Arkle eventually seemed to regard it.
(Arkle regarded god as initially one - then dividing into Heavenly Parents, and then further to procreate Jesus Christ, who contained both the male and female aspects.)
I have not thought-through the implications of multiple god; but my own conviction is that God's original situation was dyadic: a Heavenly Father and Mother. And it was from their mutual love that creation originated.
In other words, before creation there was both the loneliness of Heavenly Parents as the only divine Beings; and also the experience hence knowledge of love, which pointed the way ahead to a creation of more-and-more divine Beings living (and creating) in a harmony rooted in love.
A creation rooted in the experience of love is not gratuitous, nor a game; and is 'experimental' only in terms of creation being a trying-out of various means towards a known end.
And such a creation is understood to be open-ended (endlessly expansible); because the more loving divine companions that eventuate: the better. Each - being different - adds to the totality ad potential of creation.
Yet because all such divine companion Beings are harmonized by love; then there is no limit to how many can be integrated in the 'project' of creation. The more the better!
Franz Schubert was one of the great tune-smiths of classical music, whose melodies have a distinctive freshness and yearning poignancy - perhaps due to his youthfulness (he died aged just 31, and before he could become famous).
In the early 20th century, somebody had the good idea of making an operetta from some of Schubert's most appealing tunes - and this appeared in various version and under various names including (in English) Lilac Time.
Unfortunately, the plotting and words of these linked Schubert operettas can most kindly be described as 'corny' - and none have been good enough to survive as a standard part of the professional operatic and recording reparatory, although neither have they disappeared - especially from amateur societies.
I have myself sung excerpts from Lilac Time in a concert performance; and watched a performance of the whole thing - which was dramatically dull, and amateur-ish; providing enjoyment mainly from its frequent and extreme elements of coarse acting.
Nonetheless - considered as a piece of music, Lilac Time seems to be among the most enjoyable compilations-adaptations of Schubert's genius for melody - and can be appreciated as such.
Following from yesterday's post; it seems that the modern Western experience of becoming (or remaining) a Christian is experienced very much as a personal choice - rather than the acceptance of external truths which are forced-upon us. As a simplification: we choose to believe - and there is little point in denying it.
But the idea of choosing to believe is often dismissed out-of-hand as merely "wishful thinking"; which conflates the perfectly reasonable desire to believe something positive, motivating and hopeful rather than negative, miserable and despair-inducing; with the default assumption that 'real' reality is purposeless and meaningless.
In other words; our society and most people have the built-in and default assumption that there is no God, and no purpose or meaning to life; and therefore that 'honesty' entails a full acknowledgment that our individual human life is insignificant.
Take, for example, the observation that many people seem to regard it as a fact of nature that looking at the stars necessarily makes us feel insignificant. Yet bundled-into this assertion is the denial that we live in a created universe - this denial of purpose and meaning is taken for granted when it is assumed that vast numbers and distances necessarily hammer-home our insignificance.
We have pre-decided the meaninglessness of what we see - but do not notice, because we take it for granted.
Because if we were instead looking-out at the vast beauty and scale of God's living universe - this would surely be a cause of joy and delight.
So 'wishful thinking' is a slur only because it carries unexamined and unrevealed assumptions which make it into something like a synonym for 'weak-minded delusion'.
If, on the other hand, we genuinely take on board that (especially since the millennium) we are all - as a matter of fact, know it or not - actually choosing our reality; and that real reality is not objectively compelled upon us...
Then we can see that it is illegitimate for the atheist to assume that his reality is unchosen, while only the religious person is guilty of wishful thinking.
The truth is that the atheist is every bit as much of a wishful thinker and belief-chooser as the theist.
'Objective' in practice, nowadays, means nothing more than publicly-agreed; and in 2022 publicly-agreed merely means 'whatever is currently propagandized and enforced by the mass media and large bureaucracies' - and this 'media-official'-reality is incoherent, and changes on a daily basis.
Truth is not 'out there'.
If we genuinely take on board that we just-are (all of us) choosing our reality, then the question arises which reality we are choosing now - and which we ought to choose; because the reality we choose affects our current lives, and affects what happens beyond death (which expectation then, again, affects our current lives).
This is Not a matter of choosing which specific-facts to believe - it is primarily about the need to identify and choose our assumptions.
It is the assumptions that dictate what counts as specific facts; and the meaning and importance of those facts.
If we passively and unconsciously accept the conceptual assumptions of our world, then we are accepting that there is neither meaning nor purpose to life - and no existence beyond biological death. We then arrive at conducting our lives in accordance with short-termist and this-worldly expediency - as we see all around us.
But if we choose instead to believe that there is a personal and loving God who is creator of this reality; and that by Jesus Christ we can survive biological death and live eternally as resurrected and divine Men in Heaven - we arrive at a very different way of conducting our lives.
Of course, at this level of choosing what to believe; this particular vision of Christian life may be rejected as arbitrary, because just one among many (an infinite number?) of possible assumptions. The rejecter may claim to want to know what is really true about reality - in order to believe that.
But which comes first? The chosen belief or knowledge of really-real Truth? The chosen belief comes first - because we have all already chosen - whether we realize it or not.
And some already-chosen-beliefs rule-out the possibility of there being, or of we knowing, really-real Truth.
(Think about it.)
Well, the desire for truth is a valid and Good thing - for a Christian. But very few of those who affect a desire to know the truth about such things will expend any significant time or effort in establishing the truth!
Quite the opposite - they display a lazy, frivolous, distractible impatience with any attempt to discover and examine primary assumptions!
Their desire to know the truth is in fact just a rhetorical device; because their assumptions rule out the possibility of humans knowing truth.
Nothing can be done with such people!
They have made their choice to believe this a world of accident, unmeaning and purposelessness, they are defending this choice by dishonest means (as is consistent with that primary choice) - and only they can unmake that choice.
Forget about them, forget about trying to convince other people...
Focus instead upon your own choice which cannot be avoided and has consequences that affect every aspect of life (and beyond).
Just choose what you most deeply want to be true - and take that choice seriously; and if it is correct then you will find your way and be led (step-by-step, by trial-and-error, sooner-or-later) to the real Truth - the Truth of Reality.
(And if your first choice is mistaken, then you will soon-enough discover your error if you seriously try to live by it. But if, like most people, you are not serious about your own life - nothing can be done for you. You cannot even help yourself - because you do not seriously even want help. Probably you want only to be happy and comfortable, Now. And when you can't get that - annihilation.)
I am becoming ever more convinced that we are called to a creative role in this mortal life; and indeed that anything less than such a calling will be insufficient to motivate Modern Man in 2022 to remain a Christian - so strong, pervasive and accelerating are the pressures to join with the side of purposive evil against God.
(At any rate, I observe that even among those Christians who did not fall victim to the birdemic-peck agenda up to February 2022 - have been apostatizing by believing/joining/ being-motivated-by the daily ideological propaganda of the Satanic-led Establishment on almost a daily basis, over the past fortnight.)
Salvation (choosing to follow Jesus Christ) is, of course, our first concern - and then theosis, which is the necessity to become more divine by learning from our mortal lives and making the right choices.
But neither one nor both of these seem to be sufficient to motivate individuals in a world where real Christians have been abandoned by their churches; and where their self-identified Christian churches are continually siding with the evil-Establishment in their demonic policies and strategies - and thereby trying to lead their members towards affiliation with the Enemy.
We need, I think, a lively sense of daily purpose - of what positively we are living for - and this is 'creativity' considered as the activity of adding to God's creative providence through our own personal choices and effort.
'Adding' is key - because it is not enough merely to recognize and affirm divine truth; since this is not something which gives our own lives any personal significance.
To be motivated we need to have a 'project' that adds to ongoing divine creation yet that only we can do. That really is something worth living for.
But this mortal life is not the same as resurrected Heavenly life; and we cannot create now in the same way as we shall then. Understanding this is perhaps helpful in appreciating the scope and limitation of that necessary creativity which seems to be demanded of us now.
If it could be assumed, as an analogy, that creation requires something-like energy if a creative thought needs to be manifested (made-into) something material that will be effective in this world; then we can ask where creative energies might come from.
The answer is God. True human creation is by definition in harmony with God's ongoing (and primary) creating; and I think it may be assumed that when God recognizes basic human creativity - i.e. in thought - as contributing to the divine scheme; then the necessary energies will be provided to make that thought into something objective, general and perhaps material.
In other words, when our individual creativity of thinking is in-line-with divine providence; then (in a multitude of ways) God's creation will operate to include such human creativity as an addition to the divine.
Therefore, our creativity in this mortal life (which is, I assume, a relatively rare and temporary phenomenon; even in the life of a major genius) is dependent on God's creating, and cannot work without it.
And ultimately this is because we live in a world of entropy, where order succumbs to disorder, where usable-energy is finite and declining, where life sooner or later loses to chaos; where all that has been created will pass away.
In this mortal world; energy must be added from externally to make or sustain any-thing.
By contrast, when we are resurrected we enter the realm of eternity; which may be interpreted to mean that we are self-renewing and intrinsically (as sons and daughters of God) posses innate and inexhaustible divine energy.
Therefore, as resurrected Men, as divine children of God, we ourselves can manifest our own creative thinking!
Thinking itself becomes 'objective' and manifest creation - without the need for God's 'input'.
If the analogy holds, then our mortal creativity is real and important - but secondary to God's 'energetic' support; while Christians may look-forward to a condition where we have made an eternal commitment to God, and can thereafter become god-like in our own creativity.
The nature of human consciousness Now is that truth must be chosen.
This means that there is Truth (i.e. God, divine creation and its values) but that this cannot (any longer - although in some times and places it could) passively be absorbed by affiliation to any external institution, nation, or church authority - but must actively (with free agency) be chosen by each individual.
What is actually happening (apparently, for most people) is that a single free choice is being made to believe whatever concepts the international bureaucracy-mass media are propagating today.
Since each day's official-media story propagates first today's concept, then today's facts - and the decision has been made to believe whatever these are; there is no basis for any individual whose loyalties are to The System ever to discover incoherence or lies. Yesterday's concepts and facts are irrelevant - except when today's is saying they are not.
Thus belief is continually changing to track 'today's story'.
The only way out is to consider the fundamental assumptions that underpin 'today's story' - which entails recognizing that there is a mind behind The System.
(And, of course, it is a part of The System to deny this, and to assert that everything that happens is a consequence of non-purposive causes.)
Having assumes a mind behind The System; the individual must make a value-evaluation as to whether that System-motivation is Good or evil; on the side of God, or against (recognizing that it must, overall, be one or the other).
(And, of course, it is a part of The System that there is no God, and that reality is not a creation - but instead that ultimately all is accidental, purposeless and meaningless.)
I keep recurring to the idea that, starting around the millennium, there was a progressive change in human consciousness that led to our present situation in which people choose what they believe.
This means that people no longer believe what they perceive - and therefore personal experience and common sense have disappeared.
Instead (to put it crudely) people perceive what they believe - and this is inevitable and unavoidable.
Tis can be explained on the basis that perceptions get meaning from the concepts by which we understand them. If we suppose that past Men had mostly innate, instinctive and unconscious concepts, then their beliefs seemed to be determined by perceptions, by external facts.
In other words; concepts always drive perceptions - but when concepts are innate, instinctive, unconscious - then 'the facts' seem to be dictated by the outside world.
Because we will 'automatically' understand by means of concepts we are not aware of - so the facts alone seem to contain understanding. (This error is the basis of 'empiricism.)
But as men - through history - became more aware (more conscious) of the concepts by which they understood reality - then the time came - around the millennium - that Men needed to choose these concepts.
And when a new concept was adopted, then the facts and perceptions changed in light of that concept.
This situation of Men choosing their own reality has been obscured by the fact that most people simply, passively, believe what they are told by a vast apparatus of bureaucracy and the mass media - and what they are told is essentially uniform.
So that, although each person is passively choosing what he believes in accordance with whatever concepts are prevalent and most strong emphasized and incentivized.
And, in the end, almost everyone chooses to believe the same thing - while being largely unaware of having made that choice.
What almost everyone believes I have termed the Virtuality - which is the 'official' reality created and endorsed by a bureaucracy and media that have since the 2020 coup become ever more monolithic, and coercive.
This is why people believe whatever they are told, no matter how many lies, how incoherent, and how evil the motivations of the 'programmers'.
But once someone has realized the above situation - he instantly escapes from the Virtuality.
The millennium made a change such that we are just-are responsible for what we believe - in each and every respect; and to believe The Establishment rather than taking personal responsibility is itself a choice.
The possibilities for personal influence in the direction of Good or evil are therefore greater than ever before. (As was prophesied by Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield.)
It is a really exciting and hopeful time - albeit shot-through with tragedy - when this 'reality' is grasped and has been embraced!
A few things that have been done and are proceeding apace:
1. The global Establishment are destroying the world economy (including food supplies), world trade, and the currencies of the world. (This destruction has increased immensely in the past fortnight.)
2. The global Establishment destroying health services, the quality and numbers of health personnel, the medical supplies. They are actively (trying to) engineer lethal infectious weapons. They are actively poisoning populations and eroding health (physical and psychological) in multiple ways. (This, especially over the past two years.)
3. The global establishment are doing everything possible - physically and psychologically - to generate consent, support and enthusiasm for a world war - than which nothing would be more rapidly destructive. (This is increasing rapidly, ever-more widely, and daily.)
All the above are simply matters of fact. (Whatever the 'excuses'.)
Thus we have the three major historical causes of mass human death and population-suppression - starvation, plague and violence - all actively being pursued on a worldwide scale by the Establishment.
In a world of seven billion plus people - this is aiming towards giga-death: death in the billions - which would be a first in human history, since the world population only passed two billion a century ago.
Are the Establishment in fact destroying civilization?
Well, yes - because as well as the above; there is a pattern of factual destruction of all the elements of civilization. Churches are being destroyed; and all of the 'civilized arts' are being destroyed, including science, technology, law, education.
Even the military and police ('enforcers' of civilization) are being destroyed - at many levels, but especially by indifference to effectiveness - combined with the sexual revolution.
OK - so the establishment are engaged in destroying civilization. Two questions arise: should we stop them; and, if yes, can we stop them?
Should we stop them? That's difficult...
The present world civilization seems to be the most evil in history - by far. Should we strive to save this System for Man's corruption and damnation?
On the one hand; The System keeps us biologically alive - and while there is life there is hope. On the other hand The System is becoming ever more specialized to destroy our souls - A System of Lies; a System directed against God/ Creation/ The Good; a System that subverts and inverts values (Truth, Beauty, Virtue, Coherence) and imposes its inverted values by mass propaganda and force...
And The System is getting worse, and getting worse faster and faster...
It is, at least, not obvious that from a spiritual perspective - and in light of resurrection and eternal life to come - Christians ought to be trying to save The System.
But supposing somebody reached the judgment that, despite its accelerating net-evil, The System ought to be saved - perhaps in order to minimize or delay the scale of human suffering.
The question then is can civilization be saved; given that it is the most powerful, wealthy, famous and high-status people in the world who are destroying it?
Since destruction is so much easier and quicker than creation - it seems likely that if They want to destroy civilization, We cannot prevent it. There are just So Many ways that civilization can be destroyed (and most of them are well advanced by now).
The System is global, with multiple interdependencies and local specializations of function; which suggests that once it starts collapsing, this is likely to accelerate due to positive feedback mechanisms.
And then there is the problem of 'We' as contrasted to Them...
If it was Us versus Them, then there might be a chance to stop Them. But, looking at the behaviour of The Masses of the world - especially the masses in Western World, in the most powerful, wealthy, famous and high-status nations and multi-national organizations - it is clear that many/ most of the masses are at least consenting and often actively eager to destroy civilization.
This has been obvious during the birdemic-peck business; and even more obvious in the past days.
At the very least; 'the masses' are demanding and themselves implementing all of the policies leading to starvation, plague and violence - even striving to extend, elaborate and out-do those measures that have been forced upon them by the Establishment.
In conclusion; the destruction of civilization has already begun, and is accelerating.
And from a spiritual and Christian perspective it is doubtful whether we ought-to strive to sustain civilization in face of concerted Establishment efforts to destroy it. And further it is extremely unlikely that we could save civilization even if we decided that this was a good idea.
Therefore, civilization will-be destroyed (and billions will die of some combination of starvation, disease and violence) - whether we personally like it or not.
(Unless there is some kind of vast repentance and reversal of direction).
And when global civilization goes down, everybody-everywhere will be affected, and nobody will escape the consequences except briefly - which consequences are unknown and unknowable because our situation is unprecedented in so many ways.
So, we can 'relax' about it - and concentrate on Not worrying!
Once something is inevitable and unavoidable we can focus upon 'coping' with it, rather than wasting time and energy on futile counter-actions - which may also be net-harmful.
Clearly, our counter-attack ought to be primarily spiritual, rather than just material. Indeed, the material realm is in fact part-of the larger and inclusive world of the spiritual - so we can expect valid spiritual counter-measures to be materially-effectual, as well.
We therefore seem to know (in broad terms) what we should do - and what not to do.
Over the past several centuries there has been a rapid Christian apostasy, rejection of the reality of the spiritual, and in general secularization - starting in Western Europe but now spread over the world.
Behind this lies a perceived conflict between "science" and religion - which conflict presents itself in a manner that is simple and fallacious - simple because it affects so many people, of so many types, in so many places and cultures.
Yet fallacious; because secularization has by-now also destroyed the basis of truth which was the basis of science; such that what now calls-itself science is merely a careerist bureaucracy serving the interests of its paymasters.
Perhaps the key fallacy is the misinterpretation and overgeneralization of an overwhelmingly convincing observation: the observation that 'modern' science is able to do far more than was possible in the past.
From this is correctly inferred that people in the past were often wrong about specific matters of science; but from this comes the general and false inference that therefore people 'nowadays' know-better than people in the past.
(This overturned the centuries-old opposite assumption that the past was wiser than the present, and that the world was getting worse.)
The observation of an objective improvement in scientific (and therefore technical) ability was correct - but the inference of modern superiority was false; because it was generalized from science to metaphysics - and metaphysics includes the assumptions that underpin science.
In other words; the present came to assume that the past was wrong - not only in the specifics of science, but in the generalities of metaphysics.
For example, because many past scientific beliefs were wrong (or, at least inferior to the present), 'therefore' past basic assumptions were also regarded incorrect: assumptions such as the reality of a personal God who was creator; that (therefore) we live in a created reality; that there is a spiritual beyond the material; that Men have a soul - as well as a body; that the soul survives death.
All these, and many other, basic metaphysical assumptions from the past were rejected as a package - along with the scientific specifics of the past.
This has been a disaster first for Western civilization, then the world; because in reality, science emerged-from Christian metaphysics - and (it turns-out) cannot survive without it.
Indeed, it turns out that nothing Good can survive without that rejected metaphysics - including the concept of Good itself; which has now been subverted into a relativistic relabeling of evil; while 'Christian truth' has been (and is increasingly) inverted into mandatory demonic lies.
Even worse; one who yields to the deadly fallacy, enters into error by what is almost a one-way door leading towards more and greater error.
In other words; one a personal and individually-loving God has been erroneously rejected (as 'unscientific') then there is neither basis nor reason for 'truth' - and so this error is no self-correcting.
This deadly fallacy was not inevitable - Men could have chosen otherwise; although clearly it has been a temptation too strong for most people to resist.
But now we - as a civilization, as a mass majority - are deep into this error; and working from their own existing assumptions, people are helpless to correct it.
To correct this deadly fallacy requires going back to discover and re-examine basic metaphysical assumptions; and that is something anybody can do - but extremely few people are willing to do.
Courage is a virtue, indeed - as CS Lewis said - it is "the form of every virtue at the testing point". In other words, unless the other virtues are sustained by courage, they will be discarded whenever inexpedient.
The evil-twin vice mimicking courage is recklessness; which is act inexpediently because you don't understand that it is inexpedient.
A reckless person might therefore endanger himself be falsely believes himself invulnerable ("it's not really dangerous", "it couldn't happen to me!") or because he wrongly regards the adverse outcome as trivial ("getting shot isn't that bad.").
Courage, on the other hand, is when the inexpedient is done despite the understanding that it is inexpedient - but done anyway for reasons that go above or beyond expediency.
This is why there is so little courage nowadays - simply because very few people are strongly motivated by reasons 'above and beyond'.
For Christians, who do have reasons above and beyond; the source of courage is easy to state, but harder to do: It is simply to live by Faith and in Hope.
Faith is that God - who is the creator and sustainer of this world, and our loving Father - will always be-arranging-things for our ultimate spiritual benefit.
No matter what evils are practiced by Men or demons; God will turn that real evil to the possibility of ultimate and eventual Good.
And for each of us, as specific individuals.
Hope is based-on knowledge that beyond this finite mortal life, there is the possibility of eternal resurrected life in Heaven; and that is available to any and all who choose to follow Jesus Christ.
Therefore, for a follower of Christ, the worst that can happen in this mortal life will pass and be succeeded by something far better and forever.
Thus Faith and Hope underpin courage, and are the antidote to fear.
(And also the antidote to that lethal sin: despair.)
Furthermore; Faith and Hope themselves feed-into the affairs of this mortal life via the courage they sustain, and the virtues they enable. Precisely because rooted in the next world; Faith and Hope will materially benefit life in this world, and give the best chance of good outcomes - no matter how bad things may get.
In The Screwtape Letters - CS Lewis talks about the 'undulations' of Christian life; the high and low phases of faith and doubt, bliss and desolation, connectedness and isolation - that are so striking to the convert.
Having experienced the bliss of God's guidance and blessing, it can be dismaying when this is withdrawn - as it always is. It is not uncommon for the Christian to pray sincerely for help and guidance, yet for prayers to yield none.
As if one had picked up the phone to speak with God, but discovered 'the line had gone dead'.
I understand this in terms of two things: firstly, God's basic intent in creation; and secondly the consequent basic nature of this mortal life.
The intent of God is that by ongoing-creation Men may rise to become like to God; as has already happened with Jesus Christ.
...That as many Men as desire it should follow the path to full divinity - which Jesus opened and on which he guides us.
This means that our current existence is primarily a phase of learning. As such, God wants each of us to do as much as possible for himself - for each (as much as possible) to 'work-out his own salvation'.
Simply because that is the best way to learn - and we are here to learn.
Therefore, for God continuously to guide and sustain us, would defeat the object of creation!
So, the 'undulations' of Christian life are not an accident, nor are they necessarily the fault of the Christian; but at some level are 'part of the plan'.
God is always present and available to 'intervene' directly in our life and the world - when it is necessary. But Plan A is for Men - individually and collectively - to work things out for themselves as much as possible, and to learn from this (often trial and error) process.
God's (intermittent, perhaps infrequent) direct interventions should be regarded as a means to an end - and something that happens 'only' to get us going, provide (minimal but necessary) encouragement, and rescue us from a situation beyond our own capacities.
As William Arkle once said (I paraphrase): God does not want our lives to be focused on God; but instead to be focused on doing what God put us here to do - which is live and learn!
Those periods of direct contact with the divine, guidance, revelations, miracles, answered prayers etc - should Not be regarded as the main thing in life; but as helping us to live well, and learn from our failures as well as successes...
Bearing in mind that sometimes the best way to learn (for you, me, or others) may be to struggle, overcome despair, fail and try again, err and repent... Whatever works best or is necessary, God may try with us - through his work of creating.
And from our personal point of view - we should not always be 'demanding' (or begging for) divine intervention and guidance; but ought to work things out for ourselves, endeavor to learn God's lessons from the many experiences that God places in our paths.
We should do what God wants us to do, live as God wants us to live - and that is not to function as some kind of a remote controlled automaton, implementing divine orders!
We need not demand or beg; because there is no difficulty at all about God intervening in our lives - when God recognizes the need for His external assistance... But not whenever we suppose we need help and keep asking for it instead to be helping-our-selves.
No problem about God stepping-in to stop us when we are determined on a wrong track... But it is better if we recognize this for ourselves.
No problem about God producing a miracle - small or spectacular- when it is likely to be helpful to faith... But not when the miraculous will merely be used as an opportunity to explain-away and mock the divine.
No problem about God inspiring and enthusing and shaping us with a direct apprehension of His love - for any capable of recognizing it and responding positively... But not when a Man wants to surrender responsibility for his fate.
We are sustained alive in this created mortal world either because we have not (yet) decided-for-Christ, and are being given time and opportunity to make that choice - i.e. salvation; or else because it would benefit us through our eternal resurrected life to learn something/s - and our mortal life is being shaped to encourage such learning - i.e. theosis).
God makes them possible; but neither salvation nor theosis can be done for us by God. Both rely on our own personal efforts.
Some kinds of learning can be unconscious and automatic, but other kinds must consciously be chosen.
The main things of life are up to us.
Discernment of evil can be difficult - but nowadays, for Christians, it just gets easier all the time!
Pick your favourite evil liar - the person (or institution) that you know from repeated experience is always dishonest and always misleads to the limit of deniability...
Maybe it is George Soros, Klaus Schwab, Boris Johnson, Tony Blair, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Justin Trudeau, Pope Francis, Archbishop Welby...
But it doesn't matter who you choose, when they All Of Them, without exceptions, say exactly the same thing.
What does it mean when They all say the same thing?
It means that thing, whatever it is, is Not True.
(See what I mean about how discernment of evil is So easy nowadays?)
You and I may never know exactly why they want us to believe this particular lie; but we know that it Cannot Be True - because none of these people want the best for us.
They've proved it over and over.
Christian - do not, for God's sake, be Stupid-Stupid-STUPID and and give Them the benefit of the doubt - Yet Again!
As Vox Day often says - we will probably never know the truth about most things; but we do know, with 100% certainty, that The Official Story - whether that be yesterday, today or tomorrow's Official Story - is A Lie.
A Lie that is intended to manipulate Us for Their benefit.
And you know (or ought to know, by now) What They think of Us, and intend for Us...
(Mass corruption, fear, misery and despair of our Minds - starvation, disease, injury and death of our Bodies; is only the start of their plans...a merely preliminary objective. The worst of it, and Their ultimate motivation, is what happens to our Souls after we die.)
Leftism (conceived as a long-term Satanic plan directed against God, divine creation and The Good; and aiming at - pretty much - exactly where the world is now) was originally defined by its opposition to Christianity.
More subtly it was framed as anti-'clericalism' directed at the 'abuses' (real or imputed) of whatever specific church was dominant in some place.
But when Leftism began to become more strategic; and began its highly successful efforts to infiltrate, subvert, invert and (now) substantially co-opt Christianity - it started to advocate (apparently) Christian-compatible 'single-issue' doctrines such as the abolition of slavery and pacifism.
Both apparently emanated from Nonconformist Protestants in Britain, especially the Quakers - who included many wealthy and successful businessmen (and who were, moreover, probably the best employers of their day - i.e. providing the best remuneration, housing and conditions for their workers).
Leaving aside abolition; pacifism has remained a constant and strongly supported ideology ever since - and it re-emerges whenever there are a significant section of The Establishment who oppose a particular war; or as now when the entire Establishment takes one side in a war.
But since The Establishment certainly are Not pacifists (are, indeed, exactly the opposite!) - pacifism takes the more subtle form of 'Peace-ifism'; with concerted demands for 'peace' from the right hand - accompanied by left-hand actions that directly aim to maximize innocent civilian casualties.
In practice, peace-ifism is always one-sided.
It means that the side disapproved-of should give-up, surrender, retreat - and face whatever punishment The Establishment choose to inflict upon them.
(And especially their leaders; who can expect to be scapegoated and punished severely up to and including execution - whether judicially or by mob.)
Peace-ifism is not, therefore, about peace!
Under the New Leftism of perpetual revolution - peace is not on-offer from our Global Establishment; but instead perpetual-revolution.
From the Establishment we get multiple sources of violence as excuses for ever more repression, monitoring and control; all being positively-propagandized, organized, funded, encouraged and legally-allowed.
Anti-peaceful riots and lootings, destruction, violence - operating with impunity under whatever Leftist banner is currently being deployed: birdemic-peck, antiracism, climate emergency, compulsory mass immigration/ refugee crisis... Whatever.
Thus, peace-ifism shares the soft-and-cuddly, wouldn't-harm-a-fly vibe, feel-good/ virtue-signaling attributes of pacifism; yet is in practice (and by intent) also integral-to and accompanied-by (deniable but deliberate) encouragement of severe physical punishment, violence and killing.
In other words; peace-ifism is just-another morally-corrupting manipulation of the masses by The Establishment.
And when all The Establishment institutions (which includes the major Western Christian churches) are united in propagating peace-ifism; and when this evil manipulation (with its obviously evil provenance!) is blotted-up and regurgitated by our docile, cowardly, unthinking and uncritical masses - as currently...
Well, it makes for a profoundly unedifying spectacle!
Note added:
Another way of conceptualizing peace-ifism is that it is net-evil - evil overall - because it is intrinsically dishonest, deceptive and manipulative.
Peace-ifism pretends to neutrality ("all we want is peace!) yet always and necessarily it takes one of the sides - and yet denies the fact.
There is no neutrality in peace-ifism: firstly because there is no such thing as neutrality; and secondly because when you analyze any specific case you will find this to be so.
I have recently been studying the American Civil War; which was a horrible and destructive business - and if ever there was a candidate for peace-ifism, surely this was one of the strongest?
Yet there was no neutral way of imposing peace - one side or the other was bound to be the loser. If we assume that the South wanted to retain its agrarian life based on slavery; then this was not possible so long as the USA remained unified.
For slavery to continue, the abolitionist North would need to enforce slavery laws (such as capturing and returning escaped slaves) and thereby be complicit in a practice they found abhorrent - and the North would lose.
Yet if slavery was to be abolished, the South would lose their way of life (as actually happened when they lost).
The obvious solution - that the South separate from the North, was exactly what the North would not allow - and this was indeed the original cause of the war.
Yet the South was smaller, poorer, and much less industrialized - so if the South did not separate, then the South would lose (as actually happened).
In sum, there could be no peace without losers; so peace-ifism was just taking one side or the other - but pretending not to by calling vaguely for 'peace'.
As then, so now: All calls for peace, when made concrete and implemented, are always a matter of taking sides.
To take sides but dishonestly pretend to neutrality, is intrinsically sinful.
And if you really cannot decide which side is the less-evil (a discernment that is nowadays made easy by noticing the provenance of propaganda) then you should neither have nor express any opinion.
It is an extraordinary to realize how rapidly a dream narrative proceeds compared with waking thought - so that a detailed dream experienced as lasting many hours, may turn-out to have happened while just a few minutes elapsed during waking life (by the clock).
In the past I have tried to 'explain' this by assuming that 'Time' operated differently in dream compared with waking. And also in dreamless sleep - which is the opposite of dreaming - because only 'an instant' in subjective experience, may have lasted several hours by-the-clock.
My 'Time' explanation was that time ran more slowly in dreaming than awake, so that more could be fitted-in; while the opposite was true for deep sleep.
But if Time cannot legitimately be abstracted from the living of Beings - as I argued recently - then be must explain this phenomenon differently.
The reason why I think that so much more can be experienced in dreams is that we are then (more-or-less) cut-off from 'external' sensory and perceptual stimuli, and from real interactions with other Beings, such as other people.
When we are interacting with 'externals' then our experience can proceed only at whatever speed these interactions occur - for example the timescale of a conversation or of physically moving through a landscape.
But in a dream, we are 'modelling' reality using material from our memories - and our processing (combinations, extrapolations and speculations upon) memories.
We could think of this in terms of recalled memories being the dream content; and what we do in processing these memories as the dream plot.
So that the primary process of dreaming can move as fast as memories are-being-recalled. This central nervous system process occurs with a timescale of less than a second, maybe tenths-of-a-second.
This is relatively much faster than interactions with the external world, so dream experience is relatively more concentrated.
What of our emotional responses? Emotions are 'enacted' by changes in body state - and these have a timescale of approximately seconds - for example, to feel terror the sympathetic nervous system needs to be activated (taking some seconds), and adrenaline is released into blood to circulate around the body (some tens of seconds).
Whatever the exact speeds, it is certain that emotions are enacted relatively more slowly than memories are recalled. But perhaps the emotions happen about as fast as we contrive our dream plots.
We would therefore expect that specific dream 'events' move faster than the body can enact emotional responses; and therefore that the emotions could easily get 'out-of-synch' with the dream contents.
But the overall dream plot might well be in accordance with our dream emotions, even when specific dream contents are not.
And this is, I think, a very common, indeed probably the usual experience of dreaming.
We often experience a kind of mismatch between dream events and emotions - and there is often a pervasive feeling of perplexity or confusion as events seem to be coming at us too fast to understand.
On the other hand, the overall shape (or plot) of a dream does tend to match up with the emotions - e.g. scary dreams have scary plots.
In dreaming I think we are therefore getting a kind of very concentrated experience that we ourselves concoct; and we react emotionally to these concoctions.
Dreams are therefore potential learning experiences, just as is waking life; and probably just as necessary and valuable.
But the source of dream experience is almost-wholly inner; and this accounts for the different subjective feeling of a dream, when compared with waking life.
In these End Times we can expect to have our discernment tested. And that is indeed happening - repeatedly and on a large scale.
These discernments are not really difficult - although their consequences are often adverse.
When we look around the world - a world that Christians should instantly be able to see is the most evil in history; we can perceive that, although evil is general (the linked-bureaucracy, the Black Iron Prison - the global totalitarian System whose scope and power has been so evident over the past two years), some parts are more evil than others.
Because some people, institutions and nations are the focus and origin of evil, while others are further down the line.
This means that in any significant dispute there are no Good sides, because all powerful/ wealthy/ famous/ high status persons and institutions are a part of The System - but there are better and worse evils.
Because there is no side of Good in public discourse, Christians cannot actively support any side - because that would merely be to ally with one set of demons against another.
But equally we can perceive that one side really is less bad than the other - and this discernment may be necessary in order to maintain a clear head in the maelstrom of claims and counter-claims that is modern discourse.
What should be actually do - given that we are probably each alone and powerless? Well, what we most need to do is at the level of thinking - of primary thinking - and that is to seek understanding of our own exact and personal situation in the world; and what divine providence has put in our path.
First understanding, and then? Well, if our thinking is aligned with God's motivation and love, and in harmony with divine creation - then (but only then) will we know.
Actively - we must do some Good, not some lesser-evil.
And that Good we can do (and are called to do, if we listen) is seldom or never at a large scale - and not at the level in which modern evil is operative.
Yet (recall) any Good we do can - and will - be taken-up by God, amplified and disseminated according to divine strategy (which we need not know anything about).
I often (as in the previous post) reference the historically unprecedented cowardice of people in the world today; as I often reference their unprecedented dishonesty.
Both phenomena have the same root, which is the pervasive and official atheism and materialism - hence denial of any purpose or meaning for human life.
Quite aside from explicit and propagandized beliefs; modern society operates on the basis that this universe is an accidental outcome of 'physics' and Man is an accidental outcome of "chemistry plus, later, biological evolution" operating in that physics-context.
Each individual Man is assumes to arise at conception or birth, and to be extinguished by death.
In sum - the officially-endorsed and universally-disseminated message is that each Man emerges into a meaningless world; a world which came-from and is-going nowhere in particular (and nothing to do with us, personally), and soon is snuffed-out.
Any 'meaning' we choose to make or accept is likewise contingent and brief; and anything of our-selves that may exist beyond our death (e.g. in the memories of others or the records of civilization) will also come to an absolute end.
Just as our own lives are a biological-chemical blip - then gone forever; with nothing remaining; so are the lives of all other Men; so are our families, places, nations and the civilization.
(All of which -we are increasingly told by official sources - will very soon [e.g. by 2030] be gone, forever, with nothing remaining.)
In sum:
Modern man has nothing to live for (beyond any current gratifications he may personally feel) - and absolutely no hope of anything better ever under any circumstances; and he is convinced that to believe otherwise is delusion.
In such circumstances, each Man knows nothing for certain more than his current state of well-being or adversity - and nothing is worth sacrificing his current well-being for; because nothing in the longer term is certain, and anyway it will not last.
But courage entails the sacrifice of current well-being for some goal considered to be more important - so naturally Modern Men are cowards, since they are convinced of nothing more important.
Modern Men are above all expedient; seeking the easiest way through life with a short time-horizon - and when that involves cowardice, lying, incoherence, and obedience to evil - well, so it goes.
Given what they believe they 'know' - it would be foolish to do otherwise.
And so Men's own cowardice is invisible!
Because (for them) nothing is worth sacrificing for - courage is seen as delusion. And cowardice is re-labelled as common sense - or indeed a higher wisdom.
Therefore, the most cowardly population in world history believes itself to be the boldest! Brave, bold and unashamed in their lying, groveling, manipulated expediency!
Our starting point (here-and-now) is a society of demotivation - because this is a 'materialist' society that understands all human existence to be bounded by birth and death, and ultimate reality to be without purpose or meaning.
Of course we are demotivated! We live only for this life and only for pleasures and to avoid pain!
Hence we are cowards, hence easily manipulated.
Modern Men continue to function and to work; but lacking any sense of coherence their wills are passive. They are easy to manipulate both because they lack any deep or sustained motivations of-themselves; and this makes them crave external authority and imperatives.
Modern Man does not want to choose with responsibility; because he is deeply insecure, incoherent, demotivated - thus he seeks to know "what I must do".
He seeks to discover situations in which he can tell himself "there is no alternative".
Only when there is "no alterative" can his feeble motivation be aroused; only then can he lose-himself in something he feels to be both objectively real, and bigger his own drifting desires.
Modern man is therefore the buck-passer par excellence!
Mass Man seeks to pass the buck of responsibility; and those who work to administer and rule the large human institutions do likewise.
Everybody, up to the 'highest' level of power that we can see (e.g. multi-national, national and corporate leaders), tries to pass-on that buck of deep and personal responsibility - they think and do because "there is no alternative" - never because they personally so choose, from their deepest selves.
If you work in any bureaucracy - and the whole world is now one giant composite-linked bureaucracy - you will seek in vain for anyone who freely chooses, who acknowledges his own agency. Bureaucracy is a world in which 'authority' comes from obeying somebody else.
The mainstream religions all play-into this passing of the buck. They exert their authority as being agents of the necessary, the unavoidable, what Must Be. Their 'leaders' defer to the authority of some committee, some vote, some external abstraction...
And therefore, in practice - and since 2020 very obviously - the mainstream religions slot-into the hierarchy of buck-passing.
Mainstream religions are about believing somebody else - religions are become bureaucracies of belief; thus they complement and pseudo-validate the bureaucratic world of obeying somebody else.
So, in this world we dwell in a vast system of obedience and denial of responsibility - but at the same time we see greater uniformity of propaganda and ideology than ever before. We have a global totalitarianism - vast monitoring, censorship, control, coercion - yet no (visible) global dictator.
No dictator, no supreme committee; yet in in such a world as we inhabit to exist, where everybody claims to obey somebody else - we can see that everybody is also clearly obeying some-thing!
That some-thing which The System obeys is not explicit, cannot precisely be identified - nobody even claims to be IT. There are no picture of IT, no speeches, no statements from IT...
Yet there must-be an IT.
And of course there is, and it is Satan.
...Which explains why every global strategy or belief-complex, every world-wide obsession or motivation propagated by mass media and official channels, is always evil.
The people seek to be led, and their leader seek to be led; the buck is passed onward and upwards until eventually is reached - one who is not human, nor a person, and not embodied.
One who has no interest in being known or identified as The Leader; and every reason for keeping this fact secret.
(Except, presumably, from his most devoted and loyal servants - whose obedience is so total as to amount to possession.)
Suddenly it makes sense! Suddenly we see where we end-up when everybody absolutely refuses to take personal responsibility for ultimate beliefs and aspirations; and when the churches do likewise.
It was made clear enough to Christians at the very beginning that each would need to made a free choice from-himself, and would not be able to rely upon external authority - whether secular or religious - for ultimate guidance.
Yet Christianity was instead made into a machine of imperatives - a System of what-must-be and cannot-be-otherwise. And - above all - obedience to these imperatives was required of Christians.
Our come-uppance is that this machine of obedience and buck-passing has now been taken-over, subverted, and integrated into the global machine - The System.
So that all external obedience now converges upon Satan.
The buck stops with Satan; and nearly-all the world (including the churches) agrees that this is as things should be.
