Bruce Charlton's Notions

Is suicide a sin? The answer - as nearly-always - depends on the motivation. 

Peter Kreeft is one of the most lucid and engaging (and most prolific!) Christian apologists of recent years - writing from a Roman Catholic (convert, from Protestant) perceptive.

The above is a five minute video that begins with some personal reflections, then moves onto Kreeft's concise evaluation of where things in general are going. 

Kreeft is absolutely convinced that things are going to get much worse, catastrophically so; that in essence The Book of Revelation (i.e. the End Times) is upon us; and that (materially speaking) there is nothing that we can do to stop it.

I think there is now a division between mainstream Christian 'conservatives' who believe that things are not irreversibly bad, and therefore can-and-should be reformed and catastrophe averted -- and those 'radical pessimists' such as Kreeft (and myself) who believe that things will not be reformed.

Note the asymmetry: mainstream conservative focus on evaluating what might be done; radical pessimists on what actually will be done: this derives from a focus on possibilities, versus a focus on inferred motivations.  

Conservative mainstreamers are focused about socio-political schemes of reform which seem to show potential promise of alleviating or reversing particular areas of decline and corruption. 

These schemes may be concentrated on improvements within existing institutions, or may attempt to found new institutions to replace them. 

And - this is important - the intent and belief behind such socio-political activity is that, if effective, it would be able to prevent, reverse and/or revise the impending catastrophe.  

But radical pessimists believe that it is too late. Whatever theoretical possibilities may exist in particular areas - the sum of human motivational corruption in so many domains, in so many nations; means that people do not fundamentally wish to stop the impending catastrophe.

For radical pessimists; the problem is, in other words, too deep to be solved by socio-political action; because the problem is at the level of metaphysics and motivation.

In other words: the problem lies in the world-conception and primary desires of too-many people (including a large majority of the wealthiest, most powerful, educated and high-status people). 

Far-too-many of those with capability to effect (and to block) change, see the world falsely, and want wrong things; conversely, they reject those understandings and goals that would be necessary to prevent catastrophe and reverse the trend to evil. 

So, whatever the theoretical possibilities may be; the requite multiple-simultaneous reforms simply will not happen: few people want Good things to happen, and a large majority actively want them Not to happen. 

And even when/if socio-political reforms do happen in particular domains; they will not lead to net-Good; because too many Men's motivations and desires are too corrupted - so that Good policy becomes just-another stimulus towards greater evil. 

The final part of this short video is concerned with how - despite solid this-worldly pessimism - Christians can (and must) remain hope-full. 

Kreeft provides one of the standard answers of Christian believers in the Omni-God theology; but my answer would have been different and much simpler.  

My answer is that Jesus made it possible that anyone who loved and truly-desired to follow him, would attain eternal resurrected life in Heaven. And further, that our love for others is of real benefit in helping them to the same goal of salvation*. 

We are meant to be confident of our salvation; and we can be confident - in so far as we personally are sure of our desire for salvation: our own salvation is our own responsibility; and lies in our own hands. 

I suspect such confidence in salvation will be of crucial value for many people in these End Times, in enabling us to Live in Hope; when honest realism suggests that it is too late to avert the coming Apocalypse. 

Thus convinced pessimism becomes compatible with confident Hope. 

*We cannot, of course, compel anyone else to accept the gift of salvation - salvation is a personal choice that cannot be compelled - not even by God. But we can - by our personal love - make a difference (at the spiritual level, by direct spiritual apprehension) to the way in which other people understand and evaluate this choice. 

Note Added: I believe that the Christian Conservative stance is no longer valid, and will not survive - indeed, I can see, in real time, a proportion of Christian Conservatives continually apostatizing (as evidenced by their public failure of one or more the accumulating Litmus Tests, aka. by converging-with the agenda of mainstream secular globalist leftism). For instance; recently many Christian Conservatives failed the Voting Litmus Test; as evidenced by their behaviour during US or UK elections, and their partisan-mainstream political commentary generally. 

Yesterday, I watched Michael Wood's excellent 1981 documentary on Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred ("the Unready"; 966-1016); which crystallized a (more-than-) analogy between the imposition of "the Norman Yoke" on England from 1066. 

Ethelred was a disastrously bad king. His posthumous and punning epithet "unready" actually translates to something like badly-counseled, with connotations of one who made many foolish, or even wicked, decisions; one of which was to simultaneously impoverish England and strengthen the Danish pirates, by truly enormous payments of Danegeld over many years (rather than organize, and fight the invaders)*.

Ethelred had inherited from illustrious ancestors, such as Alfred and Athelstan, an English Empire (i.e. of the Saxon Kingdoms such as Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria), which Wood describes as the wealthiest and most prestigious Kingship in Europe. 

By Ethelred's death, the English nation had been substantially disunited and demoralized by decades of helpless rapine under rule of a spiteful, moody, feckless and cowardly king; and made vulnerable to the Norman conquest a couple of generations later.  

Something I did not fully appreciate until relatively recently, was the way in which the Normans not only tyrannized England; but killed a very large proportion of its people (directly and indirectly), and destroyed its wealth. After William I; it took centuries before England was again wealthy, prosperous, and with her own high culture. 

As I have written before; the Normans were motivated by an elitist disdain of the Anglo-Saxons, who were treated as pressed soldiers, servants and slaves at best; but were exiled, starved and killed in such numbers as severely to weaken the country. 

Much of the North was reduced to depopulated desert, and the rich agricultural lands of the South was converted to semi-wild Forests; exclusively dedicated to the hunting-related recreations of the Norman Masters. 

 

In this respect, as well as in ancestry, the Norman rule resembled the rapacious and destructive piracy of the worst of their Viking ancestors. And resembled too the attitudes and behaviours of the modern alien-cosmopolitan Establishment (many of whom have, and are overweeningly proud of, Norman ancestry). 

When these alien pirates became England's kings and aristocrats; their twin priorities were absolute power on the one hand - with a network of garrisoned castles as the symbol; and on the other hand a short-termist, selfish, and pleasure-seeking attitude to the country and its people - which they regarded as booty of war.  

Their Norman's 'problem', as usually happens with successful pirates, was squabbling over the loot. So that the country was rapidly and repeatedly riven by civil wars; motivated by the selfish power-seeking of the outsider-Lords; and which kept on killing people and dissipating England's innate economic advantages for generation after generation - for no better reason than the choice of whether to be oppressed by Norman de Tweedledum or Norman de Tweedledee...     

The Great-Reset intends a strikingly-analogous economic destruction, depopulation - and conversion of the world (or, as much as possible) to wasteland and recreational territory intended for their exclusive use.

The modern excuses for this evil, selfish and net-destructive power/ pleasure grab are different and dishonest compared with the past: the Normans did not need or bother to justify their deliberate and strategic destruction of farming and industry, with agriculture repurposing to exclusively-accessed wilderness and forests in huge estates which the Establishment own, by anything equivalent to the modern elite's pseudo-environmentalism. 

The Normans killed and starved the peasantry because they wanted-to and could, and because they regarded Saxons as inferior beings. 

But our modern-Norman's pretend to be promoting 'global' public health, defending 'democracy', and preventing 'climate change' by doing so.     

As in Norman times, the problem - but now over most of the world - is an alien and evil-motivated elite; who care nothing for the nations or the people they rule and administer; which they manipulate and torment. 

Indeed the modern-Normans loathe all nations and peoples, as obstacles blocking them from their proximate and insatiable desire for ever-more power and loot. 

Yet our modern, alien elites are far worse even than the Normans of England - not just in their scale and wealth; but because they are more advanced in their evil - and desire destruction for its own sake, rather than as a means to the ends of power and loot. 

Our modern-Normans would make chaos everywhere, and pull-down the whole civilized world around themselves - even if it makes their own lives less pleasurable, and breaks their own structures of power. 

But merely in order to demonstrate to themselves their own superiority; to enjoy their own callously-sadistic indifference to the planet and all creatures and plants on it. 

Because the modern-Normans do not any more serve their own appetites; but serve a master who is of-spirit and not dependent on the material for survival; and who loathes all of God's creation - including, of course, his gullible and blinkered Norman servants. 

  

*Note: Indeed; it is the many tens of thousands of silver coins with which the Danegeld was paid, time and again; that provides perhaps the most direct evidence of the pre-existing wealth of Etheldred's England. 

Some weeks ago, I wrote about the interesting fact that ancient societies were able to predict (and prophecy) almost as a matter of routine - certainly divination was integrated into ancient societies at the highest levels; whereas now prediction (of many kinds, including supposedly-scientific, or statistical) seems to be getting worse with each passing decade. 

Part of this is the high prevalence of dishonesty; so that 'predictions' (such as election polling, economic predictions, climate predictions) are in actuality merely rhetorical attempts to manipulate people; they are 'not even trying' to predict what will really happen. 

But part of it is that the world is becoming dominated, more and more, by top-down Sorathic - that is chaotically destructive - evil. 

This is relevant because destruction is much easier than sustaining and creating, therefore can be pursued simultaneously on multiple fronts.  

An increasing domination by chaotic-evil, means that prediction becomes much more imprecise. When people are trying to make things better, or trying to follow a plan; then their options and methods are limited and therefore what they do will be relatively predictable...

But how can destruction be predicted? Destruction can crop-up almost anywhere in the world, from almost anybody, and may be effective in a very side range of forms.

So, we can know that (barring a cataclysmic change of global trends) things will continue getting worse in those parts of the world where the Evil Global Establishment have power; but the rate-of-change, and timescale of irreversible collapse, is impossible to predict. 

In a war there may be a Right and Wrong side - and there may also (and separately) be one side with a Right cause, and the other whose cause is Wrong. 

I am therefore using Good and Evil to refer to the nature of a society's values; and Right and Wrong to refer to the specific causes of a war. 

Good/ Evil and Right/ Wrong are separate issues. 

Even when one side is believed to be in-the-Wrong, both sides may still be Good; in that both of the sides are - overall - fighting for Good values. 

Thus: I am distinguishing specific causes and general values. The cause of a specific war may be Right or Wrong; the participants in a war may be Good or Evil. 

In considering many wars of the past, we often feel that both sides were basically Good - regardless of the specific cause for which they were fighting. 

Perhaps the Trojan War is an example - in that people often regard both Greeks and Trojans as essentially Good societies - whatever the rights and wrongs of the cause of their war. 

Athenians and Spartans are probably another instance; both societies are admirable (Good) in different ways - aside from the causes of their wars. 

In other wars we feel the opposite: both societies engaged in a war are basically evil, whatever the specifically causal "Rights and Wrongs" of that war may be. 

It seems that there can be any combination of Right/ Wrong,  Good/ Evil in particular wars. 

At one extreme; a Good society might engage in a Wrong war with an Evil Society. So one side is Good and Wrong, the other side is Evil and Right. 

In such a situation; the tendency is for us to support the side we regard as Good - because we want the Good society to win. The temptation is then either to ignore, or to lie about, the causes of that war. 

Or, at the other extreme, we may wish for the side we regard as Evil to be defeated; even when they are actually 'in the Right' in terms of this specific war. 

For many people this may be something-like how they regard the Second World War - specifically against the Third Reich. Because the National Socialists are regarded as the Evil side and people want them defeated.

Therefore people are not really interested in whether the specific cause of the various Western Allies declarations of war were honest or coherent (which is at least doubtful). 

Similarly with the entry of the USA into the WWII: people are not really interested by the provocations and engineering that went into the decision to declare war; because they believe the war was against Evil societies (at least; Germany and Japan are/were regarded as Evil societies - Italy... not really).

Even if the Western Allies can be shown to have been in the wrong about the specific causes of war; judgment of Good and Evil 'trumps' such considerations.

Good/ Evil is primary - Right/Wrong very much secondary.  

When it is not obvious to posterity that either of the side was Evil; then the question of causation becomes much more relevant in choosing which side 'ought to win'. 

This is more the case for WWI. Nowadays, people find it hard to believe that there was much to choose between the two sides of 1914-18 in terms of Goodness or Evil. 

Consequently, the war seems difficult to justify in terms of values - and the specifics of Right and Wrong take a larger place: e.g. who was the aggressor? 

Yet, even if causality is established clearly; in the absence of an asymmetry of values; such considerations seem relatively trivial - and are often regarded as mere propaganda and name-calling. 

My conclusion is that it is as well to be honest with oneself about such matters. 

When we regard a war as between a side that is basically-Good in terms of its values; and another that we regard as basically-Evil - then we are not really interested in the specific Rights and Wrongs of how it got-going, or what sustains it. 

We just want the Good side to triumph - and to do so without itself becoming Evil. 

  

Until recently I knew very little about the US-made P-47 Thunderbolt (nicknamed the Jug - for obvious reasons - it's not exactly pretty). It was the biggest and heaviest single-engine fighter of World War II; and the fastest (propeller) combat aircraft at high altitudes and in a dive.  

(P-47s were two or three times larger and heavier than most other well-known WWII fighters such as the Spitfire.) 

Overshadowed in public perception by Spitfires, Mustangs, Messerschmitt 109s, Focke-Wulf 190s and Mitsubishi Zero - the Thunderbolt was nonetheless a truly great aeroplane, and I have been convinced by Greg - of the superb YouTube channel Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles * - that the P-47 was, more than any other craft, responsible for making D-Day possible. 

Perhaps its only type-rival, in terms of war outcome influence; were the Hurricanes/ Spitfires (in that order) of the Battle of Britain.  

As Greg describes in this very detailed and primary-source-evidenced video...

(which is the last in a series of eight); in early 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt met to plan the invasion of Europe; and their Number One War Priority (officially - Greg shows us the document) was the establishment of air superiority in Western Europe: that is, the destruction of Luftwaffe functionality. 

Our culture - even at its best - cannot come-up with any better vision of the Good Life than the short-sighted adolescent desire to "do whatever I want to do - so long as it doesn't hurt other people"; 

Which is, in the first place, an arbitrary ethic (why believe this rather than its opposite?); secondly oxymoronic (because everything - including my existence - hurts other people in some way); and thirdly - it is a recipe for nihilism and despair.

"What I want to do" boils down to the idea of a life ruled by impulse, whose satisfactions are momentary and do not add-up to any meaning - let alone a purpose. 

The underlying convictions seems to be that - if I am feeling happy and fulfilled at this moment in time; then my life is justified. 

Of course, it is difficult to avoid the inference that the opposite is also true: i.e. that if I feel miserable and despairing here-and-now; then that is the real truth about my life. If we regard the present moment as decisive, then our first downturn of mood will be grounds for suicide... 

The best case (never actually achieved by anyone) is a life when I do this fun-thing, then that fun-thing - on-and-on in an endless series; until (presumably) I keel-over and die instantly and without suffering - in the middle of doing something fun. 

Aside from its being apparently unattainable in practice; the deep problem is that such a life is a horrible thing to contemplate and to live! 

It just is! A life of endless distraction, a life of trying not to think about how futile it all is.  

The futility of the arbitrary life goal of gratifying my short-term whims, is not cured by the alternative of living in accordance with external dictates. In a world where there is nothing deeper or more coherent that "What I want" then there is no hope of finding meaning by doing instead "what other people want". 

Altruism is equally futile to selfishness when there in no deeper motivation than short-term satisfaction; because adding-up or averaging selfishness, only leads to more of the same; and does not lead to higher or deeper motivations. 

Indeed, a world where everybody is trying to gratify every-body-else's passing whims is something of a nightmare even at best; and is most likely to degenerate into a world ruled by those selfish/ cold-hearted/ lying/ sadistic psychopaths who most-effectively exploit the altruistic impulses of others. 

What is needed, it seems, is for the world to have larger purposes than my own, so that my life can have meaning in terms of working towards those larger purposes; and also that there is a direct and personal relationship between the larger purposes and myself as an individual person. 

That is: the larger purposes must be relevant to me; and also I personally must be relevant (make a difference) to the larger purposes.

Yet if we are still talking about the difference between our experience of the immediate short-term (here-and-now) and the more remote longer term (several hours/days/ weeks/ months/ years ahead...); then this is just a difference in emphasis. 

We can either focus on the actually-happening, or (to varying degrees) on what we predict will happen, or hope will happen. 

But neither of these work as a basis for life. 

Meaningfulness here-and-now is where we started and does not work; but meaningfulness sometimes down-the-line may be 'pie in the sky' - and is, anyway, of the same nature and validity as here-and-now (which does not work)... only much less certain... 

The whole thing begins to seem like a weird and arbitrary mathematical-hedonic calculation, trying to treat human gratification as if it were quantitative and incremental...

  

It seems to me that - for this to 'work' - requires not just 'long-term' purpose; but eternal purpose. 

In other words; ultimately, long-term and short-term amount qualitatively to the same thing; and the only real distinction is between temporary and eternal. 

My conclusion is that life needs to be understood as eternal for it to be genuinely worthwhile; and that we need a system of values that includes both our-self and our personal experience - and also the Big Picture of other people and the rest of the universe.

And - there must be purpose everywhere, and at every level. 

Note: The above reflections were derived from watching the movie Free Guy (2021) - which I found enjoyable and worth while (except for the usual Hollywood too-long-drawn-out ending); but which - exactly because it was deeper than most mainstream movies - thereby revealed the shallowness and inadequacy of its own moral framework. The ultimate ethic - stated more than once, and towards-which the plot was aiming - was to make a world where each person could do... whatever he or she wanted to do (as contrasted by being merely the tool of a computer game played for thrills). In other words: the ultimate ethic was merely negative: i.e. not to be a controlled-slave. 

Stone circles were of primarily religious significance, clearly; and there is a strong tradition of assuming that they were usually 'sky temples' - which seems likely given their locations and the 'feel' of them. 

I accept that there is an element of astronomical alignment with some of these circles, such as the ability to indicate sunrise at summer solstice (as at Stonehenge) - but I believe that any such measurements could only be approximate - given the very various shapes and sizes of the stones. 

Such stones are not at all well-suited to the purposes of precise measurement - if that has been the purpose surely something with a distinct point, more like an obelisk would have been employed. Also, (nearly always) the lack of a central stone in circles seems to make the use of circles as highly-accurate calculators less likely.  

When I visited Swinside (above) I was struck by the variety of shapes and sizes, to the point that I felt that each stone had an individual character; and it struck me that this may imply that each stone represented a particular person. 

I could imagine the circle makers of neolithic times, being alert to such correspondences; and finding a particular, distinctly shaped and sized, stone; that they intuited had a one-to-one relationship with some (probably deceased) individual; presumably someone regarded as important or worthy - who deserved, or needed, such a monument.

Or, indeed, each stone might represent an anthropomorphically-conceived god from the (presumed) pagan pantheon. Or stone corresponding gods may be have been ex-humans - whether deified or avatars. 

The point is simply that each stone's shape was related to its identity as a personage - as well as the placement of the stone having a function related to alignments.   

Therefore I envisage these circles being added-to, incrementally, over generations - as suitable stones were found, and perhaps modified. When circles were being used for religious rituals, the participants would also (simultaneously) have regarded themselves as surrounded by spirits of specific, venerated ancestors... Again able to contact them - whether, from love, for guidance, or for propitiation.    

There is a common line of argument in Christian theology - which is rooted in the 'omni' conceptualization of God as creating everything from nothing (ex nihilo) - which concludes that evil is necessarily irrational, i.e. evil makes no sense even from its own perspective. 

(This is sometimes extended into asserting that - therefore, sooner or later - all Men will 'come to their senses' and choose salvation; even those who initially choose hell or are sent to hell.)  

But I regard this as mistaken: partly because its premises (omni-God and creation ex nihilo) are wrong; partly because it fails to acknowledge a core aspect of Christianity - specifically, which is that it is an 'opt-in' and chosen religion; and partly because it fails to grasp the potential rational appeal of evil. 

To be Good is to affiliate oneself with God's will and creation; evil is to oppose this. 

To be Good is to desire to live in harmony with God and God's wishes and with other Beings who have made the same choice; to be evil is to set oneself against creation (and, usually, of other Beings). 

But why oppose creation? There might be several reasons that are rational - one is to resent the fact that God created thus, and not otherwise - and with these aims and not others.

Such resentment comes from our-selves as free agents, as (eternal) Beings who have our own wills and creative potential. Evil may therefore be rooted in a conviction that 'I' personally disagree with God, 'I' dislike Gods plans and methods; and 'I' therefore refuse to affiliate-myself with God's work. 

Such resentment amounts to a preference for 'myself' over God (despite that this is God's created reality - indeed perhaps exactly because 'I' am compelled to dwell in God's created reality). 

Consider: whatever the nature of my disagreement may be, the disagree-er nonetheless finds-himself already-within God's creation. 

Evil amounts to a preference of myself (and my desires and motivations) above God and this world he made, including the changes God made to me - without asking for my agreement!

Thus evil is correctly described as a form of pride - of regarding oneself as The Being who ought-to-be God. 

So far this might be a purely private 'preference', as leading merely to opting-out of God's creation. In theory a Man might disagree with God's reality, and simply desire not to be a part of it...

But in practice, much evil is also fuelled by resentment against God. 

Because he cannot do what God has done; because he cannot' replace God - the evil Man (or other Being) develops an active dislike of God and divine creation... 

Because he knows that he cannot replace God, he reacts by the desire to destroy creation: the desire to destroy all that God has done and is doing; simply because it is not what he personally would have chosen to do. 

To be Good is to desire to live in harmony with God's creation and the other Beings who themselves have chosen to live in harmony with God's creation. 

To be evil is rooted in disagreement with this ideal of harmony; and to take up an attitude of opposition to God and creation - mostly including an attitude to other Beings that regards them as instruments of this opposition (because there is no reason to desire harmony with them), and the desire that other beings with will enlisted to one's own assertion as the legitimate creator. 

(Hence the manipulative and exploitative - 'means to the end of destruction' - attitude to other Beings that is characteristic of evil - albeit perhaps not universal... I could imagine an evil that was group-based, rooted in an arbitrary preference for a particular group of Beings - who then manipulate and exploit the other Beings) 

I infer from this way of understanding; that evil is, at root, a personal response to the facts of God and creation; and that evil therefore need not be irrational, nor need it be self-correcting.  

I assume that some Beings (i.e. Men, Angels/ Demons, and indeed any other of the many Beings of which reality is constituted) may choose to adopt evil as their basic stance concerning God and divine creation.

This ultimate choice to oppose God may be based on a genuine understanding of reality; and evil may therefore be an irreducible preference and choice of perspective - which means that such evil is both rational, and also potentially eternal. 

Northumberland has many examples of 'Rock Art' - which seem to originate 4000-plus years ago. My wife and I found an example, which I have not been able to discovered recorded anywhere (although it probably is) - they are common enough to stumble upon.

Their actual 'function' remains controversial/ mysterious - pretty much the only sure thing is that they are not 'art'. 

But so many centuries of erosion - water and wind acting-upon on a surface that is relatively soft and exposed sandstone - means that little detail is visible on most examples. 

The above rock at Lordenshaws (near Rothbury) is one of the most intricate and detailed survivors; and it was about twenty years ago when I was standing alone in front of this particular rock (with nobody else in sight) that I felt I understood the essence of what it was designed to communicate. 

I think that this type of stone was a map of the relevant surrounding area - a sacred map of the concentric circles of earthworks, raised mounds and barrows represented by their inverse of hollows, and the ritual paths - and perhaps waters - streams, lakes etc. - shown as lines and channels.  

I can easily picture a priest standing before the rock, holding a long wand, and pointing to the relevant elements as he chants a song been handed down orally, diligently learned during his initiatory apprenticeship; a song that describes the stages of a particular ritual in which movements through places correspond with movements of the mind; and where movements of the mind correspond to relationships with the spiritual realm... 

That's what I think 'rock art' is about - each such rock serving as a kind of spell-book or grimoire; for teaching - but mainly to re-enact mentally rituals that have-been, and will-be, enacted in the body and environment.

I think it is likely that voting - I mean, the participation in voting - has become (although it was not always thus) a Litmus Test of these times: evidence of de facto affiliation to the wrong side in the spiritual war. 

If you don't already understand why voting is immoral hence an evil activity, then you may like to consider some of the reasons. 

The fact that these evils are not instantly obvious, is evidence only of the degree of complicity in the corruption of our society - a society that has habituated us to all kinds of evil; including the idea that when we are not personally psychologically disturbed by some-thing, then that thing cannot be of significant importance. 

We argue from the numbing of our own capacity for moral discernment, to conclude that there is nothing important to discern! 

One clue to the evil of voting is that it is discussed (by all sides) purely in 'pragmatic' terms, as a means to an end. Among Christians and also conservatives, the discussion is how 'we' might vote in order to achieve Christian or conservative goals. The practice of voting is also defended using arguments of how much worse things would-be/ might-have-been had Christians/ conservatives Not voted. 

No matter how bad have become (I mean the actual results of decades of voting), no matter how adverse the societal and political trends (especially since 2020); it is always argued that things would have been even worse without Christian/ conservative votes. 

Voting is experience-proof. 

Regardless of outcomes; the assertion is that not to participate personally and willingly in whatever farce of legitimation is set in front of us by the Evil Establishment, is evidence of some kind of existential despair and refusal of responsibility! 

No matter how utterly corrupt are the actual processes of voting, and no matter how purposively-evil the persons and institutions that we are allowed to vote-for; the inference is always that we must just vote even harder - that voting will somehow, eventually, overcome all obstacles of systemic corruption - or at least will put-a-brake-on the rate of deterioration.

As if voting were the normal, responsible, and natural thing; and Not to vote was some kind of weirdly obtuse dereliction of duty! 

But (almost-always) voting is not an isolated act - voting constitutes part of a pattern of harmful attitudes and behaviours; including attention to the mainstream official process of lies and manipulations... candidate profiles, opinion polls, manifestos and speeches, pseudo-discussions of fake implications, conversations and debates about voting etc.  

In sum: participation in voting is the tip of an iceberg of increased immersion-in materialism, materialist explanations, and materialist hopes for betterment.  

Of course, merely Not voting does nothing. 

But if we refrain from voting for the right reasons, it will also be part of a pattern; Not-voting can be part of a recognition of the absolute requirement mentally to break-out-from the present System.  

Not-voting ought to be act of faith in the primacy and power of the spiritual; rooted in a recognition that all forms of continued cooperation with the System, validate and operate to sustain the System. 

Faith is needed because what will happen instead of voting will not be known until after voting has lost its legitimacy in our hearts. 

Only after ceasing to vote, and repudiating the pattern of attitudes and behaviours that sustains voting; will we come to recognize what we ought to be doing instead.   

After King Alfred the Great defeated the Viking King Guthrum, Guthrum underwent baptism to Christianity as a condition of surrender and treaty. 

The modern mind wonders whether such an apparently compelled conversion would have any meaning; and whether Guthrum was cynically pretending as he went through the ceremony. 

By my understanding; the mind of men of the Dark Ages did not work in that way. Modern Men cannot help but detach their actions (such as religious rituals) - from what they 'really' think. 

Modern Man divides the subjective state of mind, from the external and objective. 

But ancient Men's minds worked differently. For them, subjective and objective were not fully divisible; therefore ritual had an objective effect. 

The Christian martyrs of ancient times sometimes died rather than speak words that would deny Jesus, or burn incense to another God - this emphasizes that they could not and did not distinguish between word/ action and belief. If the martyrs had denied Christ verbally or participated in a false ritual - then they really would have been de-converted. 

Coupling of (what we now think of as) subjective with objective, dwindled through recorded history; but there was a residual linkage until the past few generations. 

For example; the speaking of an oath to tell the truth in a law court was regarded as an effective way of ensuring that truth was indeed spoken. Few would believe in the power of such an oath nowadays. 

This psychological fact-of-life was bound-up with the structure and function of churches in all the religions - and its dwindling, and now absence, is a major factor that underlies the collapse of 'institutional' Christianity - the inability of churches to compel doctrine, behaviour, allegiance, loyalty, obedience. 

It cuts both ways: 

On the one hand, modern Men cannot be converted to Christianity against their will: conversion is necessarily a choice. A modern Guthrum would need actively to want to be a Christian, to become a Christian. 

On the other hand, modern Men cannot be de-converted from Christianity by compelling them to say certain words or do certain things. A Christian would not lose his faith 'merely' by denying Christ or burning a pinch of pagan incense - for de-conversion to be real, such actions would need to be motivated by anti-Christian convictions. 

Modern Man has become immune to 'the sacred' - he cannot rely-upon 'the sacred' to induce a 'Holy' response in himself. On the other hand; the widespread and purposive, whether casual or malicious, desecrations enacted by the evil totalitarian System will surely sadden him, but they do not annihilate his capacity for faith. 

We are now personally responsible for our Christian faith - like it or not; there are neither compulsions nor excuses; the church can neither make-us nor break-us. 

There seems to be a lack of general awareness of the extent to which the Empire of Lies is escalating its material war with the Fire Nation - currently, there are major additions and incidents on a daily basis, accelerating - not flagging. 

'The material' is a sub-set of 'the spiritual' - so this is also and primarily an escalation of the spiritual war of this world. 

In this totalitarian and (willingly-) brainwashed world of The West; I can't see that there is much that you or I can do to prevent such deliberately ultra-high-risk material escalation (indeed, when the destructive intent from the globalist-satanists is so clear, the idea of 'risk' is inappropriate). 

After all; destruction is Much easier than creation. 

But anybody can (and instantly) do a great deal at the spiritual level to prevent the worst kind of harm of what may be impending - that is, the spiritual harm; any-one can prevent such harm and instead do real (and eternal) Good.

And/or anybody can/instantly make matters worse; by a personal refusal to understand, discern and choose the right side: i.e. the side of right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I regard Rudolf Steiner as having first made explicit one of the core tasks of modern Western Man: which is to become conscious of the thinking of our real-divine selves, and to make this the basis of a modern and unprecedented kind of 'spirituality' (or, by a new definition: mysticism). 

Or, in other words, our task is each to develop a spirituality of conscious thinking (which I have termed 'primary thinking'). 

Steiner's was a complete break with, almost a reversal of, the traditional and ancient aim of 'mysticism' - which was directed against thinking; against consciousness and 'the self' or 'ego'. 

Both traditional mysticism and Steiner are united in deploring the mundane and meaningless materialism of modern consciousness; but their suggested answers to the problem are almost opposites; and their interaction with materialism is also in stark contrast - with mysticism de facto sustaining, but Steiner's spirituality opposing, materialism. 

The traditional mystic attempts to return to the ancient state (and early childhood experience) of ceasing to be dominated by thoughts, ceasing to entertain 'ideas', discarding the self, losing individuality: ultimately immersing oneself unconsciously in life/ the divine - without separation, restoring primal oneness. 

At the end of his life; Steiner wrote a biography in which he attempted to reconstruct the movement of his thinking through the 1890s, when he realized that the revival of traditional mysticism would be mistaken. 

Steiner was convinced that the fullest and broadest possible awareness of the world of our ideas, of what is here termed the 'ideal' world could be the basis of a new spirituality or mysticism. In this passage 'ideal' thus means of the nature of 'ideas'

(I have somewhat edited this passage, hoping to enhance brevity and clarity.)  

**

At the close of this first stage of my life it became a question of inner necessity for me to attain a clearly defined position in relation to mysticism. 

As I considered the various epochs in the evolution of humanity - in Oriental Wisdom, in Neo-Platonism, in the Christian Middle Ages, in the endeavours of the Kabalists - it was only with the greatest difficulty that I, with my different temper of mind, could establish any relationship to it. 

The mystic seemed to me to be a man who failed to come into right relation to the world of ideas, in which for me the spiritual has its existence. I felt that it was a deficiency in real spirituality when, in order to attain satisfaction in one's ideas, one plunges into an inner world void of all ideas. In this I could see no road to light, but rather a way to spiritual darkness. 

The mystics desire living contact with the sources of human existence. And yet it was also clear to me that one arrives at the same kind of inner experience when one sinks down into the depths of the soul accompanied by the full and clear content of the ideal world, instead of stripping off this content when thus sinking into one's depths. 

By contrast; I desired to carry the light of the ideal world into the warmth of the inner experience. 

The mystic seemed to me to be a man who cannot perceive the spirit in ideas and who is therefore inwardly chilled by ideas. The coldness which he feels in ideas drives him to seek through an escape from ideas for the warmth of which the soul has need. 

As for myself, the warmth of my soul's experience increased in proportion as I shaped into definite ideas the previously indefinite experience of the spiritual world. 

I often said to myself: “How these mystics fail to understand the warmth, the mental intimacy, which one experiences when one lives in association with ideas permeated by the spiritual!” 

The mystics seemed to me to strengthen the position of the materialistically minded observer of nature instead of weakening it. 

The materialist objects to the observation of the spiritual world, either because he does not admit the existence of such a world, or else because he considers human understanding adapted to the physically visible one. He sets up boundaries of knowledge at that point where lie the boundaries of the physically perceptible. 

Yet the ordinary mystic is of the same opinion as the materialist as regards human ideal knowledge. He maintains that ideas do not extend to the spiritual, and therefore that in ideal knowledge man must always remain outside the spiritual. Since, however, he desires to attain to the spirit, he turns to an inner experience void of ideas. 

If anyone enters into the interior of his own soul without taking ideas with him, he thus arrives at the inner region of mere feeling. Such a person then says that the spiritual cannot be reached by a way which is called in ordinary life a way of knowledge, but that one must sink down from the sphere of knowledge into the sphere of the feelings in order to experience the spiritual. 

With such a view a materialistic observer of nature can declare himself in perfect agreement. He then sees in his system of ideas directed toward the things of sense the only justifiable basis for knowledge. For the materialist, the mystical relationship of man to the spirit is something merely personal, to which one is either inclined or not inclined according to one's temperament, but of which one can never speak in the same way as one speaks of the content of a “positive knowledge.” 

For the materialist, therefore; Man's relation to the spiritual should be relegated entirely to the sphere of “subjective feelings.” 

While I held this before my mind the forces within my soul which stood in opposition to the mystic grew steadily stronger. The perception of the spiritual in inner mental experience was to me far more certain than the perception of the things of sense; to place boundaries of knowledge before this mental experience was to me quite impossible. 

I objected with all positiveness to mere feeling as a way into the spiritual. 

I sought association with the spirit by means of spirit-illuminated ideas, whereas as the mystic seeks the spirit through association with the non-ideal. I also could say that my view rests upon “mystical” ideal experience.

**

My note:

Here we can see that Rudolf Steiner, writing about himself 130 years ago, was already aware that traditional (oneness-type) mysticism was compatible-with - indeed complementary to - the materialism of modern life. 

We can nowadays see that the 'oneness' spirituality of the kind extracted by Westerners from Eastern Religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism (known to Steiner from Theosophy) - and as now espoused by by New Age gurus, 'Perennialist' philosophers, and the 'mindfulness' trainers of corporate bureaucracy - comfortably goes-with and supports modern atheist-materialist-leftism. The 

Thus, on one side, the oneness spiritual people are nearly-all leftists who fail the Litmus Tests and thus support major strategies of the totalitarian-evil agenda... 

While on the other side; the leadership class of the leftist globalist totalitarians quite often espouse mystical/ oneness forms of "feeling but non-thinking" spirituality (King Charles being a prime, and topical, example).   

Therefore, Steiner enables us to understand how it is that generic 'spirituality' is insufficient either to resist, or to provide a positive alternative to, the crushing bureaucratic-media Matrix of these times. 

Indeed, it actually makes matters worse!  

A few greedy and psychopathically cruel people are making truly vast amounts of money from the birdemic and its peck, the Fire Nation war, Climate stuff, and the rest of it. 

But that is Not why these are happening. 

There are a lot of very foolish and short-sighted people in positions of multi-national national, institutional and corporate leadership. 

But blind stupidity is Not the originating cause of escalating global chaos. 

There is a much bigger picture, bigger than the whole world and Men's lives - a spiritual war on a cosmic scale, which is about the fate of eternal souls. 

The cosmic spiritual war is the primary cause of all these events and the impending catastrophic collapse. 

The Big Bad things are being done on-purpose and according to a plan. 

The ultimate cause of it all, is evil intent. 

 

And unless that cause is understood explicitly; and unless we commit our-selves to the side of Good - everything that people do, whatever the intention may be, will only continue to make matters worse.

This calendar year; I have become more aware of the increasing divergence of society between those who take the side of God and divine creation, and those who join the mainstream Establishment in opposition. 

What I find striking, is that the divergence is much deeper than a difference of opinion over whatever happen to be the Litmus Test Issues of the current news cycle. The litmus tests remain a highly valid quick check on a person's orientation; but they are the tip of a whole iceberg of difference.

There are two different icebergs, and only two; and these are being driven ever further apart.  

When one has a conversation, there is usually an attempt to keep the discussion light, neutral; which means avoiding subject matter that is likely to reveal the gulf in assumptions. 

But the System now encompasses everything in the generic social domain, which means that it is more and more difficult to avoid serious clashes of perspective. 

British people uses to chat about the weather - but the weather is now politicized down to the micro-level; with the evil nonsense of CO2 Climate Change an explicit, or heavily underlined implicit, factor lurking behind all weather reports, and interpersonal gossip. 

The only relatively safe areas are 'hobbies' - but, of course, these tend to be distinctive, minority activities. And, of course, hobbies are ever-more infiltrated with leftist concerns: officially; cricket is nowadays mostly about 'racism' and the birdemic. 

This is what totalitarianism does, by intent: sooner or later every-thing is drawn into The System, and The System is enforced as a mutually-supporting network of lies. 

What I find happens, is that almost every conversation - as it continues - leads me towards a creeping awareness that the other participant is living in a different and alien world - which has an utterly different scale of values; in which The Most Important and urgent things in their world are falsehoods and moral-inversions.

Whereas real threats and disasters - either incipient, already-happened, actually-happening or highly probable - are either completely left-out of consciousness; or swiftly explained away as not-really-important, or of concern only to fools and those of wicked intent.

There is a sense of danger i conversation, as well; in that there are so many potential 'triggers'. 

Whenever the conversation begins, even potentially, to approach one of these 'denial-zones', there is a triggering, an instantaneous shift - a sudden flash of suspicion, a hardening of the facial expression, a closing down of mental (and conversational) shutters. 

The sensation is that one has been tested - and found wanting - and excluded.

From my perspective, there is now a conviction of living in a world of aliens; of individuals who look like people, and superficially act like them; but whose consciousness is qualitatively different.  

Observing the conversations of others who dwell inside the alien bubble; there seems to be a determination to seek and maintain as pleasant-as-possible a diet of distractions  - to recycle and reinforce the necessary assumptions behind the mainstream of public discourse. 

This happens mainly by reducing all 'issues' to the inter-personal; and to assuming that the inter-personal is inevitably as-it-is. 

Thus all problems are, ultimately, regarded as a matter of 'personnel management'. Problems are to be managed, not solved. 

For me, there is no real contact with the majority who have made this choice - only rarely a few sparks and glimmers, that have little apparent significance. 

At some level I yearn to be able to get-behind the protective façade, to reveal and discuss those fundamentals that structure all the trivialities; but the task seems more hopeless, more counter-productive, the more one tries.

There is no way-in: they are pre-immunized against everything I might say to describe and advocate another way of thinking.

In a nutshell, I have no hope that I personally can affect such a situation by my conversation. 

In terms of material interaction; I can either make no difference, or I can (easily!) make things worse; but I can't make things better!  

The basis of my genuine hope is restricted to those I really love (not those who I am supposed to love, nor persons/ groups who I merely want to love); restricted to those I 'love already' as it were -- and these I believe I can help in the invisible and immaterial realm of the spirit - by means of the mutuality of real love. 

But mostly I have the conviction that - from where most people seem to be - people can only help themselves and cannot be helped by any external and material changes; self-helped beginning with taking ultimate responsibility each for his own mortal life on earth. 

I have often written about forgiveness on this blog, because I think the Christian injunction to forgive is widely and profoundly misunderstood - and not only by non-Christians.  

The reason that Christians are called upon to forgive everybody and every-thing is that the alternative is to nurse resentment, which is bad for us - is indeed a sin, and one of the commonest (because officially encouraged) in this time-and-place. 

There is no place for resentment in Heaven; so to enter Heaven we must be prepared to give-up all our resentments; and insofar as we harbour resentments during our mortal lives, then so much the worse for us. 

Almost always, resentment harms ourselves, and does nothing whatsoever to whoever is resented. 

For example, it is common to continue resenting people long after they have died - sometimes for many generations or centuries.

Resentment is therefore on the spectrum of that worst of sins: spite - whereby the desire to harm others is more powerful than even the desire to benefit oneself. Resentment is like that. It is a willingness to orientate one's life around negative desires for another person or people. 

So, forgiveness is simply a recognition that resentment is a sin and does us harm; and repenting any resentments we feel. 

This means that forgiveness has nothing to do with remitting just punishments, nor has it anything to do with forgetting - and failing to learn from - the harms that others have done to us. 

Obviously, Christians need to learn from our experiences in life; and when other people have lied to us, stolen from us, assaulted us, tried to make us miserable or to destroy that which we most value - it would be idiotic to pretend this never happened! 

As for other people asking us for forgiveness... well they shouldn't do it; and they would not do it unless they were deceitfully trying to manipulate others for their own benefit. 

Anyone asking another human being for forgiveness is on the wrong side in the spiritual war. They should be asking God for forgiveness.

But even then, God Just Is merciful; so that forgiveness by God is a non-problem for anyone who has recognized their own sin and repented it. 

Repeatedly begging God for the forgiveness promised by Jesus Christ to all who repent, seems likely to be a problem of not-really-repenting - and then asking to have the fact ignored. 

If someone wants to repent, but somehow can't - then they should be repenting their failure to repent - and not psychologically-groveling to be forgiven despite not repenting!

Owen Barfield's master work is probably Saving the Appearances (1957). It is beautifully written, but not an easy read - not easy to understand in its implications. 

Yet if it can be grasped in its properly Christian implications, and if this understanding can be brought into everyday living; StA can be an instantly and lastingly, positively-life-transforming book!

Perhaps its core message is that we are co-creators of the world as we know it. 

This means that - as wee look around us, that tree, cloud, river, or office block - are all knowable as such only by our personal contribution. 

Whatever raw-reality is purely 'out there' has no meaning, it is a mere chaos - and it is Man's consciousness that (in context of the primary reality of divine creation - a creation in which we necessarily share as children of God) makes it possible to perceive one thing as different from another; to recognize, to know. 

This can be an inspiring way of living! 

If we are confronted by some beautiful landscape or work of art, then we should realize that we have been a necessary part of making it so. Beauty is not just out-there, but also in-here. 

This is an immensely encouraging fact to bring to mind - and certainly good for one's mental health!

On the flipside, because modern Man has a very high degree of agency, and is cut-off from spontaneous immersion in divine creation; this 'making of the world' has become for us (substantially) an active and conscious choice. 

We participate in ugliness, in immortality, in lies - much as we participate in the highest and best values.  

We are personally responsible for co-creating evil, as we are for participating in the reality of good. 

Yet, by Barfield's account; this does not leave us helplessly torn between good and evil; but able to choose between them. 

We - each and personally - choose whether to make our commitment, our affiliation - to the one... or to the other. 

Indeed (here and now, at this phase in our development), if we are to affiliate to good, this must be a conscious choice; whereas if we refuse to make a choice, then we are doomed passively to absorb whatever evil The World happens to be pushing upon us. 

(We could think about this in terms of the concepts by which we understand the facts of the world. Either we choose to understand the world in terms of the concepts of divine creation; or else we will by-default understand the world by the concepts which dominate public discourse - via the mass media, state bureaucracy, corporations; the arts, educational and research systems etc.)

Thus Barfield provides both a conceptual framework by which we can - in our actual lived experience - know that we are essential co-creators - in part - of the world around us; so we know ourselves to be involved in the world: in that landscape, makers of that painting, creators of that insight... 

And also Barfield provides the basis for understanding that we are free - we deserve credit exactly because we deserve blame; responsibility is another word for freedom. 

Our conscious choices do not just affect the world; they make the world. 

When I am confronted by a claim about the nature of Christianity; I have a test that I derived from the work of William Arkle: so I call it The Arkle Test. 

The basis of the test is several assumptions concerning the nature and purposes of God, and God's relationship with Men. 

These are all assumptions I find to be supported in the Fourth Gospel in particular, some other parts of the New Testament, some Christian traditions and theology; but mainly by my own personal and intuitive reflection (i.e. by personal revelation and intuition).

What this primary and ultimate reliance upon personal discernment means, and what lies behind the Arkle Test; is that we each need to know God as a person, in order to know about God. 

For Christians (in particular); God ought to be someone experienced, not something inferred.  

The basic assumptions include that God is the creator, and that he stands in relation to Men as that of ideal loving parents with their children; including the hope that at least some of these children will develop and grow-up to be adults at the same level of maturity. 

Thus God hopes for His children to become 'creator gods' like himself - and God created this reality accordingly. 

In a nutshell: Arkle sees The Family as the 'master key' to understanding God's purposes and therefore the world. 

Such an idea of God's nature and motivations can be used to discern and understand statements that purport to describe this world, including Christianity.  

For example; when someone describes this mortal life and world as a moral obstacle course, or a series of tests, which must be overcome for us to achieve salvation (i.e. resurrected eternal life) - I think this is a wrong understanding. 

The Arkle Test tells us that, given God's nature and purposes, he desires that as many Men as possible should achieve salvation. Salvation should therefore be understood as a choice, not as an achievement. 

The correct way is to regard mortal life positively, as a school or a university aiming at our development and improvement; an educational process that is directed at theosis (i.e. becoming more God-like). 

While testing is an important part of education, it is the 'curriculum' of 'educative experiences' that is primary. A well-motivated person can be educated without any testing; but he cannot be educated without appropriate experiences.

We would therefore expect God's main activity to be a matter of providing each Man with the experiences from-which he can (potentially) learn; rather than in setting-up tests. 

Another example is the (historically common) claim that the highest and best Christian life is monasticism - with its aspects such as discipline and obedience, ritual, and asceticism. 

Monasticism always has been (and only can be) a small minority activity (at most, a few percent of the population - usually much less); partly because monasticism requires a specific profile of substantially innate personal attributes: such attributes as self-control, will power, conscientiousness, submission to the needs of groups and authority etc. 

To put it differently; most Men are innately unsuitable for monasticism; and their dispositions and abilities are quite different, and often opposed to monastic requirements. 

The Arkle Test - by which (through our own shared, parent-child, divine qualities) we identify with God's nature and intent; tells us that monasticism cannot be the intent, certainly not a necessity, for Men-in-general to attain salvation. 

Men are born too various, and the world too various (often too hostile), for there to be any single 'template' for salvation. God created Men and this world; and He did not create a world suitable for monasticism to be the default path to salvation. 

It is common, indeed usual, for a church to claim that it is (in some ways, or completely) necessary for salvation. (Or, in the case of the Mormon church, necessarily for the highest degrees of theosis.)

The Arkle Test notices that this would mean that most Men in the world and throughout history would thereby be excluded from salvation, and greatly impaired in terms of theosis. A loving God who regards all Men as His children would not set-up such a world: God would not have Men born and live only to be damned inevitably. 

Therefore, it must be that God has 'placed' Men in specific situations, in which each man or woman can achieve salvation in accordance with innate nature - whatever the society, institutions and circumstances that surround him or her. 

This makes sense if salvation is understood as a choice, and when the final choice to accept or reject resurrection (and its conditions) can be post-mortal - after biological death, when relevant knowledge can be universally available. 

The point of the Arkle Test is that - whether such a scheme is exactly correct or not - this is the kind of set-up that a loving God may have used, so as to ensure that 'accidents of birth' are not fatal in condemning any individual to damnation. 

Arkle's family metaphor - applied to God who is the primary creator of reality - confirms that no parent would bring a child into the world unless that child had (first and foremost) some chance of salvation; although equally family life tells us that some children are innately more inclined to good while others are a predisposition to evil. 

Nor would such a loving creator sustain the life of any Man unless there was potential for him or her to learn valuable lessons from the actual experiences of his individual life. 

Or else, life might be sustained in order for someone who has (at this point) rejected salvation and chosen damnation; to have a chance to change his mind, in response to further life experiences. 

If there is no potential to learn (or if there has already been enough learning) then it would be time to die. 

It is the contention of Romantic Christianity that - here and now, at this stage in human consciousness and these End Times - each Man must discover the truth of Christianity for himself; and must use his personal discernment to navigate among the conflicting and often false claims of the various Christian churches and theologies. 

The Arkle Test is one possible way to do this.

Although nothing can match Blackcurrant Tango; this is another all-time favourite TV advert which is a perfectly-constructed mini-narrative: