*
I do it myself! - examples are all over this blog: when I am trying to understand or explain God, I feel drawn into using physics-type or mathematical models and metaphors.
Of course it goes back to (what is known of) the earliest Greek philosophers - who regarded ultimate reality in physicsy ways - as elements such as fire and water, in terms of processes such as movement or stasis...
There isn't so much of this in the Bible - but it is there, for example in the use of Light and Dark as primary metaphors.
*
Yet, is this really helpful?
Does it not usually amount to explaining one difficult-to-understand thing, by employing some even-more-difficult-to-understand-thing?
I have myself, on this blog, have tried to explain the peculiarities of mortal life compared with Heavenly Life, and of the nature of dreams, in terms of the theory of General Relativity...
*
Yes, I know that physics and mathematics are capable of great precision of expression; but it is an immovable fact is that not many people really understand these matters - even/ especially the people who deploy physics professionally seldom have a true grasp.
It would surely be better to use biology or psychology as our main metaphors - since these are more comprehensible - but then there is 'physics envy' (analogous to Freud's - nonsensical- concept of 'penis envy'), to which thoughtful biological scientists allegedly tend to be prone...
*
And perhaps, especially among intellectuals, there is a yearning towards impersonal abstraction as being the bottom-line of life - as the final and secure escape from mortal, worldly suffering: this seems like the motivation behind the main 'Eastern religions' such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and behind the deisitic/ Platonic religion of physicists such as Einstein and Roger Penrose.
But Christianity is about a personal God, and His personal incarnate mortal life, and has at its centre the personal 'emotion' of Love.
So what is Christianity doing, dabbling in physics as its bottom line explanatory model?
Good question!
*
Thursday 11 December 2014
Wednesday 10 December 2014
Did Jesus's public ministry begin because Joseph had died, and Jesus therefore became the heir to David's throne: rightful King of the Jews?
*
Following on from:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/jesus-was-literally-king-of-jews-by.html
When his legal Father Joseph died, Jesus then became the rightful heir of, or at least a credible claimant to, the throne of Israel; King of the Jews, by his lineal descent from David.
So, at that point, and with that status, he entered and began his ministry.
?
Seems to make sense...
*
Following on from:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/jesus-was-literally-king-of-jews-by.html
When his legal Father Joseph died, Jesus then became the rightful heir of, or at least a credible claimant to, the throne of Israel; King of the Jews, by his lineal descent from David.
So, at that point, and with that status, he entered and began his ministry.
?
Seems to make sense...
*
The Compleat Lecturer
*
The beginning of an on-going mini-booklet in which I try to encapsulate my 'philosophy' of lecturing - which was implicitly the mainstream in my medical school of 35 years ago - following on from a few hundred years of tradition. Now, however, I am left as, apparently, the one and only practitioner of the art and craft in the vicinity.
http://baronofjesmond.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-compleat-lecturer-concise-guide-to.html
When I read descriptions of the great lecturers of the past, such as CS Lewis - who for a couple of decades was reputed to be the best in Oxford - I find it impossible to imagine them creating the same kind of impact by flicking through 'Powerpoint' slides in a pitch dark room, themselves invisible, and their amplified words intoned via a surround-sound public address system; their students not writing anything for themselves, not creating their own personal set of notes (treasured ever after); but instead passively watching a glowing screen and listening to a droning, disembodied voice - or else surreptitiously browsing the internet and social messaging.
It is the difference between actual teaching and learning, here and now; and 'I can always read the handouts later, or watch the video online' - but never actually getting down to the mentally-hard business of paying intense attention, and focusing exclusively on the matter in hand.
*
The beginning of an on-going mini-booklet in which I try to encapsulate my 'philosophy' of lecturing - which was implicitly the mainstream in my medical school of 35 years ago - following on from a few hundred years of tradition. Now, however, I am left as, apparently, the one and only practitioner of the art and craft in the vicinity.
http://baronofjesmond.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-compleat-lecturer-concise-guide-to.html
When I read descriptions of the great lecturers of the past, such as CS Lewis - who for a couple of decades was reputed to be the best in Oxford - I find it impossible to imagine them creating the same kind of impact by flicking through 'Powerpoint' slides in a pitch dark room, themselves invisible, and their amplified words intoned via a surround-sound public address system; their students not writing anything for themselves, not creating their own personal set of notes (treasured ever after); but instead passively watching a glowing screen and listening to a droning, disembodied voice - or else surreptitiously browsing the internet and social messaging.
It is the difference between actual teaching and learning, here and now; and 'I can always read the handouts later, or watch the video online' - but never actually getting down to the mentally-hard business of paying intense attention, and focusing exclusively on the matter in hand.
*
"No one is more merciless than a Goliath who thinks he’s a David"
*
A perfect explanation for the hysterical, un-proportionate and unrestrained, aggression of the modern, politically correct Left.
The author of this definitive bon mot is 'MC' - one of the bloggers at Junior Ganymede; and it comes in the course of a posting concerning recent mass media-driven agitprop/ subversion within the CJCLDS:
http://www.jrganymede.com/2014/12/09/whos-your-ingroup-anyway
*
A perfect explanation for the hysterical, un-proportionate and unrestrained, aggression of the modern, politically correct Left.
The author of this definitive bon mot is 'MC' - one of the bloggers at Junior Ganymede; and it comes in the course of a posting concerning recent mass media-driven agitprop/ subversion within the CJCLDS:
http://www.jrganymede.com/2014/12/09/whos-your-ingroup-anyway
*
Is this the most beautiful baritone 'aria' you never heard of?
*
The Qui Tollis from Haydn's Paukenmesse - starting about 2:27.
I only happen to know this because I sang tenor in the chorus of this Mass for a school production: one of the most enjoyable choral experiences of my life.
The baritone solo was done by Nigel Townsend, my favourite music teacher, and he sung it beautifully.
*
The Qui Tollis from Haydn's Paukenmesse - starting about 2:27.
I only happen to know this because I sang tenor in the chorus of this Mass for a school production: one of the most enjoyable choral experiences of my life.
The baritone solo was done by Nigel Townsend, my favourite music teacher, and he sung it beautifully.
*
Tuesday 9 December 2014
Jesus was literally King of the Jews, by genealogical descent - says James E Talmage
*
This is an idea that, for whatever reason - but rather shockingly it now seems to me, has never crossed my mind: I mean the idea that Jesus would have been the actual, earthly King of the Jews; were it not for the Roman takeover.
If this is correct, then it puts a very different perspective on some of the events described in the New Testament: allowing them to be taken at face value, rather than figuratively.
*
This is an idea that, for whatever reason - but rather shockingly it now seems to me, has never crossed my mind: I mean the idea that Jesus would have been the actual, earthly King of the Jews; were it not for the Roman takeover.
If this is correct, then it puts a very different perspective on some of the events described in the New Testament: allowing them to be taken at face value, rather than figuratively.
*
Two genealogical records, purporting to give the lineage of Jesus are found in the New Testament, one in the first chapter of Matthew, the other in the third chapter of Luke...
The all important fact to be remembered is that the Child promised by Gabriel to Mary, the virginal bride of Joseph, would be born in the royal line. A personal genealogy of Joseph was essentially that of Mary also, for they were cousins... That Mary was of Davidic descent is plainly set forth in many scriptures; for since Jesus was to be born of Mary, yet was not begotten by Joseph, who was the reputed, and, according to the law of the Jews, the legal, father, the blood of David's posterity was given to the body of Jesus through Mary alone.
Our Lord, though repeatedly addressed as Son of David, never repudiated the title but accepted it as rightly applied to Himself. Apostolic testimony stands in positive assertion of the royal heirship of Christ through earthly lineage, as witness the affirmation of Paul, the scholarly Pharisee: "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;" and again: "Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead."
In all the persecutions waged by His implacable haters,[Pg 87] in all the false accusations brought against Him, in the specific charges of sacrilege and blasphemy based on His acknowledgment of the Messiahship as His own, no mention is found of even an insinuation that He could not be the Christ through any ineligibility based on lineage. Genealogy was assiduously cared for by the Jews before, during, and after the time of Christ; indeed their national history was largely genealogical record; and any possibility of denying the Christ because of unattested descent would have been used to the fullest extent by insistent Pharisee, learned scribe, haughty rabbi, and aristocratic Sadducee.
At the time of the Savior's birth, Israel was ruled by alien monarchs. The rights of the royal Davidic family were unrecognized; and the ruler of the Jews was an appointee of Rome.
Had Judah been a free and independent nation, ruled by her rightful sovereign, Joseph the carpenter would have been her crowned king; and his lawful successor to the throne would have been Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
Had Judah been a free and independent nation, ruled by her rightful sovereign, Joseph the carpenter would have been her crowned king; and his lawful successor to the throne would have been Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
From Jesus the Christ by James E Talmage, 1922
The saddest thing of the past 25 years - the unthinking, unrepented, almost universal drift Leftward of once-decent people and institutions into a whirlpool of the inversion of Good
*
The title says it. Over the past 25 years or so, I have watched appalled as almost every person and institution that previously I respected and admired, or even loved, has gone over to the dark side. This has been a terribly sad thing.
It is not that these people and groups have nothing good in them - of course they do. But it is a matter of balance - what once did more good then harm, had the heart in the right place; now does more harm than good, and the heart is fixed upon lies.
The people and institutions have succumbed to the inversion of Good: they have substantially relabelled virtue as wicked and vice as the-new-good; they have become habitually dishonest, systematically exaggerating their positives and deliberately concealing their negatives; they pronounce ugliness to be beautiful, and give awards to the hideous and soul-destroying anti-aestheic worlds they make.
People who were once sensible and decent, organizations that were once working for sensible and decent goals, have thus by increments capitulated to the prevalent secular, Leftist evils; ideas that are superficially merely wrong or nonsensical or 'a matter of opinion' but which - once adopted - reveal themselves to be malignant cancers, actively and pervasively and terminally-destructive of Goodness in its manifestations.
*
It is like (and perhaps not just 'like') demonic possession: once fine churches, colleges, hospitals, schools, charities, professions like medicine and law... now spewing slight variations on the same corrosive stuff about diversity, social justice, global warming, inclusiveness...
If you want a clear example of great goodness turned to the service of evil, take a look at the web pages of The Salvation Army: http://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/ - it is all there, all the hype, the weasel words - the fingerprints of a modern Leftist bureaucracy corrupted by state subsidies and indistinguishable from the propaganda of government offices. [See note below.]
In fact take a look at the web pages of any and all large and powerful organizations and you will nearly-always see exactly the same underlying purpose at work.
*
And this has most often happened without any observable crisis, and without much in the way of objection - no visible or audible protest beyond a few private grumbles.
And - having been very thoroughly corrupted - there is no perceptible awareness among persons or organization that they have, in fact, changed sides - that they are no longer even trying to do what once they were trying to do; but are now dominated by the slogans and pseudo-goals of a political correctness which is almost wholly dishonest and destructive.
And without such awareness, there seems no prospect of repentance.
*
All this is terribly sad to me - a population, including many friends and ex-mentors, that has slid insensibly into very thorough, very comprehensive wickedness.
The main explanation is - I think - weakness; the weakness that comes from lack of roots - and the lack of roots from a lack of faith in anything real, objective, solid. In this respect the adherents of 'liberal' religion are indistinguishable from the prevalent agnosticism, atheism and New Age spirituality - all have drifted down the same slippery slope at the same rate and ended up in the same place of corruption, and flaccid, spiteful, aimless destruction of the Good.
So, the sadness is that so much which I thought strong was not strong; so much that I thought brave was not brave, so much that I thought principled was not principled.
*
These are not men and women who have been broken by the system, crushed by overwhelming forces; rather, they are men and women who drifted feebly into corruption by incremental steps; because they were simply floating, bobbing-along like a buoy broken from its anchor, in an increasingly wicked world - floating, especially, in that sea of lies, sensation and despair that is the mass media.
The mass media has carried almost everybody and every organization into this deeply sad state of hollow horribleness, which is in fact a maelstrom, a whirlpool downward - so that there is an acceleration, and more powerful suction, as time goes by.
And - even worse - even among those who are not in that state, almost all people and institutions that remain on the side of net-Good are perceptibly drifting towards that whirlpool: it is a matter of 'not yet' rather than of them holding firm.
*
This situation provides near certain grounds for pessimism: for believing that things will get worse; but it is not, after all, grounds for despair.
This passage from the Gospel of John (Chapter 10: 26-30) explains why: it is a source of immediate consolation, and solid grounds for ultimate hope. Jesus is speaking:
Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.
*
No matter what kind of world we live in, no matter if everyone around us has fallen; if we hear and follow our Lord then his hand is about us - and nothing on earth can pluck us from his hand.
We are ultimately safe. We have hope based on that certainty.
And that certainty is what motivates, en-courages and enables us to fight back; to look about us at what may be done, and do what we personally can, in what manner we personally can, to save some others.
*
Added: I used always to be referencing Nihilism by Eugene Rose (later Father Seraphim Rose) - but I still regard this small book as the best and deepest description of the scope and nature of that modern malaise which I call secular Leftism (or political correctness).
http://www.oodegr.co/english/filosofia/nihilism_root_modern_age.htm#V.
Inter alia he explains why the above mass apostasy from The Good has happened, even/ especially among erstwhile kindly, decent folk:
Nihilism has become, in our time, so widespread and pervasive, has entered so thoroughly and so deeply into the minds and hearts of all men living today, that there is no longer any "front" on which it may be fought; and those who think they are fighting it are most often using its own weapons, which they in effect turn against themselves...
Nihilism is but one side of [the modern] Revolution. Violence and negation are, to be sure, a preliminary work; but this work is only part of a much larger plan whose end promises to be, not something better, but something incomparably worse than the age of Nihilism. If in our own times there are signs that the era of violence and negation is passing, this is by no means because Nihilism is being "overcome" or "outgrown," but because its work is all but completed and its usefulness is at an end. The Revolution, perhaps, begins to move out of its malevolent phase and into a more "benevolent" one--not because it has changed its will or its direction, but because it is nearing the attainment of the ultimate goal which it has never ceased to pursue; fat with its success, it can prepare to relax in the enjoyment of this goal...
Nihilism is, most profoundly, a spiritual disorder, and it can be overcome only by spiritual means; and there has been no attempt whatever in the contemporary world to apply such means.
*
Note: Since I browsed the Salvation Army website yesterday, I have been 'spammed' with advertising from them, asking for money, situated on numerous of the web pages I have looked at - presumably via a cookie. This kind of high pressure marketing pretty much says it all that needs to be said about what has become of the Salvation Army.
The title says it. Over the past 25 years or so, I have watched appalled as almost every person and institution that previously I respected and admired, or even loved, has gone over to the dark side. This has been a terribly sad thing.
It is not that these people and groups have nothing good in them - of course they do. But it is a matter of balance - what once did more good then harm, had the heart in the right place; now does more harm than good, and the heart is fixed upon lies.
The people and institutions have succumbed to the inversion of Good: they have substantially relabelled virtue as wicked and vice as the-new-good; they have become habitually dishonest, systematically exaggerating their positives and deliberately concealing their negatives; they pronounce ugliness to be beautiful, and give awards to the hideous and soul-destroying anti-aestheic worlds they make.
People who were once sensible and decent, organizations that were once working for sensible and decent goals, have thus by increments capitulated to the prevalent secular, Leftist evils; ideas that are superficially merely wrong or nonsensical or 'a matter of opinion' but which - once adopted - reveal themselves to be malignant cancers, actively and pervasively and terminally-destructive of Goodness in its manifestations.
*
It is like (and perhaps not just 'like') demonic possession: once fine churches, colleges, hospitals, schools, charities, professions like medicine and law... now spewing slight variations on the same corrosive stuff about diversity, social justice, global warming, inclusiveness...
If you want a clear example of great goodness turned to the service of evil, take a look at the web pages of The Salvation Army: http://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/ - it is all there, all the hype, the weasel words - the fingerprints of a modern Leftist bureaucracy corrupted by state subsidies and indistinguishable from the propaganda of government offices. [See note below.]
In fact take a look at the web pages of any and all large and powerful organizations and you will nearly-always see exactly the same underlying purpose at work.
*
And this has most often happened without any observable crisis, and without much in the way of objection - no visible or audible protest beyond a few private grumbles.
And - having been very thoroughly corrupted - there is no perceptible awareness among persons or organization that they have, in fact, changed sides - that they are no longer even trying to do what once they were trying to do; but are now dominated by the slogans and pseudo-goals of a political correctness which is almost wholly dishonest and destructive.
And without such awareness, there seems no prospect of repentance.
*
All this is terribly sad to me - a population, including many friends and ex-mentors, that has slid insensibly into very thorough, very comprehensive wickedness.
The main explanation is - I think - weakness; the weakness that comes from lack of roots - and the lack of roots from a lack of faith in anything real, objective, solid. In this respect the adherents of 'liberal' religion are indistinguishable from the prevalent agnosticism, atheism and New Age spirituality - all have drifted down the same slippery slope at the same rate and ended up in the same place of corruption, and flaccid, spiteful, aimless destruction of the Good.
So, the sadness is that so much which I thought strong was not strong; so much that I thought brave was not brave, so much that I thought principled was not principled.
*
These are not men and women who have been broken by the system, crushed by overwhelming forces; rather, they are men and women who drifted feebly into corruption by incremental steps; because they were simply floating, bobbing-along like a buoy broken from its anchor, in an increasingly wicked world - floating, especially, in that sea of lies, sensation and despair that is the mass media.
The mass media has carried almost everybody and every organization into this deeply sad state of hollow horribleness, which is in fact a maelstrom, a whirlpool downward - so that there is an acceleration, and more powerful suction, as time goes by.
And - even worse - even among those who are not in that state, almost all people and institutions that remain on the side of net-Good are perceptibly drifting towards that whirlpool: it is a matter of 'not yet' rather than of them holding firm.
*
This situation provides near certain grounds for pessimism: for believing that things will get worse; but it is not, after all, grounds for despair.
This passage from the Gospel of John (Chapter 10: 26-30) explains why: it is a source of immediate consolation, and solid grounds for ultimate hope. Jesus is speaking:
Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.
*
No matter what kind of world we live in, no matter if everyone around us has fallen; if we hear and follow our Lord then his hand is about us - and nothing on earth can pluck us from his hand.
We are ultimately safe. We have hope based on that certainty.
And that certainty is what motivates, en-courages and enables us to fight back; to look about us at what may be done, and do what we personally can, in what manner we personally can, to save some others.
*
Added: I used always to be referencing Nihilism by Eugene Rose (later Father Seraphim Rose) - but I still regard this small book as the best and deepest description of the scope and nature of that modern malaise which I call secular Leftism (or political correctness).
http://www.oodegr.co/english/filosofia/nihilism_root_modern_age.htm#V.
Inter alia he explains why the above mass apostasy from The Good has happened, even/ especially among erstwhile kindly, decent folk:
Nihilism has become, in our time, so widespread and pervasive, has entered so thoroughly and so deeply into the minds and hearts of all men living today, that there is no longer any "front" on which it may be fought; and those who think they are fighting it are most often using its own weapons, which they in effect turn against themselves...
Nihilism is but one side of [the modern] Revolution. Violence and negation are, to be sure, a preliminary work; but this work is only part of a much larger plan whose end promises to be, not something better, but something incomparably worse than the age of Nihilism. If in our own times there are signs that the era of violence and negation is passing, this is by no means because Nihilism is being "overcome" or "outgrown," but because its work is all but completed and its usefulness is at an end. The Revolution, perhaps, begins to move out of its malevolent phase and into a more "benevolent" one--not because it has changed its will or its direction, but because it is nearing the attainment of the ultimate goal which it has never ceased to pursue; fat with its success, it can prepare to relax in the enjoyment of this goal...
Nihilism is, most profoundly, a spiritual disorder, and it can be overcome only by spiritual means; and there has been no attempt whatever in the contemporary world to apply such means.
The Nihilist disease is apparently to be left to "develop" to its very end; the goal of the Revolution, originally the hallucination of a few fevered minds, has now become the goal of humanity itself. Men have become weary; the Kingdom of God is too distant, the Orthodox Christian way is too narrow and arduous. The Revolution has captured the "spirit of the age," and to go against this powerful current is more than modern men can do, for it requires precisely the two things most thoroughly annihilated by Nihilism: Truth and faith.
*
Note: Since I browsed the Salvation Army website yesterday, I have been 'spammed' with advertising from them, asking for money, situated on numerous of the web pages I have looked at - presumably via a cookie. This kind of high pressure marketing pretty much says it all that needs to be said about what has become of the Salvation Army.
Monday 8 December 2014
The reality of Destiny entails belief in a personal deity (albeit, perhaps implicitly)
*
My family has been enjoying re-watching (on DVD) the 2008 BBC series of Merlin, each episode of which begins with a voice-over (from the magical dragon):
In a land of myth, and a time of magic, the Destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy. His name... Merlin.
In this series there is an interesting difference between the surface and depth. On the surface all references to religion in the court of Camelot have been excluded: there are no priests, to the extent that when Arthur is crowned it is done by the castle librarian (mischievously named Geoffrey of Monmouth)!
But, because the whole story arc is driven by the entwined Destiny of Merlin and Arthur, although no official religion is mentioned, nonetheless a benign deity is necessarily implied by the reality of Destiny.
*
It seems that when it comes to serious imaginative literature, Destiny is a necessity - whether it is given a name or simply assumed - as in Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter. And where there is Destiny there must be deity; and not just any deity but a personal god.
Because Destiny necessarily implies that the world is planned with a purpose that includes both the group (society) and also the individual - and this can only be a consequence of there being a god with a personal concern with both 'nations' and individual persons; and both power and the will to plan and shape multiple events of the world.
Of course, many people who believe in Destiny - or behave or create in ways that demonstrate such an implicit belief - would deny a belief in deity, and perhaps especially deny a belief in a personal god.
Nevertheless, that is exactly what they are assuming; and their failure to recognize and acknowledge the fact must be a failure of rational consistency or of honesty.
*
On this basis, an implicit belief in a personal god is much more common than would be suspected. For instance, anyone who really believes in the validity of the Hero Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhk4N9A0oCA
is covertly a believer in personal deity.
So, rationally, such a person's next step ought to be to understand, to find out more about, this personal god in which they already believe.
*
Previous reference: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/his-name-lermin.html
*
My family has been enjoying re-watching (on DVD) the 2008 BBC series of Merlin, each episode of which begins with a voice-over (from the magical dragon):
In a land of myth, and a time of magic, the Destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy. His name... Merlin.
In this series there is an interesting difference between the surface and depth. On the surface all references to religion in the court of Camelot have been excluded: there are no priests, to the extent that when Arthur is crowned it is done by the castle librarian (mischievously named Geoffrey of Monmouth)!
But, because the whole story arc is driven by the entwined Destiny of Merlin and Arthur, although no official religion is mentioned, nonetheless a benign deity is necessarily implied by the reality of Destiny.
*
It seems that when it comes to serious imaginative literature, Destiny is a necessity - whether it is given a name or simply assumed - as in Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter. And where there is Destiny there must be deity; and not just any deity but a personal god.
Because Destiny necessarily implies that the world is planned with a purpose that includes both the group (society) and also the individual - and this can only be a consequence of there being a god with a personal concern with both 'nations' and individual persons; and both power and the will to plan and shape multiple events of the world.
Of course, many people who believe in Destiny - or behave or create in ways that demonstrate such an implicit belief - would deny a belief in deity, and perhaps especially deny a belief in a personal god.
Nevertheless, that is exactly what they are assuming; and their failure to recognize and acknowledge the fact must be a failure of rational consistency or of honesty.
*
On this basis, an implicit belief in a personal god is much more common than would be suspected. For instance, anyone who really believes in the validity of the Hero Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhk4N9A0oCA
is covertly a believer in personal deity.
So, rationally, such a person's next step ought to be to understand, to find out more about, this personal god in which they already believe.
*
Previous reference: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/his-name-lermin.html
*
God is, and must be, both out-with and with-in us. Christians need to be more explicit about God within us
*
When Christians think of God - we should do so from a dual perspective that he is both out-there - external to us; and also within us - inside our awareness.
(We are Sons and Daughters of God: that is how God is IN us.)
However, the externality of God has been much more greatly emphasized in Christianity, to the point that it has been seen as a religion of 'some God up-there in Heaven, telling us what to do' - because the externality of God has in times and places been used to make a religion of rules and obedience only.
By contrast, 'Eastern' religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism often have a much stronger emphasis on a god-within - that we are ourselves gods, and that the way to contact the gods is to look within - by meditation and spiritual disciplines.
*
In the nineteen fifties and sixties, the spiritualism of the time made much of this difference between Western Christianity with its God out-there, and Eastern mystical traditions which look within.
Reading Joseph Campbell, who was raised as a devout Roman Catholic in the Irish tradition of the early 20th century, he makes this contrast repeatedly and persistently in explaining the difference between West and East - and he personally had rejected the externalizing 'objective' concept of Christianity and embraced a 'subjective' inner directed Eastern spirituality.
For people like Campbell (brought-up Christian), Eastern spirituality was about a fresh and exciting emphasis on personal growth, creativity, aesthetic appreciation, embrace of modern science - it was all positive, expanding, joyful.
*
But a god who is merely inner is inadequate, just as a God who is outer is inadequate - very obviously so.
A god who is merely inner is just our-selves - and such a religion is (or soon becomes) a disguised form of self-indulgence; while a God who is merely outer is just a tyrant, running a political system (it would perhaps seem more noble to defy such a purely external god than to worship him).
*
Joseph Campbell had had a solid grounding in Christianity as a child, therefore when he embraced an inner-orientated Eastern Mysticism, in reality he was bringing the effect of that up-bringing with him into the East, and was living a hybrid.
Likewise, the actuality of Eastern religions is that there is a very large element of the external gods about them; gods who set rules and expect obedience - and this objectivity may be very heavily emphasised in the lives of ordinary adherents.
*
But it is a damning indictment of the Christianity Campbell grew-up with that it had drifted into a near-exclusive emphasis on the externality of God. That style of Christianity emphasized obedience to rules to the extent of crushing the qualities of personal growth, creativity, aesthetic appreciation, embrace of modern science which Campbell and others like him actively needed.
Yet God must be out-with us in order that He explains anything; in order to structure our lives and to make us a community of believers, in order that life has purpose and meaning.
And God must be carried with-in us in order that the meaning of life may be experienced as alive; that we have a personal destiny as creative, imaginative, exploring individuals.
*
So to find God we can look outside; and we also can look inside.
God is wherever we are because he can always be contacted in prayer, and God is wherever we are because we always carry him around.
We can pray to our Father in Heaven, and we can do this in a group and share the experience; and we also can meditate, attune with our inmost being in solitude - and we will find God there too.
*
How is this achieved? - mostly through knowing God in a relationship - as our Heavenly Father. God is out-with me because he is not me - he is another person. And God is with-in me because I am my Father's Son, and my Father is therefore intrinsic: part of my make-up.
To use a biological metaphor - I am unique, in being a one-off combination of heredity and experience and specific circumstances; but I also have genes which I got from my parents, and which I share with all other humans - men and women.
Therefore, I am both generic and distinctive.
And I must be both to be Human.
*
So Christians should take care not to neglect God within us - actual Christian doctrine and life should never make it possible to draw the outer versus inner contrast that Campbell experienced and taught.
*
When Christians think of God - we should do so from a dual perspective that he is both out-there - external to us; and also within us - inside our awareness.
(We are Sons and Daughters of God: that is how God is IN us.)
However, the externality of God has been much more greatly emphasized in Christianity, to the point that it has been seen as a religion of 'some God up-there in Heaven, telling us what to do' - because the externality of God has in times and places been used to make a religion of rules and obedience only.
By contrast, 'Eastern' religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism often have a much stronger emphasis on a god-within - that we are ourselves gods, and that the way to contact the gods is to look within - by meditation and spiritual disciplines.
*
In the nineteen fifties and sixties, the spiritualism of the time made much of this difference between Western Christianity with its God out-there, and Eastern mystical traditions which look within.
Reading Joseph Campbell, who was raised as a devout Roman Catholic in the Irish tradition of the early 20th century, he makes this contrast repeatedly and persistently in explaining the difference between West and East - and he personally had rejected the externalizing 'objective' concept of Christianity and embraced a 'subjective' inner directed Eastern spirituality.
For people like Campbell (brought-up Christian), Eastern spirituality was about a fresh and exciting emphasis on personal growth, creativity, aesthetic appreciation, embrace of modern science - it was all positive, expanding, joyful.
*
But a god who is merely inner is inadequate, just as a God who is outer is inadequate - very obviously so.
A god who is merely inner is just our-selves - and such a religion is (or soon becomes) a disguised form of self-indulgence; while a God who is merely outer is just a tyrant, running a political system (it would perhaps seem more noble to defy such a purely external god than to worship him).
*
Joseph Campbell had had a solid grounding in Christianity as a child, therefore when he embraced an inner-orientated Eastern Mysticism, in reality he was bringing the effect of that up-bringing with him into the East, and was living a hybrid.
Likewise, the actuality of Eastern religions is that there is a very large element of the external gods about them; gods who set rules and expect obedience - and this objectivity may be very heavily emphasised in the lives of ordinary adherents.
*
But it is a damning indictment of the Christianity Campbell grew-up with that it had drifted into a near-exclusive emphasis on the externality of God. That style of Christianity emphasized obedience to rules to the extent of crushing the qualities of personal growth, creativity, aesthetic appreciation, embrace of modern science which Campbell and others like him actively needed.
Yet God must be out-with us in order that He explains anything; in order to structure our lives and to make us a community of believers, in order that life has purpose and meaning.
And God must be carried with-in us in order that the meaning of life may be experienced as alive; that we have a personal destiny as creative, imaginative, exploring individuals.
*
So to find God we can look outside; and we also can look inside.
God is wherever we are because he can always be contacted in prayer, and God is wherever we are because we always carry him around.
We can pray to our Father in Heaven, and we can do this in a group and share the experience; and we also can meditate, attune with our inmost being in solitude - and we will find God there too.
*
How is this achieved? - mostly through knowing God in a relationship - as our Heavenly Father. God is out-with me because he is not me - he is another person. And God is with-in me because I am my Father's Son, and my Father is therefore intrinsic: part of my make-up.
To use a biological metaphor - I am unique, in being a one-off combination of heredity and experience and specific circumstances; but I also have genes which I got from my parents, and which I share with all other humans - men and women.
Therefore, I am both generic and distinctive.
And I must be both to be Human.
*
So Christians should take care not to neglect God within us - actual Christian doctrine and life should never make it possible to draw the outer versus inner contrast that Campbell experienced and taught.
*
Sunday 7 December 2014
The parable of the Good Shepherd - Christ's message in a nutshell
*
Watching this today, it seemed to me that I understood the well-known parable properly for the first time; and it seemed to say almost everything essential in Christ's teaching.
How strange and interesting that a simple parable should be so profound, should say so much in so small a compass; but then why else would Christ have taught using parables?
*
The Gospel of John - 10:
3 To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.
13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
*
Watching this today, it seemed to me that I understood the well-known parable properly for the first time; and it seemed to say almost everything essential in Christ's teaching.
How strange and interesting that a simple parable should be so profound, should say so much in so small a compass; but then why else would Christ have taught using parables?
*
The Gospel of John - 10:
1. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the
sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a
robber.
2 But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.3 To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.
13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
*
How an Omni concept of God requires Original Sin
*
I think it likely that the concept of Original Sin derived from the philosophical insistence on the absolute/ infinite/ abstract 'Omni' definition of God - omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent - which attempted to fuse Christianity with Greek-Roman Classical Philosophy.
The Fall is described in Genesis in the Bible, but not the concept of Original Sin - this is a philosophical inference, a second-order interpretation.
Simply, Original Sin has it that since the Fall, all men are born in a state of sin - and it is this situation which Christ's Atonement was needed to remedy.
*
I think that once God had been defined philosophically in terms of Omni properties, and also as having created everything (except Himself) from literally nothing (ex nihilo) then the most pressing question for these early intellectual Christians was to explain the function of Christ.
Because a God that could do anything would seem not to need to go through this elaborate, messy and contingent business of Himself being incarnated into mortal life, dying, being resurrected and ascending to Heaven.
I think that Original Sin was intended to explain the function of Christ in the context of a God that could do anything. The idea being that God made everything perfect, but Man exercised his God-given free will to sin in the Fall; and this wrecked creation permanently - requiring a further act of God in Christ's incarnation (with an 'equation' or contrasted equivalence made between Adam and Christ).
But, it has, over the centuries, proved difficult/ impossible to hold-the-line on Original Sin - because the idea of inborn sin implies we are tainted at source, all humans are fundamentally wicked (or else we would not have required a Saviour), and this negative evaluation tends to spread and contaminate everything that humans feel, think and do.
Indeed, belief-in (living-by) Original Sin tends to paralyse the will, because it puts us at odds with God, and it removes any level of self trust, or any confidence in our own evaluations - we cannot (it seems) even evaluate which is a real or valid church - we cannot even get started on our Christian life, because our essence is wrong.
The effect of Original Sin is almost like philosophical relativism - in the sense that in relativism the only core possible belief is that all truths are relative and all other truths are made uncertain; whereas with original sin the only core belief is that we are fundamentally sinners, and all other beliefs are made uncertain by that.
*
The Restored Gospel of Mormonism goes right back to first philosophical principles, and rejects the concept of God as primarily an abstract and philosophical 'omni' deity creating everything from nothing - and replaces it with the primary concept, from the Old Testament, of God as a primarily a person: primarily our Heavenly Father, and we as his children. This relational definition is made primary, and any philosophical definitions must fit within this primary 'metaphor'.
Because God is not Omni, and therefore works within the universe, then it is reasonable to assume that the work of Christ was necessary - it was the only (or best) way that God could achieve his purposes.
God could not just make everything as he wanted, by an instantaneous act of will; rather God must work within time and within the matter and laws of the universe, to help his children whom he loves.
*
So the Fall happened, and had a permanent effect on possibilities and arrangements - but there is no such thing as Original Sin and modern men and women are born as innocent as were Adam and Eve - but born into a different and corrupted world, and a world of birth and death.
On the other hand, the dawn of consciousness, the reality of birth and death and need to overcome the corruptions of the world offer vast possibilities for spiritual development which would have been impossible without the Fall.
Because our God is not an Omni-God who can do anything instantly, means that the universe sets constraints on action - things can only be done in some ways and not other ways. The Atonement of Christ can be seen as necessary, as the only way that God could achieve his hopes for Man.
The complex 'rigmarole' of having the maker and ruler of this world Christ born into this world as an incarnate Man, his life and teachings, his death by crucifixion, his resurrection and ascension - all these can be understood as a necessary mechanism for our spiritual progression towards godhood, as Sons and Daughters of God to become more like God, more like Jesus Christ.
*
My basic point is that the dark and often paralysing concept of Original Sin is only made necessary to explaining the work of Christ by the primacy of an abstract and philosophical Omni concept of God.
But when God is seen as our Father, then Original Sin is seen as firstly unnecessary, and secondly as tending to be pernicious - so it can be and is discarded.
The way is then open for a simple and non-paradoxical understanding of the human condition which has men and women as very mixed but fundamentally good (more-or-less prone to corruption - but not fundamentally and intrinsically sinful); and Christ's work as giving us salvation by (in some way) living the path to eternal resurrected life.
Therefore, without Original Sin, we have all already been-saved by Christ for eternal resurrected life in (some degree of) happiness; so long as we do not choose positively-to-reject that salvation.
For those who accept Christ's salvation; the emphasis of mortal Christian life moves onto exaltation, theosis, sanctification, the process of becoming more god-like - or divinization.
*
So, the contingent decision to assimilate the common sense, personal, and family based ancient Hebrew and Christian narrative into the pre-existing Greek/ Roman abstract philosophical understanding can be seen as having had a profound and lasting effect upon Christianity as originally demonstrated and taught by Christ and the Apostles.
The Mormon Restoration goes back to before this philosophical re-conceptualization and reveals what seems to be a simpler, clearer, more positive, optimistic and motivating understanding of the human condition and of Christ's work in transforming it: I believe it is a better way of understanding the difference that Christ made.
Having said that, it is of course perfectly possible to be a real and good and devout Christian with what I would regard as an inferior conceptual understanding of Christianity - indeed that is and always has been the usual situation; not least because most Christians most of the time pretty much ignore the metaphysics and philosophy of their Christianity - and in practice they fit their abstract understanding into their primary personal relationship with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.
Mormonism simply takes this 'plain man's' Christianity of loving relationships as its official theology - and there is no need for the doctrine of Original Sin, and little benefit from it (some benefits, but little), and considerable possibility of harm from it.
*
But it only makes sense to discard Original Sin if first you discard the Omni concept of God - otherwise you will end-up without any necessary function for Christ, and then Christ becomes an 'optional extra' as in Liberal Christianity - and then, with an optional Christ, the way is open to people, en masse, choosing actively to reject the salvation which comes only by Christ.
Which is the current situation. People who cannot accept Original Sin end up rejecting Christ - but usually unaware that there is a strong and coherent 'third way' that combines full recognition of Christ as our Saviour but without need for Original Sin: which is Mormonism.
*
I think it likely that the concept of Original Sin derived from the philosophical insistence on the absolute/ infinite/ abstract 'Omni' definition of God - omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent - which attempted to fuse Christianity with Greek-Roman Classical Philosophy.
The Fall is described in Genesis in the Bible, but not the concept of Original Sin - this is a philosophical inference, a second-order interpretation.
Simply, Original Sin has it that since the Fall, all men are born in a state of sin - and it is this situation which Christ's Atonement was needed to remedy.
*
I think that once God had been defined philosophically in terms of Omni properties, and also as having created everything (except Himself) from literally nothing (ex nihilo) then the most pressing question for these early intellectual Christians was to explain the function of Christ.
Because a God that could do anything would seem not to need to go through this elaborate, messy and contingent business of Himself being incarnated into mortal life, dying, being resurrected and ascending to Heaven.
I think that Original Sin was intended to explain the function of Christ in the context of a God that could do anything. The idea being that God made everything perfect, but Man exercised his God-given free will to sin in the Fall; and this wrecked creation permanently - requiring a further act of God in Christ's incarnation (with an 'equation' or contrasted equivalence made between Adam and Christ).
But, it has, over the centuries, proved difficult/ impossible to hold-the-line on Original Sin - because the idea of inborn sin implies we are tainted at source, all humans are fundamentally wicked (or else we would not have required a Saviour), and this negative evaluation tends to spread and contaminate everything that humans feel, think and do.
Indeed, belief-in (living-by) Original Sin tends to paralyse the will, because it puts us at odds with God, and it removes any level of self trust, or any confidence in our own evaluations - we cannot (it seems) even evaluate which is a real or valid church - we cannot even get started on our Christian life, because our essence is wrong.
The effect of Original Sin is almost like philosophical relativism - in the sense that in relativism the only core possible belief is that all truths are relative and all other truths are made uncertain; whereas with original sin the only core belief is that we are fundamentally sinners, and all other beliefs are made uncertain by that.
*
The Restored Gospel of Mormonism goes right back to first philosophical principles, and rejects the concept of God as primarily an abstract and philosophical 'omni' deity creating everything from nothing - and replaces it with the primary concept, from the Old Testament, of God as a primarily a person: primarily our Heavenly Father, and we as his children. This relational definition is made primary, and any philosophical definitions must fit within this primary 'metaphor'.
Because God is not Omni, and therefore works within the universe, then it is reasonable to assume that the work of Christ was necessary - it was the only (or best) way that God could achieve his purposes.
God could not just make everything as he wanted, by an instantaneous act of will; rather God must work within time and within the matter and laws of the universe, to help his children whom he loves.
*
So the Fall happened, and had a permanent effect on possibilities and arrangements - but there is no such thing as Original Sin and modern men and women are born as innocent as were Adam and Eve - but born into a different and corrupted world, and a world of birth and death.
On the other hand, the dawn of consciousness, the reality of birth and death and need to overcome the corruptions of the world offer vast possibilities for spiritual development which would have been impossible without the Fall.
Because our God is not an Omni-God who can do anything instantly, means that the universe sets constraints on action - things can only be done in some ways and not other ways. The Atonement of Christ can be seen as necessary, as the only way that God could achieve his hopes for Man.
The complex 'rigmarole' of having the maker and ruler of this world Christ born into this world as an incarnate Man, his life and teachings, his death by crucifixion, his resurrection and ascension - all these can be understood as a necessary mechanism for our spiritual progression towards godhood, as Sons and Daughters of God to become more like God, more like Jesus Christ.
*
My basic point is that the dark and often paralysing concept of Original Sin is only made necessary to explaining the work of Christ by the primacy of an abstract and philosophical Omni concept of God.
But when God is seen as our Father, then Original Sin is seen as firstly unnecessary, and secondly as tending to be pernicious - so it can be and is discarded.
The way is then open for a simple and non-paradoxical understanding of the human condition which has men and women as very mixed but fundamentally good (more-or-less prone to corruption - but not fundamentally and intrinsically sinful); and Christ's work as giving us salvation by (in some way) living the path to eternal resurrected life.
Therefore, without Original Sin, we have all already been-saved by Christ for eternal resurrected life in (some degree of) happiness; so long as we do not choose positively-to-reject that salvation.
For those who accept Christ's salvation; the emphasis of mortal Christian life moves onto exaltation, theosis, sanctification, the process of becoming more god-like - or divinization.
*
So, the contingent decision to assimilate the common sense, personal, and family based ancient Hebrew and Christian narrative into the pre-existing Greek/ Roman abstract philosophical understanding can be seen as having had a profound and lasting effect upon Christianity as originally demonstrated and taught by Christ and the Apostles.
The Mormon Restoration goes back to before this philosophical re-conceptualization and reveals what seems to be a simpler, clearer, more positive, optimistic and motivating understanding of the human condition and of Christ's work in transforming it: I believe it is a better way of understanding the difference that Christ made.
Having said that, it is of course perfectly possible to be a real and good and devout Christian with what I would regard as an inferior conceptual understanding of Christianity - indeed that is and always has been the usual situation; not least because most Christians most of the time pretty much ignore the metaphysics and philosophy of their Christianity - and in practice they fit their abstract understanding into their primary personal relationship with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.
Mormonism simply takes this 'plain man's' Christianity of loving relationships as its official theology - and there is no need for the doctrine of Original Sin, and little benefit from it (some benefits, but little), and considerable possibility of harm from it.
*
But it only makes sense to discard Original Sin if first you discard the Omni concept of God - otherwise you will end-up without any necessary function for Christ, and then Christ becomes an 'optional extra' as in Liberal Christianity - and then, with an optional Christ, the way is open to people, en masse, choosing actively to reject the salvation which comes only by Christ.
Which is the current situation. People who cannot accept Original Sin end up rejecting Christ - but usually unaware that there is a strong and coherent 'third way' that combines full recognition of Christ as our Saviour but without need for Original Sin: which is Mormonism.
*
Saturday 6 December 2014
What made Christians different in the Roman Empire? That death was not the end; that they would rise again into a Heaven of Peace and Light
*
From Byzantium by Judith Herren:
Historians regularly ask why Christianity succeeded, how it won the loyalty of those who previously worshipped many gods, and what factors ensured its permanent presence in the ancient Mediterranean world.
As an offshoot of Judaism it inherited the conviction that there was only one creator God, which was universalized by preaching to anyone who would listen. But the old cults had satisfied most needs for centuries. Why did the adherents of Apollo, Isis, Zoroaster, Mithras and other established gods adopt Christianity?
Unlike their contemporaries, the followers of Jesus were confident that death was not the end: they would rise again into a heaven of peace and light.
This belief motivated them to behave in a correct Christian fashion, avoiding sin and encouraging faith, hope and charity, so that God would judge them worthy of eternal life in the next world.
It set them apart from the Jews, polytheists and members of other cults that flourished in the early centuries AD.
It also prompted them to prefer death to denial of their faith, which the Roman authorities found most extraordinary... the Christians opted for martyrdom rather than give up their belief.
*
This passage make the crucial connection between the Christian belief in everlasting life of happiness, and Christian motivation.
Under pressure of persecution, and the corruptions of power and desperation to deal with apostasy and wilful sin; this soaring, inspiring, positive and gloriously joyful vision of Heaven - which ought to be primary for Christians - was soon (and has since been many times) in practice inverted into an emphasis on fear, on avoiding Hell, on escaping torment: an emphasis on being saved from unending horror - rather than being rewarded with everlasting happiness.
Thus Christianity - which was primarily a positive and joyful religion (the word Gospel means good news); has often, in reluctant practice or by wilful corruption, become a negative and misery-avoiding religion.
Sometimes this negative emphasis is necessary; in some situations and with some people, it is the only thing that works (just as children need to be punished, as well as rewarded) - nonetheless a negative focus must always be regarded as a secondary expedient and temporary measure - and never as the core of the Christian message.
*
The question of motivation is always crucial; and is a matter widely neglected and denied in the modern world. There is very little interest in what actually does motivate people; and instead a foolish and false assumption that if people 'ought' to be motivated, then they will be motivated.
Indeed, the whole of atheism and Leftism, including mainstream secular Conservatism and shades of libertarianism and the secular Right (including Neoreaction) is plagued by this fundamental unrealism, this neglect of psychological fact.
Thus the primary modern miseries are demotivational and demotivating: despair and nihilism. And the tendency of secular ideologies to accept despair and nihilism as if they were necessary and fundamental realities (which all intelligent and mature individuals ought to believe) - rather than terrible enemies who must be fought and vanquished.
*
But so much of Christian discourse is in practice de-motivational. There is a profound unrealism about motivation in some Christian discourse, which seems unable to learn from experience. Grossly distorted and inadequate versions of Christianity are held onto by churches, versions which have proven themselves incapable of generating the necessary motivation to be a real faith.
For instance, there has, for several generations, been the idea abroad among many 'mainstream' Christian churches that for Christianity to encourage and respond to the spontaneous human yearning for everlasting life and happiness is a low kind of activity - something to be avoided as akin to exploiting the childish fears and desires of vulnerable people; something equated-with spiritualism, mediums, ouija boards, and contacting dead deceased.
So, in trying to avoid this 'taint' or excess, what is in fact the 'unique selling point' of Christianity - the factor that perhaps primarily caused the faith to sweep the ancient world and displace all other religions - gets down-played, treated as a subject of embarrassment.
Eternal happiness beyond death is not dis-believed, but it is certainly not emphasised; it is not much talked-about. That would be regarded as low-brow, populist, disreputable, 'salesmanship'...
*
On the other hand, the types of Christianity which have actually been most successful at inspiring strong motivation in the modern world include those which emphasize 'up-front' and in practice the happiness of that eternal life they offer - such as the Mormon church, and also (so far as I can tell) Jehovah's Witnesses.
The hope for an eternal life of happiness is not regarded as something to be mentioned and then set aside; instead it is something which needs to be nurtured, built-up, reinforced - given that such belief requires faith, it ought surely to be a frequent focus of devotional activity, a topic of conversations and sermons and prayer?
The Mormon church does this, ultimately, through the Temple activities of the most devout members of the church. And, on the whole, it works - the CJCLDS have a achieved a very high level of faith in eternal life among active and Temple-worthy members (as described and documented in The Mormon Culture of Salvation by DJ Davies, 2000).
*
A strong, solid belief in eternal life is only one aspect of the distinctive appeal and strength of Mormonism, and it is only one aspect of Christianity in general - but it may be the single most important one to emphasize in practice; because such belief can be the underpinning motivation for a changed life, a devout life in face of a hostile culture.
And what is more a positive life; a life which has the proper, primary, joyful focus which is intrinsic, native and spontaneous to Christianity.
*
From Byzantium by Judith Herren:
Historians regularly ask why Christianity succeeded, how it won the loyalty of those who previously worshipped many gods, and what factors ensured its permanent presence in the ancient Mediterranean world.
As an offshoot of Judaism it inherited the conviction that there was only one creator God, which was universalized by preaching to anyone who would listen. But the old cults had satisfied most needs for centuries. Why did the adherents of Apollo, Isis, Zoroaster, Mithras and other established gods adopt Christianity?
Unlike their contemporaries, the followers of Jesus were confident that death was not the end: they would rise again into a heaven of peace and light.
This belief motivated them to behave in a correct Christian fashion, avoiding sin and encouraging faith, hope and charity, so that God would judge them worthy of eternal life in the next world.
It set them apart from the Jews, polytheists and members of other cults that flourished in the early centuries AD.
It also prompted them to prefer death to denial of their faith, which the Roman authorities found most extraordinary... the Christians opted for martyrdom rather than give up their belief.
*
This passage make the crucial connection between the Christian belief in everlasting life of happiness, and Christian motivation.
Under pressure of persecution, and the corruptions of power and desperation to deal with apostasy and wilful sin; this soaring, inspiring, positive and gloriously joyful vision of Heaven - which ought to be primary for Christians - was soon (and has since been many times) in practice inverted into an emphasis on fear, on avoiding Hell, on escaping torment: an emphasis on being saved from unending horror - rather than being rewarded with everlasting happiness.
Thus Christianity - which was primarily a positive and joyful religion (the word Gospel means good news); has often, in reluctant practice or by wilful corruption, become a negative and misery-avoiding religion.
Sometimes this negative emphasis is necessary; in some situations and with some people, it is the only thing that works (just as children need to be punished, as well as rewarded) - nonetheless a negative focus must always be regarded as a secondary expedient and temporary measure - and never as the core of the Christian message.
*
The question of motivation is always crucial; and is a matter widely neglected and denied in the modern world. There is very little interest in what actually does motivate people; and instead a foolish and false assumption that if people 'ought' to be motivated, then they will be motivated.
Indeed, the whole of atheism and Leftism, including mainstream secular Conservatism and shades of libertarianism and the secular Right (including Neoreaction) is plagued by this fundamental unrealism, this neglect of psychological fact.
Thus the primary modern miseries are demotivational and demotivating: despair and nihilism. And the tendency of secular ideologies to accept despair and nihilism as if they were necessary and fundamental realities (which all intelligent and mature individuals ought to believe) - rather than terrible enemies who must be fought and vanquished.
*
But so much of Christian discourse is in practice de-motivational. There is a profound unrealism about motivation in some Christian discourse, which seems unable to learn from experience. Grossly distorted and inadequate versions of Christianity are held onto by churches, versions which have proven themselves incapable of generating the necessary motivation to be a real faith.
For instance, there has, for several generations, been the idea abroad among many 'mainstream' Christian churches that for Christianity to encourage and respond to the spontaneous human yearning for everlasting life and happiness is a low kind of activity - something to be avoided as akin to exploiting the childish fears and desires of vulnerable people; something equated-with spiritualism, mediums, ouija boards, and contacting dead deceased.
So, in trying to avoid this 'taint' or excess, what is in fact the 'unique selling point' of Christianity - the factor that perhaps primarily caused the faith to sweep the ancient world and displace all other religions - gets down-played, treated as a subject of embarrassment.
Eternal happiness beyond death is not dis-believed, but it is certainly not emphasised; it is not much talked-about. That would be regarded as low-brow, populist, disreputable, 'salesmanship'...
*
On the other hand, the types of Christianity which have actually been most successful at inspiring strong motivation in the modern world include those which emphasize 'up-front' and in practice the happiness of that eternal life they offer - such as the Mormon church, and also (so far as I can tell) Jehovah's Witnesses.
The hope for an eternal life of happiness is not regarded as something to be mentioned and then set aside; instead it is something which needs to be nurtured, built-up, reinforced - given that such belief requires faith, it ought surely to be a frequent focus of devotional activity, a topic of conversations and sermons and prayer?
The Mormon church does this, ultimately, through the Temple activities of the most devout members of the church. And, on the whole, it works - the CJCLDS have a achieved a very high level of faith in eternal life among active and Temple-worthy members (as described and documented in The Mormon Culture of Salvation by DJ Davies, 2000).
*
A strong, solid belief in eternal life is only one aspect of the distinctive appeal and strength of Mormonism, and it is only one aspect of Christianity in general - but it may be the single most important one to emphasize in practice; because such belief can be the underpinning motivation for a changed life, a devout life in face of a hostile culture.
And what is more a positive life; a life which has the proper, primary, joyful focus which is intrinsic, native and spontaneous to Christianity.
*
Friday 5 December 2014
How to find your destiny? The Snowball Strategy for reading. Advice from Joseph Campbell
*
The most important period of my scholarship and study ([was when] I retired to the woods... and just read, and read, and read, and read for five years...
I had arranged a schedule for myself. I divided the day into four four-hour periods, of which I would be reading in three of the four-hour periods, and free one of them...It worked very well. I would get nine hours of sheer reading done a day. And this went on for five years straight. You get a lot done in that time...
Reading what you want,and having one book lead to the next, is the way I found my discipline...
When you find a writer who really is saying something to you, read everything that writer has written and you will get more education and depth of understanding out of that than reading a scrap here and a scrap there and elsewhere.
Then go to people who influenced that writer, or those who were related to him, and your world builds together in an organic way that is really marvellous.
From pp 52-3 of The Hero's Journey - Joseph Campbell on his life and work, edited by Phil Cousineau, 1982. The authorized biography Joseph Campbell: a fire in the mind by S. & L. Larsen, makes clear that the above account is a simplified overview, and that in the 'five year' period Campbell was not reading for nine hours every day, or anything like every day; but took several extended trips and numerous shorter visits. So the above account is best considered a summary of his modal average day over the period of his life between returning from Europe until commencing his thirty-eight year job teaching at Sarah Lawrence College.
*
That description is the closest I have encountered to my own 'method' as a youth and young man - making allowances such as my spending much less reading due to being in full-time education and work.
But going from book to book, and reading 'everything' by and about the authors which I am currently having a craze on... this is exactly what I have done over the years.
*
Does this way of reading have a name? Perhaps it could be the Snowball Strategy after the Snowball sampling method of anthropology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_sampling
The idea is that you get to know a few people, then the people they know, and the people they know - and it grows like a snowball.
This treats the world of books like the vast population of everybody, and recognises that we can only engage in sampling from literature if we want actually to get-to-know individual books and authors.
It treats books like people, and reading as a personal relationship with authors. To me, this seems not just valid, but right.
*
Of course, it would be a mistake to follow only the Snowball Strategy of reading, because it could simply confirm your false prejudices by sealing-off from engagement with alternative world views; also you might well miss something that you ought to be reading, and which synchronicity keeps drawing to your attentions.
Therefore, some element of a survey of recommended canonical reading is inevitable (nibbles of Plato, Shakespeare, Goethe... that kind of thing) - plus it is vital to supplement the Snowball Strategy with hunches, and the directions and discernments of the heart.
Also to be open to abandoning a line of enquiry which is giving bad feedback, which the discerning heart is warning you against. It may be that you become an 'expert' in a field in order to reject it - but that rejection comes from a deep understanding.
*
I never responded well to the 'Great Books' idea of following a curriculum of reading, being forced to read specific things, at a specific stage of my life and in a specific order - indeed I hated being in a Book Club for exactly this reason - timing of reading and personal motivation for reading are so important that recommendations for reading have usually been counter-productive.
My personal reading has often, usually, been against the grain of my formal education and work.
While studying science as a teen I was reading Tolkien, Bernard Shaw, Robert Graves and following lines-out from them; as a pre-clinical medical student I spent a year reading almost everything in modern British drama; as a graduate student in English Literature I spent a year reading, talking and writing philosophy; and so on - my personal reading quest had its own, unpredictable, contrarian dynamic.
*
Exploring the world of books no doubt sounds a pretty lame way of life to most people, but for intellectuals in the post-Gutenberg era, his pattern and depth of reading has been substantially definitive of each scholar- and has indeed has a vocational and spiritual dimension.
I offer this Snowball Strategy as a possibility for someone who is seeking, questing, adrift in the world of knowledge; and who feels impelled to find their own path.
*
The most important period of my scholarship and study ([was when] I retired to the woods... and just read, and read, and read, and read for five years...
I had arranged a schedule for myself. I divided the day into four four-hour periods, of which I would be reading in three of the four-hour periods, and free one of them...It worked very well. I would get nine hours of sheer reading done a day. And this went on for five years straight. You get a lot done in that time...
Reading what you want,and having one book lead to the next, is the way I found my discipline...
When you find a writer who really is saying something to you, read everything that writer has written and you will get more education and depth of understanding out of that than reading a scrap here and a scrap there and elsewhere.
Then go to people who influenced that writer, or those who were related to him, and your world builds together in an organic way that is really marvellous.
From pp 52-3 of The Hero's Journey - Joseph Campbell on his life and work, edited by Phil Cousineau, 1982. The authorized biography Joseph Campbell: a fire in the mind by S. & L. Larsen, makes clear that the above account is a simplified overview, and that in the 'five year' period Campbell was not reading for nine hours every day, or anything like every day; but took several extended trips and numerous shorter visits. So the above account is best considered a summary of his modal average day over the period of his life between returning from Europe until commencing his thirty-eight year job teaching at Sarah Lawrence College.
*
That description is the closest I have encountered to my own 'method' as a youth and young man - making allowances such as my spending much less reading due to being in full-time education and work.
But going from book to book, and reading 'everything' by and about the authors which I am currently having a craze on... this is exactly what I have done over the years.
*
Does this way of reading have a name? Perhaps it could be the Snowball Strategy after the Snowball sampling method of anthropology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_sampling
The idea is that you get to know a few people, then the people they know, and the people they know - and it grows like a snowball.
This treats the world of books like the vast population of everybody, and recognises that we can only engage in sampling from literature if we want actually to get-to-know individual books and authors.
It treats books like people, and reading as a personal relationship with authors. To me, this seems not just valid, but right.
*
Of course, it would be a mistake to follow only the Snowball Strategy of reading, because it could simply confirm your false prejudices by sealing-off from engagement with alternative world views; also you might well miss something that you ought to be reading, and which synchronicity keeps drawing to your attentions.
Therefore, some element of a survey of recommended canonical reading is inevitable (nibbles of Plato, Shakespeare, Goethe... that kind of thing) - plus it is vital to supplement the Snowball Strategy with hunches, and the directions and discernments of the heart.
Also to be open to abandoning a line of enquiry which is giving bad feedback, which the discerning heart is warning you against. It may be that you become an 'expert' in a field in order to reject it - but that rejection comes from a deep understanding.
*
I never responded well to the 'Great Books' idea of following a curriculum of reading, being forced to read specific things, at a specific stage of my life and in a specific order - indeed I hated being in a Book Club for exactly this reason - timing of reading and personal motivation for reading are so important that recommendations for reading have usually been counter-productive.
My personal reading has often, usually, been against the grain of my formal education and work.
While studying science as a teen I was reading Tolkien, Bernard Shaw, Robert Graves and following lines-out from them; as a pre-clinical medical student I spent a year reading almost everything in modern British drama; as a graduate student in English Literature I spent a year reading, talking and writing philosophy; and so on - my personal reading quest had its own, unpredictable, contrarian dynamic.
*
Exploring the world of books no doubt sounds a pretty lame way of life to most people, but for intellectuals in the post-Gutenberg era, his pattern and depth of reading has been substantially definitive of each scholar- and has indeed has a vocational and spiritual dimension.
I offer this Snowball Strategy as a possibility for someone who is seeking, questing, adrift in the world of knowledge; and who feels impelled to find their own path.
*
Thursday 4 December 2014
The ubiquitous sub-mediocrity of modern highbrow, high status, elite culture
*
The official culture has always been somewhat second-rate, at best. So the biggest names, the most powerful, the most famous- at any given time generally turn-out to be mediocre in the longer term.
However, we are now in a situation when the biggest names, the most powerful and famous rulers, intellectuals, artists and the like are not even mediocre - they fail to rise to the level of mediocre: they are sub-mediocre - they are incapable, not even adequate.
This is what I see in the domains I know: religion, science, medicine, poetry... pretty much everywhere in public life. It seems to be the usual pattern.
*
Some examples of modern sub-mediocrity: the political leaders of the Western nations, the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the leading figures of mainstream 'science' such as medical research and climate research, the leaders of major universities - such as the President of Harvard, the doctors who hold senior administrative positions, and 'major' writers such as the Poet Laureate.
This is not just a matter of people being qualitatively worse than before; these are people who lack basic competence, who cannot do their core jobs.
*
Admittedly, they are not even trying to do their core jobs - but redefining their proper role into political correctness (as when the US Military or NATO's prime mission was redefined as Diversity) - but the fact is that these modern leadership elite personnel could not do their jobs even if they wanted to - they are simply inadequate people.
*
This astonishing ubiquity of sub-mediocrity cannot be accidental; therefore it is interesting and significant.
Chosen and enforced universal sub-mediocrity is further evidence (if that were needed) that modernity is not just lacking in survival instinct; but is actively and will-fully suicidal.
This, for me, is evidence that the ruling elite is not fundamentally ideological, nor self-interested, nor even short-termist - but is demonically-driven, almost-purely negative, essentially nihilistic in its wholesale destructiveness of whatever is true, beautiful and virtuous.
*
The official culture has always been somewhat second-rate, at best. So the biggest names, the most powerful, the most famous- at any given time generally turn-out to be mediocre in the longer term.
However, we are now in a situation when the biggest names, the most powerful and famous rulers, intellectuals, artists and the like are not even mediocre - they fail to rise to the level of mediocre: they are sub-mediocre - they are incapable, not even adequate.
This is what I see in the domains I know: religion, science, medicine, poetry... pretty much everywhere in public life. It seems to be the usual pattern.
*
Some examples of modern sub-mediocrity: the political leaders of the Western nations, the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the leading figures of mainstream 'science' such as medical research and climate research, the leaders of major universities - such as the President of Harvard, the doctors who hold senior administrative positions, and 'major' writers such as the Poet Laureate.
This is not just a matter of people being qualitatively worse than before; these are people who lack basic competence, who cannot do their core jobs.
*
Admittedly, they are not even trying to do their core jobs - but redefining their proper role into political correctness (as when the US Military or NATO's prime mission was redefined as Diversity) - but the fact is that these modern leadership elite personnel could not do their jobs even if they wanted to - they are simply inadequate people.
*
This astonishing ubiquity of sub-mediocrity cannot be accidental; therefore it is interesting and significant.
Chosen and enforced universal sub-mediocrity is further evidence (if that were needed) that modernity is not just lacking in survival instinct; but is actively and will-fully suicidal.
This, for me, is evidence that the ruling elite is not fundamentally ideological, nor self-interested, nor even short-termist - but is demonically-driven, almost-purely negative, essentially nihilistic in its wholesale destructiveness of whatever is true, beautiful and virtuous.
*
Wednesday 3 December 2014
Illustrate this caption competition
*
The caption to be illustrated is:
A bare-faced Bear giving alms to an eight-armed, armed, bare-armed Bear, bearing arms
*
The caption to be illustrated is:
A bare-faced Bear giving alms to an eight-armed, armed, bare-armed Bear, bearing arms
*
The mass promotion of 'dumb-drugs' - e.g. statins, beta-blockers, antipsychotics, SSRIs
*
There has been some discussion in recent years about 'smart drugs - designed to enhance cognitive function.
Smart drugs are, indeed, well known and widely used - for example caffeine and nicotine; which are used to increase alertness, concentration, and motivation. These are not, of course, prescription drugs (and they do have significant side effects).
But some of the most aggressively promoted drugs are dumb-drugs in that they impair cognitive functioning in many, most or all of the people who take them.
*
For example statins, are currently being pushed as necessary for ALL people aged 60 plus - this supposedly 'research' based recommendation was front page headlines in popular newspapers a couple of weeks ago - yet statins are very nasty drugs, causing all kind of aches and pains, and increased suicide risk, as well as damaging cognition.
A close friend of mine forgot and was unable to re-learn his passwords when put onto statins, and could not hold a telephone number in his head long enough to type it - luckily he regained these abilities when he took himself off the drugs. But what of these who take the drugs for years?
Beta-blockers are demotivating for many people - I have experienced this myself. There is a sense of being out of contact with 'reality' - unable to respond emotionally. This is insidious and hard to be sure of - but when the drug is stopped it is like a cloud lifting and 'coming alive' over the next couple of days.
And antipsychotics are really horrible drugs, that should only be regarded as a last resort - which operate (as their core 'neuroleptic' effect) by causing the psychological symptoms of Parkinson's disease: blunting emotions, reducing motivation - inducing a dulled feeling of psychic indifference to life. But antipsychotics are being used more and more, often to teat 'bipolar disorder', including in children; and Ablify - an antipsychotic - is the most profitable drug in the world.
Also, the effects of SSRI-type antidepressants (the fastest growing class of mass prescribed drugs in the world) are, on some people, much like a milder antipsychotic - with exactly the blunting, demotivating pattern of effects; in which the desired 'don't sweat the small stuff' extends and amplifies to being emotionally cold, unloving and insensitive.
*
Dumb drugs are among the biggest selling, most profitable, most marketed pharmaceutical agents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_selling_pharmaceutical_products
So, the modern population is being made dumber with drugs on an epic scale - and this is often very obvious indeed: you only need to ask and listen to the drug takers.
Surely this matters?
*
Refs:
There has been some discussion in recent years about 'smart drugs - designed to enhance cognitive function.
Smart drugs are, indeed, well known and widely used - for example caffeine and nicotine; which are used to increase alertness, concentration, and motivation. These are not, of course, prescription drugs (and they do have significant side effects).
But some of the most aggressively promoted drugs are dumb-drugs in that they impair cognitive functioning in many, most or all of the people who take them.
*
For example statins, are currently being pushed as necessary for ALL people aged 60 plus - this supposedly 'research' based recommendation was front page headlines in popular newspapers a couple of weeks ago - yet statins are very nasty drugs, causing all kind of aches and pains, and increased suicide risk, as well as damaging cognition.
A close friend of mine forgot and was unable to re-learn his passwords when put onto statins, and could not hold a telephone number in his head long enough to type it - luckily he regained these abilities when he took himself off the drugs. But what of these who take the drugs for years?
Beta-blockers are demotivating for many people - I have experienced this myself. There is a sense of being out of contact with 'reality' - unable to respond emotionally. This is insidious and hard to be sure of - but when the drug is stopped it is like a cloud lifting and 'coming alive' over the next couple of days.
And antipsychotics are really horrible drugs, that should only be regarded as a last resort - which operate (as their core 'neuroleptic' effect) by causing the psychological symptoms of Parkinson's disease: blunting emotions, reducing motivation - inducing a dulled feeling of psychic indifference to life. But antipsychotics are being used more and more, often to teat 'bipolar disorder', including in children; and Ablify - an antipsychotic - is the most profitable drug in the world.
Also, the effects of SSRI-type antidepressants (the fastest growing class of mass prescribed drugs in the world) are, on some people, much like a milder antipsychotic - with exactly the blunting, demotivating pattern of effects; in which the desired 'don't sweat the small stuff' extends and amplifies to being emotionally cold, unloving and insensitive.
*
Dumb drugs are among the biggest selling, most profitable, most marketed pharmaceutical agents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_selling_pharmaceutical_products
So, the modern population is being made dumber with drugs on an epic scale - and this is often very obvious indeed: you only need to ask and listen to the drug takers.
Surely this matters?
*
Refs:
Tuesday 2 December 2014
Rate of decline in intelligence from mutation accumulation - first estimate
*
In a new paper in Personality and Individual Differences, Michael Woodley has made the first estimate of the rate of decline in intelligence which would be expected due to mutation accumulation, and puts it at about 0.8 IQ points per decade
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/michael-woodley-estimates-rate-of.html
He also calculates the rate of decline due to selection - i.e. the higher fertility of less intelligent people, and vice versa - and puts that at about 0.4 IQ points per decade.
And at the end he estimates the magnitude of decline in average intelligence due to recent migration and immigration as about 0.3 IQ points per decade.
Combining all these, leads to an overall current rate of intelligence decline of about 1.5 IQ points per decade - which is a lot!
To this must be added the effect of an ageing population (estimate pending...).
This is what we find!
*
In a new paper in Personality and Individual Differences, Michael Woodley has made the first estimate of the rate of decline in intelligence which would be expected due to mutation accumulation, and puts it at about 0.8 IQ points per decade
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/michael-woodley-estimates-rate-of.html
He also calculates the rate of decline due to selection - i.e. the higher fertility of less intelligent people, and vice versa - and puts that at about 0.4 IQ points per decade.
And at the end he estimates the magnitude of decline in average intelligence due to recent migration and immigration as about 0.3 IQ points per decade.
Combining all these, leads to an overall current rate of intelligence decline of about 1.5 IQ points per decade - which is a lot!
To this must be added the effect of an ageing population (estimate pending...).
This is what we find!
*
Although the proximate agent of destruction, Leftism is not the *ultimate* cause of the decline of the West
*
People, all of us really, are prone to talk of ideology as a cause; and those of us who recognize the decline of the West are prone to blame it on Leftism (and for Christians, secular Leftism) - but this is only proximately true.
Leftism is indeed the mechanism by which decline is - as it were - implemented; but that is not where the drive for decline comes from - in other words, Leftism is not the ultimate cause, it a means to the end of decline.
So where does the decline originate? There are (at least) two levels of answer - depending on where you locate ultimate causes. The candidates are biology and religion.
*
For secular people, the ultimate cause must be biology, since biology is the ultimate cause for social phenomena in a secular explanatory model - in other words, the West is declining due to natural selection (since that is the ultimate explanation for everything in biology - or, at least, matters related to change, adaptation etc.).
So what kind of biological change might explain the decline of the West?
The most usual explanation is related to change in selection pressure under conditions of modernity (since the Industrial revolution) - in a nutshell that modern conditions select for lower intelligence, short-termist time horizons, parasitic/ exploitative behaviour and so on.
This would mean that the West was still adaptive, biological fitness (reproductive capability) is still the same (or improving) - we are still getting better at doing stuff; but now the West (and its people) is becoming good at something different from what it used to be good at.
*
But for me the striking factor of the collapse of the West is not that it rewards the wrong people (wrong from the point of view of sustaining and growing the West) - but that it is just plain maladaptive.
It is not that we solve problems in a different way, but that we don't solve problems.
In particular we don't marry and stay married - we don't even want to marry; we don't have children - we don't even want to have children; we are so utterly terrified of death we have nothing to say about it, nor even for the function of old age.
In other words, it seems to me that the West is broken rather than better at something different - that what we are seeing is an all-round decline in fitness.
The reason for this would probably be mutation accumulation due to the 'relaxation' of natural selection. Humans used to undergo harsh selection at each generation with damaging gene mutations filtered-out; because that only a minority of the 'fittest' children would survive to adulthood, and in adulthood only the 'fittest' minority would provide the majority of the surviving offspring ('fittest' meaning - having the fewest deleterious mutations).
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=mutation+accumulation
*
This scenario of decline driven by mutation accumulation would mean that as individuals, and therefore en masse as groups and nations and the world, people fail to understand what is going on and fail to make the right decisions and fail to take the right action: humans have become worse at solving problems. And this will continue to deteriorate.
But, the big question for me is whether this biological explanation suffices to explain the collapse in will - Modern Man is distinguished by his having 'given up'. He does not seem to want to survive, or to reproduce, or to know what is really going on, or really to solve real problems.
For me, a big question is whether this situation can be explained along the lines of Mouse Utopia
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=mouse+utopia
in which modern people are so genetically damaged that we, like the mice in Phase D and the Terminal Phase, are simply doomed by our indifference to everything except our own momentary comfort and pleasure and our failure to reproduce - or whether the malaise is primarily spiritual.
*
As a Christian, my ultimate explanatory model is religious - and related to the destiny of earth; and by this account (and in the opinion of people whose spiritual insight I respect) - we are in the End Times or Latter Days; and that are hope-less maladaptiveness is because we are trying (and failing) to live without God.
(The duration of the End Times is not known - the Bible states it cannot be known (not even Jesus Christ knows this) - and there is always the possibility of human choice and action delaying the End - and even effecting a temporary and/ or local reversal. Nonetheless, once the final phase has started, as it has, then it will sooner or later run to completion.)
So, I tend to think that even if the worst predictions of Mouse Utopia are true, and this is what we are living through - IF we were spiritually healthy, if we (as a society, and as individuals) turned back to God, then we would not be in such a bad state - because we would be pointing in the right direction.
We would not just have given up in a profound existential despair, but we would still be trying and striving, still doing our best, still learning from experience. And, no doubt, much could be done - problems could be ameliorated rather than as (at present) exacerbated; we could, for example, do nothing instead of always making things worse.
So, I would regard the spiritual, 'supernatural', religious explanation for the decline of the West as the deepest and truest - although I think it is very probably interacting with biological change.
*
People, all of us really, are prone to talk of ideology as a cause; and those of us who recognize the decline of the West are prone to blame it on Leftism (and for Christians, secular Leftism) - but this is only proximately true.
Leftism is indeed the mechanism by which decline is - as it were - implemented; but that is not where the drive for decline comes from - in other words, Leftism is not the ultimate cause, it a means to the end of decline.
So where does the decline originate? There are (at least) two levels of answer - depending on where you locate ultimate causes. The candidates are biology and religion.
*
For secular people, the ultimate cause must be biology, since biology is the ultimate cause for social phenomena in a secular explanatory model - in other words, the West is declining due to natural selection (since that is the ultimate explanation for everything in biology - or, at least, matters related to change, adaptation etc.).
So what kind of biological change might explain the decline of the West?
The most usual explanation is related to change in selection pressure under conditions of modernity (since the Industrial revolution) - in a nutshell that modern conditions select for lower intelligence, short-termist time horizons, parasitic/ exploitative behaviour and so on.
This would mean that the West was still adaptive, biological fitness (reproductive capability) is still the same (or improving) - we are still getting better at doing stuff; but now the West (and its people) is becoming good at something different from what it used to be good at.
*
But for me the striking factor of the collapse of the West is not that it rewards the wrong people (wrong from the point of view of sustaining and growing the West) - but that it is just plain maladaptive.
It is not that we solve problems in a different way, but that we don't solve problems.
In particular we don't marry and stay married - we don't even want to marry; we don't have children - we don't even want to have children; we are so utterly terrified of death we have nothing to say about it, nor even for the function of old age.
In other words, it seems to me that the West is broken rather than better at something different - that what we are seeing is an all-round decline in fitness.
The reason for this would probably be mutation accumulation due to the 'relaxation' of natural selection. Humans used to undergo harsh selection at each generation with damaging gene mutations filtered-out; because that only a minority of the 'fittest' children would survive to adulthood, and in adulthood only the 'fittest' minority would provide the majority of the surviving offspring ('fittest' meaning - having the fewest deleterious mutations).
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=mutation+accumulation
*
This scenario of decline driven by mutation accumulation would mean that as individuals, and therefore en masse as groups and nations and the world, people fail to understand what is going on and fail to make the right decisions and fail to take the right action: humans have become worse at solving problems. And this will continue to deteriorate.
But, the big question for me is whether this biological explanation suffices to explain the collapse in will - Modern Man is distinguished by his having 'given up'. He does not seem to want to survive, or to reproduce, or to know what is really going on, or really to solve real problems.
For me, a big question is whether this situation can be explained along the lines of Mouse Utopia
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=mouse+utopia
in which modern people are so genetically damaged that we, like the mice in Phase D and the Terminal Phase, are simply doomed by our indifference to everything except our own momentary comfort and pleasure and our failure to reproduce - or whether the malaise is primarily spiritual.
*
As a Christian, my ultimate explanatory model is religious - and related to the destiny of earth; and by this account (and in the opinion of people whose spiritual insight I respect) - we are in the End Times or Latter Days; and that are hope-less maladaptiveness is because we are trying (and failing) to live without God.
(The duration of the End Times is not known - the Bible states it cannot be known (not even Jesus Christ knows this) - and there is always the possibility of human choice and action delaying the End - and even effecting a temporary and/ or local reversal. Nonetheless, once the final phase has started, as it has, then it will sooner or later run to completion.)
So, I tend to think that even if the worst predictions of Mouse Utopia are true, and this is what we are living through - IF we were spiritually healthy, if we (as a society, and as individuals) turned back to God, then we would not be in such a bad state - because we would be pointing in the right direction.
We would not just have given up in a profound existential despair, but we would still be trying and striving, still doing our best, still learning from experience. And, no doubt, much could be done - problems could be ameliorated rather than as (at present) exacerbated; we could, for example, do nothing instead of always making things worse.
So, I would regard the spiritual, 'supernatural', religious explanation for the decline of the West as the deepest and truest - although I think it is very probably interacting with biological change.
*
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