Bruce Charlton's Notions

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Don't answer questions - ask questions.

If you do answer questions - restrict it to one question per meeting.

Teach with parables not descriptions.

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(Note: To see how this should best be done, read the Gospels and learn from The Master.)
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The novelist Terry Pratchett died yesterday - and it seems like a good time to gather my thoughts on him.

First, I would rate him as one of my two favourite British novelists of recent decades (the other is JK Rowling in her Harry Potter series). I am very grateful for the hundreds of hours of enjoyment, stimulation and edification I have received from reading him (often aloud, as bedtime stories for my wife).

Furthermore I am equally grateful that he has been my teenage son's favourite and most important writer for the past several years - my son has read more Pratchett than me, indeed pretty much everything he wrote; and as well as the enjoyment and humour, Pratchett's moral influence on him has been, so far as I can tell, strongly for the good.

I would certainly regard Terry Pratchett as the major English fiction writer of the 1990s and 2000s, and one of permanent significance.

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Yet there are significant reservations and restrictions on my personal admiration.

Pratchett's novels divide into two main categories - those with female protagonists (especially witches) and those which are satirical (getting fun from a theme like the postal system, the police, the movies etc).

It is the witches novels which I like so much - and, apart from a fondness for the wizards of Unseen University (which I can readily imagine my Discworld alter ego inhabiting) I general don't much like, and sometimes actively dislike, the satirical novels - which bring out Pratchett's faults and limitations, and lack his strengths.

For instance, I am generally unconvinced and unmoved by the supposedly sympathetic character of Sam Vimes; and have never finished any of the books in which he features strongly.

Also, the novels since Pratchett was diagnosed as suffering from dementia, the effects of which I first noticed in Wintersmith (published 2006), are not up to standard. Indeed, I find their prose style almost unrecognisable. I therefore infer that they are actually collaborations, and have been subjected to heavy editing. (I should note that my son has continued to enjoy these later books equally with the earlier.)

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Pratchett's greatest virtues as a writer are, for me, the sheer fluency and inventiveness of his ideas and humour - which I consider to be superior to any other writer of any period of which I am aware; and the humane qualities he brings to his best female characters - notably Granny Weatherwax and Tiffany Aching.

His faults are a cruel cynicism and a covert fascination-with/ admiration-of ruthless violence and torture - these are what mar many of the satirical novels for me.

In some of his non-fiction, and in some comments by Pratchett's friends, it is apparent that he was driven by considerable anger, irritation and resentment; and while he could not help having these traits built-into him (and they were perhaps what made him so prolific) there is not much sense that Pratchett acknowledged these were defects, 'sins', nor that he repented them - rather, he seems rather self-righteously pound of being so often angry.

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This segues onto what was undoubtedly the most significant blot on Pratchett's reputation and lifetime achievement - his strident advocacy of what he weasel-worded as the non-existent and nonsensical 'Right to Die', that is, what is more often called Assisted Suicide', but what is actually a call for the legalisation and bureaucratic-proceduralisation of Humane Murder.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/euthanasia-antibiotics-and-terry.html

This campaign revealed, or apparently revealed, lack of courage, lack of foresight and was justified by a grossly impoverished and inadequate conception of the meaning and purpose of human life.

However, Pratchett only began this campaign after the onset of dementia, and it is possible/ likely that he was being exploited for this purpose; after all, in later years, his communications were heavily censored and edited, and we only know what various amanuenses and media (who strongly favour 'euthanasia') chose to reveal and publicise. It is unlikely we would have been told of any late reservations or repentance, had they occurred.

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Terry Pratchett himself - in his non-fictional writings, and speaking as a prominent secular Humanist - said that he expected death to be extinction; but those of us who know better cannot help but be curious concerning his current post-mortal situation.

Who knows what happened as Terry Prtachett approached his end? Sometimes dementia may be part of God's plan - sometimes dementia seems to bring a proud and resentful person (in his innermost soul) face to face with his own state of dependence and the futility of his pride - presents a new choice, and the choice may lead to a dawning of gratitude and humility and open-ness to the gift of grace.

Personally, I regard Pratchett as one of those atheists who 'protest too much' and secretly and guiltily believed in the reality of God (or want very much to believe), but who misunderstand and therefore hate God as they understand Him.

When Pratchett discovers the truth of the reality of God - and the nature and motivation of God; I believe he will (or has) immediately and unhesitatingly repent and accept the salvation offered by Christ.

The man who created, and imaginatively-inhabited, Granny Weatherwax and Tiffany Aching was a man fundamentally good, fundamentally a realist, fundamentally motivated by love. With his experience and abilities, I fully expect Terry Pratchett to become one of the great human benefactors, working from  the other side of mortality.

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Aardvark.

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http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-fundamental-nature-of-creativity.html
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There is snare in what I might call dogmatic primary monotheism. That is, the assumption of 'strict' philosophical monotheism - with monotheism regarded as a rational necessity and a transparent and absolute requirement of Christianity.

For many Christian theologians, it is assumed we know what monotheism is better than we know what Christianity is; and therefore the definition of Christianity must be fitted to this prior understanding of the definition of monotheism.

This is a big problem for mainstream Christian theology, and has been for nearly 2000 years; because when monotheism is combined with an abstract definition of God as necessarily omnipotent, this creates intractable problems for understanding Christianity as it may be understood from a common-sense reading of the Gospels in particular, but also the Bible as a whole.

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For example, if there is strict monotheism and an omnipotent God, there is no necessity for Christ. One God who has absolute power would not need the assistance of Christ.

Yet, Biblical revelation is clear that Christ is necessary for Man's salvation - this (it seems to me) is absolutely fundamental to Christianity: a Christian must believe that Christ is necessary to eternal life. And if Christ is necessary to salvation/ eternal life, then God is either not one, or not omnipotent. Something must yield precedence.

This ought not to be a problem for Christians, since it would seem obvious that philosophical conceptualisations such as a particular understanding of monotheism and the abstract and absolute definition of omnipotence are not (not straightforwardly) supported by scripture, while the necessity of Christ has multiple support from scripture.

But historically it certainly has been a problem; because strict monotheism and strict omnipotence have in practise been regarded as primary and non-negotiable. Mainstream theologians have been more willing to fudge, complexify (with apparent contradiction) and in general mis-explain the necessity of Christ; than to challenge, drop or nuance their philosophical attachment to monotheistic omnipotence.

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Yet polytheism of the pagan Hindu, Buddhist or other type is clearly not an answer either. In the first place, scripture is clear that (in some fairly plain sense) there is One God whose power is (in some obvious way) primary.

But also that a straightforwardly polytheistic universe is one without focus, unity and overall meaning or purpose: a polytheistic universe just is. It doesn't mean anything, it isn't going anywhere in particular; there are no real objective relationships between the gods, between gods and men, or between men.

In polytheism 'stuff happens' - and our job (each of us, as individuals) is merely to cope with this as best we may.

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But for Christianity God rules the world and there is One God; and it is the one-ness of God that makes possible the objective metaphysical (ie. structuring) cohesion of God, gods and Man - but God needs Christ.

There is One God, but Christ cannot be identical with God.

Thus God is significantly constrained in His primary work, and is not absolutely and abstractly 'omnipotent'.

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For Christians (and this may be hard to grasp or acknowledge) the world could have been meaningless and purposeless - so God is not a logical necessity to existence. It is God that makes the universe meaningful and purposeful; and it is God that makes relationships real  - and these positive attributes arise from God being a person.

God is a person; and persons are constrained, discrete, bounded, concrete - no matter how large in power, God is not an abstraction, not a force nor a logically-derived construct.

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Our God is a real, living and loving person, and He is our Father; this we know, and this is primary - whatever else He may be  - which matters are up-for definition, discussion, modification.

As such, it follows that God needs help if He is to achieve some purposes; and indeed, as a person He wants, appreciates, loves help from other persons - primarily and necessarily Christ.

In order to save Man, God needed Christ; who is His son, and we also are His sons and daughters.

Exactly the need for Christ, the mechanism by which Christ saved Man, the similarities and differences between Christ being God's son and me and everyone else being God's children  - these matters are not crystal clear; and explaining these constitute some of those matters up-for definition, discussion and modification.

But whatever our explanation of these matters, we will need to set-aside the classical, philosophical and traditional metaphysical assumptions that we know and understand that One God means strict monotheism; and that omnipotence means that God can do anything do-able.

These assumptions cannot be true, if the primary revelations of Christianity really are regarded as primary: since God needed Christ - God is not monotheistically-omnipotent.

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Note added: Another, quite different, reason to suggest that God needed Christ is to compare Christianity with "pure" monotheisms - Christianity promises a far happier and higher life beyond death: a life of divinisation. If we assume that religions are (broadly) honest about what they offer (which I believe to be the case) then this suggests that One God without Christ cannot offer as much as God with Christ. Therefore, if there had been no Christ, then Man's future would have been much less than it is. 

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Virtual reality is the incarceration and insightless-ignorance of the really real.

Virtual reality is thus the world of the mass media; because for virtuality to convince, it must be confirmed by all available sources - so that, wherever we choose to turn, that 'reality' is confirmed; and it also is confirmed over time.

(Confirmed, that is, so far as we can tell.)

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The mass media achieves this by its vast scale, its easy accessibility (indeed, the difficulty of avoiding it), its exclusive privileging of itself - and by its cognitive distortions.

The cognitive distortions of the mass media include a dream-like immunity to reality-testing. Mass media content never is tested against real-reality.

Instead, participants are addicted to distraction, and distraction displaces experience and evaluation.  Any menace to virtuality from reality is thwarted and dissolved by a continual throughput of attention-grabbing stimulation.

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Participation in the mass media is a state of continuous delirious intoxication - any momentary awareness of real-reality is rendered first unstable, then impossible - to live in virtual reality is a permanent psychosis.

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It is true that the best teaching pleases - it is false that what pleases teaches.

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Traditionally, teaching was something extracted from an often-reluctant teacher by a highly motivated student; with the advent of mass education teaching came to resemble an eager and motivated teacher striving to impose material on a group of reluctant students.

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The best education has eagerness and motivation on both sides; the reality is often that neither side is motivated by the substance but only by careerism and certification - which have become more and more detached from the substance of education.

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Modern educational management (and most educational institutions are now run by managers - not teachers, and not students) are an attempt to create a educative system without need for intrinsic motivation in either the teachers or the students; and the pretence that this has actually been achieved.

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The agrarian and industrial revolution was - in the large scheme of things - a great gift to Man; and a gift he has misused.

Increased productivity, more food, better shelter, less work, greater capability... these advantages were supposed to be used in service of higher things; not simply to make more-of-the-same, not to wage more destructive wars, and not to destroy more of the natural world.

But the ultimate crime against the potential of the agrarian and industrial revolution was - philosophical; at the level of what we now call ideology 

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What was distinctive, and unique in the history of the world, in the agrarian and industrial revolutions in England was major and sustained improved economic productivity.

What should have happened, what was meant to happen was that improved economic productivity would support improved meaning productivity - genuine creativity.

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The overall purpose in life (over a timespan of eternity) might tentatively be defined as creativity, in the true-est sense of the word; in the sense that creativity can perhaps be understood as increasing the productivity of meaning.

In other words, making a given, fixed situation more meaningful; or getting more meaning out of the same situation, ingredients, or energy.

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This did not happen, indeed the opposite happened.

Instead of there being more meaning, there was less and less - until after just a few generations many leading thinkers and artists claimed, and did their best to exemplify and demonstrated - that there was no meaning at all.

Given the choice of how to use the productive gains of the agrarian/ industrial revolution, Modern Man decided - en masse, by many millions of individual choices - to destroy first of all the existing sources of meaning; and then to destroy the very possibility of meaning.

The destruction of meaning began almost immediately with creeping atheism; but was rapidly continued with the multiplicity of secular Leftisms which gathered like a snowball: socialism, communism, the varieties of Marxism, progressivism, anarchism, fascism, social democracy, libertarianism, 'Christian socialism', environmentalism, political correctness, neo-reaction...

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Secular Leftism has penetrated the very soul of the West; it is present almost ubiquitously as an assumption behind almost all cultural products and communications - it is a cancer which eats meaning.

This is what Man has done with the greatest power and prosperity in the history of the species!

Instead of using peace, prosperity and capability to sustain a widespread burgeoning meanings in a multitude of human lives; the industrial revolution turned-in-on-itself, to use itself merely to make more of itself.

Man has created a universal cancer of meaning to render one after another things meaningless; and the meaningless world is also a purposeless world, so the whole process is self-destroying.

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What can be done, what needs to be done, all that can be done; is, as individuals to root-out this anti-creative, meaning-destructive cancer of secular Leftism from our own souls.

To recognize that secular Leftism is not a mere political view; not a humanly-flawed but essentially benign and compassionate perspective - but in its potentially and in its effect nothing less than the primary and distinctive basis of evil-triumphant in the modern world (since evil is defined the destruction of good); the subversion of creativity; and the greatest squandering and perversion of opportunity and perversion of potential in the history of Men.

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What is Christian humility?

Not some kind of abject state of cringing submissiveness; not a person whose spirit has been crushed, and whose motivation is neutralized.

Humility has, indeed, at least a dual aspect of 1. Accepting responsibility, and 2. Repenting choice.

The second part - repentance - is well-known, but the aspect that responsibility for actions and a choices must be accepted, involves an element which some would regard as alien to humility.

Because to accept responsibility involves a high estimate of one's own abilities, a high estimate of the significance of one's own choices, acceptance of a high destiny in this world. It is, indeed, acknowledgement of the divine in each of us, as well as the human - of the aspiration for perfection, as well as error and evil.

An acknowledgment of our great capabilities and potential; as well as of our weakness and lack of knowledge.

So, Christian humility is maybe not as humble as some people suppose?

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1. Do you believe that 'scientists' can predict the future climate of the earth?

(If so, why do you believe this? - Given that there is not the slightest shred of evidence - assertion isn't evidence - that scientists can predict future climate. Surely, to be able to predict the climate would at least entail making precise and detailed predictions and having them confirmed? Can we predict the weather, volcanoes, earthquakes?)

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2. Do you believe that 'scientists' can control the earth's climate - e.g. can make the earth warmer or cooler, or prevent the earth's temperature changing?

(If so - why do you believe this? Not only is there zero reason to believe that anybody can control the climate - but the idea is utterly absurd. Can we control the weather, volcanoes, earthquakes - can we control the temperature of the sun?)

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Note: If you believe the 'consensus' of climate researchers, political and environmental activists, politicians and so on - then do you believe that these people - people of this kind - can be relied upon to be truthful and competent? If so - why do you believe this? Are such people known for their truthfulness? Can you point to a body of objective achievement accomplished by climate researchers, political and environmental activists, politicians? (I mean, apart from getting funding, prizes and praise.) Are these people usually right about things?

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Those who believe in a pre-mortal, un-incarnated, spirit existence need to have an answer to the question of why so many people apparently cannot remember anything about it.

The usual example is that there is a 'veil' placed between that phase of our lives, and now; between the eternal lives of Men and Angels dwelling in Heaven, and life on earth; and this veil is necessary to the fulfilment of our mortal tasks. We need to be on our own.

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The difficulty is that while this veil explanation works for many phenomena, it doesn't account for the important fact that communications do apparently 'pierce' the veil, from time to time - sometimes those in Heaven seem to communicate with those on earth, and seem aware of the activities of those on earth.

Also, how to account for those of us who do feel a strong (albeit extremely imprecise and incomplete) conviction and memory of the reality of pre-mortal existence - and the numerous reports of such an experience throughout human history?

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For example, evidence of pre-mortal life is widespread if is seen to be present in the form of belief in re-incarnation.

I interpret the intuitive belief in systematic reincarnation in such terms. I think it probable that true reincarnation is very rare indeed - done only for special divine purposes; but that the intuitive belief so many people have about their own personal reincarnation, is in reality a rational misinterpretation of what are actually true memories of their own pre-mortal life.

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Anyway; why set up a veil that is partial and incomplete, and sometimes intended to be breached - when the veil amounts to a total obscuration for some people but not for others?

Well, such objections to 'the veil' are not critical. All mortal understanding is metaphorical (even when true), and all metaphors are incomplete and break-down when pushed. The metaphor of the veil may serve for the most important purposes.

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However, my own understanding of the apparent-veil is different; my understanding is that there is not so much a material barrier, but a barrier of thought-forms which divides pre-mortal and mortal life. Specifically that, when looked at from a Heavenly perspective, mortal life is extremely slowed-up, as if we lived in a more viscous medium than Heaven.

The spirit existence of pre-mortal life was swift and immediate - there was no significant gap between thought and action because there was no body, and because the Heavenly environment had little resistance.

Heavenly life, and thought, was fluid and frictionless.

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Earthly life, by contrast - and necessarily, as being vital to the purpose of it - is slowed-up and delayed.

Mortal, earthly life is experienced as having resistance; there is resistance interposing between the spirit and the body, and events (both creation and corruption) unfold in slow-motion (compared with Heaven) - sometimes with what is experienced as painful slowness.

Patience and prudence are always necessities in mortal life; and courage of course - exactly because of the potential for suffering, and the gap between the ideal and the actual.

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From this I infer that our mortal memories of pre-mortal life are always present and for everyone - if we choose to introspect - but that these memories are of a life that was so swift and fluid and frictionless, that from our earthly perspective they are a blur.

Our memories of pre-mortal life are (by analogy) somewhat like watching a video recording sped-up a thousand-fold: we see just a blur of shapes and colours and sounds, creating a general impression that is mostly un-interpretable, but from which we may occasionally perceive the flicker of a recognisable picture or soundscape.

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For those who are most attuned to these pre-mortal memories, most gifted and skillful at interpreting them, the experience may be perceived as an 'instantaneous' understanding of so many simultaneous things as to be indescribable.

Furthermore it is extremely difficult for our slow, viscous, meaning-oriented mortal memories to retain this kind of ultra-sped-up information - there is just far too much stuff to take-in and store, its sequence cannot be properly perceived, the elements cannot clearly be resolved.

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I would push this metaphor even further. Quite often, reports of knowledge of other worlds, other lives, of Heaven has been experienced in an opposite way to that I have described: experienced as a static state-of-being - such as Nirvana. Experienced as if it was mortal life on earth that was 'swift and slippery', and Heaven that was unchanging: an eternal, unitary state of being.

My explanation is that when something is sped-up fast-enough, it becomes perceived (by mortal minds) as static and unchanging.

Try the experiment of doing this with music - as the playback is sped-up, at first the music is experienced as faster and faster, but a line is crossed when the notes blend together, and a much slower and more gradually modulating chord-like sound emerges (representing the overall dynamics, the average pitch, the tonality etc.).

This is my explanation for how Heaven is perceived by mortal minds, and how the limitation of earthly human perception may mistake what are in reality extreme degrees of swiftness and fluidity for (what appears to be) slow, gradually modulating, even static states of being.

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Mortal life is usually considered to be some kind of trial or ordeal or experience. But what kind, and with what purpose?

Two Christian, and indeed more broadly religious, views of this mortal life are as essentially 'a bad thing', maybe a punishment - a vale of tears, and time of suffering, which we must get through as best we can ("an assault course"); or life as overall 'a good thing' and a privilege - an unique opportunity to gain experiences and strength, and to make choices ("a moral gymnasium").

(There are other possibilities - these two do not capture the whole range of views concerning mortal life.)

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These two conceptualisations are very different, and lead to a very different flavour of Christianity.

Christ said that he was 'not of this world', and all types of Christians have been instructed to strive to live that 'unworldly' way, in the sense that the ultimate and structuring goal and purpose of mortal life is outside of mortal life, beyond mortal life.

However, there is disagreement among Christians about the proper attitude to this life - should it be seen overall negatively or positively?

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At one extreme, it can seem that mortal life is a cruel assault course. If we complete the assault course successfully, if we do not fall into damnation, then our main reward is simply not to be punished.

This kind of Christian is very vague about the joys of Heaven, and in truth seldom thinks about it - their primary motivation is terror of Hell.

Since life is about bodily incarnation, this view is usually anti-bodies; the body is a source of temptation, the body is weak, finite, limiting... it is hard to understand, in that case, why Men exist in the first place, and then why after death Men are resurrected, since an un-incarnated spirit seems to be superior. 

This model of Christianity can be defended by a large number of specific scriptural passages; but not by the overall flavour of the message of Christ being 'good news' as presented in the New Testament.

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At the other extreme, mortal incarnate life is seen as a framework intended for spiritual progression - mortality provides a certain unique set of challenges and experiences, and is a positive (albeit risky) opportunity for enhancement.

This kind of Christian is likely to be much more specific about the joys of Heaven, and to be motivated by desire to share these joys: because the primary motivation is getting to Heaven.

Indeed, since life as a moral gymnasium is quantitative (i.e. we can be either more, or less, built-up by life) - then this rather clearly-visualised Heaven is not seen as unitary (the same Heaven for everyone) but stratified, hierarchical and quantitative - analogously to life on earth.

So the motivation for Man is not just to get to Heaven, but to build himself up in the moral gymnasium to become suited to the highest possible level of Heaven.

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And, for this kind of Christian, to have a body is better (at least potentially) than to be an unembodied spirit; because it is the body which engages with mortal experiences and indeed itself provides many of the most fundamental and educational experiences.

This explains why Men are resurrected, but it is not immediately obvious why the body is imperfect and subject to disease, or why Men must die (before resurrection) to move further along progression.

To explain death (when life is a moral gymnasium) entails assuming that God is significantly constrained, and can only achieve His goals for Man by this risky sequence of incarnate birth, mortal life, death and resurrection.

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So if life is seen as an assault course - the fits with one kind of Christianity and concept of God and attitude to the body; but if life is seen as a moral gymnasium then all these matters will probably be differently conceptualised.

And one way to know which kind of Christian you are at present, is to ask how much you think-about and are motivated-by post-mortal life in Heaven, and how specific are your Heavenly hopes and expectations.

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http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/it-was-agintrans-geniuses-of-enhanced.html
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In liberal-ish Christian circles, there has long been a cult of the doubter being superior to the man of untroubled faith.

(CS Lewis wrote of this some seventy years ago.)

There is a superficial appeal in this idea, especially for intellectuals, since not to doubt can be portrayed as unthinking, dumb, dogmatic fanaticism; and because after all nearly everybody has doubts and nearly everybody wants to be admired - so having doubts is made to seem admirable.

But doubts are analogous to temptations. Temptations are bad in themselves, but we can't help having them (even Christ had them). To yield to temptations is bad. But to be tempted and to overcome without yielding is best of all (again, this is what Christ did).

So - it is better (so far as it goes) to be faithful than to doubt; because doubts tend to lead to loss of faith (equivalent to yielding to temptation).

But to have doubts and to overcome them is better than never to have doubts - because it leaves us stronger than before. (This being equivalent to being tempted and resisting temptation.)

The faithful believer who has overcome doubts is therefore better than the believer who was never troubled by doubts; better because he has been tested and passed the test.

But that does not, not, not mean that the Christian believer should seek-out temptations or deliberately entertain doubts; because when doubting is mistakenly given positive encouragement it turns-out that there are innumerable doubts, which will then mutually-reinforce, and feed-off each other, so multiplying faster then the capacity to overcome them.

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In the first place, civilizations are short lived things compared with Men. We Men are eternal entities, eternal stretching in both directions; but civilizations are finite, and sometimes very brief.

Nonetheless, they set a context for our mortal lives; so it is important to recognize that the analogy, the metaphor, the model by which we explain civilization sets constraints on how we understand them - and so some extent how we understand ourselves.

Most discussion of civilizations is quasi-scientific, often very quantitative: nowadays to do with statistics of one sort or another, in an earlier time, to do with histories of conquest and conquerings. Oswald Spengler rejected this for a biological, organismic model - history as analogy with growth, vitality, seeding, disease, senescence and extinction.

But this is also extremely limited; and indeed grossly insufficient in terms of how the soul yearns.

Another framework is to look at civilizations in terms of intellectual and/or artistic 'achievement' - viewed with a long-termist perspective: philosophy, architecture, fine art, science and technology, poetry and literature... Yet although this is superficially inspiring, it soon palls and drags us down; and we notice the disturbing mismatch between The Man and the Civilization on the one hand, and The Accomplishment on the other hand.

To dwell inside the aesthetic framework becomes a dismaying, demoralizing, and even an un-aesthetic experience - it leads with apparent inevitability to the poseur, the dilettante, the pundit and the art dealer rather than to the sage: the man of depth and wisdom.

As eternal beings we crave an understanding of civilizations which includes divine aspirations - a context of God's plans, or hopes; and our own.

Closer to what we want is to understand civilizations in terms of spiritual warfare, the fight between good and evil, obedience to God and rebellion against him. But of course, warfare is sub-optimal, warfare may be necessary - but it is not what we most hope for.

What we do most hope for is something creative (creative in a very general sense - a making of things that are good).

So, best (it seems to me) is to understand civilizations in terms of spiritual progression, in terms of the striving (and otherwise) of Man and Men for higher levels of divinity, for God-like-ness, of participation in the ultimate work of creation and creativity - of progress in this goal, and corruption away from this goal.

A salvation and theosis story.

Indeed, once this spiritual evolution/ devolution analogy has been noted and explored, all other analogies of civilization seem grossly and dangerously impoverished.

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I have just had a careful re-read of Colin Wilson's follow-up to The Outsider, Religion and the Rebel - and found it thoroughly worthwhile and stimulating.

Wilson self-consciously takes up the baton from Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West (1918) which is given a fairly extended analysis, supplemented by consideration of some other rather analogous 'big picture' historians such as Toynbee.

Wilson accepts the conviction, dating especially from the early twentieth century, that the West needs 'a new religion'. The perspective of 1957 therefore works on the assumption that Christianity has failed, in its mainstream aspects anyway. Events since have, of course, confirmed this - at least in a broad-brush socio-political sense.

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In Religion and the Rebel, Wilson gives biographical summaries and analytic interpretations of numerous representative figures from the existentialist tradition - some secular, but mostly Christian. These include mystics such as Boehme, Anglican monastic revivalists such as Farrer, Law and the early JH Newman - and the book culminates with the philosopher AN Whitehead who is regarded as the most important modern figure.

Wilson's other analytic frame is The Outsider - who is regarded as a type of socially-rejecting-social-reject proto-genius that is generated by end-phase civilization in an attempt to reverse the decline and revitalize the civilization. Most of the figures discussed fall into the Outsider category in some way - for instance, Wittgenstein is an Outsider having an Insider philosophy, while AN Whitehead is the opposite.

As often happens in my reading, I found myself broadly agreeing with the diagnosis, but not the prescription. In particular, I feel that 1956-ish was a time, perhaps the last time' when the Western civilization was 'meant' to re-evaluate and re-structure its goals and move into a new phase. This didn't happen, and we instead opted for 'more of the same' - and plunged into the still dominant and fluctuating combination of hedonic consumerist materialism with self-hating and self-destroying Leftism.

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What of the 'new religion'? How did that idea fare?

I was brought-up on this idea from the work of Bernard Shaw - which is given considerable emphasis in religion and the Rebel - Shaw's choice was Creative Evolution, as outlined in my favourite of his plays Man and Superman, and the later dull, clunky and unperformable Back to Methuselah. This idea was dead-in-the-water, in terms of being a socially-viable and effectively motivating religion, but distracted and stimulated a few people for a while - the philosopher CEM Joad and the mystical nature writer John Stewart Collis (both teenage favourites of mine) for example.

The New Age movement is the most obvious New Religion - but this has proven itself to be merely a semi-effective way of individual coping-with the consumerist materialism of modernity. New Age discourse is conducted in an eclectic, semi-serious tone of ironic detachment ('if it works for you...', take it or leave it) - and the really serious and motivating ideology in New Ageis secular Leftism; radical politics is the only subject that New Agers really get 'passionate' about. So New Age is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

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From my personal stance as a believer in Mormonism, what always strikes me about these overviews is that from 1830 there was a New Religion of exactly the kind that Colin Wilson hoped-for - that is, something Christian, real and motivating, that was also a fresh start, and which left-behind those aspects of Christian metaphysics and philosophy which seemed to have become ineffectual or counter-productive.

Of course, Mormonism was tiny in the years leading up to 1957, and even now the profoundly original and transformative metaphysical and philosophical aspects of Mormonism are hardly appreciated, even among Mormons - the 'new religion' is seen as (and in general functions as) a way of life, rather than an astonishingly transformative set of ideas.

But Mormonism pretty much has done, and does, what Bernard Shaw, Oswald Spengler and Colin Wilson wanted from a new religion. On the other hand, Mormonism stands at the furthest pole from the kind of bohemian existentialist life exemplified and practised by Colin Wilson in 1957.

Yet, in principle, there is no reason why there should not be existentialist bohemian intellectuals who regard those who practise Mormonism and who administer the LDS church as being an elite 'priesthood' who are regarded as an authoritative source of guidance.

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Accepting that not every Man can live the highest path, and that the path of an active Mormon is too strait and narrow ever to become universal, there is scope for a wider form of non-practising Mormonism - which humbly and explicitly accepts itself as a lower calling, but from this situation tries to be supportive of the higher calling, and tries to make the kind of contribution which is difficult for the high status people.

I am thinking of a situation much the same as lay Roman Catholics who accept that they are operating at a lower level than priests, and non-monastic Eastern Orthodox (including priests) who accept that they are operating at a lower level than ascetic monks.

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In terms of Wilson's terminology, I tend to regard Mormonism is the New Religion he hoped for - and a religion of socially-minded Insiders - because Mormonism has continued to grow and thrive as the West declined. However, it has not had a visible positive impact on Western civilisation in general - its benefits have been mostly restricted to Insiders.

But there is, I believe, also room for Outsider Mormons of one sort and another (inside the church and outside it too), who support the Insiders, and accept the reality and validity of the framework they provide.

It is Insiders - with their ability to organise and cooperate - who may change the world and save (some of) the West. But Outsiders may also be necessary - or at least useful. 

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Outsiders, by their nature, cannot themselves live inside the communal and disciplined structure of society, of the priesthood - yet, so long as they are loyal to the goals, Outsiders may legitimately aspire to make a positive (albeit rightly low status) religious contribution.

Organised Religion is substantially (but not entirely and not as its core) about social cohesion. Outsiders are those who live psychologically out-with social cohesion (being an outsider is primarily a state of mind: e.g. Wittgenstein mostly lived physically inside the walls of Trinity College, Cambridge); they are loners not joiners.

But loners need not undermine society, it is possible that loners are functionally (albeit intermittently) necessary to society - rather as the shaman or the hermit has apparently been necessary to past societies.

Indeed, Outsiders are by their nature and location in a position to do things that cannot necessarily be done by Insiders. And so Outsiders may perhaps turn-out to be necessary to Mormonism in the long run - and via Mormonism to The West - as they have seemed to be necessary to Philosophy, Literature, Art and Science.   

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http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/spengler-on-demographic-trends-leading.html


http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/wd-hamilton-describes-rise-and-demise.html

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I regard things as very bad indeed. I recognise that this view is not generally accepted - most people would say that things are bad but not much worse than usual. But I regard that attitude as the final straw in clinching just how bad things really are.

What sets us apart from earlier societies is moral inversion; that the bad things are openly promoted as good by politicians, government agencies, the legal and educational systems and in the mass media.

Naturally this confuses people - since in the past people have usually been bad despite official exhortations to do good. In earlier times the officials were usually hypocrites, but paid lavish lip service to the importance of being and doing good - now they urge and reward and coerce people to do be bad, and attack good - while reversing the labels.

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What do I personally regard as the strongest evidence of things being extremely bad, in my country of England?

The high and rising addiction to the mass media, that people will not believe their own experience and knowledge but instead believe the mass media. The grossest example is the ignorance and denial and total lack of interest in truly massive, rapid and multi-faceted demographic transformation.

http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk/

The collapse into sub-replacement fertility among the most intelligent, best educated and wealthiest people - the taboo against noticing this, discussing it, doing anything about it. 

That inverted and pathological sexuality are propagandised, and defended by draconian regulations, laws, and managed-mobs. Two landmark examples are the Jimmy Savile affair- where the most widely promoted moral exemplar of recent decades was revealed to be a monster of depravity; and the still unfolding revelations of industrial scale paedophilia in Rotheram, Oxfordshire etc.

Related to the last - that the British establishment does not just tolerate, but vigorously-protects systematic racism, violence, torture, mutilation, slavery and disciplinary-homicide when it occurs among recent migrants and immigrants.

http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.co.uk/

The fact that a majority of young, and a large minority of older, people practise and proudly-display escalating levels of permanent self-mutilation in terms of tattoos, piercings and the like.

In the public area of communications, people are dishonest nearly all the time. This applies not just to politicians and bureaucrats, advertising and the mass media; but equally to schools, colleges, science, medicine, law, the police, the military, and of course the mainstream churches. Every statement is hyped, spun, selective, distorted, designed to mislead and seeded with outright lies. The very discourse of our time, thus our capacity for reason, is rotten - and ineffective.

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That is a short list of a few of the things which most strike me and come to mind.

But how can this happen? How can all this be going on with either ineffectual resistance or tacit approval of the mass of the population?

There are many answers, and many factors contributing; but the deepest answer and underpinning reason is the lack of religion in the UK.

At a profound level, the mass of British people deny - correctly - any absolute legitimacy for themselves and their convictions; and therefore collude in an agenda of multi-pronged self-destruction.

People try but cannot convince themselves of the validity of any secular rationale for modern peace, prosperity and comfort - and in this they are absolutely accurate. Our unprecedented material well-being and amusements - based on the inherited gifts of past geniuses - does not justify anything; certainly selfish abundance does not justify the kind of tough, long-termist, explicitly discriminatory policies required to safeguard and sustain a complex civilisation.

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Bad things will go on happening, and will go on getting worse and more urgent, and will continue to be ignored, misinterpreted and forgotten; unless or until there is a mass religious revival - which would almost certainly require the emergence and intervention of some leader of goodness, genius and great good fortune.

Because these deep problems are a consequence of a national state of nihilistic demotivation which is both severe and widespread; religious revival, which should of course be a Christian revival, is the one and only and absolutely necessary basis for doing anything which is net-constructive.

(If we try to solve the major problems without religion, we will surely, one way or another or in many ways, end-up using the (un-repented) 'Boromir Strategy' of using the One Ring to fight Sauron. We will - like the secular Right - try to defeat the evil of Leftism and try to make a better world by fostering hatred, greed and pride - in other words, the weapons of The Enemy.)

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Of course, such pragmatic criteria are not a reason for becoming Christian - the only and sufficient reason to become a Christian is that it is true: objectively true and really real.

(If another, non-Christian religion was the subject of a Great Awakening, then realistically this would simply be a different form of societal demise - a different route to what would amount to the same destination: i.e. the collapse and replacement of Britain by something else.)

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In sum, the more bad things happen with the approval of the ruling elites and the badder they get, the more tempting it is to try and stop these bad things by arguing and organising against them - but that is a counter-productive waste of time.

In sum, as things stand, the United Kingdom does not deserve to survive, knows it does not deserve to survive,and that is why it is allowing and encouraging its own demise.

The answer is that we must deserve to survive; by having a higher goal, and being motivated by serving that higher goal: Christianity.

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The only strategic stance - at the general, socio-political level - which is not fundamentally a waste of time or counter-productive is Christian evangelism; to try and promote, in whatever way we can best think of, a religious revival.

I have not the slightest flicker of optimism that this is actually happening - but it could happen, so there is ample room for hope.

Start here and now and with yourself.

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Everybody should become a Christian, and if you aren't you should do it today - do it now.

But - at least initially - become a Christian first, and don't leap into joining a church.

Obviously, this does not apply if you believe that only one church is THE Christian church - but few Christian's truly believe that.

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The problem is that at least 90 percent of actually-existing self-styled Christian churches are anti-Christian in overall tendency and effect - Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist etc.- typically, they all lead their flock astray.

Indeed, all the large, powerful mainstream churches in the UK are - at their senior levels especially - primarily 'front' organisations for Left Wing politics - Christianity is merely a rationalization for their primary agenda of political correctness.

So, why join a church that will try to make you a worse Christian, or not a Christian at all?

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Even among the (say) ten percent of real Christian churches, at least half will be unsuitable for you personally, for one reason or another.

Either they will be just not-helpful, or so alien and unappealing that it will be a constant battle merely to attend, to engage and to stay active.

At a conservative estimate - if you become a Christian and join a church then there is a ninety-five percent chance that church will not help your new faith, or will actively try to erode it.

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Clearly, it is much the best thing to be inside and engaged-with a real Christian church - but that is much easier said than done.

Therefore the safest strategy in the UK is to become a Christian in haste, but to be slower and very careful about choosing a denomination; or else you will likely have cause to repent at leisure your precipitate act of premature church membership.

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The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.

Mark 12:29-30

This was a stumbling block to me as a child at a Christian school. Not only did I not love God more than my family, I did not want to love God more than my family - and I felt it was wrong to love God more than my family. I can distinctly remember thinking this during a prayer when I was about six years old, and mentally denying the doctrine.

Even now, I think it is quite wrong to highlight this teaching, and try and compel young children to assent to this doctrine of loving God more than anything - because many of the best of children will usually interpret the command as that they are supposed to feel more love for God than for their parent, grandparents or siblings - and in practise this could only be achieved by loving their family less.

Furthermore, the doctrine - in the mind of a child - can easily become one of terror rather than love: fear of reprisals from God from failing to love him enough.

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Indeed, this first and greatest commandment is a subtle teaching - and not one to be taken in isolation. It is perhaps a thing which needs to be true indirectly and implicitly; rather than made a matter of explicit and specific assent.

For many or most people, including children, the love of God can not - in this mortal life - be as direct and straightforward a matter as love of actual people. Attempting to force the issue, by trying to think about God as much as possible, praying as much as possible, repeating words about loving God as much as possible are all strategies that can easily 'backfire'.

Yet, of course, this is essential to Christian life. So what is the answer?

1. To regard the first commandment as a part of theosis or spiritual progress, something towards which we strive throughout life; rather than a basic essential requirement for all Christians.

2. To regard God our Heavenly Father as a person, as our actual Father, whose primary and always-present characteristic is love. This makes Him easier to love and may reduce the chance of mistakenly regarding Him as a tyrant.

3. To focus on our love for the person of Jesus Christ, rather than God the Father - this is stated to be sufficient according to scripture. It is, of course, the mainstream strategy of 'evangelical' Christians - who focus almost exclusively on the New Testament, especially the Gospels. This is reasonable, since Christ is the essential focus of Christianity - while God the Father is not.

So, it seems not absolutely necessary for any one of us to attend to God the Father in daily life; His vital role is to explain the nature and mission of Jesus Christ.

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Furthermore, love is not best considered as a feeling, it is not necessarily something at the forefront of consciousness. For many people, their deepest love is something which structures their life, rather than being at the front of our conscious deliberations for most of the time. Some (I am one of them) are very expressive of love - but this is not a necessity; and some very loving cultures and families and marriages do not go in for statements, hugs or tears.

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My understanding of the absolute necessity of loving God above all else is metaphysical rather than psychological - that without this, all other loves (including the love of Jesus) lose their meaning and function.

The supremacy of our love for God is that it makes all other loves possible - it makes other loves a matter of eternal significance.

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One of the biggest problems nowadays is getting at your True Self; in a world which is characterised by innumerable schemes and devices for erecting and maintaining a False Self - underneath which the True one may be buried so deep as to be all-but cut-off from contact with the outside world; creating a situation when a person's responses and actions are (so far as can be seen) wholly dictated by superficial and artificial processes.

Yet we, each of us, absolutely need to get at our True Self, because it is that which is our indispensable guide in living.

How, then, to get at this True Self?

1. Know that it is there. Know that there is a True Self; and know also that there is a near 100 percent certainty that it will be almost inaccessible to you - and that you are currently operating on the basis of a False Self which has been elaborated through later childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

2. Know the general properties of this True Self. These are two-fold: it is your eternal and proto-divine essence; and it is God within you, which became joined with your personal essence when you were made as a Son or Daughter of God.

3. Be able to recognise your True Self - this is less quick, less easy; and involves experiencing the True Self as providing you with discernment of the heart - your deepest and realest judgement.  

4. Trial & Error, inspiration and intuition, reflection and the results; to discover your personal best methods of connecting with your True Self.

5. Practise the best methods so you can use them as and when required.

6. Use the True Self. It is the one essential - as well as the most powerful, flexible and reliable - 'tool for living' at your disposal. You certainly need it to get started in a spiritual life; at the minimum to identify for yourself the primary source of authority, wisdom, valid experience and example. And once you have located this primary source - matters become easier, faster, more secure.

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