Bruce Charlton's Notions

Well; I have now watched all eight looong episodes of Season One, Amazon's Ring's of Power; watched it with the kind of salacious and guilty fascination one observes the emergence of a tsunami to overwhelm a town, or the cumulative wreckage of a multiple-pile-up road traffic accident. 

I have lowered, and lowered, my expectations of this series. It is, of course, nothing to do with Tolkien - nothing in terms of plot, spirit, lore, and - especially not - moral and spiritual structure. 

So, I lowered my expectations down to the point of simply looking-for something that attracts and maintains my attention; I looked for simple light entertainment. 

I therefore lowered 'the bar' to the level of such mainstream soap-fantasy tripe as Shadowhunters; but Rings of Power did not reach this bar - except at too-rare intervals. 

I found (as I said in the above review) one of the most astonishingly incompetent shows I have ever encountered. There are stunning deficiencies in terms of overall conception, casting, acting, script, plot, direction and editing - the RoP breaks all the standard rules for how to construct a story and to get people involved. 

One gets the impression that this was because the makers have no clue about how to make a TV program (or movie), not even at the basic film school level; that they genuinely don't understand that (by their choice to make the show so complex, and with so many 'principal' characters) they have repeatedly painted themselves into a corner; from where it has become, not just difficult, but actually impossible for them even to provide low-level, mainstream entertainment. 

They seem to have no idea what works and what does not work; because they give the greatest attention to what does not work (e.g. Galadriel and the Harfoots). 

An example of the endemic ineptitude was that the picture advertising the final episode was the Balrog of Moria, which was depicted for a few seconds at the end of a previous episode. 

The Balrog did not appear at all in the final episode. Indeed, the episode did not even return to the Moria plot thread in which the Balrog occurred. 

It's not as if they lacked time to include it, because the final episode was full of padding - such as a full five minutes of farewell emoting and weeping from the Harfoots; and several utterly disconnected and dramatically futile scraps from the Numenor thread. 

Sheer incompetence. 

Some parts of it were fine, by the standards I set myself. The (at last...) 'revelations' concerning the identity of the wizard (presumably Gandalf) and Sauron were well enough done to keep me entertained and attentive - if morally both shallow and abhorrent in their underlying assumptions. 

(But four idiot-fool, unarmed Harfoots catching-up-with and defeating three super-powered and ruthless bad-angels was ludicrously unbelievable.)  

But if the makers knew what they were doing; these revelations would have happened in the third or fourth, not eighth, episode; since the absurdity of withholding such 'secrets' got less interesting, more boring, and more confusing. 

Contrary to the sophomoric expectations of some early-modern artists and writers; deliberately confusing the audience is not difficult, therefore not clever; and counter-productive to storytelling and script quality. 

The longer the deliberate confusion over identity persisted, the longer the pseudo-secret was sustained - the less interested I was in learning the answers (which I had guessed anyway). A script that relies heavily on the chronically-delayed-unveiling of artificially-withheld-information; represents one of the lowest, because least-effective, forms of storytelling. 

The Rings of Power was therefore a fascinating snapshot of the Decline of The West, where basic functionality is almost entirely disregarded; and the gap between claims and accomplishment is bridged by massive and coordinated media propaganda...

Yet, at the same time, that media propaganda is itself subject to the same self-imposed corruption, and therefore cannot sustain the lies it is trying to enforce.

Collapse of functionality in one sector, creates collapse of functionality in other sectors - until there is (there must be) general collapse. 

Incompetence is no longer regarded as a flaw; so long as failures happen in the context of woke/ politically correct signaling. 

Whether in TV, movies, novels, art, architecture, museums or whatever; the audience are required to admire (and enjoy!) the preaching and soft-sell of current socio-political taking points - and to pretend that they are thereby being edified and entertained.   

Ours is a world of value inversion; part of which is that the people in charge are picked from the least competent at their purported function. And indeed are appointed without any requirement for competence. 

Those 'in charge' of our social institutions are either de facto (or actual) actors (speaking someone else's lines), or were appointed to meet affirmative actions quotas, or else got jobs on the basis of their ability to bullshit in the necessary style. 

Thus the root of the problem is not incompetence, but instead actually malign intention; the incompetence happens by deliberate will and choices. 

The reason we have incompetent people in charge almost-everywhere, is because those who are ultimately In Charge, positively desire societal destruction; and therefore deploy incompetence towards this aim.

...At least, the use incompetent personnel whenever the motivation to failure needs to be deniable (i.e. when they cannot plausibly pretend that purposive destructiveness is a sensible and positive policy). 

Rings of Power might have been a well-made and cunningly-crafted inversion of Tolkien's work; done with the intent of over-writing and spoiling Lord of the Rings in memory and by framing of future expectations...

But in the actual case (for whatever reasons) somebody decided to recruit armies of incompetents, at every level and in most functions, to make the show. 

Apparently, it was decided simply to give incompetence its head - to bore the pants off the audience, and encourage them to stop-watching in droves. 

Perhaps 'they' are vaguely hoping that this fiasco of a show will stop too many people going-on to read the original Lord of the Rings - by encouraging the idea that it would be similarly dull, pointless and incoherent as the Rings of Power? 

I can't say I find this theory convincing; but such a disaster certainly did not happen just by accident: there were just too-many, too-bad decisions for random chance to explain. 

Perhaps it is some kind of cunning fraud on the lines of Mel Brook's The Producers... A plan to profit from failure? 

If so, and if the scam works; the Rings of Power may just be the first of many such shows!

In this mortal life it seems that God wants us to work things out each for himself; rather than passively following guidance.

But further, it is desired that we are to learn to value and follow heart thinking (the free, agent, thinking of the real and divine self) - whereas we spontaneously use a mixture of head thinking (reasoning, logic) with gut instinct.

The great advantage of heart thinking is that it takes "everything" of relevance (conscious and unconscious ) and focuses it down to what is required by me, here, and now. Or, it takes account of everthing-relevant, from the exact perspective of me/here/now.

Heart thinking is thus a divine attribute, and requires that we temporarily align fully with God's creative intentions. This is why God desires for us to know and do heart thinking.

By contrast, head thinking is our conscious usage of few and specified, generalized and abstract, concepts; and the "evidence" they generate. Head thinking is thus intrinsically generic, not specific; and uses abstract models of reality.

...While gut instinct is likewise generic; being an application ( to the unique here and now of an unique individual), of general rules derived from an "average" of past, ancestral experiences and learning.

Because we are only partly God-aligned mortal beings in an entropic world, and part way on a developmental path to God-nature; we can only attain to heart thinking temporarily and intermittently.

Nonetheless, that is what we should strive to do.

Looking back across the gulf between now and 2020, we can see how carefully the birdemic scam was planned so that its fundamental dishonesty was plausibly deniable. 

Key definitions had been changed, fake science of the necessary kind had been seeded into the literature, the peck had been pre-manufactured etc.

This was an instance of how They intended running the world: as a closed system of superficially rational bureaucracy. All policies came with a manufactured veneer of plausibility.

In 2022 and the West-engineered invasion by the Fire Nation, such efforts at manufacturing consent among the administrative class were simply discarded.

Despite that war had been caculatedly provoked over many years, the economic and financial policies that were stated to be able to destroy the Fire Nation were invented and imposed off-the-cuff, by diktat and without mobilizing consent. 

These policies are so obviously SELF-destructive, that significant portions of The Establishment have broken away from the unity of policy that characterized 2020. Indeed, the FN war is itself a massive scaling back of System ambitions from the whole world to about half of it.

Thus 2022 has been a year of disintegration, destruction, and loss of control.

The public justification has gone from carefully crafted systems of plausible dishonesty; to unconsidered, wild, incoherent and childish lies. From rational propaganda to de facto PSYOPS.

For the credulous Western masses, this marks a shift from docile obedience to a chronic state of stunned bewilderment consequent upon psychological damage.

The PSYOPS is not planned, but a result of the arrogant indifference and laziness of the imposed ruling class, combined with a desire to immiserate, harm and kill.

The world of 2020 was en route to tyranny and slow-mo degradation; but the world of 2022 is falling apart, faster and faster; into selfish, cruel warring factions - and is situated on the cusp of collapse.

I regard the teaching and work of Jesus Christ as having been encapsulated by the Fourth Gospel (of 'John') and confirmed by reflection and intuition. 

Yet this is extremely different from recorded historical Christianity - which therefore suggests that the 'true' message has been greatly distorted (and also over-complexified); and from a very early stage after the death of Jesus. 

The two great distorters have been the Old Testament and Ancient Hebrew Jewish religion in one direction; and, in another direction, the Greek and Roman ('classical') philosophy, especially that of Pythagoras, Plato and the Neo-Platonists and the 'Gnostics' - which comprise what modern Men call the Perennial Philosophy. 

The Hebrew distortion is to regard Christianity as a development of Ancient Judaism, that preserves its Laws, is lived in accordance with Law, and remains guided by the ancient teachings, wisdom, prophecy etc. 

It regards Christians as a tribe, and salvation as happening at a group (i.e. church) level ('no salvation outside the church'); it regards the Old Testament as true (inerrant) - just as true and important as any of the New Testament.

This Old Testament distortion came very early, and is most evident in the Gospel of Matthew; but also permeates Paul's letters - and indeed is mainstream among Christianity through its history. 

The distortion from classical philosophy assimilates Christianity within pre-existent philosophical and abstract concepts of God (as the 'Omni-God'), a (modified) concept of the ultimate oneness of all things, and the idea that time (and mortal life) is an earthly and mortal illusion and a period of trial and suffering merely - such that divine reality is beyond time, and experiences all simultaneously; and the aim of a Christian should be to die and escape this illusory and essentially evil mortal life. 

This distortion came in mainly with some of the early church leaders (church fathers). The Gnostics (who pre-dated the life of Christ, and continued afterwards) were, I believe, merely a more extreme version of the same distortion that afflicts mainstream Christianity: the distortion towards oneness and abstraction, the need for expert philosophical knowledge - the belief that the spiritual is higher than the material; a powerful aversion to the personal and to the incarnated a tendency to regard this mortal life as essentially evil, including our-selves, with the idea of Original Sin (the Gnostics went further to believe the mortal life and world was created by 'the devil' equivalent).

All of these Gnostic features were incorporated, to varying degrees, in mainstream Christianity (some via Paul, in particular; but mainly embedded by later theologians); and led to the powerful strand of asceticism and 'negative theology' (via negativa) which remains strong among intellectual Christians.  

These distortions were probably inevitable, and perhaps necessary, to the history of Christianity; because Men saw themselves as members of a group; and therefore naturally saw and experienced salvation in a groupish way. 

And the church leaders justified their role (and the dependence of laity upon them) mainly by their superior expertise and intellectual capacity - rather like Plato's philosopher-kings or Gnostic initiates. 

But now that modern Men experience themselves as individuals, and the Christian churches and their leadership are corrupt, and mainstream secular discourse is almost wholly abstract - the time has come to take Christianity 'straight'... 

I think more people need to focus upon Christ's message as it was taught and lived by Jesus Christ; as described by the only eye-witness to his ministry; the disciple who Jesus loved; and the first Man to experience resurrection - that is to say the account by Lazarus: the author of the Fourth Gospel. 

All The News is currently concerned with the bitter internal struggles of The Establishment about how best to destroy civilization and cause Global Giga-Death. Because, although they all are on-board-with the broad plan; the specific details and priorities are the subject of much dispute. 

In the first place, there was the conflict between - on the one hand - those who aimed at the 'Ahrimanic'-bureaucratic Global System to impose totalitarian materialism and brainwash the populace; and - on the other hand - those more 'Sorathically'-inclined; who want simply to immiserate, harm and destroy people, nature and the environment - including The System. 

But the destroyers have apparently won that inter-demonic battle: and destruction is increasingly replacing control as the Establishment strategy. 

Yet even though destruction is the agreed objective; problems remain, and the debate intensifies. 

Should the focus be on cutting down food or energy supplies? Destroying trade and transport, money, or human reproduction? Should war or poisoning be the major goal? Smashing health services or the police? Is mass migration or mass despair the surest and swiftest route to mass collapse?

The problem is that each individual servant of evil has short-term objectives for his or her own personal enrichment and gratification - and there are many such schemes and agendas afoot; and these inevitably ten conflict with optimizing the long-term project for inflicting misery and encouraging damnation. 

Even those who have chosen the side of evil in All of the major Litmus Test issues - such as annihilation of the Fire Nation, birdemic-peck, transagenda-sexual revolution, antiracism-mass-immigration, and climate-emergecy-anticarbonism - nonetheless need to determine which to do hardest today; and where to allocate their greatest effort and resources. 

All the Bad Causes claim to be The most important form of evil; all are clamouring for attention Now - but cognitive limitations dictate that we can only be thinking of one thing at a time. 

Luckily for the agents of purposive destruction; the incoherent and oppositional nature of their programme creates an ultimate synergy; because Good can be destroyed by unbounded numbers of means acting simultaneously toward that end. 

So, although the evil overlords get terribly excited and exercised by the ranking of harmful preferences; ultimately even their inter-office disputes help to enhance the evil orientation of the world. 

This may seem the least 'romantic' of times - and certainly it is the intention of those with power and wealth to make it so. They intend to make life a purely 'material' thing; with all that may be considered mystical, spiritual or magical excluded from significant discourse as being unreal, ridiculous and dangerous. 

But this very fact makes these times potentially of the greatest possible romantic significance. If we can put aside preconceptions of a romantic life derived from aspirations of the past, and take account of the situation here-and-now, it readily becomes clear that the 'setting' of our lives - of each and every person's life - is now one of unavoidable spiritual conflict.

...Because there is a universal war being waged by the agents of purposive evil (who include those with the greatest power and wealth): a war against God, divine creation, Jesus Christ and indeed -ultimately - all that is good. 

Everybody is under attack, nearly all the time; so we need not seek the battle. The war is come to us, wave after wave, day after day - and we must fight it or succumb. 

It is a deceptive war; a war of evil pretending to be good; and a war of the inversion of true values. 

Since it is deceptive; our weapons in this war are firstly discernment and understanding. To know the enemy and what he is attempting has significant value of itself - so see clearly ('clairvoyance') is our defence.   

Yet we are not restricted to reactive defence - we can also attack, proactively. 

Just as a single Man can take the side of evil - and can defy and reject God the creator and the salvation of Jesus Christ; so, on the other side; a single Man can reject, defy, and even inflict permanent damage upon, the forces of evil. 

Whenever we think consciously and actively from our true and divine selves; we are participating in divine creation and change reality for the better: forever!

We can resist Hell; and we can also add-to Heaven. 

The spiritual battle is real; and our defeats are just as real - and more frequent - than victories. 

Winning is difficult because destruction is easier than creation; fear and despair are therefore among the worst and most frequent of our foes. 

Every day we fail. Every day we need to recognize and repent our failures - and then keep fighting. 

And sometimes we will succeed; although success is always temporary, judged by the standards of this mortal world... What we need to re-grasp every time is that - judged instead by the standards of eternal life; it is our successes that are permanent, and our failures which are temporary. 

This possibility for modern living is open to anyone who perceives the nature of this world as a spiritual war, and himself chooses to take up the fight. 

What could possibly be more romantic?

In Tolkien's legendarium, Men and Elves are the same 'species', but the fate of their spirits are very different. 

Men die and their spirits leave the world, and go... nobody knows where. 

But Elves - whether they live on Middle Earth and fade, are killed and return to the realm of spirits, or live in the undying lands - are bound to the fate of the world. This means that Elves die when the world ends; and, what happens to their spirits is not known. 

Therefore, both Men and Elves need faith in the goodness of The One, or God - who is the creator - if they are not to despair. 

Although Men's spirits leave the world, they need faith that the spirits are not simply annihilated at that point; and that whatever fate God has in store for them, it must ultimately be for their Good. 

Likewise Elves must have faith that when, eventually, the world comes to an end, their spirits will not likewise utterly perish; but that God will instead have some good fate for them in whatever unknown situation comes after the end of the world. 

From Men's perspective, the Elves will not have to worry about what happens for a long time - many lives of Men; so Man's need for faith is much more urgent if he is not to succumb to despair. 

Elves seem to love the world, get fulfillment from life, more than Men; and so can remain interested by things for longer. But sooner or later their motivation fades - and they begin to focus on the futility of merely existing while waiting for the end of the world. The threat of despair is therefore something that creeps-up on elves, slowly but inexorably. 

In the end, when confronted by the future, Elves and Men share the same ultimate, existential, need for hope based upon faith in the goodness of God. Neither have any other 'guarantee' - since neither race can look beyond their own - apparent - annihilation; and they have no dependable 'information' on what will happen afterwards.  

Tolkien himself regarded this situation as having been changed for Men with the incarnation of Jesus Christ (in an era after the legendarium), and the resultant new information ('revelation') that there would be a life beyond death: resurrection. 

How this putatively affected Elves was only hinted at by Tolkien - with the idea that Elves might not be resurrected, but perhaps rejuvenated in Men's Heaven - having been (I infer, Tolkien did not use the word) translated to Heaven (i.e. earth remade, creation cleansed of the evil taint introduced by Melkor/ Morgoth) in something like the way Roman Catholics envisage for the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

This was perhaps conceivable for Tolkien; because - although prone to sin - Elves had not undergone a theological Fall in the same way as Men. 

I find a lesson for Modern Man in all this. 

Modern Men no longer believe the revelations about Jesus Christ - they do not believe the Bible, the teachings of the church, and have rejected tradition to the point of regarding it as evil. 

Modern men have, therefore - pretty much - returned to something like the situation of Tolkien's Men. We have no knowledge of God or resurrection - but only the possibility of 'mere' Hope; a Hope based upon sheer and un-evidenced Faith in the ultimate Goodness and care of God. 

Such a Faith in such a God, can only have its roots in personal assurance, deriving from a situation of a pure act of direct inner-confrontation with reality; and the insight, intuition, sense of sure knowing which may arise in such a situation. 

Such a faith in God can provide a basis for Hope - but that Hope must be non-specific (much like that of Tolkien's Elves and Men) unless it has, in addition, more explicit knowledge of the work of Jesus Christ and the possibility of resurrection.

This is why the Holy Ghost is such a vital aspect of Christian belief; since the assumption is that the ascended Christ provided this new source of explicit knowledge, unavailable to the 'ancient' Men (and Elves) envisaged by Tolkien. 

The Holy Ghost can - it is asserted - provide those who seek His guidance with specific information about the future of Men beyond Death (i.e. resurrection into Heaven); and guidance on how to partake in that future. 

This information is available to us; but was not available to Tolkien's Men; yet the ability to avail ourselves of this knowledge is dependent-upon our prior Faith and Hope in the goodness of God, the creator - for us, as for the Men (and Elves) of Tolkien's world.  

In the post-1945 'Western' world; there is a sense in which to desire 'peace' has always been regarded as an acceptable - if not approved - opinion. 

We can see that by the fact that pacifism has always been afforded a platform in the mainstream media and politics, and is allowed as a subject of discussion - even when it is subject to official disapproval, and argued against. 

This continues, even under the current system of unprecedented discourse-control; and this should alert us that for a person in public discourse of 2022 to argue for peace is a red flag. And RF both in terms of showing that something is 'off' (e.g. that the pacifist is being used or manipulated for pro-System purposes) - and possibly that this is also a red flag in the sense of a pro-leftism fake or deception. 

Pro-peace discourse is an alluring deception, because peace (as opposed to war) is something that almost everybody wants as an outcome - and as soon as possible. 

Nonetheless, its public expression in terms of complete- or partial-anti-war pacifism, or putting peace as The Priority; is also something that is nowadays routinely deployed by those who have engineered war and are actively working to escalate war.

Unless that fact is understood explicitly; then the desire for peace is an unconscious instinct that can- and will-be - and is being - used against-itself. 

It is characteristic of our time that instincts are almost-always being (Systematically) harnessed and used against themselves - eg. sexual urges, the desire for freedom or tolerance or dignity, the yearning for security. 

Systems that are purporting to generate more of these, in actuality eventuate in less of them (while claiming to have promoted them). 

Therefore, peace and pacifism are not just red flags, but red herrings! They are small scale and tactical distractions from what needs to be understood at the large scale; and as distractions from what ought to be done, they passively-promote (actively-allow) the opposite of what their supporters want to be done.

When a society's metaphysical assumptions are false and evil (as in our case), and that society therefore understands wrongly the nature of reality, and thus wants what is fundamentally wrong; then this deep problem cannot be solved - but will instead be worsened - by aiming to implement-directly superficial and short-termist motivations. 

In His work of creation, God had a problem with evil Beings*; because Beings cannot be destroyed, therefore evil cannot be destroyed. Nor can evil be confined because spirits cannot be confined. 

Therefore, as soon as there existed demons - unincarnated spirits who are committed to evil; and also the post-mortal spirits of evil-serving Men; then these could not be eradicated. 

(Some may repent - but what of those who do not?) 

Because God could not exclude evil from all of reality; therefore, God needed to make a separate and wholly Good place - a place free from evil: in other words, Heaven. 

Heaven is a situation without evil, because it is not a 'place', but more like the eternal alliance of Good hearts. 

Heaven is possible when Men can make a transformative and permanent commitment to love God and work in harmony with His divine creation, and to love all other Beings that do the same. 

To make Heaven therefore required that transformative and permanent commitment to Good which is resurrection; and resurrection required Jesus Christ: therefore Heaven did not exist until after Jesus had done the necessary work to enable Men to follow him through resurrection to Heaven.  

Evil is an ineradicable fact of reality; and Heaven is not the exclusion of evil Beings from a place - but the exclusion of evil motivations from a Being.  

This is a reggae arrangement, from 1969, of Elizabethan Serenade, perhaps my favourite piece of British Light Music; which I have liked since early childhood. It frequently featured on a weekend kids radio programme called Junior Choice - or maybe the show for adults broadcast just before it. 

Elizabethan Reggae was on the compilation album Reggae Chartbusters Volume 1 (1969) - which was owned by a friend - the leader of a 'pop group' called The Shades that I played in (with the... unorthodox combination of reed organ, acoustic guitar, ukulele-banjo (that was me) and maracas). 

That LP, and Volume 2, was where I heard most of these 'rocksteady'-type reggae pieces that I have continued to appreciate over the years. 

As an arrangement Elizabethan Reggae is pretty crude and done in a single take with mistakes left-in (therefore, perhaps, some strange harmonies and modulations); but the rhythm playing is so unsurpassably superb - and the Hammond Organ sound so sharply incisive - that the track is very enjoyable anyway, and grows on you. 

The tune is so appealing that it has been widely covered: whistled, made into a choral song (which my wife tells me she performed in a primary school choir), and was done as a solo in Czech by their sweet-voiced popular tenor - Karel Gott. 

What now strikes me about utopian idealists is how pitifully little they want! 

Consider some of the early socialists and communists. Supposing Marx had got absolutely everything he desired - the fully communist atheist society of common ownership, even to the degree that the state withered-away and New Men did all the right things because that is what they desired... What a pathetic life! Merely a brief animal existence of farmyard contentment, followed by a meaningless death and annihilation. 

Or William Morris, with his (to me, far more appealing) vision of a medieval-style, rural and beautiful, utopia of farmers, craftsmen and artists. But again, a world without transcendence, without eternity - hence without purpose, hence without any meaning except the pleasurable distractions of hand-labour, crafts, song and poetry. Then disease, decline and death; and then Nothing - forever. 

Or the modern transhumanists; who seek to abolish disease, ageing, death and suffering. If they somehow got everything what they wanted - what would it amount-to? A world without suffering, a world of continuous (or continuously modulating and varying) pleasure... forever! It takes a peculiar lack of imagination to suppose that even all this impossibly-unlikely transformation would make life worthwhile. 

This-worldly utopians think of themselves, and like to present themselves, as untrammeled by the 'possible' or even the plausible - as sweeping dreamers who dreams will create-themselves, by sheer force of untrammeled desire and will... And yet how pathetically restricted are those dreams!   

But, it might be asked - what about Christians? What about our goal of resurrected eternal life in Heaven - how could this be made... not just bearable, but profoundly and eternally fulfilling? 

I know of nobody who gave this matter deeper and more sustained consideration than William Arkle - most directly in his booklet Equations of Being. In this he allows himself to imagine what would be the necessary characteristics of a genuinely idealistic utopia - actual Heaven. 

What combination of change in ourselves and of an ideal environment, would we personally find fulfilling, motivating and joyous - forever. 

And then; can we conceive of how God - our loving Father and the Creator - might have made such a thing possible: made it happen?

If we can conceive of it; we finally need to ask whether it is true, and accessible to us; and how? 

Suppose that we are personally motivated to perform such a feat of sustained imagination about Heavenly life, what then? 

Well, that may then be a solid basis for Christian life in this very different, and temporary, mortal life and world. 

The contrast with any-and-all worldly and material 'utopias' shall then become very evident; and we may recognize that that kind of idealism is profoundly, tragically, misplaced.

What's wrong with believing liars? 

This is a question that a lot more people - especially Christians, for whom lying is a sin and a mark of sin - ought to be asking themselves. 

We have a Christian duty to disbelieve lies - because lies are not truth; and we must adhere to truth. 

Truth is reality. Christianity is chosen, and how can we choose right if we do not acknowledge reality?

But what does this mean - apart from ourselves not speaking untruths?

How can we know that an assertion is a lie? 

Especially in an ultra-complex world, where we lack direct access to most facts, and are incapable of evaluating them anyway; and where we are so fire-hosed every day with so many assertions that it would be impossible to check even a tithe of them? 

Well, the main thing we need to do in order to avoid believing lies is not to believe liars.

Not, therefore, to believe those who are known to be liars; and have a record of deliberately misleading us; and have not clearly and explicitly repented their lies, untruths, dishonesty and deliberate misleadings.

We are told by Jesus in the Fourth Gospel that the Satan is a liar - indeed the father of lies; which I understand to mean that all who lie are of the devil's party.  

Thus, when we believe a liar, we become responsible for the lies he tells us; and we have thereby have joined the side of evil in the spiritual war of this world. 

It is impossible to detect every specific lie, but it is easy to know a liar!

Indeed, easier now than at any time in history; because everybody in mainstream public life (including Christian church leaders) is a liar and must lie to retain his position; and because the lies told us get bigger and bigger, stupider and stupider, less and less coherent... 

This simple fact will be starkly obvious, if we are ourselves honest. 

So, first we need to be be truthful ourselves; then we can know those who are untruthful; and then it is our duty to disbelieve them.

We must disbelieve them in our hearts; no matter how rich, famous, high in status, expert, or powerful that person - or institution - may be. 

No matter if that liar is a leader of even head of our church, nor if the lie officially comes from the authorities of our church - we must discern and reject the assertions of all known liars; on peril of being seduced to evil.  

Because whenever we believe a liar in our hearts, then our hearts are corrupted by those lies; and we will swiftly find ourselves in alliance with those whose goal is the corruption and damnation of this world and all its people. 

The clickbait title asks a question that - in a literal sense - is unanswerable; but the presumption must be: Yes. 

Leaving spiritual aspects aside (for once) it is clear that natural selection acting upon human behaviour would have adapted human beings to living on the basis of many assumptions that are now denied-by and deleted-from all mainstream public discourse. 

A simple example is God/ gods/ spirits. All humans, until recently, lived in societies that operated on the basis that there were supernatural beings which had a major influence on human life and society. The implication is that such assumptions would be hard-wired into the human brain; since 'religion' was such an important factor in human society and therefore human reproduction. 

This assumption of the supernatural has now been deleted. So modern humans are in a position of having innumerable deep, powerful, innate and spontaneous expectations built -pon supernatural assumptions, that are now denied.  

Another assumption is that life continues - in some way - after biological death. There are many different ideas in historical societies about what happens after 'death' - but all societies were built on the assumptions that death was Not the end and there would be a life after death. 

This expectation of continued existence naturally affects many attitudes to life before death - and conversely the fact that modern societies assume that death is an annihilation of everything personal must likewise affect many attitudes. In effect modern expectations of life has been shortened from 'forever' to a few decades.

It's enough to drive anyone crazy - and they are...

Multiply such factors many-fold, and you can see that - even as a simple biological level - modern men and women are likely to be some combination of insane and despairing. 

Which is exactly what we find. 

The insanity is evident from the lack of insight - loss of insight into the fact of illness being a hallmark of psychosis. This combines with incoherence of thinking - another hallmark. The despair is evident from the 'morality' of short-termist hedonism as a guiding principle (and 'right'); which culturally began to set-in with the 1960s.  

The idea that actual brain damage may underlie maladaptive responses to human life, is simply the recognize that habitual behaviours affect brain structure, as well as brain function; leading to harmful changes that are lasting and difficult to reverse. 

All this is predictable just from ordinary evolutionary biology - and leaving aside the primary level of spiritual reality: which is yet another thing that has been eliminated from modern society. 

A rather stylish and pleasing Art Nouveau style statue, in Old Eldon Square. The bird poo adds a touch of battlefield authenticity, I feel... 

Almost everybody (in the West especially) has painted himself into a corner by accepting a raft of basic assumptions about the world that are so nihilistic that they actually want to destroy themselves, their society - and everybody else in the world.

Literally.  

Indeed, Modern Man positively insists that everybody in the world must believe exactly as himself or else be annihilated; despite that his beliefs are visibly, with a crazed acceleration, destroying everything and on the cusp of creating the By Far greatest cataclysm the world has ever seen (simply because there are now far more people in a far more interconnected world than ever before). 

All these crazed, despairing, self-loathing, other-hating people! 

And what they want more than anything else is not an escape from the self-imposed end of everything that they personally value most; but instead that the whole world be compelled to share in their existential collapse! 

They seethe with resentment and hatred against anybody or any place that does not enthusiastically agree with their futile anti-system - a system of pure negation that explicitly denies any purpose or meaning in the universe, in life, in mankind, in anything... 

So insane is this, that although they claim to live only for pleasure and to avoid misery (i.e. some variant of the utilitarianism that forms the only 'moral' basis of the entire bureaucratic-media world of institutions, corporations, government and all the social functions); they nonetheless agree-with an ideology (and demand policies) that purposively and visibly is destroying pleasure and inflicting suffering - including on themselves! Now and more to come!

...Hedonists who insist on the elimination of pleasure; terrified of pain yet co-creating a world of mega-agony. 

All that is on the surface; and it is almost ubiquitous - therefore its cause must be deep and widespread. 

Its cause is metaphysical - which means at the level of people's primary assumptions concerning the nature of reality. 

It is these metaphysical assumptions that have driven the world into its current frenzy of self-hating, other-hating suicide - such that the main object of hatred is anyone, anyplace, any era, that dissents from the orgy of self-loathing nihilism. 

One thing people will Absolutely Not give-up is their metaphysical assumptions; such that reality necessarily has no meaning or purpose, there is no God, no soul, that death terminates existence, that everything happening is an accident of determinism and randomness. 

And even many of those who reject these above assumptions, nonetheless absolutely Insist on painting themselves into a corner with incoherent, self-contradicting assumptions about the nature of God, Evil and human freedom. 

And these religious people have much the same character as the nihilists - in that they rage against those who reject their immiserating, paralysing, futile, life-dissolving, future-denying doctrines. 

The one thing that nearly-everyone is way too demotivated, sophisticated, skeptical and other-obedient to accept; is that Jesus Christ came to bring us everlasting resurrected life in Heaven; and that to make this choice requires only that we personally do what is necessary to follow him on the path he made for us. 

That is what the world conspires to reject; at every possible level. 

Since the advent of 'modernity; people have been - quite reasonably - concerned about the possibilities of subjective self-deception. 

But this has typically been dealt with by the false idea of 'seeking external evaluation'; without any recognition that all external systems, models, sources and methods of external evaluation are prone to exactly the same problem of self-deception - but hidden by layers of incomprehensibility and complexity; and therefore ignorable. 

I first confronted this in science; which has been widely regarded (in The West) for the past several centuries as the best and most reliable source of knowledge - exactly because it claims to have an objective method and external systems of evaluation.

Yet, when we look at 'science' as it has become over the past several decades (most evident since early 2020) - we ought to be able to perceive that this is nonsense; because 'science' is neither valid (ie true) nor even reliable (ie stable) - but instead fails to satisfy even common-sense efficacy, and spins like a weathervane to track socio-political imperatives. 

This is evident from the inside of science, where I dwelt for much of my professional life; and where we can perceive the endemic and near-total prevalence of dishonesty. And that this corruption of science stems not from defective 'methods' (which have indeed been 'improved'... at least according to the lights of mainstream science methodologists) but from defective motivation. 

When one has observed the indifference of scientists to truth - and especially among the most famous, successful, powerful and prestigious scientists; one can infer that the successful era of real science was never about method; but instead was about motivation.  

It was the motivation to seek and speak truth that drove science, and made its validity and reliability.

Once that motivation was subtracted, then science became corrupt - and the expansion of 'methodology', the systems of 'external validation' (such as the evil nonsense of 'peer review') merely concealed- and distracted-from this corruption. 

The same applies in the realm of the spirit. 

It turns-out (as we can see from a glance at the gross dereliction of All the major Christian churches, most evident in 2020) - the vast apparatus of authorities, scriptural scholarship, and methods; has been utterly ineffectual in preventing wholesale corruption and co-opting of the churches to the agendas of globalist totalitarian evil.

It turns-out that external validation only reinforces error; and thereby prevents repentance. 

If not, then what? If not external and group-orientated validation, then what? 

Well, the answer is internal and personal validation: individual discernment. 

But what prevents personal discernment from becoming merely an exercise in wish fulfilment, incompetence, delusion or self-deception? 

The answer is - for Christianity just as for real-science - motivation. 

If one is motivated to seek and speak truth about God, creation and Jesus Christ; then over the long term, one will naturally repent and discard error - whenever and in whatever form error emerges.  

There is no method but motivation, no authority but motivation. 

Someone who is not genuinely motivated to know God, will not know God - and will find a million ways of covering and denying his errors.  

But someone who is motivated to know God has a million ways of discovering when he has erred; and of discovering true authorities (if any), true scripture, true methods - and truth in a million other places. 

And when he makes a discovery of his own error, there is nothing to stop him repenting; because he will not wait upon the say-so of external authorities/ scripture/ methods etc. 

When science was real, errors made little difference, because in a community of the honest - errors of truth were naturally detected and willingly discarded. But now that we have a system and method of fake-science, and science is defined as membership of this community - truth is of zero concern; and errors are adopted and maintained whenever, and for as long as, they are expedient. 

The analogy of science with Christianity and the churches is exact. 

The answer in both science and Christianity is for truth-motivated individuals to seek for themselves; confident that in a reality created by God our loving Father; he will always, in the end, be able to discover as much truth as he needs for the purposes of this mortal life. 

I have often commented on the deep problems with the double-negative theology in mainstream Christianity. 

It is double-negative because it regards the problem of this life as sin, and the work of Jesus Christ as purging us of this sin - of removing this sin from us. 

This mortal life is therefore conceptualized negatively, as dominated by sin; and Jesus's work is the negation of this negative - i.e. removing sin, so that we can be resurrected into Heaven: a double-negative. 

This concept regards Heaven as a perfection, and mortal Men as imperfect due to sin; so we cannot enter Heaven until we are ridded of sin - and that is what Jesus made possible. 

So, by one means or another (and this means differs between Christian denominations), before we get to Heaven we go through a process whereby sin is removed (purged) from us, and what is left-over is wholly-good, and therefore we are allowed to enter Heaven.

To enter Heaven is understood as a willingness to undergo this purgation, this 'amputation' of our sinful elements.   

I find many problems with this set of ideas - which boil down to this concept being an implicit an assertion of the idea that God (the Creator and our loving Father) has put us into a sinful world, ourselves being riddled with sin; and that to reach Heaven we must have this sin stripped out from us - implying that what is allowed into Heaven is an incomplete version of ourselves... 

(Indeed, perhaps, for very sin-full people, there will not be much of ourselves remaining, by the time we are suitable for Heaven.)

The purpose of this mortal life - according to such theology - is to reject sin: a negative purpose.  

I find this kind of behaviour - imputed to God - incompatible with him being a loving Father; who might have created things differently and better.

And I find the idea of this mortal life as a negative motivation (against sin, which sin is against-God) both inadequate and somewhat repugnant. It points at the via negativa - a life of rejection that amounts to life turned-against life.

Whereas I feel in my heart (and from the example of Jesus Christ, who was incarnate, active, positive), that this mortal life is - or ought to have - a positive purpose. We ought to be able to become better through our living (experiencing and learning), rather than merely 'avoiding becoming worse'.   

Instead, I see 'sin' as essentially meaning 'death' (which is clear from the Fourth Gospel) - and also the other forms of anti-creative innate corruption and decay that lead up to death (and which modern physics terms entropy). 

Sin in this sense, is the severing of our souls from our bodies at death - and it is this 'death' which Jesus overcame himself, and made possible for those who followed his path. 

Sin, more broadly, is a turning-away from what God desires from us. And a turning-away is not dealt with by purgation but by turning us in the right direction - permanently!

In other words, the main thing that Jesus did is to bring the possibility of eternal life; and this life as a resurrection of our real selves, and with a body - destined for a Heaven where all beings are turned in a direction in harmony with divine creation. 

All beings in Heaven have made an eternal commitment to God's creative goals. 

Rather than a purgation of all that is worst in our-selves; I see the work of Jesus in terms of an amplification of our-selves at their best. 

In this mortal life we find ourselves, intermittently and infrequently - turned in a Heavenly direction. So we know from experience what it is like to live in harmony with divine creation - to work with (rather than against) God.

(We also know what it is like to be turned-away from God and creation - what this feels like, where it leads; and we may learn something of how to overcome this turned-away state in ourselves) 

To prepare us for life in Heaven is therefore something like making it possible for us to stay permanently turned in the direction of Heaven and Creation, in permanent harmony with God's creative will. 

For this to happen, we each must choose whether to allow it to happen. 

Do we want the best in ourselves to become our whole self - or not? 

(This naturally entails leaving-behind those things that can only be achieved by going against God and creation - but the positive reason is that we desire wholly to be our best selves; and because we want to dwell eternally in a situation where we can whole-heartedly and actively work for such goals.)

It is a matter of what we want, and what we want most. 

By analogy; if this mortal life is a walk; then it is a walk when we spin around: sometimes walking with God, sometimes off on a tangent, sometimes pushing against the direction of God. 

Those who choose to follow Jesus Christ, are those who value most - indeed, at root, deeply-value only - those times when they are walking with God (times when they are motivated by love, and participating in the work of divine creation). 

Those who choose Heaven are those who want to do this walking-in harmony with God and sharing God's goals all the time - because they value love and creativity above all else; and indeed these are ultimately the only things of mortal life that they truly, everlastingly value. 

Primary Thinking (PT) is a reality difficult to grasp and recognize; so here is another aspect that may be of help in knowing when it is happening.  

Another term for PT is 'direct-knowing' - and this is experienced as suddenly 'recalling' that we already-know something. So; a thought appears in the stream of mundane thinking that has a different quality; and that quality is somewhat like memory. 

Thus we experience this thought as valid; as if we always knew it - but (as with direct-thinking) we have not reached this conclusion from evidence or reasoning. It is a direct and unmediated sharing, based on thinking the same thoughts as God (but, obviously, from a position of Much less capacity than God). 

Suddenly we Just Know - and it feels like we always have known; but implicitly.

This is because spiritual thinking as it first emerges - before being 'translated' into language or some other symbolism - is true (at least, true within the limits of our capacity to comprehend). 

It is true, because Primary Thinking is our (true) selves conscious participation in divine creation; and truth could briefly be defined as the reality of divine creation. It is that reality we know - know, because we are participating in it - with Primary Thinking.