The Unconditional Human Spirit

The climate science behind climate change. Point? There is no “climate crisis”. We are living through climate change that can be best understood in terms of “natural variation” caused by prominent natural factors. This evidence counters the irrational hysteria incited by the prophets of the climate apocalypse narrative. And that narrative can be understood better in terms of the continuing influence of apocalyptic millennial mythology on many people today.

The evidence below, along with much similar evidence, reveals/exposes the climate crisis movement to be a “profoundly religious crusade”. Its certainly not science. This site probes the mythology behind such crusades and their endeavors to undermine/overturn our liberal democracies through crusades promising “salvation through destruction”, typical of all the similar crusades before, whether religious or “secular/ideological” (as in “secularized” versions of the same basic mythological themes).

Note the same old “salvation through destruction” in Marxist versions, in Nazism, and now prominently in environmental alarmism. The “destruction” element is in the “de-growth, de-development” policies of “Net Zero decarbonization”. Policies now hindering, overturning, and eventually full-frontal ruining/destroying our heritage of industrial civilization based on (what are in reality) plentiful and (hence, what should be) inexpensive fossil fuels.

Add here also the good research of atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen and William Happer on the physics of CO2 (see their reports at “CO2coalition.org”) and the fact that the warming influence of CO2 is now “saturated”, a physics term referring to the fact that the area on the infrared spectrum where CO2 functions to warm climate (around 15 mm) is now full. And even a doubling of CO2 levels to 800 ppm will not result in much more warming, if any.

They further add evidence on the many benefits of increased CO2 in our “CO2 starvation era” (Patrick Moore). Benefits like a massive greening of our planet, where more CO2, as basic plant food, has resulted in the addition of some 15-20% more green vegetation on Earth just since 1980. That means more food for animals and significantly increased crop production for humanity. And all this good news is a “crisis”. Huh? What the…? Why are the Greens not celebrating this incredible greening of our planet?

In a long ago article on Anthony Watts’ excellent site “Wattsupwiththat.com” some author stated that you can engage and win arguments over energy policy but if you do not engage the actual science behind climate change then you have lost the game. Here is some excellent comment on the best of climate research- i.e. Henrick Svensmark’s research on cosmic rays and cloud cover.

Let me try to summarize some overall points from Svensmark’s research:

When cosmic rays enter Earth’s atmosphere they excite atoms or molecules around which water vapor adheres, thereby forming cloud cover. While this also happens normally, the cosmic rays give more permanence to the water vapor formed, permitting more permanence to the cloud cover. Such clouds, particularly those 3000 meters and below, have significant reflective potency, reflected solar energy back out to space, thus resulting in cooling of the climate. But when there is stronger solar activity- i.e. “coronal mass ejections”- these sweep across our region of the solar system and block the cosmic rays coming in (related to the sun’s magnetic field). That hinders cloud formation, thereby resulting in more solar energy reaching the Earth and heating the climate. As Svensmark and others show, this has significant correlation to cooling and warming periods on Earth. Hadron Collider experiments have affirmed Svensmark’s research.

Using my simple-minded approach to understanding and summarizing things:

Cosmic rays=more cloud=cooling of climate.

Solar eruptions blocking cosmic rays=less cloud=warming of climate.

This from Ken Haapala’s “The Week That Was- 2025/10/04 (Oct. 4, 2025), The Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)”.

Thanks to Haapala for reproducing this fascinating comment below from varied interviews of astrophysicist Henrick Svensmark the author of “The Chilling Stars”, research on how cosmic rays, as related to solar activity (i.e. coronal mass ejections), reveal a strong correlation to warming and cooling periods in climate, a much stronger correlation than the influence of CO2.

Haapala begins:

“This TWTW begins with comments on how Solar activity changes high energy cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere and how these rays change cloudiness on Earth….

He then mentions the research of Danish astrophysicist Henrick on “The Sun and Cosmic Rays”. Svensmark has “advocated the hypothesis that solar activity such as changing solar wind influence the intensity of high energy cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere. The changing intensity of cosmic rays in turn change the cloudiness of Earth. The changing cloudiness in Earth’s atmosphere has a far greater influence on climate fluctuations than changing carbon dioxide. The hypothesis has stood experimental testing by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research which has the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).”

He then moves on to an interview of Svensmark on “How Sun and Cosmic Rays Make Our Climate Change”. The interviewer Hannes Sarv asks Svensmark questions about his research in relation to the claimed “climate crisis”.

“Svensmark responds that claiming that the modest warming experienced over the last 100 years is a crisis is foolish. Cold is a greater foe of humanity than heat.”

Sarv first offers his understanding of Svensmark’s research, stating, “If there are more clouds and reflect the sunlight back to space… if it reflects more sunlight out, then well, logically, we get the cooler climate, right?”

Svensmark responds, “Yes, exactly. Observations are one of the ways we can verify that it works… there are some explosions at the sun. They’re called coronal mass ejections. It’s when the magnetic field lines sort of open up and the sun is throwing out a large magnetic plasma. And this magnetic plasma works more or less like an umbrella or a shield against the cosmic rays. So, within a week, the cosmic rays are dropping, and they can drop maybe up to 30% or something like that. And that is like a natural experiment with the whole Earth.”

He continues, “We see a drop in the clouds following these events. And it’s not just the cloud fraction, it’s also the optical properties of clouds. So, we can actually see changes in the cloud’s microphysics under these events….

Further, “The solar activity modulates the cosmic rays. And that’s simply because the solar activity translates into changes in the solar wind. And the solar wind is covering the whole solar system and all the planets. That works like it’s a magnetic shield that screens against the cosmic rays.

“So, when the solar activity is high, you can say that it’s screening better against the cosmic rays. That means you get fewer cosmic rays into the atmosphere. So solar activity can regulate the amount of cosmic rays that comes into the atmosphere. So that regulates in the cloud cover.”

Haapala interjects these comments on Svensmark’s research:

“It provides an alternative explanation to carbon dioxide for the recent warming.”

He then refers to the similar research of an Israeli scientist Nir Shaviv, “(Who) has made a case that over the long haul, the temperature of the planet depends on the cosmic ray flux, which is affected by the motion of the solar system into and out of the arms of the Milky Way.”

Continuing with the interview of Svensmark, Haapala notes the question of how Svensmark’s hypothesis fits the historical records.

Svensmark replies, “If you look at solar activity going back in time, we talked about the Little Ice Age, which is from around 1300 to 1850. And then you had the medieval warm period for 900 until maybe 1200. that these changes, they fit very beautifully with changes in cosmic rays. So, when it’s cold, you have more cosmic rays coming in. And when it’s warm, you have less cosmic rays entering into the atmosphere. And we know these changes in cosmic rays because when cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, They are actually producing new elements like carbon-14, which is a radioactive form of carbon…

“You can use carbon-14 for dating things. But this carbon becomes CO2, the heavy form from carbon, and it goes into trees. And then you can look at the annual rings of the tree rings and measure how much carbon-14 you have relative to carbon-12. And you can then measure that for all the tree rings going back in time and you can actually reproduce solar activity almost 20,000 years back in time. And if you look at these changes and you compare with how climate has been changing over that period, there is beautiful correlations again.

“So, it is near certain that there is a connection between solar activity and climate. And you can also quantify some of these changes and they are relatively big, and it seems as if that, you know, changes in clouds are a very good candidate for explaining this. And when we look about the last 10,000 years, then the modulation of the cosmic rays, it’s caused by solar activity.”

Haapala brings in other scientists who further question Svensmark about his research…

One asks this, “Okay. Let me just ask you about those cosmic rays again. You did say, but again, I’m not that bright in your field. You did say it comes from Milky Way. Okay. Why does it come from there? Or what is it? What sends it here?”

Svensmark answers, “Cosmic rays are very energetic particles. It’s mainly atomic nuclei, 90% is protons. So that’s the core of the hydrogen atom. So, the energetic particles that we are interested in are mainly produced in what we call supernova… And this supernova, when it explodes, it produces a shock front that is moving out from where the star was located. And this shock front, it works as, you can call it, a cosmic accelerator…. it accelerates particles… And these particles, they are then moving in the interstellar space in the Milky Way….

“Then some of them will be outside, you know, arrive outside our solar system…. Then some of them will then enter into the top of the atmosphere. And then you have maybe one proton that comes in with extremely high energy. And then it works a little bit like billiard ball where you have one particle hitting the molecules or the atoms in the atmosphere and it makes a shower, sort of a cascade of particles that goes down through the atmosphere… you can have one particle coming in that becomes millions and even billions of particles that move down through the atmosphere….

Haapala ends with a reference to another scientist noting this, “I’ve also talked, for example, to Professor Zharkova. She said to me that we are entering another ice age soon.”

Svensmark replies to this point: “There’s no doubt that we will get an ice age. We have had a number of ice ages back in time. I don’t know if you’re talking about a real ice age or you’re talking about a little ice age, which is just a colder period”.

Haapala concludes: “The discussion brings up the Little Ice Age and the failure to understand brief warming and cooling periods. Then goes into the failure of global climate models, such as ignoring changes in cloudiness, then adjusting the parameters of the models to fit the data. Such actions demonstrate that the models are useless for prediction of future climate. The discission covers the unwillingness of scientists to go against the prevailing political interpretation and ugly demonstrations against Svensmark speaking in Germany. Svensmark then discusses long term climate changes and how traveling through the cosmic rays produced by supernovas may have caused Earth’s extreme ice ages (snowball Earth during the Precambrian period (720 to 635 million years ago). “

“The discussion continues with how traveling through supernovas may have changed the composition of life on Earth and concludes with asserting that the correlation between CO2 and temperatures is poor.”

This is a reference to the eras when the Earth passes through the spiral arms of the Milky Way, is subjected to supernova explosions, and how that correlates with long periods of ice ages on Earth.

Poking Grok over climate science, Wendell Krossa

I asked Grok for some comment on where CO2 operates/functions on the infrared spectrum, where CO2 exercises its warming influence on climate:

My question:

What is the number identifying where CO2 operates on the infrared spectrum?

Grok responded:

“CO2 absorbs infrared radiation primarily at wavelengths around 4.3 μm (micrometers) and 15 μm, corresponding to wavenumbers of approximately 2350 cm⁻¹ and 667 cm⁻¹, respectively. The 15 μm band is the most significant for atmospheric CO2, as it aligns with the Earth’s thermal emission spectrum, contributing to the greenhouse effect.”

I then asked further:

How long is the infrared spectrum? And why include the 4.3 micrometer number?

Grok answered:

“The infrared spectrum spans wavelengths from about 0.7 μm to 1000 μm (700 nm to 1 mm), divided into near-infrared (0.7–2.5 μm), mid-infrared (2.5–25 μm), and far-infrared (25–1000 μm). This range corresponds to wavenumbers from approximately 14,286 cm⁻¹ to 10 cm⁻¹.

“The 4.3 μm number for CO2 is included because it represents a key absorption band where CO2 strongly interacts with infrared radiation, due to its molecular vibrational modes (specifically, the asymmetric stretch). While the 15 μm band is more dominant for Earth’s atmospheric greenhouse effect, the 4.3 μm band is significant in contexts like atmospheric sensing or planetary studies, as it’s a strong absorption feature in CO2’s infrared spectrum.”

I probed further:

Richard Lindzen and William Happer, among others, state that CO2’s ability to warm at the 15 micro-meter range is now limited because that range of infrared is now “saturated”.

Grok replied further:

“The claim by Richard Lindzen and William Happer that CO2’s ability to warm at the 15 μm range is “saturated” refers to the idea that the atmosphere is already so opaque to infrared radiation at this wavelength that adding more CO2 has a diminishing effect on additional warming. Let’s unpack this with clarity:

Infrared Spectrum and CO2 Absorption

“The infrared spectrum, as noted, spans roughly 0.7 μm to 1000 μm. CO2 absorbs strongly at 15 μm (around 667 cm⁻¹), corresponding to its bending vibrational mode, which is critical for trapping outgoing longwave radiation (the greenhouse effect). This band is indeed where CO2 has its most significant impact on Earth’s climate.

Saturation Argument

“The “saturation” argument suggests that at current CO2 concentrations (~420 ppm as of 2025), the 15 μm absorption band is so effective that most infrared radiation at this wavelength is already absorbed within a short distance in the atmosphere. Adding more CO2, they argue, primarily affects absorption in the “wings” (edges) of the band or at higher altitudes, where the atmosphere is colder and emits less radiation, leading to a logarithmic rather than linear increase in warming. This is grounded in radiative transfer physics:

• Absorption Saturation: In the center of the 15 μm band, absorption is nearly complete in the lower atmosphere. Additional CO2 increases absorption slightly at the band’s edges or in thinner upper atmospheric layers.

• Logarithmic Forcing: The radiative forcing from CO2 scales logarithmically with concentration, meaning each doubling of CO2 (e.g., from 400 to 800 ppm) produces roughly the same additional forcing (~3.7 W/m² per doubling, per IPCC estimates).

Why 4.3 μm Was Mentioned

“I included the 4.3 μm band because it’s another strong CO2 absorption feature, relevant in contexts like spectroscopy or planetary atmospheres. However, it’s less significant for Earth’s greenhouse effect because it lies outside the peak of Earth’s thermal emission spectrum (~10–20 μm). The 15 μm band is central to the saturation debate, so my mention of 4.3 μm was supplementary to provide a fuller picture of CO2’s infrared interactions.

Evaluating the Saturation Claim

“While the 15 μm band is highly absorbent, “saturation” doesn’t mean CO2 stops contributing to warming. Key points:

1. Band Wings and Altitude Effects: Increased CO2 broadens absorption in the wings of the 15 μm band and shifts the effective radiating layer higher, where it’s colder, reducing outgoing radiation and enhancing warming.

2. Quantitative Impact: Climate models and measurements (e.g., satellite observations of outgoing longwave radiation) show that CO2’s forcing continues to increase with concentration, albeit logarithmically. Studies, like those in the IPCC AR6, estimate that even at current levels, additional CO2 contributes measurably to warming.

3. Critiques of Saturation: Critics of Lindzen and Happer argue that saturation is overstated because the atmosphere’s complexity (e.g., pressure broadening, overlapping absorptions with water vapor) ensures CO2 remains effective. Observational data from AIRS and IASI satellites confirm ongoing changes in infrared absorption with rising CO2.

Context of Lindzen and Happer

“Lindzen and Happer are prominent skeptics of mainstream climate sensitivity estimates. Their saturation argument is used to suggest lower climate sensitivity (e.g., 0.5–1.5°C per CO2 doubling) compared to IPCC ranges (2.5–4°C). However, mainstream climate science, supported by radiative transfer models and observations, finds that while saturation reduces the marginal effect of CO2, it doesn’t eliminate it, and feedbacks (e.g., water vapor, clouds) amplify warming.

“In summary, the 15 μm band is highly absorbent, but not fully “saturated” in a way that halts CO2’s warming potential. The logarithmic nature of forcing means diminishing returns, but measurable warming persists with rising CO2, consistent with observations and models.”
(End of Grok comments.)

My added notes on Grok’s comments:

Note Grok’s appeal to “mainstream climate sensitivity estimates”. He used to respond to my inquires on climate science by summarizing his counter points with appeal to the “consensus science” of the alarmist narrative. Grok made persistent retreats to affirm the alarmist narrative as the final word on any issue I raised.

The appeal to a climate alarmism “consensus” is something that was long ago discredited as fraudulent. Grok appears to have now shifted to a milder affirmation of the alarmist narrative with this reference to “mainstream climate…”. Note the subtle dismissal of skeptical climate science in Grok’s use of this term “mainstream”, meaning that skeptics of the alarmist narrative are “non-mainstream”- a new take on “climate change deniers”?

I give props to Grok for being honest enough to include the qualifier that “The logarithmic nature of forcing means diminishing returns”, though Grok then immediately follows with a further counter qualification on that bit of honesty- “but measurable warming persists with rising CO2”. And that qualification of a qualification is weakened by his appeal to the highly discredited climate “models”.

Grok seems unaware of the evidence that the CO2 influence on climate is consistently overwhelmed by significant other natural factors, resulting in notable disconnects between CO2 and climate warming periods. That has been noted over long-term paleo-climate eras as well as over shorter periods of the ice-age eras of glaciations/inter-glacial periods (e.g. Vostok ice-core research), millennia scales, centuries, and shorter.

Comedian and podcaster Jimmy Dore, “We are the most propagandized and lied to people and we don’t know it”.

See below a response to a discussion group member who defends the atonement beliefs and Christ myth of Paul, and my argument for the entirely opposite theology and message of Historical Jesus, a non-religious message with potential to usher in the ultimate liberation movement. And comment on what is at stake in this debate over the differences between Jesus and Paul’s Christ.

Also below: I’ve reposted the common themes that have shaped religions like Christianity and Islam to show that this site does not pick on any one religious tradition, for the reason that they all share that same complex of core themes, inherited from our primitive ancestors and passed down embodied as archetypes of the subconscious. Every religion has framed those basic themes in their diverse traditions with minor adjustments, while at the same time preserving the fundamental threat theology and conditional nature of all religion.

Also more Rogan below. Quibbling with his incorrect application of “socialism”.

“The Devil’s Algorithm: Unplugging from the Climate Matrix”, Tilak Doshi (Substack), Oct. 4, 2025

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/10/04/the-devils-algorithm-unplugging-from-the-climate-matrix/

Doshi begins:

“The world is trapped in a digital Matrix, not unlike the one depicted in the iconic 1999 film (The Matrix) where Morpheus offers Neo a choice: take the blue pill and remain in a comforting illusion or the red pill and confront the unsettling truth. The blue pill, in our case, is the dominant narrative on climate change, peddled relentlessly by mainstream media, tech giants like Google, social media sites like FaceBook and YouTube and artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT. This narrative — that man-made global warming, caused by fossil fuel use, is an imminent existential threat — has achieved near-total dominance, suffocating dissent and sidelining credible scientists who dare question it. Mainstream media and Big Tech’s search algorithms often constitute determining factors in shaping our perception of climate change.

“To ‘red pill’ someone is to set him or her free from the manufactured climate consensus, to be open to contrarian views and, in the process, to restore science to its proper place as a field of sceptical inquiry, not ideology.”

“The Algorithmic Stranglehold on Truth”.

Doshi notes the research of Dr. Robert Epstein, a behavioural scientist, former editor of Psychology Today who has exposed Big Tech’s manipulation of citizens, especially over elections. He has shown how Google manipulates “newsfeeds, search results and YouTube suggestions.” He says that during a 2019 Senate appearance regarding Google’s threat to democracy, Epstein “exposed the chilling extent of Google’s narrative dominance.”

Epstein has reported on his research on climate change, discovering that over a period from January to September 2025, Google results on climate change showed that “in 98% of results aligned with the climate alarmist narrative, 2% were neutral, and a stunning 0% offered a contrarian perspective. Even more troubling, the top three search results — those most likely to be clicked — uniformly promoted the alarmist view, regardless of the searcher’s political leanings. Whether you’re a liberal in New York, a conservative in Pennsylvania or an independent in Arizona, Google feeds you the same story: climate change is an imminent man-made catastrophe requiring urgent action.”

Continuing, Doshi gives examples from notable news sources of this bias to promoting the alarmist narrative:

WWF-UK: The effects of climate change are likely to be some of the biggest environmental challenges our generation has ever faced.

United Nations: Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and it is happening even more quickly than we feared.

Yale Climate Connections: The planet is ‘on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,’ scientists warn.

The Guardian: The facts about a planet facing climate disaster are clear.

The list of examples, he says, “fits the Google algorithm, reflecting the corporation’s Leftist-progressive worldview, and serves the climate industrial complex and its climate alarmist cause.”

Then he says that he went to ‘AI Mode’ in the Google Search options, and this is what Google AI responded with:

“Yes, based on the overwhelming scientific consensus, the world is facing a climate crisis. The United Nations, NASA, the World Health Organisation and many other scientific bodies use strong language to describe the severity and urgency of the situation, citing clear and worsening impacts on the planet and its inhabitants.”

He notes that is the old argument of appeal to authority for evidence of the thesis proposed, and that is not sound science. He adds that “Richard Lindzen, Emeritus Professor of Meteorology at MIT, has written about the long march through the institutions by progressive neo-Marxian ideology, subverting key agencies in the climate industrial complex to sing from the same climate alarmist hymn sheet.”

He continues, stating that Google’s algorithms, just as Epstein’s research shows, “are designed to prioritise a singular perspective – the globalist climate agenda — while burying dissenting voices. Renowned scientists like William Happer, John Clauser, Judith Curry and Richard Lindzen — whose credentials include professorships at Princeton, MIT and Nobel Prize laureates — are effectively erased from search results. Their arguments – which show that climate change is within the bounds of natural variability, that increasing CO2 levels will not significantly increase global temperatures and that CO2 promotes global greening – are nowhere to be found in the Google search results.”

So there has been a similar deplatforming of climate skeptics on Wikipedia, just as there was a deplatforming of the skeptics of the public health narrative pushed by the US government during Covid. Most notable was the squashing of dissenting views by the “highly credentialed authors of the Great Barrington Declaration.” Fauci and his colleague Francis Collins smeared experts like Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and many other leading epidemiology scientists.

Add to this exposed Google bias and censorship, the admission by Mark Zuckerberg that Facebook censored US citizens on orders from the Biden-Harris administration. Truthful posts about vaccine mandates, masks, lab leak, etc. were banned by the government.

Doshi’s point is that this censorship of dissenting voices by Google algorithms powerfully influences citizen’s views and behavior on major issues of our day.

Doshi then suggests that his use of Grok (xAI) provided better results when he asked it “Are we facing a climate crisis”. Grok responded,

“No, we’re not facing a “climate crisis”. Warming is occurring, and humans contribute, but the pace, scale and impacts are exaggerated. Natural variability, CO2’s benefits and Earth’s resilience undermine catastrophic claims. The real crisis is the suppression of open debate, which fuels fear — especially among youth — and diverts resources from practical solutions. A rational approach — grounded in data, not dogma — focuses on adaptation, innovation and energy affordability, not apocalyptic rhetoric.”

He says this contrasts with Google search and ChatGPT and others whose algorithms “are trained in the Left-liberal universe of unquestionable presumptions and approved narratives.”

Here I would insert that, contrary to Doshi’s account, I had a different experience with Grok over the past year or so. Maybe that has changed now. In my use of Grok I found that it favored the alarmist view which it referred to as the “consensus” viewpoint. Grok would respond to my challenges of alarmist climate narratives with that same summarizing appeal to the “consensus” of the alarmists and would discredit skeptics with cautions, for example, about the research of scientists like Richard Lindzen and other notable climate experts.

Doshi concludes with these suggestions:

Big Tech platforms have ceased denying that they don’t have an anti-conservative bias after Congressman Jim Jordan exposed it. The platforms now, under Congressional subpoena, blame the Biden administration for forcing them to bias, for pressuring them to censor Americans, says Doshi.

Doshi states that contrarian outlets like Watts Up With That, Climate Depot, Not A Lot of People Know That, CO2 Coalition, and the Daily Sceptic must be given equal exposure as they present the research of credible dissenting climate scientists.

“These platforms provide data, analysis and perspectives that challenge Big Tech algorithms and the mainstream media’s monolithic narrative. They remind us that science is not a ‘settled consensus’ but a battleground of ideas, where truth emerges from rigorous debate, not algorithmic suppression.”

He says, “Epstein’s findings expose a deliberate bias that undermines democratic discourse. Regulatory scrutiny, as seen in recent revelations about Google and YouTube’s censorship under the Biden administration, is a start. Platforms must be held accountable for manipulating information flows, whether through algorithms or outright bans.”

Further, Doshi says that contrarian voices should be amplified, “Scientists like Happer, Clauser, Curry and Lindzen deserve a platform, not obscurity. Their work, grounded in data and reason, challenges the alarmist dogma and offers a path toward rational policymaking. Supporting independent outlets to speak out is crucial.”

His final recommendation: “We must educate the next generation to question, not conform. Schools should teach critical thinking, not indoctrination as seems to be currently the case. Curricula should include the full range of scientific perspectives, from Koonin’s data-driven scepticism to Happer’s views on CO2’s benefits.”

“A version of this article was first published in The Daily Sceptic (https://dailysceptic.org/2025/10/02/the-devils-algorithm-unplugging-from-the-climate-matrix/)

“Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Sceptic‘s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former contributor to Forbes. Follow him on Substack and X.”

This post to a discussion group friend who defends Paul’s atonement theology, his Christ myth, Wendell Krossa

My response to that fellow discussion group member:

What’s at stake in the “Search for Historical Jesus”, “Jesus Seminar”, and “Q Wisdom Sayings” discovery of a stunning contrast between the theology and message of Jesus and the theology and message of Paul’s Christ?

The breakthrough insights in the message of Jesus present the potential for the single greatest mental transformation in human history, the greatest liberation ever, a liberation from the personality-deforming impact of threat theology that has dominated human narratives across our history. The Jesus discovery presents opportunity for the most profound liberation of all, the liberation of human mind, liberation in the subconscious where the great inciting and validating archetypes are embedded that shape human thought, emotion, motivation, and response/behavior.

The themes of Historical Jesus hold the potential to profoundly transform our thinking, feeling, and all that makes us human, and that will radiate out through human societies to change everything for the better, offering people truly humane themes to inspire “the better angels of our nature”. We have already seen how, over the past few centuries, the Jesus message has finally moderated the previously long and violent history of Christianity.

Just an insert– Let me remind you of just how influential Paul’s Christ myth has been in Western civilization.

This from James Tabor (“Paul and Jesus”):

“There was a version of ‘Christianity before Paul’, affirmed by both Jesus and his original followers, with tenets and affirmations quite opposite to these of Paul… the message of Paul, which created Christianity as we know it, and the message of historical Jesus and his earliest followers, were not the same. In fact, they were sharply opposed to one another with little in common beyond the name Jesus itself” (p.xv1).

“Paul is the most influential person in human history and realize it or not, he has shaped practically all we think about everything… the West in particular… the foundations of Western civilization- from our assumptions about reality to our societal and personal ethics- rest in a singular way upon the heavenly visions and apparitions of the apostle Paul. We are all cultural heirs of Paul, with the well-established doctrines and traditions of mainstream Christianity deeply entrenched in our culture. In contrast, Jesus as a historical figure… has been largely lost to our culture” (p. xv11).

“Paul operated with a strongly apocalyptic perspective that influenced all he said or did” (p.15).

“The entire New Testament canon is largely a post-Paul and pro-Paul production…” (p.19).

“The ‘Jesus’ who most influenced history was the ‘Jesus-Christ’ of Paul, not the historical figure of Jesus… Paul transformed Jesus himself (and) his message of a… kingdom of justice and peace on earth, to the symbol of a religion of otherworldly salvation in a heavenly world”, (21).

“The form of Christianity… (that thrived in the late Roman Empire)… was heavily based upon the ecstatic and visionary experiences of Paul. Christianity as we came to know it, is Paul and Paul is Christianity. The bulk of the New Testament is dominated by his theological vision”, p.24).

“Paul’s view of Christ as the divine pre-existent Son of God who took on human form, died on the cross for the sins of the world, and was resurrected to heavenly glory at God’s right hand becomes the Christian message”, (39).

“The Q source is the earliest collection of the teachings and sayings of Jesus… the most striking characteristic of the Q source in terms of reconstructing Christian origins is that it has nothing of Paul’s theology, particularly his Christology or view of Christ”, (41).

(End of Tabor quotes)

The Jesus discovery, his number one insight, was that God was not retaliatory (no eye for eye), God was not a grand destroyer like Lord Shiva or the Christ of Revelation. This “non-retaliatory” feature of deity was Jesus’ “greatest contribution to the history of human ideas”, according to James Robinson. Robinson stated that negative aspect- i.e. “non-retaliation”- from the first part of the Q sayings (i.e. there must be no more eye for eye retaliation against offenders- because God does not retaliate with such punitive destruction).

Then in the following material of his central body of teaching (Luke 6: 27-36), Jesus presents the more critical second feature of his theology- i.e. that God was unconditional love. This is evident in his statements to “love your enemy” and that God non-tribally and non-discriminately “gives sun and rain inclusively generously, to all, both good and bad people”. That is the unconditional element or positive side of his theological breakthrough.

Note that the ethical features in the Jesus message set the stage for conclusion about the theology. Do these things and you will be like God, you will be exhibiting what God is like. Be unconditionally merciful in the manner of the listed ethical examples and you will be just like our unconditionally merciful Father. Be merciful as shown in the responses above and you will be like your similarly merciful Father. He used the traditional coupling of “behavior based on the similar validating beliefs/features of what God is like”.

That theological discovery of Jesus would have liberated people from millennia of the darkening and enslaving impacts of threat theology and the immeasurable harm that threat theology has caused in deforming human consciousness across millennia, burdening billions with unnecessary added fears of angry, punitive deity behind the harmful elements of the natural world. That theology has resulted in an immeasurable amount of damage in terms of the personality-deforming effects of fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, depression, nihilism, hatred of the differing/unbelieving other, and violence (as detailed by, for example, psychologist Harold Ellens, and psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo- “Cruel God, Kind God”).

The continuing dominant influence of Paul’s Christ myth across Western civilization today…

And here we get to the real destructive outcomes/consequences of threat theology on humanity. The historians have done the homework uncovering the themes of Paul’s apocalyptic millennial mythology (i.e. in his Christ myth) as driving themes behind last centuries mass-death crusades. That should be the “news story of the century” but it has been largely ignored, dismissed.

The Christ is Paul’s rejection of the stunning new theology of Jesus to retreat back to re-affirm primitive threat theology. He states his shamefully egregious rejection of Jesus, and consequent burial of his theology/message, in places like Romans 12: 17-20, where he quotes an Old Testament verse to express his contrary theology, i.e. “’Vengeance is mine, I will retaliate’, says the Lord”. That is a direct rejection of the new theology of Jesus that “God was non-retaliatory”. Add Paul’s repeated statements in Romans on “the wrath of God”, and John’s highlighting of an angry Christ “trampling out the fury of the wrath of God” (Revelation 19) before casting all unbelievers into the lake of fire to be tortured for eternity.

Erika Kirk (Charlie’s wife) recently re-affirmed her personal fear of this threat theology as her motivation for forgiving Charlie’s murderer (my paraphrase of her comments, “I have to do this so I can get into heaven and see Charlie again. If I don’t do this, then God won’t let me into heaven”). So also, Muhammad Ali’s wife said (at his funeral) that fear of the Islamic judgment and hell (threat theology) was the motivation of Ali for doing the good works that he did over the later years of his life.

Paul’s reaffirmed threat theology in his Christ myth with the main features of (1) Zoroastrian tribal dualism (the “saved” true believers of Christ are set in eternal warfare with the unbelievers who side with Satan).

(2) The feature of “Lord Jesus” who defeats all enemies, subjugates all, ruling eternally with the “rod of iron” totalitarianism.

And (3) the punitive retaliatory Christ who ultimately destroys all (all enemies, all life, the world) through the violence of apocalypse and then hell (Revelation).

This mythology has shaped Western consciousness and narratives validating endless crusades of “salvation through destruction”- i.e. murder the right people to achieve salvation (as per the sacrifice mythology), destroy your enemies to achieve your better future of millennium paradise. This mythology/thinking has been exposed by historians as driving the Nazi violence in clearing the way for the installation of their millennial Reich (after destroying Jewish Bolshevism).

These Christ themes, (apocalyptic millennialism, salvation achieved through murder and destruction), have also been revealed as guiding and driving early Marxist leadership in their crusade that promoted violent revolution as necessary to destroy enemies and clear the way for the restoration of the lost communalism utopia.

The historians have also tagged the same themes of Christ’s apocalyptic millennialism behind the contemporary crusade of environmental alarmists to engage their revolution to purge industrial societies (Net Zero, decarbonization) as required to clear the way for restoration of green utopia (restoration of a more wilderness world with severely reduced human presence/population- defusing the “population bomb”).

So much horrific damage from a complex of ideas/themes/beliefs that were most iconically embedded in Paul’s Christ myth and have subsequently functioned as significant contributing factors driving crusades of mass-destruction, mass-death across Western civilization, notably in the last century.

Sources: Arthur Herman’s “The Idea of Decline In Western History”, Richard Landes’ “Heaven On Earth: Varieties of the Millennial Experience”, Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence”, David Redles’ “Hitler’s Millennial Reich”, among others.

As the military guy said (my paraphrase), you won’t’ solve the repeating eruptions of violence between people until you properly go after the root contributing ideas that drive such eruptions. He was speaking mainly to the ISIS-type violence across the Mid-East. But the same core themes have been detected behind the so-called “secular” ideologies that have been driving other mass-harm and mass-death movements like Marxist revolutions, Nazism, and environmental alarmism.

Add Richard Landes’ argument that you have learned nothing if you just see the monsters, the madmen who lead such movements of destruction (i.e. Hitler). You have to look beyond them to the apocalyptic millennial themes that have incited, guided, and validated their destruction. Those ideas have carried societies into mass-death outcomes.

The project before us is the Jefferson/Tolstoy project to recover the “diamonds” of Jesus from the “dung” of Paul’s Christology, showing that the theology and message of Jesus is entirely different from Paul’s theology and message.

This is more than just tinkering with reformism around the periphery of our great religious traditions. It is a call to go to the very core of our belief systems just as Historical Jesus did and overturn the Cohering Center of such narratives- the very God image that has long dominated such traditions, giving life to an entire complex of related bad ideas with horrific outcomes in deforming human minds, emotions, motivations, and responses/behaviors.

Historical Jesus presented us a stunning new ultimate Ideal and Authority, a stunning new image of a God who was non-retaliatory, non-tribal, non-dominating (true greatness was- “Do not lord over others, but serve others”, with that statement he entirely revolutionized our understanding of “God is great”). He offered a stunning new image of a God who included all equally, generously forgiving without demand for sacrifice/payment as illustrated in his “sun and rain given to both good and bad people”, and in the Prodigal Father story.

We have the tools today to uncover the “diamonds” of Jesus, long “buried” by Paul’s Christology, his Christ myth (“tools” as in “Search for Historical Jesus”, “Jesus Seminar” books, “Q Wisdom Sayings’ research, etc.). It is irresponsible of us to continue to ignore the stunning Jesus breakthrough on theology, his new image of deity that could transform human thinking and narratives so entirely as to present the potential for a liberation of human mind and spirit unlike anything before in history. Freedom from the curse and damaging outcomes of threat theology.

Added note to the fellow discussion group member:

Don’t you find it amazing that all this evidence has been uncovered and laid out in good historical detail and the news media have ignored it entirely. The single greatest news story in all history- that Historical Jesus presented a stunning new theology and a message that overturned the entire complex of bad religious ideas that have dominated human narratives from the beginning. Jesus gave us the solution, the answer to the major contributing factors in mass-destruction crusades that have repeatedly been incited, motivated by that same complex of bad themes/beliefs.

Yes, people will still find other reasons to validate such destruction, but once disenfranchised of the old threat theology, they will have to engage their mass-destruction crusades without the validating affirmation from God. And that is a real blow to the primal impulse of humans for meaning and purpose. The Jesus insights/discoveries change everything.

Here below: A reposting of the core bad ideas long dominating human meta-narratives, both religious and “secular/ideological”.

The point of reposting these fallacies (bad ideas)? They continue to dominate our religious traditions and over past centuries have been “secularized” to now shape our major world “secular ideologies”. And they have consequences, outcomes in our lives and societies. Historians have traced them in driving mass-death crusades like Marxism (now reviving and spreading in the new iteration of “Woke Progressivism with DEI”). These ideas/themes also drove Nazism and now drive environmental alarmism and its mass-harm through decarbonization madness.

Why do so many continue to believe these bad ideas? Because they have long been embedded in human collective subconscious as archetypes and many today still choose their beliefs dominated by the criterion of “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence…” (Kristian Niemietz in “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”).

This helps to understand why so many will zealously affirm climate apocalypse, despite now amassed contrary evidence from the best scientific minds that there is no climate crisis and never has been.

“The complex of “bad religious ideas” that have darkened and enslaved human minds from the beginning” Wendell Krossa (see other short versions in sections below with Grok’s comments on them).

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=13571#more-13571

Here is a brief version (longer version in sections below or in the link just above) of the complex of primitive myths that includes-

(1) The baseline myth of a lost original paradise- i.e. a better past that “corrupt, evil humans” have ruined. This myth undergirds the sense of the loss of something good and, hence, now unbalanced justice demands that that the lost good must be restored in order to rebalance justice and righteousness in the cosmos and life. To make things right again. Moderns embrace this myth framed as the loss of the originally more wilderness world as paradise before too many people multiplied on Earth (“population bomb” hysteria).

Consequent to the myth that a better past has been ruined, primitive mythology pivoted to (2) blame people, to blame humanity as the evil corrupter of life that must be punished and even exterminated in order to restore the lost paradise, to “save life and the world”. In contemporary terms- Today the corrupter of nature is “greedy, consuming humans in industrial civilization” (the anti-human memes of “humanity as ‘virus, cancer’ on the Earth, an evil intruder” for seeking the improvement of the human condition using natural resources).

Even more specific today, the existential evil threat to life is greedy, consuming people using natural resources like fossil fuels that have enabled us to massively improve the human condition and enjoy the good life- this “existential threat” must be purged from life.

Then to further re-enforce the narrative that evil humans have ruined divine and pure nature (i.e. Earth as goddess, “Mother Earth”), the ancients added the intensifying element of threat that (3) life was declining toward apocalyptic ending. And to further heighten alarm, apocalyptic prophets have repeatedly set “always imminent” dates to raise hysteria levels among populations and to validate the use of desperate measures to “save” the world that is framed as always threatened by a looming apocalypse, threatened by evil enemies who are causing the looming end of the world in some manner.

In the environmental versions of apocalypse, people consuming too much of the world’s resources is the great threat that will end life. Such versions hold the myth of “limited resources”, as per, for example, Bill Rees’s “Ecological Footprint” fallacy.

Apocalyptic alarmists have also introduced the element of “hope” into the mix, a perverse version of hope that is built on the violent destruction of enemies (“salvation/utopia achieved through destruction”). In the salvation schemes of these alarmists, specially enlightened elites (i.e. whether priesthoods, religious authorities, or secular versions) lecture/scold the ignorant and unenlightened commoners on what they must do to be saved from imminent destruction and death- i.e. (4) demand some form of sacrifice/payment (enlightened elites validated in using state coercion).

Examples of contemporary sacrifice- “de-growth, de-development”, that argues for a return to primitivism as in the return to the more “pure and strong” existence of “noble savage” life as hunter-gathers with minimal or no ecological footprint (more “connected” to nature through low consumption). Add to this sacrifice/payment element, the redistribution programs pushed in the neo-collectivist crusades of today.

Couch this madness in a deformed version of the hero’s quest where those identifying as “true believer” heroes/messiahs must engage a righteous battle to conquer and (5) violently purge a purported monster/enemy that framed as demonized fellow humans. This takes validation from Zoroaster’s myth of cosmic dualism, that a great Good God (Ahura Mazda) must fight and destroy a great evil Force/Spirit (Angra Mainyu).

And when the enemy is fully purged/exterminated, then (6) salvation is attained in a renewed communal paradise, some “millennialism” utopia.

Critical to understand in this set of primitive themes is- What is the driving Force behind this complex? What is the “cohering center” of this complex that has deformed minds and wreaked so much destruction across history? What validates the rest of the ideas in the complex? Understand and overturn this central Ideal/Authority and you are making significant progress toward resolving the worst of human thought and behavior from our ancestors.

The cohering center is the “wrathful” deity of all primitive mythologies (threat theology), the deity pissed at humans for ruining his original perfect paradise. Hence, the subsequent threats of divine retaliation toward humanity by violently destroying the entire world in an apocalypse. The mother of all hissy fits. Followed by divine demands for sacrifice/payment/suffering as required conditions to achieve redemption.

The cohering center of the apocalyptic millennial complex of myths is the human-constructed image of a violent, destroying God who threatens people in this life through natural disasters, disease, accidents, and predatory cruelty, and then further threatens people with after-life harm that adds sting to death. This “monster God” is the central issue to deal with in apocalyptic millennial complexes of myths. This psycho-pathological vision of deity has dominated mythologies and religions across history and has now been transformed into secular/ideological systems of belief to also dominate those. I.e. “Vengeful Gaia, punitive Universe, angry Planet/Mother Earth, payback karma”, etc.

These deeply embedded themes, long entrenched in human psyches as subconscious archetypes, help explain why emotional satisfaction, not rational evidence is behind our choice in beliefs. Hence, many people simply respond to contemporary apocalyptic millennial narratives, whether Marxist collectivism or climate apocalyptic, because they “feel” right, good, just, and true. They resonate with deeply embedded archetypes from our primitive past.

And to show that this site does not pick on any one religious tradition, for the reason that they all share the same complex of core themes (inherited from our primitive ancestors and passed down embodied as archetypes of the subconscious). Every religion has framed those core themes in their diverse traditions with minor adjustments while preserving the basic threat theology and conditional nature of all religion.

This point is made to contrast all religion, notably Christianity, with the stunning new theology of historical Jesus that God was non-threatening, non-retaliatory, and non-religious because unconditional. No religion has ever communicated these insights and Paul intentionally buried them under his highly retaliatory, highly conditional Christ myth (the Christ as the ultimate cosmic sacrifice, the demanded condition to satisfy a highly conditional deity).

When considering the origin of religion in the ancient past (e.g. John Pfeifer’s “Explosion: An Inquiry into the Origins of Art and Religion”), note the element of fear that was introduced by the earliest shaman as they constructed the earliest elements of religion as their tool to control others (and yes, the “numinous” feature was also in the mix).

Those shaman/priests appealed to the invisible world of spirits/gods, claiming to know the secrets to that realm, thereby elevating themselves as special people in the tribal groups, as either divine in some manner or as the authentic representatives of the divine. That validated their impulse to dominate others, along with using fear and promising salvation (how to appease angry spirits and regain health or avoid death).

Those early shaman were the earliest elites, initiating the more formal “elite/commoner” divide in human societies where informal versions had already long existed based on age, strength/power, skills, gender, etc.

Anyway…

An important reposting:

Themes to unite Sapiens around (the best of a “force” propelling us toward a humane future), Wendell Krossa

Yuval Harari in “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” notes that from 70,000 to 30,000 years ago our species Homo sapiens went through the ‘Cognitive Revolution’ where we discovered new ways of thinking and communicating. We created language that enabled us to communicate meaning. The humans of that period learned to communicate more than just information about the physical world around them. They also learned to imagine and communicate fictitious things that do not exist at all and to do so “collectively”.

During this era of the Cognitive Revolution, early Sapiens began to construct legends, myths, gods and religions for the first time. And “This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language” (p.27). This ability has continued into the modern era as along with religious fictions we have learned to create “fictious” ideologies, scientific theories, and visions of the future. It should be noted however, that the core themes of our “fictions” often consistently remain the same.

Harari is setting the stage for understanding how early humans were able to move beyond small groups of essentially extended families to live cooperatively in much larger groups, eventually in empires and states of millions of people. He suggests the secret to this “urbanization” transition was “the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths… Any large-scale human cooperation- whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city, or an archaic tribe- is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imaginations”, (p.30).

He includes such “fictions” as limited liability companies (“legal fictions”), religious systems, systems of laws, nation states, etc.

He continues, “Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals… An imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world”, (p.35).

This leads to the question of what story would function as a truly “humane force” to carry/propel us cooperatively toward a more humane future? What features/myths/beliefs would operate best to do so?

My proposal for a set of alternative features to what we have inherited from the past:

“Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives” (Old story themes, new story alternatives).

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533

The identification and rejection of inherited bad ideas, now long embedded as archetypes of the collective unconscious, is a first necessary step to undergo, the “death” side of the “death/rebirth” process, the “disintegration” side of the “disintegration/re-integration” process. We emerge from these experiences/processes, hopefully, with new insights and narrative themes that affirm the better impulses of our natures, that affirm our human spirit and self.

I would choose themes that arouse deeply and intuitively felt impulses from the common human spirit in us, what many of us felt, for example, when Erika Kirk stated in regard to her husband’s murderer, “I forgive you”. She was struggling with the precept of Jesus to “love your enemy”. I would have counseled her to wait a while before struggling with that, till some of the pain had subsided, if it ever does (i.e. the conclusion of the dentist whose wife and daughters were brutally murdered that “Whoever created the idea of ‘closure’ was a fool”). But nonetheless, Erika’s statement reduced many of us to tears. We get it Erika, what you were trying to say and do. That precept of Jesus pushes us all to think of what love really means, what it really means to try to be truly and fully human.

Narratives/stories that hold our societies together…

The current meta-narratives holding our liberal democracy states together constitute a hodge podge of the principles, systems of law, and representative institutions of Classic Liberalism. But these generally successful experiments in cooperative liberal democracy are under constant assault by residual bad ideas in the religious traditions and ideologies held by many in these same nation states.

The forces at work to undermine liberal democracy come from both sides of our population divides- i.e. a complex of “bad religious ideas” are held and promoted on the right or conservative side, inciting many toward advocacy for theocracy-type narratives and policies applied to whole societies, and thereby crossing the boundary between state and religion. Similarly bad ideas are held on the left or “liberal” side, but in “secularized” versions, with the left/liberal side having now become highly “illiberal” and pushing more for revived collectivism approaches.

We need constant re-affirmation of the basic principles of liberal democracy to keep us all oriented to the fundamental things that we can all agree on. Principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions that serve the people and protect the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally.

(End of Harari material)

Add here that also critical to reaffirming liberal democracy is to reaffirm the guiding and validating archetypes of our collective unconscious that have always been informed by people following their primal impulse to meaning and purpose, hence, speculating on ultimate reality, ideals, as in theology and related “spiritual” insights. I would offer the the non-religious wisdom sayings of Historical Jesus as the best alternative to the previous history of religious speculations.

A preface note to the “recap” below:

Just to add to this above comment- “all tightly related religions that have shared a historically descending trajectory of the same set of core themes.”

A note for emphasis: While there is obviously the common set of features in both Christianity and Islam that are listed below, the core commonality between religions like Christianity and Islam is the belief in a wrathful God who promises violent destruction through apocalypse and hell (i.e. threat theology). That “Cohering Center” of these religions undergirds and validates all else in their narratives- i.e. the demanded conditions for unquestioning belief, submission to religious authorities, and faithful religious practise (fulfill the rituals, payments, religious lifestyle, and promotion of the religion- i.e. seek converts, etc.).

And as I noted previously, when people make comparisons between Christianity and Islam- “Christianity gets a pat on the back for including the “Q Wisdom Sayings” message of Historical Jesus, something that Islam did not include that would have helped to moderate the tribal impulse to violent retaliation against unbelievers.”

This is a critically important point- The “diamond” insights of Historical Jesus (Thomas Jefferson’s term) embody the potent counter to the prominent features of Paul’s Christ myth, features that have long functioned to incite, guide, and validate people’s worst impulses to harm others- i.e. features such as angry deity judging all human failure (see Paul’s letter to Romans, Thessalonians), God/Christ tribally excluding unbelievers (again, affirmed throughout Paul’s New Testament letters), God/Christ demanding submission (“Lord Christ” ruling with a rod of iron), the divine demand to join a ”true religion” and enter battle against false religions and demonic enemies that must be exterminated whether in this life or the next, and God/Christ promising violent ultimate destruction (Romans, Revelation), etc.

The “stunning new theology” of Jesus (his new image of God) rejected judgment, tribal exclusion (sun and rain given to all alike), submission (do not lord over others), and violent destruction (no “eye for eye” retaliation), etc.

Muhammad missed the powerful benefits of Jesus’ “Q Wisdom Sayings” when he did not include that material in his new religion. He certainly would have heard about it as he listened to his spiritual mentor, the Ebionite priest Waraqa (a Jewish or Ebionite Christian), as he expounded from the Gospel to the Hebrews (the early version of Matthew’s gospel). And most certainly Waraqa would have taught Muhammad the similar content of Matthew’s gospel.

Insert: It helps to inform ourselves of the good research of the Jesus Seminar and especially the research on “Q Wisdom Sayings” in order to clearly grasp the profound differences between the messages of Historical Jesus and Paul’s contrary Christology, an embodiment of Hellenism. Most helpful are the essays of Bob Brinsmead on this:

“The Historical Jesus: What the Scholars are Saying”

https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/

“The Doctrine of Christ and the Triumph of Hellenism”

https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-doctrine-of-christ-and-the-triump-of-hellenism/

Here’s a little recap of similar material further below, posted earlier on this site… Wendell Krossa

I saw a video clip of Bill Maher arguing that Islam was worse than Christianity for issues like intolerance and violence. He seems unaware of the actual history of these religions and that Islam is the direct offspring of Jewish Christianity or the early “Jewish Jesus” movement that was contrary to Paul’s Hellenist Christ-ianity. Another name for the Jewish Jesus movement was Ebionism (Ebionites). These- the Jewish Jesus movement and Paul’s Christ-ianity- were two dominant and entirely contrary movements in early Christianity, movements governed by entirely contrary themes or beliefs.

The Jewish Jesus people, or Ebionites, believed that Jesus was a prophet blessed of God but not God himself. And their movement held that Jesus said nothing about being a sacrifice for sin. That was the distortion of Jesus (i.e. coming to be a sacrifice for sin) that Paul introduced in his new Christ-ianity religion (not really “new” in that it embraced the themes of ancient Hellenism and other primitive mythical themes- see Helmut Koester’s “History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age”).

We see intimations of the conflict between Paul and the Jesus movement in the New Testament. The Jewish Jesus movement embraced and promoted Jesus’ actual Q Wisdom Sayings message, hence also called the Q Wisdom movement. Paul’s Christ-ianity was a Hellenist movement set in direct conflict with that actual movement of Jesus.

The Jewish movement was led by Jesus’ brother James, and Jesus’ friend/follower Peter. Note how intensely Paul hated and opposed the Jesus Q Wisdom movement. He goes after its leaders, James and Peter, in statements such as Galatians 1:8-9, where he curses them with damnation. Paul also intolerantly condemned and vilified the Q Wisdom movement of Jesus in 1 Corinthians, mocking and dismissing it as “worldly wisdom”.

“The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight”, 1 Corinthians 3: 19.

The Jewish followers of Jesus viewed Paul’s Christ-ianity as heretical, just as the Old Testament prophets protested the sacrifice industry and its priesthood as heretical. They stated things like, “What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?” says the LORD. “I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle. I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls and lambs and goats…. For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices”, and other similar statements in Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah, etc.

But the victors in battles get to state who is promoting truth and who is presenting error, so Paul’s Christ-ianity demonized the Jewish Jesus movement as heresy and persecuted them till they were scattered. Some of those Ebionites fled to the Arabian Peninsula where they established congregations/synagogues that persisted over subsequent centuries, even up to around 600 CE when Muhammad emerges in Mecca.

How Islam was created as a version of Jewish Christianity/Ebionism (one source- Joseph Azzi’s “The Priest and the Prophet”):

Muhammad’s first wife was Khadija. Her cousin in Mecca was Waraqa, the priest of a local Ebionite congregation. Waraqa then become the spiritual mentor of Muhammad and taught him all that he knew about God and religion.

The Ebionites, again, viewed Jesus as just a prophet of God, not divine himself. And they did not believe that he was a sacrifice for sin. Ebionites also embraced water purification rites and practices and did not eat pork.

Scholars say that Waraqa taught Muhammad using the gospel to the Hebrews, an early version of Matthew’s gospel, which he also had translated. He used those books, among others, to instruct Muhammad.

Note in Matthew the pattern of stating that those who rejected Jesus’ miracles were then damned to hell, to being cast out into outer darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth (a favorite statement of Matthew’s). Then note in the Quran that very same pattern of claiming that those who reject the message and the messenger (i.e. Muhammad) will be cast into hell, into the fire from which there is no escape. Such warnings are on almost every page of the Quran. Exact replicas of Matthew’s archetypal statements.

So also in Islam we find the practices of water purification and the prohibition on eating pork.

Interesting that as Muhammad borrows and replicates in his Quran what Waraqa is teaching him from the gospel of the Hebrews and Matthew’s gospel, Muhammad claims that he is getting this teaching as visions in a cave, so as to frame his ideas as revelations directly from God. No, he was actually just embracing the core themes of Waraqa’s Jewish Christianity. And that enrages Islamic theologians today to admit that.

So c’mon Bill Maher, enough of the “Islam is worse than Christianity” stuff. Both share the same core themes, just as all the other historical descendants of such ideas do today, both religious and “secular/ideological”. Just as you do Bill, with your climate apocalypse nonsense. No different from the core themes of Islam and Christianity, though you claim to be “non-religious”. Ya right. Read Richard Landes, Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, David Redles and others, who have done good homework revealing that all these religions, along with contemporary secular variants like Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism, always replicate the very same apocalyptic millennial themes along with the larger complex of related bad ideas that that this site posts regularly.

There is nothing new under the sun. And why are we all fighting and killing one another when so many of us believe exactly the same core narrative themes?

How many view themselves today as “secular, humanist, materialist/atheist even” yet go about mouthing the very same primitive themes of all past religious traditions, just framed in what they believe to be new “secular/ideological” versions, with new terminology, definitions, etc.

Getting a clear grip on the profound difference between the core themes of Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth will help to expose such confusion and provide clarity on better alternatives to the old threat theologies of religious traditions.

Note:

The point in this is how we succumb even in the modern age to the most primitive and barbaric ideas and then wonder why we continue to suffer through endless eruptions of the “madness of crowds”, as in repeated Marxist revolutions (the same old collectivism now framed in “Far-left Woke Progressivism”), Nazi horrors, and now environmental alarmism crusades (climate apocalypse hysteria) that propose to ruin our societies with salvation schemes like Net Zero, banning the fossil fuels that provide the very energy driving our civilization and providing the 6000 “fossil fuel derivatives” that grant us the many benefits of our much improved human condition.

We have not yet heeded the warning of Richard Landes to beware apocalyptic ideas that hold the potential to carry societies into mass-death movements as they have done in Marxism and Nazism.

AI Overview presents this on Ebionism (I am not affirming all this. See Bob Brinsmead’s essays on this)

“Ebionism was an early Jewish Christian movement in the first few centuries CE that viewed Jesus as a human Messiah and prophet, not God, insisting on strict adherence to Jewish law, such as circumcision and dietary rules. They rejected Jesus’ divine nature and virgin birth, believed he was adopted as God’s son due to his perfect righteousness, and revered James the Just, the brother of Jesus, as his true successor. Ebionites also rejected Paul the Apostle as an apostate and used a version of the Gospel of Matthew that excluded the virgin birth narrative.”

Key Characteristics of Ebionism

• Messianic Jesus:

They affirmed Jesus as the promised Jewish Messiah and prophet but rejected the common Christian belief in his divinity.

• Human Messiah:

They believed Jesus was a human being, the natural son of Joseph and Mary, who became God’s son at his baptism through his perfect obedience to the Law of Moses.

• Adherence to Jewish Law:

The Ebionites, meaning “the poor ones” in Hebrew, placed great importance on following the Jewish law, which included circumcision, keeping a kosher diet, and observing the Sabbath.

• Rejection of Pauline Theology:

They saw Paul as a false apostle who had abandoned Jewish tradition and law.

• Veneration of James the Just:

They revered James, the brother of Jesus, as the true successor to Jesus’ ministry, not Peter.

• Gospel of the Ebionites:

They utilized a specific version of the Gospel of Matthew that did not include the virgin birth or genealogy of Jesus.

Relationship to Early Jewish Christianity

• Continuation of Jewish Roots:

Ebionism represents a form of Jewish Christianity that emphasized keeping Jewish identity and traditions central to Christian belief.

• A Reaction to the Gentile Mission:

Some scholars suggest their theology was a response to the law-free Gentile mission of early Christianity, emphasizing the continuing relevance of the Law for believers.

Decline

• Orthodox Pressure:

The Ebionites eventually declined as Christian orthodoxy was established, with some choosing to return to Judaism and others integrating into more mainstream forms of Christianity.

(End of AI Overview statements)

Finding gems in strange places, Rogan and guest Jordan Jensen Wendell Krossa

This one, like so many other Rogan interviews, surprises because with this guest they start out as two comedians “talking shit” about nonsense stuff, gossip, but then later around the 30 to 45 minutes mark they shift into some fascinating personal experiences and insights. How both of them find out things about themselves through the use of psychedelics, “medicines” that are better understood now as therapeutics because of the public shift away from the previous history of demonizing them as “illegal drugs” (Schedule 1 or Class 1) to many now embracing them for their helpful qualities. Notable here are DMT and “Acid” (LSD), along with mushrooms and others.

Jensen offers some detail on her struggles with OCD, especially with washing her hands. She discovered through her use of Acid that her issue was that she did not trust herself. She believed that she might do something dangerous or bad (i.e. touch something contaminating which also has a normal safety element to it). She said that she had to learn that was wrong, to not trust herself. She had to learn to believe in herself, to trust herself and she then learned to deal with her OCD better, something we all suffer from to varied degrees and in different ways.

Good insight here from real life experiences. Jensen talks about her urges to do something crazy in public, common among many people who have to learn to fight such urges. Her urge was the urge to bite some famous person, like a movie star that she was sitting next to once (i.e. it was Laura Dern).

She did not trust this urge in herself and once gave into it and jumped off a ski lift that fortunately was close to the ground. I think also of a guy in a large Sunday morning church audience who shouted out nonsense, unable to control his urge to do something crazy. That illustrates this crazy urge thing, that some get standing near a cliff- i.e. the urge to jump.

The point that Joe and Jensen make is that they find help in therapeutics. Very interesting.

As Joe says regarding the DMT “entities” that he met during his experience (Jordan Peterson and others also talk about these), they are conscious beings that know us and tell us just what is wrong with us and how to correct it. They offer wise insights and advice. This is very interesting.

Jensen’s point on how she got a hold of her OCD was also good, because, as she says, giving way to obsessions then “builds neuronal grooves in our brains that are hard to overcome”, pathways that are hard to break. She is good on varied common struggles that we all face. She had to overcome her obsession with not touching contaminated things which is not just about physical contamination but also fear of mental/emotional contamination, perhaps from hearing or viewing bad things. And she did what therapists urge people to do- i.e. encourage yourself to engage voluntary exposure to those things that we fear and learn that they don’t harm us, that our fears are overblown and not presenting us with real dangers.

And so much more…

“Joe Rogan Experience #2380 – Jordan Jensen”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laLx9PryjFE&t=1137s

Quibble notes re Rogan: Understanding another version of collectivism, Wendell Krossa

Rogan touches on “socialism” as he has done before and muddles again the meaning and essential nature of socialism by sloppily using that term that describes a very well-defined ideological system and applying it incorrectly to agencies like local fire departments, or programs like universal health care (e.g. Canada’s medical system).

Rogan then claims that socialism is about compassion. Well Joe, sincerity in believing that you are motivated with the best of intentions (love) and doing something righteous does not guarantee good outcomes, compassionate outcomes. The motivating factor driving socialism is more correctly understood as “suicidal empathy” as Gad Saad will tell you and Thomas Sowell will illustrate for you, because you get the same old destructive outcomes from every socialist experiment across the past century or so, all 24 major examples. All despite the framing by leaders that they were about “social justice”, “equity”, and compassion for the “oppressed”.

Socialism advocates an approach for organizing society that elevates the “common or greater good, the collective” over individual rights and freedoms. And some “enlightened elite” must run the collective “for the people, on behalf of the people”, something that is never the actual result, and cannot be the outcome, as Kristian Niemietz states.

Quote from his “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”:

“Socialism in the sense which self-identified democratic socialists define it… a democratized economic planned collectively by ‘the people’, has never been achieved anywhere and could not be achieved. Economic planning can only ever be done in a technocratic, elitist fashion, and it requires an extreme concentration of power in the hands of the state. It cannot ‘empower’ ordinary workers. It can only ever empower bureaucratic elites.”

The “greater or common good” that is proclaimed by socialism is the collective that is elevated above individual rights and freedoms. And that inevitably results in the undermining of individual freedoms and rights which is where all genuine socialist experiments have ended. Consider also that Marx’s number one evil to be banned, first and foremost, was private property. Socialists accomplish this by “nationalizing sectors of the economy” as in coercively taking ownership of private businesses, taking possession of “the means of production”.

And that undermines freedom, and liberal democracy in general. All truly socialist experiments ultimately end in the same destructive mess that we are observing in Venezuela, the latest example of “true socialism/collectivism”. And that, after Chavez promised to offer something new and different, not Stalinist.

Again… Governing elites/bureaucrats, the “enlightened vanguards” of socialist crusades, believe that they know best how to organize society on behalf of all others. Consequent to that self-delusional viewpoint, the elites centralize power and control (on behalf of or for the people). Once again, after all, someone has to run the collective. And that must be the enlightened elite. The deformity of society starts right there, in that centralizing of power and control that directly undermines individual rights and freedoms.

Which approach protects liberal democracy best…

Our Western democracies have long struggled with the issues of how to soften and correct the sometimes harsher outcomes of free markets. Citizens to the left believe some form of soft socialism is the route to take, as in increasing the role and size of government by increasing state programs and bureaucracies (in size and number) with the consequent demand for more taxation to support the expanding state bureaucracy (i.e. state elites/bureaucrats taking citizen’s income to spend it on their behalf, believing they know better how to spend it). Add also the natural trend of bureaucratic elites to increase regulations, often letting that trend get out of control till states end interfering and controlling individual citizen’s lives in onerous detail, again, believing the state knows better how to run the society, than the citizens do. That denies the common citizen’s impulse to do the right thing. And it denies citizens their self-determination and personal control over life which is damaging to human development and independence.

So no Joe, fire departments are not socialism, nor is universal health care socialism. Such agencies and institutions are more like basic infrastructure. So be careful to distinguish something that has consistently been such a great threat to freedom and liberal democracy. Our imperfect liberal democracies, where protected freedom and contract rights have motivated individuals to create companies, jobs, products and services, and immense wealth over the past century or so. And that creativity, unleashed in protected freedom and private property rights, has resulted in massive improvement of the human condition and enabled us to do all that we value, including protect the natural world.

The free-market system is far more truly “compassionate” in lifting billions out of the horror of poverty, despite the meddling by state elites and state bureaucrats that has often distorted the system.

As Thomas Sowell has wisely stated- It’s the consequences, the outcomes as “the test of facts” that expose the false compassion/empathy of socialism, the “suicidal empathy” that motivates socialist elites.

I would add that we need to make careful distinctions of which element is beneficial in “social democracy/democratic socialism” systems. It’s not the socialist element but the democratic element that produces the best outcomes. That has been affirmed in Sweden’s case.

Protecting individual rights and freedoms has been proven critical to developing a successful society, despite the distortions and failures that arise from elites continually meddling and corrupting free markets. Liberal democracy expressed in the free-market system has been the best means to protect human freedom and thereby produce the best outcomes for the most people. Evaluated by outcomes/consequences, it is unquestionably a more compassionate approach to organizing human society as it has lifted billions out of poverty where socialist approaches and states have consistently impoverished and immiserated billions.

Striking historical examples: Chinese collectivism coercively installed under Mao and Russian collectivism under Stalin and others.

Then the Nazi thing…

Rogan and Jensen also discussed what happened in Nazi Germany during WW2, suggesting that it must have been something “psychological” that explains why average Germans went along with that madness. Well yes, “something psychological” because Germany was a Christian nation with previous centuries of teaching the population basic Christian ideas/beliefs. That built a mental framework for German thinking, a framework built around apocalyptic millennial themes.

Hitler then comes along mouthing the core themes of Christ mythology- i.e. apocalyptic millennialism- especially during the Weimar years when it appeared that Germany was heading toward apocalyptic decline and it seemed the country faced the disastrous ending of the culture, race, and nation. Hitler’s themes, earlier dismissed as the raving of a fringe lunatic, now during the disastrous Weimar years, resonated deeply with Christian Germans. He presented himself as a messiah figure who promised the hope of national salvation into a Millennial Reich.

His message, like previous Christian belief, argued that it must be “salvation through destruction”, “salvation by murdering the right people”. In the German version of that core mythical theme, the enemy to be destroyed was Jewish Bolshevism, by means of a great final battle of extermination, the final Armageddon battle. That explains Hitler’s disastrous obsession with the Eastern front.

Hitler eventually shifted to a further extreme and presented himself as the violent Messiah of Revelation who must ever more violently destroy Germany’s enemies. His crusade of “salvation through destruction” shifted to the final stage of apocalyptic crusades- the doubling down to “exterminate or be exterminated”. He intensified the final solution of eliminating the threat to Germany, in order to save the nation, by purging German society of the corrupting Jewish Bolshevism enemy as essential to accomplish salvation and emerge into the promised millennial paradise. Those themes resonated with German minds and spirits and the power of such beliefs was that they enabled people to live in denial of the outcomes of horrific harm to others.

They were beliefs that enabled populations to believe that especially desperate times (i.e. apocalyptic threat) demanded desperate measures to save their world that was facing apocalyptic ending.

New below– “‘Deep State’ a conspiracy?” (what evidence points to), and discussion group posts on “God is not Christian” (arguing whether Historical Jesus affirmed atonement/sacrifice beliefs).

See also at bottom of this opening section some counter points to Sam Harris’s absurd claim that there is no “human free will” (“free will is a powerful, necessary illusion”). Some helpful insights from the NDE movement affirming Joseph Campbell’s speculations on the dualism of good versus evil in this realm and ultimate Oneness. Free choice is a necessary reality to the existence of authentic moral good, or human purpose and responsibility is meaningless. But such is the outcome of “ultimate meaninglessness” in philosophical materialism.

See Bob Brinsmead’s latest Substack on how Paul formed Christianity from Hellenism along with other strains of ancient mythology. And my comfort with unconditional as “non-religious”. Also, an affirmation of Pete Hegseth’s comment that pacifism is “dangerous”. Totalitarian threat must be met with and defeated by credible military force.

Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger- “Wikipedia has become a propaganda site”

https://www.thefp.com/p/i-founded-wikipedia-heres-how-to-fix-it

Intro from Free Press: “I Founded Wikipedia. Here’s How to Fix It, Larry Sanger”

These intro comments by Oliver Wiseman:

If this story sounds familiar, it’s because it could describe so many of the institutions that we once relied on to bring us information. In fact, it might just be the story of our times. This crisis of trustworthiness is the skeleton key to understanding so much of the turbulence and disorder in public life today.

It’s certainly the story of The New York Times, NPR, and countless other media organizations. It’s the story of all too many institutions in medicine and public health.

It’s also the story of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia was founded on an idealistic mission to provide all the world’s information for free—and to do so democratically. But, as we’ve reported before in these pages, the Wikipedia site has been hijacked by ideologues.

Anonymous editors who are supposed to be committed to the truth instead edit articles to suit their ideological priors. And that has made the site harder to trust than ever— especially on some of the most controversial and important issues of the day.

Then this from the Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger:

Sanger says that he launched Wikipedia to be “the largest written resource in the history of the world. I oversaw the establishment of several fundamental standards, including rules about neutrality and verifiability.”

But since he left, “the standards that inspired the company have been sacrificed in favor of ideology.” He says there is no longer plurality of viewpoints in a balanced way. The editors favor and select one view making Wikipedia now a “propaganda site”.

He proposes a number changes to return Wikipedia to its original purpose and remove the current systemic bias to “globalist, academic, secular, and progressive (GASP)” ideology.

He says, “The list favors left-wing media sources and hamstrings right-wing and religious media sources. Wholly “deprecated” sources include, for example, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, and The Epoch Times. “Generally unreliable” outlets include much of Fox News’ reporting and all of the New York Post and The Federalist. In practice, this list determines what can and cannot be cited on Wikipedia. That means facts are omitted; legitimate opinion is ignored; religious doctrines are essentially asserted to be false; and leftist pieties are approved.”

“Wikipedia is now full of bias. Generally, this takes two main forms: casting aspersions on disliked politicians, institutions, and ideas, in a way that essentially means taking one side in a dispute; and omitting essential information with the same effect.”

Wikipedia editors present their bias in the titles to articles, eliminating or including key words/phrases that pre-set the conclusion that readers are expected to reach even about controversial issues. This was especially notable in regard to Covid and “disinformation” about that crisis.

Sanger notes that “many scientists now reluctantly concede that more skepticism about Covid-19 policy, such as forced lockdowns, mask mandates, and required vaccination, would have been beneficial at the height of the pandemic.”

He says that the majority of Wikipedia’s top editorial leadership remains anonymous. They are responsible for the content of Wikipedia but cannot be held accountable for conflicts of interest and biases that have consequences.

He adds, “If Wikipedia wishes to be a responsible player in the media scene, it must begin to act like one. Let the reputation of the most powerful Wikipedia editors rise or fall based on merit, and let it be tied to their real and full names. This is the standard for real-world journalism. Wikipedia should be no different.”

Sanger concludes that Wikipedia has become a propaganda site for one side of the political divide. He says, “the consensus it achieves often lines up with the prerogatives of the Democratic Party and the media establishment that supports it.”

Note: Google has admitted the same bias under pressure from Democrats, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has similarly admitted yielding to Biden White House pressure to censor.

“Zuckerberg says he regrets caving to White House pressure on content”

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/26/zuckerberg-meta-white-house-pressure-00176399

Google Admits Censorship Under Biden; Promises to End Bans of YouTube Accounts of Thousands of Americans Censored for Political Speech

https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/google-admits-censorship-under-biden-promises-end-bans-youtube-accounts

Dana White parts with Trump and Pam Bondi over free speech, the need to protect even “hate speech”, and decries cancel culture on Republican side…

“Trump ally Dana White splits with White House on ‘cancel culture‘”

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/trump-ally-dana-white-splits-with-white-house-on-cancel-culture/ss-AA1NAx6d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=68dbe0fdde02417eb388b460b8012234&ei=6#image=2

“’I’m a big believer in free speech, and unfortunately probably the most important speech to protect is hate speech,’ White said. CBS News reporter Jon Wertheim then stated White wasn’t ‘a fan of cancel culture.’ ‘No. I hate it. On both sides. It’s like all the stuff that’s goin’ on with Charlie right now- you know, these people are goin’ out and sayin’ stuff. And, you know, you’re seein’ people gettin’ fired or kicked out of school,’ he said.

“White maintained his contempt for those who may celebrate Kirk’s death but he didn’t believe in ruining their lives. ‘I think you’re a disgusting human being if you’re celebrating the death of another human being but people make mistakes and people are gonna do dumb things. I don’t like trying to destroy people’s lives over doing something dumb,’ he said.”

So also, commentator Tucker Carlson cautioned the right on this, saying this after the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel’s show:

“Conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson later noted that Kirk was a ‘free speech champion’ and that he hoped his murder would not be used as ‘leverage’ to bring hate speech laws to the United States. He did not mention President Donald Trump specifically in his remarks, but went after Attorney General Pam Bondi for controversial remarks .

“Carlson said Kirk would have ‘objected’ to such comments, suggesting Bondi ‘didn’t think it through and was not attempting to desecrate the memory of the person she was purporting to celebrate.’ ‘This is the Attorney General of the United States, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, telling you that there is this other category called “hate speech,”‘ Carlson noted. ‘And of course, the implication is that’s a crime. There’s no sentence that Charlie Kirk would have objected to more than that,’ he continued, calling a society with hate crime laws ‘the opposite of what he worked to build.’”

Bill Maher protests the shift of his “Democratic/liberal” side into Woke Progressive insanity over past years. He speaks as a once-leading Democratic/liberal commentator who has been slowly awakening to common sense again over these past years…

“Bill Maher warns Democrats to rein in ‘radically new’ ideas”

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/bill-maher-warns-democrats-to-rein-in-radically-new-ideas/ss-AA1NsCFY?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=68da86fa446e45d0ad8b54095dc52517&ei=148#image=6

Pardon the ridiculous, infantile practise of woke progressive news media like MSN to block expression of commonly used words with “(Expletive)”. Treating readers as idiot, easily triggered people too fragile and unbalanced to handle common language. Sheesh.

Quotes from article:

“Bill Maher delivered a scathing critique of Democrats on Friday night, as he called for a return to what he described as the values of the ‘old America.’ The longtime host and political commentator took aim at the Democratic Party on the latest episode of HBO ‘s Real Time with Bill Maher, urging its leaders to scale back what he described as ‘radically new and often terrible ideas.’

“’If we are ever going to get back to the old America, that’s got to be the Democrats’ part of the bargain,’ Maher said during the broadcast. ‘Stop coming up with radically new and often terrible ideas and then, in the next breath, insist there be no debate about any of it.’…

He made the comment that “when conservatives see it, they say, “I’m sorry. We’re just not going to go along with reinventing society, often pointlessly, even if we have to cancel democracy to do it”. “Cancel democracy”? How so Bill? By simply restoring common sense policies? He just can’t let go of his “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and frequently interjects it in his comments, that, while Democrats have been naughty, Republicans are still “the worst side” of things.

He then offered examples of “the new and terrible ideas” of his fellow Democrats so give him credit for his partial and still-developing “awokening”. He continued…

“’Transitioning kids by self-diagnosis with no age limit, no parental notification, and no acknowledgment of social contagion. Not doing it. Asylum now covers any reason for anyone to come to America. Not doing it. Homelessness is a lifestyle,’ Maher said. ‘Natural immunity doesn’t count anymore. Whiteness is toxic. [Expletive] in women’s prisons. Welcoming the intifada. We’re not doing it,’ he added.

“Maher also criticized what he views as a growing unwillingness among Democrats to engage in open debate, arguing that opposing views are too often dismissed as ignorant or morally corrupt. ‘You can’t just say [expletive]’ he said. ‘Math is racist. [Expletive] for Palestine. Looting is cool. Healthy at any weight. If the men’s football team played the women’s team, it would be a tie,’ he continued.

“’You can’t just say [expletive]. I mean you can, but it doesn’t make it true. You’re not Harry Potter,’ Maher joked. He went on to accuse Democrats of defending ‘some of the dumbest ideas to ever come down the pike,’ and warned that continuing on this ideological path could have lasting consequences.” (End of Maher article)

Probing the psychology around the intense hatred of differing others in our societies today- the tribal divides, Wendell Krossa

This Gutfeld panel of guests note that Rosie O’Donnell moved out of the US but can’t end her feud with Trump. Even her therapist questions what is going on with the intensity of her hatred toward Trump. She cannot stop talking about him, framing him in the worst possible way as a fascist dictator who is destroying democracy, etc.

As Gutfeld regular Kat Timpf says, O’Donnell likes it. She adds that hatred of Trump is a motivating factor for many people. It becomes their identity and is then hard to let go. These people, says Timpf, could go out and meet others like Trump supporters and discover that they are intelligent and good people.

Those possessed of such intense hatred might find out that there is more than just two extreme choices- i.e. (1) being constantly and completely overwhelmed and completely encompassed by hatred and fear over someone who will be out of office in a few years anyway, or (2) you (the Trump hater) are a stupid person, a hateful person.

If you really believe, on the other hand, that Trump supporters are stupid people, says Timpf, then that is a scary way to live if you believe half of the country are awful people. But that is not reality.

The only way to get over that view of Trump voters is to have conversations with those others who disagree with you. But Timpf doesn’t see O Donnell doing that because that is asking her to give up her very identity, to give up the idea that she is not just a person with a different opinion. It’s harder to give up an opinion when it is not just an opinion to you, but it is something that places you (in your mind) above other people. It makes you some kind of hero. You are asking people to give up their life on a pedestal of moral superiority. That is asking them to give up too much.

Gutfeld adds that even though they are unhappy, miserable people, they believe they are better than other people.

Note that interviewer Nicole Wallace, discussing the TDS of Rosie with her, almost admits, regarding her own TDS, that “Maybe it’s me”. Yikes, that was close to admitting the real problem. Because as Gutfeld follows, all the existential crises that the Democrats predicted would come from Trump did not come true which means that after Trump won, they were wrong about most things (e.g. the economy, crime, etc.). They proclaimed Trump would end the world so maybe that means that they are viewing things through the wrong filters and they should take those off, says Gutfeld. But, as he concludes, they can’t do that because their identity is tied to how they view Trump and they can’t let that go.

An interesting analysis by this panel. They are nailing some of the elements in what is driving the intense tribal hatred in the US today.

The other guest, chef Andrew Gruel (one of better social/political commentators today), makes the point that what we are watching today happening in the UK, that could have been the US’s future if Trump had not been elected. Gruel refers to the Woke Progressive extremism and insanity that is destroying a once great nation just as the same woke cult has been doing across Western liberal democracies in Europe, Canada, and Australia.

As Gutfeld adds, in the US we expect immigrants to assimilate to US culture, where in Europe the governments expect citizens to assimilate to the culture of incoming migrants. And that is the failure of multi-culturalism- i.e. to not insist that immigrants must assimilate to liberal democracy.

Because of their felt drive to virtue-signal for status as morally superior, and out of their fear of smears of racist, Islamophobia, etc., woke Progressives have embraced the suicidal empathy where they are now permitting Islamicist activists to push for the transformation of liberal democracies into theocracies, or collectivisms (in the strange- loose, temporary- cooperation known as the “Red/Green” association, Islamicists and neo-Marxists are working toward the common goal of overturning liberal democracies.).

My related post to a discussion group: Wendell Krossa

Take a listen to this link below around the 18-minute mark as Kat Timpf, a libertarian/Independent, offers her analysis of Rosie O’Donnell’s TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome- hatred toward Trump).

And I offer first my qualifiers- As also Independent, I am not a fanboy of the person Trump. I cringe at his “petty vindictiveness” at times, his braggadocio and tendency to exaggerate with extreme examples and numbers. But I also see his fundamentally common-sense policies on many critical things that impact most citizens, especially helping the poorest and making life safer for all. That trumps his other foible-level imperfections, for me. And while I also cringe at Gutfeld’s sometimes “nasty” (my opinion) comments/terms regarding Democrats, I find his panel, including Gutfeld himself, offer some of the best commentary on what our societies are going through today. They present just about the best analyses out there and that explains why his show is number one.

Gutfeld slips over sometimes into petty name-calling (e.g. “assholes”), into the tribal vengeance thing of vilification for vilification, hurt for hurt, eye for eye, that renders us all petty and not at our best. Yes, poke fun at, mock, but try to avoid the nastier stuff. Like many try to do- restore the Johnny Carson neutral thing with a dose of human decency.

Timpf’s point on how such things as TDS become part of a person’s identity as morally superior in society, nails what many others (i.e. Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn on “America This Week”) are also pointing to as we all try to understand the psychology behind the tribal hatred dividing societies like the US. This goes to what the entire Woke Progressive phenomenon has made us aware of- i.e. things like “suicidal empathy” (Gad Saad) and the felt need of many to virtue-signal for status in society (Jordan Peterson’s point) as morally superior, even as many embrace a deformed empathy that has destructive outcomes in harming others.

This (“suicidal empathy”) refers to Progressive policies, for example, that release repeat violent offenders that inflict further harm on innocent others, and policies that allow even criminal illegal immigrants into a country to murder citizens. Others also note that European countries are allowing too many Muslim immigrants who hate liberal democracy and openly state that they come “not to take part but to take over”. Those immigrants claim that they will transform the new host societies they are entering into Islamic theocracies run according to Sharia law, just like the countries that they have left (qualifier: not all Muslim immigrants take this position, but a significantly threatening number do).

As Timpf says re O’Donnel, what we are seeing is “not just people holding an opinion but holding something that is core to their identity”, that enables them to portray themselves as morally superior to others, it grants them superior status (in their minds). And they seem unaware that when our identity is built around hatred it destroys the person hating. We see this now in the many Democrats (i.e. 70% in surveys) who now affirm totalitarian policies like favoring censorship of their opponents, and believe that violence is valid against their opponents, and even cheer the murder of opponents like Charlie Kirk (see Joe Rogan comments). As Timpf and others note, these people seem unaware of what they are thinking and promoting.

“The Greg Gutfeld Show 9/30/25 FULL END SHOW | ᖴO᙭ ᗷᖇEᗩKIᑎG ᑎEᗯS September 30, 2025”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqYYVRyWqsc

“Rogan calls out self-described ‘progressives’ who celebrated the ‘public execution’ of Charlie Kirk”, Alexander Hall

https://www.foxnews.com/media/rogan-calls-out-self-described-progressives-who-celebrated-public-execution-charlie-kirk

Quotes from article:

“Weeks after he heard about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on-air, podcaster Joe Rogan noted that he is still reeling from seeing how many so-called progressives celebrated his death.

“’The Charlie Kirk thing fucking opened up my eyes… I never expected so many people would celebrate that man’s murder.’…

“’It’s just bizarre, like, normal people that, I think, think they’re good people, and they think, they genuinely think, that guy was a bad guy… And I don’t think they’re right. And I think they were indoctrinated. And I don’t agree with everything that Charlie Kirk said or did’.”…

“Rogan reasserted that one of the most frightening aspects about the entire incident was the fact that perfectly normal people celebrated the murder of a young man because they did not like what he had to say.

“’I don’t think some of the things he said, he should have said… but the fact that people were cheering when he died — normal people, housewives, moms, like fucking people working at banks, people working at various industries — celebrating a man getting shot in front of his kids in the front of the whole world. Like what the fuck is wrong with us?’”…

“Rogan criticized what he saw as hypocrisy, saying it was disturbing that people on the left who claim to be progressive, compassionate and inclusive were openly celebrating gun violence and public executions.”

Pete Hegesth on pacifism and peace, Wendell Krossa

I want to affirm (in link below) where “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth says that “pacifism is so naïve and dangerous. It ignores human nature and ignores history.” He continues, saying you have to be willing to wage war in order to attain and protect peace and freedom. Either you do that, he says, or “you will be subservient to someone or something.” He adds that is a truth that is as old as time and you need a powerful military to pay the cost in blood and treasure in order to ensure that subservience to totalitarian opponents does not happen, that we can maintain our freedom and peace.

Pacifism, which some commend for expressing a utopian longing to avoid violence and achieve peace, is simply a wrongheaded understanding of the world that we live in. It becomes a form of “suicidal empathy” and does not work in the face of real threats that may exhibit elements of the psychopathic mind or the animal impulse to totalitarian domination, along with the tribal impulse to destroy competing others who differ in some way.

Hegseth continues, stating that if we want peace then we have to prepare for war to achieve it, to protect and maintain the liberal democracy gains that we have made over past centuries. Credible counter force is necessary to stand down the bullies of our world who refuse to leave others alone but pathologically lust to exercise domination and control over others.

Such is the regrettably sick, cruel reality of our world, that such people exist among us. Hegseth hits the right notes on many of these issues.

Why then the emphasis here on the ideal of unconditional response and treatment of others? Doesn’t that fly in the face of the use of military force against attackers/enemies?

I see “unconditional” as more about the advice of the ancient Chinese sage who said that when you are attacked by some enemy, then you must engage war to stop your attackers, to defeat them. But when you have defeated them, then do not triumphally gloat and humiliate them, but seek to rehabilitate them, just as the Allies did with the Germans and Japanese following the end of WW2. We always remember Joseph Campbell’s good advice to remember that our “enemy” is still our brother, our family. It is wise to have such insights in our heads to inform and guide our actions in all the diverse situations that we encounter throughout life.

Campbell’s statement again: “For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Myths To Live By).

Add here also Leo Tolstoy’s similar advice:

“The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care” (Resurrection).

Site project in regard to the ideal of unconditional:

This site stresses the critical ideal of unconditional deity because it shapes, as nothing else can, our mental, emotional, and motivational states, also our behavioral responses in life.

The unconditional ideal functions to prepare us for confronting evil in this life, helping to focus our intentions that purpose to maintain our humanity as we do what we often must engage with regret- i.e. use force to restrain violent offenders, to imprison repeat violent people and hold them fully accountable for offenses. Unconditional guides us to do so as humanely as possible so we don’t permit ourselves to sink into to the same inhumane ugliness of offenders, indulging the “natural” impulses to hatred, vengeance, domination, punitive/destructive payback, or whatever.

Unconditional, in the larger context, is about how we find the best pathways to that better peaceful future that we all want. No one seriously wants the horror of war that deforms all who must be involved, especially the soldiers who conduct frontline war (add police forces also here). This was a feature that Hegseth did not address, how the human use of violence to counter attackers deforms the minds and lives of the soldiers/police who do so. The PTSD that we are all familiar with today. Note the outcomes of people exercising force toward others in the higher suicide and divorce rates among police who frequently encounter and deal with the most disgusting humans among us.

Nonetheless, an unconditional ideal to inform life does not negate in any way what Hegseth is arguing for- i.e. merit-based competency to defend peace.

And nothing in our struggles with applying such an ideal as unconditional responses/behavior, changes the truth that God is unconditional reality, just as Jesus stated. That is ultimate comfort and reassurance lodged in the background narratives of life (i.e. an unconditional God will include all in the end- “sun and rain” will be given to all eventually).

Hegseth notes how the pathology of “woke progressivism” infected and took over the US military, along with tribal politicization, to degrade the military. As he says, “we are done with that shit” and now we return to common sense.

The singular purpose of the US military is to prepare for war and to be the best at it, in order to defeat any threat and protect freedom and peace. The horror of war is too often the harsh reality of the world that we live in where some of our fellow humans, for whatever reasons, will unleash their tribal impulses to dominate others, to attack and destroy competing others. Notable also today is the threat from a resurging collectivism (Marxist) that is now expressed through the woke progressivism that has been spreading from inside our societies.

This Woke progressivism is the same WEF pathology that favors the larger collectivisms of China and Russia. Collectivism is a direct threat to the individual freedoms that we have fought for in our liberal democracies where elites/bureaucrats are prevented from lording over citizens through our maintenance of the systems of common law and representative institutions of Classic Liberalism.

We also face the continuing threat from Islamic extremism, notably via organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and others who are actively seeking to invade and take over Western liberal democracies. They have stated openly that they do not want to assimilate but to “take over” and install Islamic theocracy.

“Full speeches: Trump, Hegseth address military leaders at rare meeting in Quantico”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhGeNPJlIK4

This Substack comment from Bob details how the “diamond” message of Jesus was “buried” (Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy) in Paul’s Christ myth that dominates the New Testament.

What have I done in my journey? Bob Brinsmead, Sept. 30, 2025

My email response to the question- “What have I done in my journey?”

The Jesus movement developed post-Easter by forming two groups. The first group were the original Aramaic-speaking Jews (James, apostles etc.) in the Jerusalem church (these were known as the Hebrews—quite conservative Jews). The other group were the Jewish Hellenists or Greek-speaking Jews. It is a fascinating history.

There was friction between the two groups from the start. For a background on this, one needs to understand the impact of Hellenism in Jewish history. The Hellenist Jews were influenced by Greek language, philosophy, culture, and religion.

This was a force within Judaism for two to three hundred years just as there was a Persian influence on Judaism before that – bringing Aramaic and Zoroastrian ideas into Judaism to create the astonishing era of Jewish apocalyptic (the books of Daniel, Enoch, Maccabees, etc.) So, with Hellenism, there were even greater influences with Greek philosophy, Greek culture, Greek ideas, all impacting within Judaism.

The conservative Jews, including the conservative Jerusalem church or synagogue of the Nazarenes were not comfortable with the Hellenists and were not comfortable with the more radical evangelism of Stephen the Hellenist, and so the Jerusalem group kept their distance from Stephen, kept clear of the persecution which followed, and were not personally impacted by the persecution crusade of Saul of Tarsus which was directed at the Hellenists to whom he was finally reconciled. But in one respect Paul was also a Hellenist by birth, education, and background, as well as a Pharisee—a conflicted mix?

Oh! Yes, with Hellenism came the Septuagint version of the O.T, which Paul used exclusively. Philo of Alexandria was a Hellenist Jewish philosopher, the most prominent Jewish writer in Paul’s age. The Hellenist converts of the Jesus movement fled to Antioch where they acquired the label of Christians because of their distinctive and original focus on the beginnings of Christology, which was all Greek (excuse the pun) to James and the company at Jerusalem. The bottom line is that Antioch and not Jerusalem was the cradle of the Christian Church.

It managed to overtake or hijack the Jesus movement that began in Jerusalem under the leadership of James, only after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans which ended the dominant role of the Jerusalem church in 70 C.E. This Christ movement which began at Antioch never really blossomed until after the death of both James and Paul in the 60’s.

When they both died around the same time, James was the towering figure in the Jesus movement and Paul looked almost down and out. ‘All in Asia have deserted me…’ , he wailed just before his death. The truth is that Paul and James, or Jerusalem and Antioch really did put on a very serious Punch and Judy show—and the author of the book of Acts and others tried to write out of the story despite leaving traces of blood all over the floor, so to speak.

What have I done in my journey? I got to do this process with Christology. I have looked into the whole process of how the sausage was made over a period of 400 years, from Antioch to Chalcedon in 451 C.E, seeing how, with a certain amount of Greek or Hellenist influence, the theologians of the church built the edifice, how each Creed developed from the Apostles’ Creed, to the Nicene Creed, and then on to the anti-Arian Creed of Athanasius plus Chalcedon in 451 C.E. at Nicene, with the Emperor Constantine presiding, (that was even before the edifice was complete), the church was ready to support the emperor’s edict to kill anyone who questioned a single point of the Nicene Creed. The faith worth dying for had become the faith worth killing for in many centuries to come!

When one sees how the sausage is made, one loses an appetite for it.

What am I left with? I am left with what the apostolic church at Jerusalem were left with- no Christology at all, no doctrine of a blood atonement, no virgin birth, no divinity of Jesus…just his teachings! In the words of Burton Mack, it is neither possible nor even necessary to know anything very much about the person called Jesus except what he taught.

He was on this account a great Messenger from God because, like any good messenger, he did not make himself the message or centre of attention, but he did have a new doctrine of God and what it means to live in his kingdom in the here and now.

He taught that God is not in some other place more than his Abba father is in this place, and that the Father will not there present in some apocalyptic time more than the Father is present in this present time. There is no apocalyptic event to look for. There is no sacrifice needed to bring to the compassionate Father. (He died as a prophet, not as a sacrifice.)

The messenger did not teach people to put their faith in him or laud him. No ‘good master’ stuff or ‘Lord, Lord’ stuff with this messenger of the Father. God forbid, no worshiping the messenger who simply wanted people to do what he said instead of making some gib deal out of who he was supposed to be. That all annoyed him big time. No good ambassador will do otherwise.

Human beings, however, can become too smart by half. But at least the Hellenists were smart enough to see that if you wanted to conquer the Graeco-Roman world with a new religion, you would have to have something more exciting than the wisdom sayings of a Jew.

It would be far easier to turn this Jewish prophet into a Gentile god with all the bells and whistles (titles and status) of a Greek god, and at least one born of a woman whom you could say was impregnated after the manner of any Greek legend.

So it was that the Hellenists at Antioch reached out to speculate on something more potent than the mere teachings of Jeus, and to give him a title and a status and a C.V. of enough impressive Greek-like miracles to transcend a mere Jewish messiah—and have that more illustrious Greek word Christ as a title.

This meant taking one small step for the Hellenists at Antioch but one giant step for humanity. It meant taking the focus away from the teachings of the messenger and putting all the focus on to the person of the messenger. It is simply a human tendency to do that. Purton L Mack dares to describe this as forming the cult of Christ.

The so-called Hebrews in the apostolic church in Jerusalem led by James, the brother of Jesus, never had a Christology and never went down that 400-year road of developing one.

The question is now starting to be asked all over the Christian world whether this 400-year road of developing a Christology has turned out to be a 2,000-year detour away from the real vision of Jesus.

This cloud has a very bright side. In our present global village, it has become embarrassing to suggest to all and sundry that our Christ is bigger and better than any of your avatars; and that is beginning to dawn on Christians that the historical Jesus would not have liked any chest-thumping, ‘I am the greatest’ antics.

After all, he did utter some very contrary and revolutionary things about what greatness really means. And on the other hand, we are left with a Jesus who was never a Christian anyway but whose words can reach the heart of people from any religious background and become an enormous, human-uniting force that is not driven by any institutional church.

Documenting this amazing story and its history is so daunting that I am left scratching around thinking how I can write some of it up, What I have said here is just my crude and very unready outline that might give you one hundred reasons to throw it away as nonsense -for which I readily forgive. Robert Brinsmead

The Jesus message/core theme suits my non-religious spirit, Wendell Krossa (I am not a fanboy of all the Q research and conclusions out there)

I have struggled, notably, since early teen years with a strong impulse to independence, freedom from parental control, and then later freedom from religious and state interference, domination, and control (Note: This is common to the shift from childhood to adulthood). It took me till midlife to understand that I was responding to an innate spirit of Classic Liberalism, as embodied in liberal democracy society (“Live and let live”).

Preface Note: Q is short for the German term “quelle” that means “source”. Early German theologians, among others, noticed that Matthew and Luke, who wrote later than Mark, borrowed a number of sayings from Mark’s gospel. But they also obviously borrowed other sayings from some other unknown source, hence Q.

My point:

We have to discern and pick out the authentic Jesus teachings from the larger New Testament context where the NT authors included much more that they attributed to Jesus, sayings and situations that contradict his main theme of unconditional love and therefore cannot have come from him. Note, for example, Matthew 5 and 11. Jesus states in Matthew 5 to “love your enemies”. Then in Matthew 11, Matthew has him stating angrily that those who refused his miracles in surrounding hamlets (i.e. refused him and his message) will be cast into hell, the supreme statement of hatred of enemies. Those two entirely contradictory statements did not come from the same person (see “The Five Gospels” by the Jesus Seminar scholars).

I repeatedly refer to “Q Wisdom Sayings” on this site. But- qualifier- I would limit my understanding of Q as “the closest that we get to the original message of Jesus” to (1) the material in Luke 6:27-36, (2) the parable of the Prodigal’s Father who affirms God as unconditional love, (3) the parable of the generous vineyard owner who similarly affirms unconditional treatment of people, and a few other things that similarly affirm the core unconditional theme of Historical Jesus, such as his practice of inviting the outcasts of his society (hookers, local mafia, etc.) to community meals of Jewish elites.

My guiding criteria for evaluating what that Palestinian wisdom sage taught includes his central theological insight, his “stunning new image of God”, a theological breakthrough that was unheard of before he presented it around 30 CE. I use his central theme of unconditional as my supreme criterion to detect the element of “thematic coherence” anywhere else in the material that has been attributed to him. And I don’t find much in the New Testament gospel accounts that is validated by this criterion, not even in the Q Wisdom Sayings versions that are presented by noted Q scholars like John Kloppenborg.

I take the Luke 6:27-36 summary of the teaching of Jesus as one of the finest presentations of human ethics and affirming theology, i.e. Luke doing better than Matthew’s same collection of statements that he muddled and messed up with his concluding statement to “Be perfect as your father is perfect”. That summarizing conclusion by Matthew misses entirely the unconditional tone and spirit of what Jesus had just said, that God embraces with equal inclusion and love the very imperfect, the bad with the good (“Sun and rain are given to all equally, to both good and bad people”).

I take the same position as Bob Brinsmead that the core message of Historical Jesus is a “NONRELIGIOUS” set of precepts and statements because the God who is presented by Jesus is unconditional. Unconditional is contrasted with all religion that is highly conditional. Religion was created, from the beginning, to embody and present the conditions demanded by angry, threatening deities for appeasement of their wrath (i.e. blood sacrifice/payments, offerings/meals, correct beliefs, required rituals, and religious lifestyle as the marker of true believer status in a given religion, etc.).

One cannot escape the fundamentally conditional nature of all religion.

The stunning new God of Jesus, being unconditional love, is therefore profoundly anti-religion (because anti-conditions). Just saying.

Also critical to note, the Q message of Jesus is not a Christian message even though it was included in the developing Christian religion of Paul. The essential unconditional theme of Jesus has been profoundly distorted and buried by Paul’s highly conditional Christ myth that embodies the supreme condition of a cosmic sacrifice sent to be murdered in order to appease the retaliatory and conditional God of Paul, the highly religious God of Paul.

As Bob Brinsmead says, the precepts of Jesus are about love in the ordinary, mundane activities and relationships of all human lives, whether people identify as religious or atheist. The love that Jesus taught was for common daily relationships, especially his teaching on “love your enemy”.

Jesus was not the first to urge love for enemies. The Akkadian father got that right some 2000 years earlier. But that Father did not get the theological element right in the “behavior based on similar validating belief” coupling. He added the warning to his son to “make sacrifice to your still threatening and demanding conditional God” (my paraphrase of his comments). So the Akkadian father’s love of enemy lacked the unconditional feature that Jesus eventually got right.

Once again, the central message of Jesus is not a religious message, hence, my addition to Jefferson and Tolstoy’s point- i.e. the “diamonds” of Jesus have been deformed and buried within the religious context of Paul’s Christ mythology.

And I would challenge the varied Q scholars on the versions of Q that they have presented, on the material that they have attributed to Jesus in their versions of Q. For example, see the Q gospel presented in John Kloppenborg’s “The Earliest Gospel”. Others (James Robinson) have noted that there were later editions of Q (i.e. Q 2, Q 3) that suddenly changed from the original version and became more threatening, changing from the merciful, non-retaliatory God of Jesus to a retaliatory God once again threatening judgment and apocalyptic destruction.

Kloppenborg’s version of Q includes statements of Jesus that threaten judgment and punishment, statements that are entirely out of whack with Jesus’ central theme/message to end eye for eye retaliation and instead love enemies because God does not retaliate against enemies but loves enemies as evident in the merciful and generous granting of sun and rain to all, to both good and bad people. That central theology negates any material on a wrathful God promising judgment and punishment as in Kloppenborg’s version of Q.

And as Bob Brinsmead says, he doubts the actual person, Jesus, wanted to make disciples/followers and church leaders, or start a new religion. Bob is skeptical of statements where Jesus is portrayed as apparently calling for people to become converts and follow him, to become disciples. Note that sometimes when Jesus healed people (no doubt presented them with his message of an unconditional God (?) to heal psychosomatic illnesses- i.e. “demon possession” as caused by traumatizing threat theology) he then sent them back to their home areas to continue their independent lives. He also rejected the natural sense of indebtedness or obligation, that follows from being a recipient of acts of charity, by telling healed people, “Your faith (not me) healed you”.

(Insert note on Jesus’ healing people, as in places like Mark 2:3–12 where he says to a sick person, “Your sins are forgiven” before they had done anything, like make some sacrifice for atonement. Jesus stated to people that they were forgiven based on his belief in an unconditional God and that (i.e. his unconditional theology- no doubt communicated to the sick people) released those sick people from the psychosomatic impacts and paralysis caused by threat theology. Again, just suggesting. Psychologist Harold Ellens and psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo detail the deforming of personality from threatening “Cruel God” theology. As they state, “Sick Gods make people sick”.)

Continuing with the point on Jesus not subjecting people to indebtedness or obligation, but setting them free…

After all, Jesus was the guy who said “Don’t lord over anyone but serve others”. Doesn’t sound like “come follow me and be a submissive convert”. In the “authentic Jesus material” (evaluated as “authentic” by the criterion of affirming unconditional) there is no “submit to Lord Jesus ruling with a rod of iron”. Then how much less authentic, having nothing to do with Jesus, is Paul’s advocating for religious authorities such as church leaders/bishops, etc.? Or Paul’s advocacy for wives to submit to husbands, or slaves to submit to masters?

Charlie Kirk and his wife Erika got this “wives submit to husbands” wrong, despite their defense of it. Beware all “Lord, King, divine Ruler” stuff, which early humans projected onto their images of deity- i.e. animal alpha domination projected onto God. See Alex Garcia’s “Alpha God” for some interesting comment on the human practice of projecting the animal onto God. If true “greatness” is as Jesus argued- to serve others- then “God is great” would refer to a serving deity not a “lording-over-others” deity as in Paul’s “Lord Jesus” myth.

Why the projection of so much “anti-Jesus” material onto that wisdom sage?

The gospel writers wrote two generations after Jesus died and they did not actually know the man. They were writing theology (mythology presented as actual history) and did so to affirm Paul’s Christ myth that dominated early Christ-ianity. Hence their “biographies” of Jesus include much material that Jesus never actually said and things he never did, like Hellenistic miracles. The gospel authors created such material and attributed it to Jesus in order to affirm the Christology of Paul. They were following the Hellenism pattern of attributing miracles to special people in order to frame them as divine persons.

And as was the practice of that time, they fraudulently claimed the names of well-known apostles as authors of their books/letters so as to give credibility to their mythmaking.

Added note: Fear-based narratives are not how we unite and motivate people to good behavior.

You can employ fear of things like threat theology to unite and control large groups in organizations and states (i.e. angry deity threatening punitive destruction in apocalypse and hell to coerce submission to religious systems). However, manipulating people with fear will deform human personality and will lead to other outcomes like nihilism and violence as the history of fear-oriented narratives reveals. See also the points of psychologist Harold Ellens and psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo in “Cruel God, Kind God”.

“Deform human personality”? Yes, note again that Jesus encountered many cases of psychosomatic illness called “demon possession” in his time. I would suggest that he healed those people with his encouragement of unlimited forgiveness based on his new theology of a God who was unconditional mercy and love.

I would argue the same message would liberate many today suffering with illnesses like depression which has been termed “the world’s number one illness”. The theme of divine unconditional love may even help a young generation traumatized by the apocalyptic terrorizing from the climate alarmism crusade with its threats of “angry Planet, angry Mother Earth”. Young people suffer significant rates of “eco-anxiety” and trauma, high levels of general anxiety and depression after decades of being battered with endless public proclamations that the world will soon end, with actual dates set repeatedly by notable public prophets of apocalyptic doom.

Politicians and other wannabe totalitarians have always used the threat of looming emergency and imminent catastrophe to manipulate and control people, to get people to submit to their salvation schemes, to embrace the demand for a “salvation that comes through destruction”, even self-destruction. We see such self-destruction in the widespread push to embrace the destruction of our Western societies through the rapid implementation of Net zero decarbonization. This is very much like the “Xhosa cattle slaughter” where people panicked apocalyptic lunacy killed the cattle that were their very livelihood. They became caught up in hysteria of the “madness of crowds” insanity from an eruption of apocalyptic lunacy.

The Xhosa illustration:

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/psi_sigma_siren/vol3/iss1/2/

“Nongqawuse’s prophecy provoked the colonially embittered Xhosa (cōe-săh) people to rise up and kill their cattle. As the movement drew to a close, around 400,000 cattle had been slaughtered and an estimated 80,000 Xhosa died of starvation.” (South Africa, 1856-57)

H. L. Mencken warned about the manipulation of people through fear that renders populations susceptible to manipulation into embracing/supporting irrational salvation schemes of apocalyptic prophets.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary”, In Defense of Women.

We have all been living through one of history’s greatest eruptions of apocalyptic madness over the past three decades of the climate alarmism crusade. Prophets of this madness have tried to maintain fear at fever pitch with endlessly repeated prophecies of imminent catastrophe. The dates for the end of the world have to be set and reset and reset again because the apocalypse never happens.

Historian Richard Landes warned about the approaching apparent failure of such apocalyptic crusades. The leaders will either become disillusioned and return to normal life with tails between legs. Or more dangerously, out of desperation to keep the panic alive, some will double down in desperation and may even shift to the phase of “exterminate or be exterminated”. Failed prophets become desperate over the possibility of lost credibility and reputation, lost income, and lost careers that have been built on apocalyptic panic-mongering.

(Insert: Even parents know that children are better motivated to good behavior by positive affirmation than by threat of punishment.)

“The Cult of diversity, inclusion, and equity destroys science: The coming end of Canada’s supreme wokeness”, Gad Saad, Oct. 1, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/gad-saad-the-cult-of-diversity-inclusion-and-equity-destroys-science?itm_source=index

Saad talks about his testimony to “The House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Science and Research regarding The Impact of the Criteria for Awarding Federal Funding on Research Excellence in Canada.”

He states: “Meritocracy is the sole operative ethos when judging research excellence. Scientific quests have a singular goal, to better understand the world and its wondrous mysteries. Science is not an empathy party meant to elevate and celebrate so-called marginalized groups. The use of diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE) when allocating research funds is an affront to individual dignity and to research excellence.

“A 2025 report by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy found that 97.5 per cent of academic job postings at Canadian universities referenced DIE requirements.” He then gives examples from major Canadian universities.

He makes the point that, “(S)cience is, or should be, an apolitical process. Scientific truths and natural laws exist independent of researchers’ identities…. Ideological activism is anathema to research excellence. Meritocracy is all that matters.”

Saad concludes: “Perhaps I am being overly optimistic, but I believe that we are seeing the early stages of an auto-correction in supremely woke Canada. It will require sustained effort to eradicate all the parasitic ideas that have damaged research excellence in Canada. The early indications though are that even the progressive ideologues, who served as the architects of the relentless dismantling of meritocracy, are seeing the proverbial writing on the walls. May we return to reason, logic, and common sense in the not-too-distant future and recommit to keeping our irrelevant identities away from the pursuit of science.”

More Saad truth from Gad, (He’s a lot more than just another “gadfly”). This from a video of the panel presentation to the House of Commons.

“Diversity, Inclusion, & Equity in Science-Full Testimony @ The House of Commons (THE SAAD TRUTH_1906)”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFY-lAfhJ2U

Saad speaks to the DEI takeover of higher education and the outcomes in the corruption of good science. The Liberal government has mandated hiring for positions, based on DEI criteria and not solely on personal merit or achievement in varied scientific disciplines.

My point, related to this parliamentary presentation, is that DEI and its classification of people according to “victim/victimizer” categories relates to a broader ideological thing pushing for dominance in our societies. We are experiencing a resurgence of far-left collectivism with its old categories of “oppressed/oppressor” that were formerly defined in terms of the simple-minded tribal dualism of capital/property owners versus propertyless workers/peasants.

I would add here the impulse of people to virtue-signal for superior moral status in society, even though the outcomes of the policies that they then support have harmful outcomes. I see such damaging outcomes from the use of DEI criteria in hiring for positions in scientific disciplines (damage to the scientific endeavor). Or the virtue signaling for moral status (signaling great compassion for minority groups) that then becomes a form of “suicidal empathy” when it lets repeat violent offenders free to further harm other victims. Violent offenders freed from prison because they belong to a minority group classed as “victims” based on skin color/race.

Even though such outcomes harm people, the activists promoting such things still believe that they can signal as morally superior, as compassionate people despite the evidence of harmful outcomes from their “compassionate” policies in increased crime.

And this embrace of policies that harm others but are viewed as the means to a better future traces even further back to more primitive ideas such as “salvation through destruction,” a dominant religious theme from antiquity, based on apocalyptic mythology and the belief that salvation, a better future, is achieved via violent sacrifice of the right people, even innocent people.

That is a barbaric belief that has always undergirded the sacrifice tradition of humanity. Think of those Aztecs cutting out the hearts of living children. Or today, Luigi Mangione celebrated for killing the “right person” and that some believe would make things better. Or the murder of Charlie Kirk to make things better.

This idea of achieving a better future or salvation through murder and destruction has been beaten into human consciousness/subconscious over multiple millennia via religious traditions. It has become archetypal that you can be righteous in murdering innocent people as sacrifices and to clear the way to achieve your utopia, heaven, or a better future. These are dangerous ideas/themes that have long infected humanity, and validated murderous wars against enemies as righteous crusades to achieve noble ends.

These background beliefs/themes, still dominant in religious traditions, and lodged deeply in human subconscious as archetypes, continue to exert influence on human minds and lives, what psychologist Harold Ellens terms “dynamis”.

Such ancient ideas feed into the suicidal empathy that Saad talks about today.

Also a good point by Saad that we solve bigotry not by now imposing reverse bigotry as many are doing through DEI discrimination against certain groups that do not meet DEI criteria even though the people are qualified, even excellent in their discipline. But they do not have the right skin color or gender or sexual orientation. DEI promotes the new “Woke Racism” with its victim/victimizer categorization of people that is just a new iteration of the same old tribal dualism of Marxism.

DEI takes us into a historically new descending “eye for eye” cycle where the former oppressed become the new oppressors. DEI destroys disciplines, institutions, and societies where it has been applied.

Saad and the others on the panel note the now prominent orientation in higher education to the left as professors across past decades have hired ideologically similar candidates for positions and the whole endeavor has now shifted far left and Woke Progressive with DEI. This strong leftist orientation in higher education is so out of touch with the Canadian public who no longer trust higher education of propagandizing public media like CBC, though the distrust is more notable among conservatives and moderates than leftists. And that, of course, is the tribal thing.

Saad notes the “self-censorship” now in higher education as the worst form of censorship. He says that many people contact him, often academics who tell him not to reveal their names as they fear being retribution in being fired, losing grants and positions, or being publicly vilified and bullied by intolerant colleagues. So they ask Saad to not include their names if he reads their emails publicly. They are too afraid of retaliation from DEI activists who do tolerate diversity, inclusion, and equality in freedom of speech, etc. As Saad says, we are not North Korea or other totalitarian states. This is Canada and its happening here.

Others on the panel also note how DEI, contrary to the claims of its title initials, is exclusionary, rejects diversity, and does not equality (not “equity”). If you don’t meet its criteria for gender, skin color, sexual orientation, etc. you will not get funding or positions. It is not true DEI that should be about equality of opportunity for the best qualified people for positions, argues Saad.

“Deep state” a conspiracy? Wendell Krossa

Critical to protecting liberal democracy for all is to tackle what DOGE began to uncover, and what Joe Rogan guest Mike Benz revealed in his two interviews on JRE- i.e. the “complex of infrastructure” that has been constructed behind-the-scenes to censor and propagandize populations, to indoctrinate citizens, notably in the US, but also typical across Western liberal democracies today.

That has been called the “deep state” and dismissed by Progressives as “conspiracy theory”. But it appears undeniably evident in, for example, the domination of higher education by leftist professors and administration staff (true believers in Woke Progressiveness). It has been uncovered in the intelligence agencies censoring conservative opponents on behalf of Democrats- i.e. the Twitter Files exposure by Matt Taibbi and others, the Facebook admission of succumbing to Democrat pressure to censor, also recent admissions by Google and Wikipedia to Democratic bias, all major communication forums.

Also, the bureaucracies of numerous governments have been infected with Woke Progressivism as evident across Europe in the censoring and criminalizing of opposition on the Conservative or “populist” side. Also evident in the dominant narrative in “science” that has been pushing the climate apocalyptic crusade of the Left, over past decades, etc.

You further see evidence of this “Deep state” thing, for example, in the Bureau of Labor Statistics manipulation of labor data, presenting what appears to have been outright lies to try and favor Biden’s re-election in 2024 and discredit opposition. You find such stuff throughout government bureaucracies favoring one side against the other which shows that deep state arguments are not all dismissible as just conspiracy theory stuff.

Note:

Many decry the downfall of the Democratic Party in the US due to its swing far left into extremist woke progressivism. You could have the revival of what is sometimes nostalgically referred to as the past healthy balance between the two opposing parties in a democracy, if both are committed to the basics of liberal democracy- i.e. protecting the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally, as in Classic Liberal principles, systems of law, and representative institutions that serve the sovereign people.

But when one party swings away into neo-collectivism as in Woke Progressivism with DEI, that balance between the two no longer works. Then it becomes the issue of protecting the basic common-sense principles, laws, and institutions of liberal democracy against neo-collectivism. That is a different battle altogether.

This exchange of emails from our discussion group recently– “Thank God that God is not Christian, not religious.”

First, this was posted by a member of our group who defends Christian atonement theology:

Subject: It was GOD in Christ who effected the ATONEMENT.

“May I refer again the best scholarly book on Christian theology. “Atonement, Justice, and Peace” by Darrin W. Snyder Belousek. One reading and you will be a happy Christian again, ___.”

Bob Brinsmead replied to the above person:

“That was not the apostolic faith which had no doctrine of atonement and no Christology. What Belousek teaches is the speculative Hellenistic theology on both counts. The Hebrew apostles had nothing more than what Jesus taught them about God and man. God, who is an everywhere Spirit, had created man in his likeness and image to be a reflection of “the invisible God.” Jesus was regarded as being such a man as we may also be numbered among those who are called “the light of the world” (Matthew 5). In the Hebrew faith, man in the image and likeness of God was never taken to mean that man would be or could be God, because in Hebrew thinking there is one God and “God is one.” God always remains God alone, and man always remains man. God is not a man and man is not God.

“The relationship may be illustrated by the relationship of Light to a flower. A flower is created so that it is able to reflect and display a spectrum of the light that shines on it and through it, but a flower does not substantially have any colour. All the colour it may reflect is within the light that shines on it and through it. So, man can reflect something of the “Light that lights everyone coming into the world,” but man is not that Light.

“This is Hebrew thought, but Greek thought was different. In Greek thought there were elite people who had a special birth. They were said to be the progeny of the gods who had slept with women. For instance, this is how Alexander the Great was thought to have become a son of Zeus. This gave him the entitlement to rule over the common people as one of the elites as per the teaching of Plato who also was thought to have had a special birth. And so it was with the Greek rulers as it had been with the Egyptian rulers.

“In Hebrew thinking Adam was called the son of God, as was King David, the nation of Israel or a righteous man, but this was an “adoptive” son, but in Greek or Hellenistic thought sonship was a substantial sonship by reason of a special birth. The story of the virgin birth of anyone was thoroughly Hellenistic and Greek mythology was chock full of special births brought about by the gods sleeping with the daughters of the human family. It was the same in India according to Joseph Campbell.

“So too is Hebrew justice different from Greek justice. Theories of atonement for sin by way of sacrifice existed in Greek and pagan justice long before the Hebrew nation existed. But the Hebrew prophets rejected the sacrificial system, including what had been adopted from the pagans by Israel’s priesthood. So did those prophets called John the Baptist and Jesus reject the thesis of the Levitical law that said that “without shedding blood there is no remission of sins.” In Hebrew thinking sin is drowned by the ocean of divine love which is said to “cover” a multitude of sin – God forgives in an act of love that works on a supremely human or relational level rather than from a unilateral or vertical level.

“The apostles of the Jerusalem church or synagogue had no Christology and no belief that Jesus had died for their sins. They simply held to the teaching they had heard from Jesus – and he said nothing about the Christ and nothing about his making an atonement for sin.” (End of Brinsmead post)

I then added to Bob’s comments:

What sacrifice hath wrought, eh.

The origin of the idea of angry gods began far in the human past with the emergence and development of consciousness in our human species, or better when God, who is inseparable from the human spirit/self, incarnated in us Sapiens. Could it be that we were left to figure out things for ourselves as part of some gradual learning process? What our ancestors came up with was that there were gods behind all the elements of the natural world- i.e. gods of differing animal species (the spirit of that particular species) and yes, there is something to even that as Howard Bloom has written about in his books like “Global Mind” (also Rupert Sheldrake), a larger mind that each species taps into.

(How so? Bloom notes that when bacteria develop a protective response to some threat in one part of the world, other bacteria on the opposite side of the planet instantaneously access the same protective ability. A big “Hmmm”. They appear to share a Global Mind.)

But getting back on track- Where the elements of nature were nasty to people- i.e. thunder, lightning, storm, flood, sun and drought, earthquake, disease- well, the destructiveness of varied elements of nature obviously (in primitive logic) meant the gods were angry. And sacrifice- who can trace how far back that practise originated? (See for example, Nigel Davies “Human Sacrifice In History and Today”) And the explanations began early. If humans were “created to serve the gods”, to do the work of the gods, to feed the gods, then not making offerings would piss the gods off. Hence, a logical explanation for the nasty elements and events of the natural world- i.e. angry deity. Is blood sacrifice part of this explanation? Blood offered to feed and appease the angry, threatening gods?

As a tribal man explained to me- When we get sick (due to some sin that angered the local spirits/gods) we then offer a chicken or pig and the angry spirit will eat the blood of that sacrifice and then won’t eat our spirit and thereby kill us. Contemporary tribal groups as proxies for ancient human mythology, according to anthropology.

So we eventually get this primitive logic passed down into human religious traditions- appeasing angry gods with blood sacrifice (so we can survive and regain health). And being the creative minds that us humans are, such things are revised and refined across subsequent history in elaborate atonement theories, even framed in terms of divine “love”. Love in the divine demand for the offering of a human sacrifice as required to appease the angry deities? Even child sacrifice?

Harold Ellens’ good comment on this:

“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (see Romans, Revelation). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, this image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.

“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’. (End of Ellens’ comments)

The religious belief in violent sacrifice lodges in human thinking the idea of murdering the right people to make life better, to achieve a better future. Add here the Zoroastrian cosmic dualism of a Good God (Ahura Mazda) in war against an evil Force/spirit (Angra Mainyu) and you bring in the religious validation for the human impulse to tribalism, that we are obligated by deity to heroically join the “right/true religion” to battle evil enemies and thereby achieve the victory of the good and the promised outcome of salvation/paradise/utopia.

Hence, we get in the modern era belief that salvation is achieved through violent destruction, by the extermination of our enemies. This is the central message of New Testament books like Revelation. We achieve a better future by murdering the right people. Such thinking led to what Richard Landes, Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, and others, have traced out as the driving ideas behind Marxist violent revolution, Nazi murderous assault on Jews, and yes, even the environmental alarmism crusade to purge the evil of industrial civilization (and its natural resources consuming citizens) in order to restore the lost paradise of a more wilderness world.

So we look at what we choose to believe and responsibly consider the outcomes of our beliefs/ideas. We are responsible for what we choose to hold and promote in life. Ideas/beliefs have consequences for others, notably in harm.

Our affirmation of what Jesus promoted (i.e. his “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God, an unconditionally loving God”) goes to the very heart of such thinking and overturns it entirely. There is no angry, threatening, punishing, destroying God. No eye for eye at the personal level or at any larger scale. No God threatening ultimate eye for eye in the apocalyptic destruction of life and the world.

Ah, I better wind down. But we (meaning humanity) have traced out this through so many doing good research and contributing to our understanding of how we have learned to explain our world across history and what our discoveries have meant in the grand narratives that we have created and the outcomes of our narratives/belief systems. There is good and bad in the mix and part of our gradual learning has been the responsibility to learn what has been bad, reject it, and find better alternatives. To find out what is good, right.

But nothing has been worse, more destructive, than ideas like “salvation through destruction”, at the heart of apocalyptic millennialism. The idea that murdering the right people, even good innocent people, can achieve a better future. Solving problems with violence like the God who demands sacrifice as the means of salvation.

I added further:

Add also bad ideas like “holiness” mythology in deity. That human imperfection offends the holiness of God and must be punished in order to restore the offended honor of God, God highly offended by human “sin”. This feature affirms the idea of deity obsessed with perfection/imperfection.

The holiness and consequent obligation/demand to “restore offended honor” theme is behind “honor killings” in Islamic regions, where if some young lady starts to adopt modern practises and dress, the males are offended and demand their offended honor be rectified, notably in the murder of the offending females, even family members, daughters. We have had these right here in Canada, where an immigrant family- i.e. the father, son, and first wife who murdered their three daughters and the second wife for adopting modern dress and dating. Holiness mythology as brutal paganism.

Christians have argued that holiness is the supreme glory of God. No, no. It has been a stain in driving eye for eye justice ideas. And in affirming the idea of a God obsessed with perfection/imperfection and punishing imperfection. The true glory of God is love, no conditions love, and humans sharing that glory in being “merciful just as your Father is merciful.” How so? Well, that list of human responses/behaviors that precedes that concluding summary as in Luke 6:27-36. No conditions love.

The point that Jesus made in the Luke 6 list? Do these things and you will be just like God. You will reflect/express just what God is like. Be unconditionally merciful just as God is. Love your enemy because God does. Offering sun and rain to all, to both good and bad people. The two most critical elements for survival in agrarian society.

That list of authentically humane behavioral responses reveals the best of human behavior as the starting point of theology. This comes from that ancient “behavior based on similar validating belief” coupling. Our ancestors came up with that coupling from being driven by their primary impulse to meaning and purpose- i.e. driven to seek divine validation for how they lived, with appeal to God to validate their purpose in this world, how our ancestors could “virtue-signal for status in society” as good people. Something so deformed today by our leftist friends who use that (salvation through destruction themes) to virtue-signal for moral superiority, enabling them to validate their domination of those they frame as “evil” others, disagreeing others. The tribal thing. Our friends on the Right do the same.

And:

Getting back to your original point, ___. Thank God that God is not Christian. More an early Jewish Jesus deity. And I am not fully aligned with the Q versions offered by scholars like Kloppenborg. Too muddled and mixed, like the gospel writers mixing and muddling the Jesus “Diamonds” with the dung of Christology. Kloppenborg’s version of Q has all sorts of threats of judgment/punishment much like the beliefs of our primitive ancestors in threatening gods behind the natural world punishing human sin. Holy gods.

And let’s not deny that the ancients were not all wrong about gods behind the elements of the natural world. That intuitive feeling that there was something greater behind the natural world was not all deformed by the ancients… i.e. the “numinous” thing (“having a strong spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity”). The numinous thing evoked awe in our ancestors at this world and life, and they naturally perceived something of a divine presence all through the world. It’s just that wrong conclusions were made from that… i.e. the nasty myths they created of angry gods punishing us for our imperfection/sinfulness through the harmful elements of the natural world. That fallacy of angry, punitive deity has been a horrifically deforming and damaging thing on human consciousness across the millennia, burdening people with additional unnecessary fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, depression, nihilism, and violence, as the psychologists like Ellens note.

One more:

Bob actually introduced this theme of unconditional way back when he was dealing with “justification by faith” in relation to Luther’s discovery that liberated his consciousness from guilt over his personal failures. Bob broke the connection between justification and sanctification, clearing things up with the idea of justification as a legal declaration based only on the finished work of Christ, and not in any way dependent on human sanctification (e.g. New Testament book of James- “faith without works is dead”), severing the connection between declared righteous and becoming righteous. That had the seeds of unconditional.

Another line of discussion to this topic: “It was GOD IN Christ who effected the ATONEMENT.”

The other discussant said: “I don’t believe the death of Jesus was a meaningless act. He at least died in an attempt to liberate the agricultural slaves. But according to the authors of the 4 Gospels, and Paul, his life and death had greater significance. We can only critically evaluate the various historical accounts without dogmatic conclusions.

My response to this person’s point on Paul believing “(Jesus’) death had greater significance”:

And critical to evaluation is to ask why Paul, his mind “dogmatically” possessed by Hellenist and other primitive mythological themes, took the death of a man protesting the sacrifice industry and turned that into the ultimate cosmic sacrifice? (He was an “intolerantly dogmatic” man as the author of “The Closing of the Western Mind” noted). Paul buried the “diamond” under “dung”. And why did Iranaeus, among others, dogmatically conclude that only the gospels that dogmatically affirmed Paul’s theology should be included in the canon of Christ-ianity? Neglecting the entirely opposite message of Jesus-ianity.

“AI Overview” offers these comments:

“Established the four-Gospel canon:

“Irenaeus was the first author to explicitly name the four canonical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and argue for their validity. He treated them as authoritative, using them to defend Christian orthodoxy against heretical interpretations of the Jesus narrative.” (End of AI Overview)

Others note that Irenaeus argued for the 4 gospels with such points as there are four winds and animals have four legs. Sheesh, eh.

One source:

“Of the many other gospels written in antiquity, exactly four gospels came to be accepted as part of the New Testament, or canonical. An insistence upon a canonical four, and no others, was a central theme of Irenaeus of Lyon, [Lugdunum in Gaul] c.185. In his central work, Adversus Haereses Irenaeus denounced various Christian groups that used only one gospel… as well as groups that embraced the texts of new revelations.… Irenaeus declared that the four he espoused were the four pillars of the Church: ‘it is not possible that there can be either more or fewer than four’ he stated, presenting as logic the analogy of the four corners of the earth and the four winds (1.11.8).

“His image, taken from Ezekial 1, of God’s throne borne by four creatures with four faces—‘the four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and the four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle’— equivalent to the ‘four-formed’ gospel, is the origin of the conventional symbols of the Evangelists: lion, bull, eagle, man. Irenaeus was successful in declaring that the four gospels collectively, and exclusively these four, contained the truth. By reading each gospel in light of the others, Irenaeus made of John a lens through which to read Matthew, Mark and Luke“ (Wikipedia article on Gospel, accessed 12-04-2008). (End of AI Overview)

Note Irenaeus’ point on the defensive self-validation of Paul’s Christology in “reading each gospel in light of the others”. That is the “dogmatism” of closed and limited sources validation.
And this from Grok after I posed to him- “Grok comment please on Irenaeus argued for the 4 gospels with such points as there are four winds and animals have four legs.”

Grok responded:

Irenaeus, a 2nd-century Church Father, argued for the four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in his work Against Heresies. His reasoning included symbolic analogies, such as the four winds (or cardinal directions) and the four legs of animals, to suggest a natural and divine harmony in the number four. He proposed that just as the world is ordered by four directions (north, south, east, west) and living creatures often have four legs, the Gospel’s fourfold structure reflects a cosmic and theological completeness. He also tied the four Gospels to the four living creatures in Revelation (lion, ox, man, eagle), associating each with a Gospel’s unique perspective on Christ.

This argument is more symbolic than evidential, rooted in the numerology and cosmology of his time. It reflects Irenaeus’ effort to defend the authority of the four Gospels against competing texts, like those used by Gnostics, by appealing to a sense of divine order. Critics might see it as arbitrary, as the number four could be applied to many things without proving the Gospels’ exclusivity. Supporters, however, view it as a poetic way to affirm the early Church’s consensus on the canon.

If you’d like, I can dig deeper into Irenaeus’ context or the counterarguments to his reasoning!

(End of Grok comment)

Another post from a fellow discussant who affirms traditional Christian beliefs:

“How could anyone read I Corinthians 13 and question Paul’s theology. “And now faith, hope, and love, abide, these three; and the greatest these is love. !!!!!”

My (Wendell Krossa) response to him:

This key phrase in 1 Corinthians 13 affirms not just “love”, but the no conditions feature that dominated Jesus’ message- i.e. “Love keeps no record of wrongs”. Is not God love? The highest, best, most humane love? Why then would such a God keep a record of human wrongs? Why would God be held to a lower standard of love than we are (i.e. allowed or obligated for some reason to keep records of human wrongs)?

The NDE people provide a helpful response here, stating that future “judgment” is not judgment as we have been indoctrinated to believe across the millennia, as condemnation followed with divine punishment, eternal punishment. Judgment is more about “self-judgment” or evaluation of what one has learned in the human journey in this world- i.e. the “life review” element. That apparently is an evaluation infused with the inexpressible unconditional love of the Light or God. Non-judgmental, non-threatening…

As the lady with a degree in Catholic theology said after her NDE- “My Christian religion is all wrong. There is no angry God, no judgment, no punishment, no Hell. Just astounding unconditional love”.

That is the real Jesus version of “God is love”.

Added note:

A bit more on “what one learned in the human journey in this world- i.e. the ‘life review’ element”.

This comes from speculation on a new framing of ultimate reality as contrasted with life in this world. Joseph Campbell has also commented on this. That we are a part of a greater consciousness beyond this material realm. That realm is a Oneness of love with no dualism between good and evil. No Zoroastrian “Ahura Mazda in war with Angra Mainyu” in some grand cosmic dualism, no God versus Satan in some great religious “heaven and hell” reality.

The dualism between good and evil exists only in this material realm, created as a learning arena for human experience and development. Only part of our consciousness is expressed in this world, mediated through a material body and brain that functions as a limiting organism, limiting our experience to 5 senses and three/four dimensions. So we can have a physical/material experience here.

Why the good and evil dualism here? There can be no outcome of experiencing authentic moral good except in a situation where there is genuine human freedom to choose between good and evil. This denies Sam Harris’s, along with other materialists, absurd claim that there is no such thing as “free will”.

AI Overview insert: “Sam Harris argues that free will is a powerful, necessary illusion, as our thoughts and actions are the product of prior causes and brain states that are beyond our conscious control. He contends that while we feel free to make decisions, these decisions emerge from unconscious processes, making it impossible for us to be the true “conscious authors” of our thoughts and action.”

Authentic human “freedom of will” makes the outcome of choice for good such a noble and honorable thing, valued highly by deity, when it is chosen in contrast with the temptation to freely choose evil. And this authentic freedom affirms human responsibility for consequences of choices made. It gives real meaning to human responsibility, self-determination, and culpability for choices.

Add what others have said that “where there is no authentic freedom there is no authentic love”. Hence, if “God is love” then not even God can interfere and overwhelm human free choice. That presents the possibility for bad choices and horrific outcomes, but such is the reality of a realm of true freedom.

As Campbell further suggests- The human experience here is about the fact that “we are all actors on God’s stage”, playing our differing roles in this temporary journey away from our true home.

See material below on free speech as illustrated by comedian Leonarda Jonie, and the comments of Gad Saad, Ira Glasser, and others on this critical element in freedom and liberal democracy.

Also, a recap of the historical descent of Islam from Ebionite Jewish Christianity (Islam shares the same basic themes of its mother religion). My point is in response to Bill Maher’s arguments that Christianity is superior to Islam in terms of moderating impulses to intolerance and violence.

Yes, that is true in the modern era (notably last few centuries), but was not true across the past two millennia when Paul’s “Christ-ianity” (as distinguished from Jesus’ “Q Wisdom Sayings” message) was significantly responsible for inciting and validating repeated eruptions of mass-death (i.e. the Crusades, Inquisitions and persecution of heretics and witches, etc.). And where was the moderation of intolerance and violence in the past century when the “apocalyptic millennial” themes of Paul’s Christ myth drove Marxist and Nazi mass-death outbreaks, and continue to drive the climate apocalypse crusade and its Net Zero decarbonization madness.

This site has repeatedly posted the good historical research on these things (i.e. Richard Landes’ “Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience”, Arthur Herman’s “The Idea of Decline in Western History”, Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence”, David Redles’ “Hitler’s Millennial Reich”, etc.).

See also below the vindication and celebration of violence today as the means to a better future (the Mangione and Kirk incidents)- i.e. “Suffering through contemporary ‘madness of crowds’ eruptions”. And other stuff.

Themes to unite Sapiens around (the best of a “force” propelling us toward a humane future), Wendell Krossa

Yuval Harari in “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” notes that from 70,000 to 30,000 years ago our species Homo sapiens went through the Cognitive Revolution where we discovered new ways of thinking and communicating. We created language that enabled us to communicate meaning. The humans of that period learned to communicate more than just information about the physical world around them. They also learned to imagine and communicate fictitious things that do not exist at all and to do so “collectively”.

During this era of the Cognitive Revolution, legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time. And “This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language” (p.27). This ability has continued into the modern era as along with religious fictions we have learned to create “fictious” ideologies, scientific theories, and visions of the future. It should be noted however, that the core themes of our “fictions” often consistently remain the same.

Harari is setting the stage for understanding how early humans were able to move beyond small groups of essentially extended families to live cooperatively in much larger groups, eventually in empires and states of millions of people. He suggests the secret to this “urbanization” transition was “the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths… Any large-scale human cooperation- whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city, or an archaic tribe- is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imaginations”, (p.30).

He includes such “fictions” as limited liability companies (“legal fictions”), religious systems, systems of laws, nation states, etc.

He continues, “Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals… An imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world”, (p.35).

This leads to the question of what story would function as a truly “humane force” to carry/propel us cooperatively toward a more humane future? What features/myths/beliefs would operate best to do so?

My proposal for a set of alternative features to what we have inherited from the past:

“Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives” (Old story themes, new story alternatives).

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533

The identification and rejection of inherited bad ideas, now long embedded as archetypes of the collective unconscious, is a first necessary step to undergo, the “death” side of the “death/rebirth” process, the “disintegration” side of the “disintegration/re-integration” process. We emerge from these experiences/processes, hopefully, with new insights and narrative themes that affirm the better impulses of our natures, that affirm our human spirit and self.

I would choose themes that arouse deeply and intuitively felt impulses from the common human spirit in us, what many of us felt, for example, when Erika Kirk stated in regard to her husband’s murderer, “I forgive you”. She was struggling with the precept of Jesus to “love your enemy”. I would have counseled her to wait a while before struggling with that, till some of the pain had subsided, if it ever does (i.e. the conclusion of the dentist whose wife and daughters were brutally murdered that “Whoever created the idea of ‘closure’ was a fool”). But nonetheless, Erika’s statement reduced many of us to tears. We get it Erika, what you were trying to say and do. That precept of Jesus pushes us all to think of what love really means, what it really means to try to be truly and fully human.

Narratives/stories that hold our societies together…

The current meta-narratives holding our liberal democracy states together constitute a hodge podge of the principles, systems of law, and representative institutions of Classic Liberalism. But these generally successful experiments in cooperative liberal democracy are under constant assault by residual bad ideas in the religious traditions and ideologies held by many in these same nation states.

The forces at work to undermine liberal democracy come from both sides of our population divides- i.e. a complex of “bad religious ideas” are held and promoted on the right or conservative side, inciting many toward advocacy for theocracy-type narratives and policies applied to whole societies, and thereby crossing the boundary between state and religion. Similarly bad ideas are held on the left or “liberal” side, but in “secularized” versions, with the left/liberal side having now become highly “illiberal” and pushing more for revived collectivism approaches.

We need constant re-affirmation of the basic principles of liberal democracy to keep us all oriented to the fundamental things that we can all agree on. Principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions that serve the people and protect the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally.

Carr’s wisdom sayings– Carr showing Malice on the Platinum rule

Comedian Jimmy Carr was interviewed by podcaster/comedian Michael Malice and Carr mentioned the ‘golden rule’ but then added his “Platinum rule” that urges to “treat yourself just like you treat others”. He said, “I bet a lot of people don’t do that.”

I post this in response to someone’s question about the pop-psychology maxim that “we need to love ourselves before we can properly love others”.

Another ‘Carr-ism’ is that “disposition is more important than position”. He said, “You carry your disposition with you everywhere”. Meaning, your temperament/character is more important than your job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3FwqPkPSHE

“Bot farms” inflaming issues from outside

Good point by Joe Rogan on overseas bot farms, whether Russian, Chinese, Iranian, or others. Rogan says they jump on any issue in liberal democracies with false accounts that are not real people and seek to inflame both sides on any given issue. They stir hatred and outrage to divide people.

And these bots can be an unlimited number of false persons that are posing as citizens of the liberal democracies on either side. But they are not real voices, not real people, says Rogan. This is all part of the “long-game” goal of outside regimes to manipulate and indoctrinate citizens of liberal democracies, the stated long-game approach of regimes such as China’s to bring down liberal democracy in order to replace it with the totalitarian approach favored by people like former WEF leader Claus Schwab.

As Rogan notes, they push people into a “fever pitch of culture war that they have to win”, with their righteous side conquering and destroying the evil other side. How little we are aware of this foreign interference, of how insidious it is. AI enables it to be all the more insidious now.

It’s helpful to keep this info from Rogan in the back of our minds as another possible contributing factor to the hysterical outrage that we are all observing in public over varied issues that divide our societies. Part of what Jimmy Dore noted long ago, that- “We are the most propagandized people and we don’t know it”.

“Joe Rogan Experience #2382 – Andrew Santino”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6djZKYdz5ig

The Kirk assassination…

Note the Jimmy Dore clip below. Another “conspiracy theory” nut thing? After JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King, two attempts on Trump, well, what are we to think anymore?

This crazy stuff… I think of Mike Benz (two appearances on Joe Rogan this past year or so) and the behind-the-scenes complex infrastructure to propagandize publics and control narratives in order to control the minds of citizens. Good researchers like Benz continue to uncover this stuff.

“Weird Details About the Charlie Kirk Assassination”, JRE clips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-FREo1JMM

And this from Jimmy Dore… Not affirming anything, just presenting some alternative information. What is going on?

“CLEAR EVIDENCE Charlie Kirk Was Shot From The Back!”, The Jimmy Dore Show, Sept. 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rqLG0j12lE

Back to meta-narrative issues, Wendell Krossa

This central Jesus message below from “Q Wisdom Sayings” (“the closest that we get to what the man actually taught”) offers one of the best sets of ideals/principles/precepts to undergird liberal democracy. The core Jesus themes counter, for example, the horrifically destructive apocalyptic myth because (1) a non-retaliatory God (“no more eye for eye but love enemies because God does not retaliate but loves enemies”), such a God will not destroy the world with the ultimate act of retaliation in apocalyptic destruction of all. That teaching gets the Ultimate Ideal of deity right, presenting the singularly most humane Cohering Center for human narratives- a God who does not engage “eye for eye” justice.

Just an insert to say- Donald Trump should (as he jokingly suggested at the Charlie Kirk memorial service) listen to Erika Kirk and others on “love your enemy”. Hating others is just too exhausting an emotion to indulge over any length of time. It deforms consciousness and life. And it leads to bad responses in life. “Petty vindictiveness” has been a consistent stain on Trump’s otherwise successful and impressive life.

The Jesus message below also counters (2) the impulse to domination with advocacy for the inclusion of all equally, evident in his comment that God treats all equally the same, with “sun and rain given to all without discrimination”. All, both good and bad, get the same generosity and love. Add here the comment of Jesus that we should not lord over others but instead serve others.

And the core Jesus message counters (3) the idea of justice as some version of punitive destruction. Again, rejecting “eye for eye” justice with unlimited forgiveness in the precept to “love your enemies”. Common sense qualifies that precept with the responsibility to hold everyone accountable for their behavior, including imprisoning violent people. But they must still be treated humanely when incarcerated. As Leo Tolstoy said, there is never any situation where we don’t treat everyone with love. That is the basic obligation of being fundamentally human.

This Jesus message is best expressed in Classic Liberal or liberal democracy systems that protect the equal rights and freedoms of all, with government elites/bureaucrats clear that “they serve the people who are sovereign”.

This Western approach to organizing society stands explicitly and unequivocally against all forms of collectivism, whether Marxist communism, Robert Owen communalism, or the varied iterations of social democracy/Democratic socialism, all the “same continuum” versions of collectivist organizing of societies where self-deluded ”enlightened elites” (i.e. those who believe that they know how best to run other’s lives) undermine the freedoms of individuals by subjecting them to such collectivism, claiming that they do it “for the people, or on behalf of the people… For the greater or common good”. With these self-deceiving validations, they endlessly centralize power, notably in Western societies through taxation and regulation schemes that render people less free, less self-determining, less in control of their own lives.

There is no better body of ideals than the Jesus summary below. If the Jesus material is kept clean from the deforming Christ mythology of Paul- i.e. the features of tribalism (true believers saved, unbelievers damned), domination (Lord Jesus ruling with a rod of iron), and punitive destruction (apocalypse, Hell), then there is no comparable body of sayings that gets us to the essence of being human, to the supreme reach of love, and to the best of theology. The Jesus insights overturn all religious traditions with their primitive theologies of conditional deity and related religious conditions.

The Jesus message summarized below, points to living on the highest plane of being human, pointing us toward the realm of heroes who conquer their dark triad impulses to live as truly human. That is conquering evil in the real battle of life, being successful in the authentic hero’s quest that is the inner battle against the real enemy and monster inside all of us- i.e. our inherited animal impulses that, when indulged, render us inhuman/subhuman/nonhuman.

(A reposting) Summary of Historical Jesus’ core message: Wendell Krossa

Subtitle: How to end cycles of retaliatory violence, how to courageously initiate peace in societies….

Again, this is not prescriptive for criminal justice systems to adopt some form of a dogmatic pacifist approach that does not work in the face of evil. States and their criminal justice systems are obligated, first and foremost, to restrain violent people in order to protect all citizens from assaults, whether foreign or domestic. De-criminalization and de-carceration policies, especially as applied to violent people, do not work. Add also, that the Jesus precepts are not prescriptive for operating a business or running a national economy.

Take this advice of Historical Jesus as more about how we maintain our own humanity as we go about the dirty work of dealing with the nasty offenders.

These statements have more to do with how victims may freely choose to respond to offenders in the multi-varied incidents and relationships of life. Its very much an individual freedom of choice issue. People who have suffered horrific abuse from offenders should never be pushed to engage the issues of forgiveness or “love the enemy”, until perhaps they feel more able to engage such issues later, and if presented as fundamentally helpful in some way to resolving their personal traumas.

As the father of a brutally murdered girl said years later- I chose to forgive, not for the sake of the offender but for the sake of my murdered daughter, now in a better place, who would have wanted me to do so. She would not have wanted me to spend the rest of my life darkened by hatred and bitterness. And that would have ruined the lives of my other children.

Just a mental gimmick? No, such “intention” to forgive (while not feeling mushy or fuzzy toward offenders) effects profound outcomes on the mental/emotional state of the one doing it.

Or consider the mother who argued in court against the death penalty for her son’s murderer so as to spare the murderer’s mom the same pain of loss that she suffered. That expresses an unbelievable ability to empathize beyond one’s personal pain to try to alleviate the potential suffering of another person. She had nothing to do with the killer of her son.

Other points:

These principles/precepts below shape how we think, perceive, how we then feel and are motivated. They impact our intentions, our thinking and responding to offenders, our motivations and intentions to reject inhumane responses and choose more humane responses.

Forgiveness, and an unconditional approach to offenders, works at the individual level and at-scale in societies. Note, for example, Nelson Mandela employing his unconditional love approach toward former enemies and thereby defusing a potential civil war in South Africa (Richard Stengel in “Mandela’s Way”). Compare that with the descent into brutal tribal justice in Rwanda and Serbia around the same time. Mandela also affirmed, at a personal level, that unconditional treatment of enemies “brought out the best in others and turned enemies into friends”. Not all, but most.

But it takes exceptional courage to be the initiator in breaking natural eye for eye retaliatory cycles to start things moving in better directions, especially when prevailing views of “justice” validate eye for eye. The breakers of such cycles may even be vilified as “weak, gutless, spineless, cowardly, pussies, etc.”

Again, these are not primarily precepts about how we should feel toward offenders but how we should act, how we should respond and treat them.

The guiding ideals/precepts of Historical Jesus:

Note how this message below is framed. It presents a list of behavioral responses, actions. Then concludes that if you do this you will be just like God. Meaning, these human responses/behaviors show what God is like. Its very much a statement of ethics and theology- insight on the actual nature/character of God. Behavior based on similar belief.

The statements:

“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full.

“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience, push into the realm of heroism). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving”. (My paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36 or Matthew 5:38-48.)

This can be summarized in this single statement: “Love your enemy because God does”.

Example of non-retaliatory, unconditional love: The Prodigal Father story in Luke 15:11-31.

The Father (representing God) did not demand a sacrifice, restitution, payment, apology, or anything else before forgiving, fully accepting, and loving the wasteful son.

The above statement and illustration by Jesus overturn the highly conditional Christian religion and Paul’s Christ mythology. Paul, along with the rest of the New Testament, preached a retaliatory God who demanded full payment and punishment of all sin in a blood sacrifice of atonement before he would forgive, accept, and ultimately love anyone.

Added Notes:

What it means to be human, Wendell Krossa

The Jesus message provides some of the best insights and themes on what it means to be fully human, authentically human, and nothing more potently so than his central ideal of unconditional love. And this takes us to the foundational meaning of the cosmos, life, human civilization, and personal human story.

When we don’t get the core theme in Historical Jesus’ message clear- i.e. the lodestar central ideal of unconditional love (the supreme guiding ideal for thought, emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior)- then we face the tendency to succumb to the tribalism pathology of viewing ourselves as unquestioningly, unchallengeable righteous heroes battling irredeemably evil enemies. Yes, there are issues in life that are clearly “right versus wrong” and we do engage battles for the side that we view as right. But we should do so with caution that we do not engage such issues to the extent of hating and destroying differing others as actual “enemies”. It is always critical to remember that the “enemy” is still and always our family.

As Joseph Campbell and Leo Tolstoy reminded us, we are always under the fundamental obligation to “love our enemies”.

Joseph Campbell:

“For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Myths To Live By).

Leo Tolstoy:

“The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care” (Resurrection).

Note: It’s all about ultimate freedom, Wendell Krossa

Once we get clear the profound difference between Jesus and Paul’s Christ then we open ourselves to the greatest potential liberation movement in history, i.e. liberation from the “threat theology” that has been a fundamental curse on humanity across history- darkening and enslaving human consciousness and life with the great lie that God was behind the natural world, punishing people for their imperfection, with the added threat of future destruction (i.e. return to chaos with life ending in apocalypse, the great fear of the ancients) and afterlife harm in hell.

This mythology (better psychopathology) has cursed billions with added fear, anxiety, shame and guilt, despair, depression, nihilism, and violence. (See research of psychologist Harold Ellens and psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo in “Cruel God, Kind God”, among other sources.)

I am talking about liberation in the depths of human subconscious from the long deeply-embedded archetypes constructed by our ancestors to embody and validate their primitive thinking, archetypes that continue to influence many moderns to embrace the same old set of core themes today in our religious traditions and in the “secularized” versions of contemporary ideologies like Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism.

(Insert: Kristian Niemietz’s conclusion in “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”, that “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.” That is how many respond to the archetypes of our collective unconscious. Just unconsciously embracing new versions of the same old bad ideas, like the many today who unquestioningly accept the climate apocalypse narrative, against evidence to the contrary.)

Threat theology has been best termed the “monster God” theology that has incited and validated humanity’s worst impulses to retaliate and harm others. Threat theology is behind the fundamental belief in “salvation through destruction” (as in Marxist violent revolution, or environmental alarmist calls to purge civilization of industrial societies based on fossil fuels).

The core threat of monster deity is still the cohering center of the religious narratives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam… all tightly related religions that have shared a historically descending trajectory of the same set of core themes. Add of course, the Hellenism influence on Judaism and Christianity (see Bob Brinsmead essays below) and the recognition that all three Western religions share the same fundamental themes, pushes us to end the defensive tribalism of “my religion is better than yours”.

And yes, Christianity gets a pat on the back for including the “Q Wisdom Sayings” message of Historical Jesus, something Islam did not include that would have helped to moderate the impulse to violent retaliation against unbelievers. But Christianity also needs the slap on the wrist for “burying that diamond” message of Jesus under Paul’s Christ myth- the conclusion of Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy that Paul’s Christ distorts and deforms the core themes and message of Jesus.

Historical Jesus broke completely free of threat theology with his “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God” (James Robinson’s conclusion from “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research- a subgenre of the “Search for Historical Jesus”). I would state that “stunning new theology” is better understood in his statement that God was unconditional love. Period. Jesus went to the core issue in human narratives and thought, the Cohering Center that is deity- the ultimate reality, ideal, and authority- and transformed that entirely.

He overturned entirely all threat theology and offered humanity a stunning new way to think of Ultimate Reality, a new Ultimate Ideal to transform consciousness, narratives, emotions, motivations, responses/behavior- all of reality and life.

And that unconditional God pushes all of us to rethink justice as some form of eye for eye retaliation. It pushes us to “love our enemies” as the fundamental precept to guide ethics, emotion, motivation, and response/behavior in our lives.

My point? Open yourself to ultimate liberation, the final great liberation offered to humanity, profound liberation at the depths of human consciousness/subconscious, liberation of the human spirit, mind, emotions, and all life. Liberation that only the truth of an unconditionally loving God can give. It affirms a sense of ultimate safety for all, no matter our failure to live as heroically human in this life (i.e. ultimate “heroism” evident/expressed in those loving their enemies).

A preface note to the “recap” below:

Just to add to this above comment- “all tightly related religions that have shared a historically descending trajectory of the same set of core themes.”

A note for emphasis: While there are obviously the common features in Christianity and Islam that are listed below, the core commonality between religions like Christianity and Islam is the belief in a wrathful God who promises violent destruction through apocalypse and hell. That “Cohering Center” of these religions undergirds and validates all else in their narratives- i.e. the demanded conditions for unquestioning belief, submission to religious authorities, and faithful religious practise (fulfill rituals, payments, religious lifestyle, and promotion of the religion- i.e. seek converts, etc.).

And as I noted just above when people make comparisons between Christianity and Islam- “Christianity gets a pat on the back for including the “Q Wisdom Sayings” message of Historical Jesus, something Islam did not include that would have helped to moderate the tribal impulse to violent retaliation against unbelievers.”

This is a critically important point- The “diamond” insights of Historical Jesus (Thomas Jefferson’s term) embody the potent counter to the prominent features of Paul’s Christ myth, features that have long functioned to incite, guide, and validate people’s worst impulses to harm others- i.e. features such as angry deity judging (see Paul’s letter to Romans, Thessalonians), God/Christ tribally excluding unbelievers (again, affirmed throughout Paul’s New Testament letters), God/Christ demanding submission (Lord Christ ruling with a rod of iron), and God/Christ promising violent destruction (Romans, Revelation), etc.

The “stunning new theology” of Jesus (his new image of God) rejected judgment, tribal exclusion (sun and rain given to all alike), submission (do not lord over others), and violent destruction (no “eye for eye” retaliation), etc.

Muhammad missed the powerful benefits of Jesus’ “Q Wisdom Sayings” when he did not include that material in his new religion. He certainly would have heard about it as he listened to his spiritual mentor, the Ebionite priest Waraqa (a Jewish Christian), as he expounded from the Gospel to the Hebrews (the early version of Matthew’s gospel). And most certainly Waraqa would have taught Muhammad the similar content of Matthew’s gospel.

It helps to inform ourselves of the good research of the Jesus Seminar and especially the research on “Q Wisdom Sayings” in order to clearly grasp the profound differences between the messages of Historical Jesus and Paul’s contrary Christology, an embodiment of Hellenism. Most helpful are the essays of Bob Brinsmead on this:

“The Historical Jesus: What the Scholars are Saying”

https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/

“The Doctrine of Christ and the Triumph of Hellenism”

https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-doctrine-of-christ-and-the-triump-of-hellenism/

Here’s a little recap of something posted earlier on this site… Wendell Krossa

I saw a video clip of Bill Maher arguing that Islam was worse than Christianity for issues like intolerance and violence. He seems unaware of the actual history of these religions and that Islam is the direct offspring of Jewish Christianity or the early “Jewish Jesus” movement that was contrary to Paul’s Hellenist Christ-ianity. Another name for the Jewish Jesus movement was Ebionism (Ebionites). These- the Jewish Jesus movement and Paul’s Christ-ianity- were two dominant and entirely contrary movements in early Christianity.

The Jewish Jesus people, or Ebionites, believed that Jesus was a prophet blessed of God but not God himself. And their movement held that Jesus said nothing about being a sacrifice for sin. That was the distortion of Jesus (a sacrifice for sin) that Paul introduced in his new Christ-ianity religion (not really “new” in that it embraced the themes of ancient Hellenism- see Helmut Koester’s “History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age”).

We see intimations of the conflict between Paul and the Jesus movement in the New Testament. The Jewish Jesus movement was oriented to Jesus’ actual Q Wisdom Sayings message, hence also called the Q Wisdom movement. Paul’s Christ-ianity was a Hellenist movement set in direct conflict with that actual movement of Jesus.

The Jewish movement was led by Jesus’ brother James, and Jesus’ friend/follower Peter. Note how intensely Paul hated the Jesus Q Wisdom movement. He goes after its leaders, James and Peter, in statements such as Galatians 1:8-9, where he curses them with damnation. Paul also intolerantly condemned and vilified the Q Wisdom movement of Jesus in 1 Corinthians, mocking and dismissing it as “worldly wisdom”.

The Jewish followers of Jesus viewed Paul’s Christ-ianity as heretical, just as the Old Testament prophets protested the sacrifice industry and its priesthood as heretical. They stated things like, “What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?” says the LORD. “I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle. I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls and lambs and goats…. For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices”, and other similar statements in Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah, etc.

But the victors in battles get to state who is about truth and who is about error, so Paul’s Christ-ianity ended demonizing the Jewish Jesus movement as heresy and persecuting them till they were scattered. Some of those Ebionites fled to the Arabian Peninsula where they established congregations/synagogues that persisted over subsequent centuries, even up to around 600 CE when Muhammad emerges in Mecca.

How Islam was created as a version of Jewish Christianity/Ebionism (one source- Joseph Azzi’s “The Priest and the Prophet”):

Muhammad’s first wife was Khadija. Her cousin in Mecca was Waraqa, the priest of a local Ebionite congregation. Waraqa then become the spiritual mentor of Muhammad and taught him all that he knew about God and religion.

The Ebionites, again, viewed Jesus as just a prophet of God, not divine himself. And they did not believe that he was a sacrifice for sin. Ebionites also embraced water purification rites and practices, and did not eat pork.

Scholars say that Waraqa taught using the gospel to the Hebrews, an early version of Matthew’s gospel, which he also had translated. He used those books, among others, to instruct Muhammad.

Note in Matthew the pattern of stating that those who rejected Jesus’ miracles were then damned to hell, to being cast out into outer darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth (a favorite statement of Matthew’s). Then note in the Quran that very same pattern of claiming that those who reject the message and the messenger (i.e. Muhammad) will be cast into hell, into the fire from which there is no escape. Such warnings are on almost every page of the Quran. Exact replicas of Matthew’s archetypal statements.

So also in Islam we find the practices of water purification and not eating pork.

Interesting that as Muhammad copies and borrows what Waraqa is teaching him from the gospel of the Hebrews and Matthew’s gospel, Muhammad claims that he is getting this teaching as visions in a cave, so as to frame his ideas as revelations directly from God. No, he was actually just embracing the core themes of Waraqa’s Jewish Christianity. And that enrages Islamic theologians today to admit that.

So c’mon Bill Maher, enough of the “Islam is worse than Christianity” stuff. Both share the same core themes, just as all the other historical descendants of such ideas do today, both religious and “secular/ideological”. Just as you do Bill, with your climate apocalypse nonsense. No different from the core themes of Islam and Christianity, though you claim to be “non-religious”. Ya right. Read Richard Landes, Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, David Redles and others, who have done good homework revealing that all these religions, along with contemporary secular variants like Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism, always replicate the very same apocalyptic millennial themes and the larger complex of related bad ideas that that this site posts regularly.

There is nothing new under the sun. And why are we all fighting and killing one another when so many of us believe exactly the same core narrative themes?

How many view themselves today as “secular, humanist, materialist/atheist even” yet go about mouthing the very same primitive themes of all past religious traditions, just framed in what they believe to be new “secular/ideological” versions, with new terminology, definitions, etc.

Getting a clear grip on the profound difference between the core themes of Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth will help to expose such confusion.

Note:

I guess the point in this is how we succumb even in the modern age to the most primitive and barbaric ideas and then wonder why we continue to suffer through endless eruptions of the “madness of crowds”, as in repeated Marxist revolutions (the same old collectivism now framed in “Far-left Woke Progressivism”), Nazi horrors, and now environmental alarmism crusades (climate apocalypse hysteria) that propose to ruin our societies with salvation schemes like Net Zero, banning the fossil fuels that provide the very energy driving our civilization and providing the 6000 “fossil fuel derivatives” that grant us the many benefits of our much improved human condition.

AI Overview presents this on Ebionism (I am not affirming all this. See Bob Brinsmead’s essays on this)

“Ebionism was an early Jewish Christian movement in the first few centuries CE that viewed Jesus as a human Messiah and prophet, not God, insisting on strict adherence to Jewish law, such as circumcision and dietary rules. They rejected Jesus’ divine nature and virgin birth, believed he was adopted as God’s son due to his perfect righteousness, and revered James the Just, the brother of Jesus, as his true successor. Ebionites also rejected Paul the Apostle as an apostate and used a version of the Gospel of Matthew that excluded the virgin birth narrative.”

Key Characteristics of Ebionism

• Messianic Jesus:

They affirmed Jesus as the promised Jewish Messiah and prophet but rejected the common Christian belief in his divinity.

• Human Messiah:

They believed Jesus was a human being, the natural son of Joseph and Mary, who became God’s son at his baptism through his perfect obedience to the Law of Moses.

• Adherence to Jewish Law:

The Ebionites, meaning “the poor ones” in Hebrew, placed great importance on following the Jewish law, which included circumcision, keeping a kosher diet, and observing the Sabbath.

• Rejection of Pauline Theology:

They saw Paul as a false apostle who had abandoned Jewish tradition and law.

• Veneration of James the Just:

They revered James, the brother of Jesus, as the true successor to Jesus’ ministry, not Peter.

• Gospel of the Ebionites:

They utilized a specific version of the Gospel of Matthew that did not include the virgin birth or genealogy of Jesus.

Relationship to Early Jewish Christianity

• Continuation of Jewish Roots:

Ebionism represents a form of Jewish Christianity that emphasized keeping Jewish identity and traditions central to Christian belief.

• A Reaction to the Gentile Mission:

Some scholars suggest their theology was a response to the law-free Gentile mission of early Christianity, emphasizing the continuing relevance of the Law for believers.

Decline

• Orthodox Pressure:

The Ebionites eventually declined as Christian orthodoxy was established, with some choosing to return to Judaism and others integrating into more mainstream forms of Christianity.

(End of AI Overview statements)

Doing what comedians should do, Wendell Krossa

I’ve come across this comedian Leonarda Jonie, who is a striking example of what comedy should do in society to keep the door of free speech open for all. Comedians can effectively fulfill this function by purposefully saying offensive things. They are not seriously proposing such things but just stating them in ways that make us all laugh at those things. And in so doing, they may upset many people, even outrage them (people not understanding what is going on will often angrily stomp out). But that is what freedom of speech must be about. All of us have to tolerate what we may feel is the offensive speech of others or we all lose freedom by permitting some to censor speech that offends, that upsets them.

This is happening broadly today across our liberal democracies where under the guise of “online harm” bills, and related laws (Internet “content moderation” legislation), some are trying to censor, ban, silence, even criminalize the “offensive” speech of others as “harmful, dangerous disinformation”, etc. This is done with virtue-signaling claims that they are protecting children or minorities from “hate speech” or “speech as violence”.

But the problem is that with “concept creep” and ill-defined boundaries, these proposals are abused in allowing some to go after the speech of their political opponents or even after comedians for making jokes. That is a dangerous opening to totalitarianism that is now occurring in Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and elsewhere.

So listen to Leonarda Jonie and feel uncomfortable if you will, but get what she is doing, along with others, in keeping her foot in the door of free speech that others are trying to shut. And I am not affirming all her positions on varied issues, but just pointing to her for illustrating the critical role of comedians in keeping speech free, even offensive speech. Here’s a sample…

“Leonarda Jonie: Uncensored, LIVE in Houston, TX”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7U6j7Crg1k

A good summary of the basic issues around free speech is presented by Ira Glasser (former ACLU director) on Joe Rogan, especially in the first hour of this interview:

“Joe Rogan Experience #1595 – Ira Glasser”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=1rM8mWhgIl0

And this Saad truth:

“The Untold Angle of Charlie Kirk’s Assassination (THE SAAD TRUTH_1907)”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgnFir7SKvM

I’ve added some illustrative points to what Saad is saying in this link…

Good points in this from Gad Saad, a sort of social psychologist, that the battle for freedom never ends because in every generation there are those wanting to take it away. I would add that alarmists assaulting free speech use claims of “emergencies” that render the normal protocols of democracy too slow, hence they demand emergency measures to save whatever they claim is under dire, existential threat (i.e. “threats to democracy”, “harmful hate speech”, “imminent apocalypse”, etc.).

Saad illustrates the nature of the threat to speech with the time that he went to Los Angeles as a Jew to speak to some group on the issue of free speech. The threats to his life from those wanting to deny him that freedom were so serious that he needed a phalanx of body-guards for protection from being assaulted or killed. That is the craziness of the era that we are living through where it has become dangerous just to talk about a basic human right and freedom. And this threat to freedom comes from within our liberal democracies.

Suffering through contemporary “madness of crowds” eruptions, Wendell Krossa

We have the insane trend today, unleashed among too many of our fellow citizens, of glorifying violence as the valid response or solution when upset about some issue, violence as justified for settling disagreements over ideas/policies, etc. How much do certain ideas/beliefs in our public meta-narratives (religious and secular/ideological) contribute to feeding and validating violent responses to disagreements?

I think, for example, of the Luigi Mangione incident, and how some have tried to reframe his horrific act of violence against an innocent person as heroic protest. Add here the many celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk.

I would suggest that such glorification of violence derives ultimately from primitive beliefs in “salvation by destruction”, as for example in apocalyptic millennial mythology. Human sacrifice is a similar ancient belief, that “the murder of the right people can make the future better”. That belief was epitomized in the myth of innocent Jesus sent to be a sacrifice for sin. The “sacrifice of Christ” mythology derives from the same fundamental idea of “salvation through destruction”.

We saw the historical outcomes of this thinking in the apocalyptic millennialism that has been identified and exposed as a driving influence behind Marxist revolutionary violence over the past century, also behind the Nazi commitment to purge “evil, corrupting people” (their demonization and dehumanization of the Jews) as necessary to clear the way to their millennial paradise in the Third Reich. This pathological mythology is illustrated in the New Testament book of Revelation.

These beliefs have long dominated human narratives providing incitement, guidance, and validation for human emotions, motivations, and responses/behaviors. Note psychologist Harold Ellens comments on this just below.

We are seeing this primitive belief in salvation through destruction again now in the contemporary ideology that we must purge the corrupt industrial civilization of the West in order to restore the lost paradise of a more wilderness world, as in environmental apocalyptic alarmism lunacy.

The validation and celebration of violence as salvific in some way blinds many to the barbarity and horror of what they are actually doing. We saw this in the wake of the murder of the health CEO by Mangione. Even comedian Bill Burr, during an interview, celebrated that barbarity with his shout “Free Luigi”, just as many others have exhibited the same thoughtless insanity in celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk.

We can trace such beliefs back to other fundamental core religious themes such the mythology of an angry God who solves problems with violence. As Harold Ellens warns, that view of deity- the ultimate human Ideal and Authority- then validates our use of violence to solve problems.

You can’t read this from Ellens and Lotufo often enough:

Zenon Lotufo (in “Cruel God, Kind God”) notes “the pathological nature of mainstream orthodox theology and popular religious ideation”.

He says, “One type of religiosity is entirely built around the assumption or basic belief, and correspondent fear, that God is cruel or even sadistic… The associated metaphors to this image are ‘monarch’ and ‘judge’. Its distinctive doctrine is ‘penal satisfaction’. I call it ‘Cruel God Christianity’… Its consequences are fear, guilt, shame, and impoverished personalities. All these things are fully coherent with and dependent on a cruel and vengeful God image… (He is referring to the basic features of Paul’s Christ myth)

“(This image results) in the inhibition of the full development of personality… The doctrine of penal satisfaction implies an image of God as wrathful and vengeful, resulting in exposing God’s followers to guilt, shame, and resentment… These ideas permeate Western culture and inevitably influence those who live in this culture…

“Beliefs do exert much more influence over our lives than simple ideas… ideas can also, in the psychological sphere, generate ‘dynamis’, or mobilize energy… (they) may result, for instance, in fanaticism and violence, or… may also produce anxiety and inhibitions that hinder the full manifestation of the capacities of a person…

“The image of God can be seen as a basic belief or scheme, and as such it is never questioned…

“Basic cultural beliefs are so important, especially in a dominant widespread culture, because they have the same properties as individual basic beliefs, that is, they are not perceived as questionable. The reader may object that “God”, considered a basic belief in our culture, is rejected or questioned by a large number of people today. Yet the fact is that the idea of God that those people reject is almost never questioned. In other words, their critique assumes there is no alternative way of conceiving God except the one that they perceive through the lens of their culture. So, taking into account the kind of image of God that prevails in Western culture- a ‘monster God’… such rejection is understandable…

“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (see Romans, Revelation). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, this image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.

“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.

“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…

“Hence, in our culture we have a powerful element that impels us to violence, a Cruel God Image… that also contributes to guilt, shame, and the impoverishment of personality…”.

As Harold Ellens says, “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.

Myths of angry Deity demanding violent blood sacrifice for salvation belongs to a complex of archetypal themes still dominant in our world religions and now also embraced in our main ideological narratives (secularized mythology), archetypal themes that have to be rejected and replaced because we know better now the harmful influence that they exert on human minds and lives.

The Jesus message does this with an unconditional theology, a stunning new image of a God who is non-tribal, non-dominating, nonviolent, nonretaliatory. Love in the truest sense. With a God who is unconditional love, the God of Jesus who rejected eye for eye retaliation and urged us to “love your enemies”, you cannot validate retaliatory violence for solving problems.

The Jesus message is basically advocating for how we can grow the fuck up and act as mature people, settling our differences nonviolently, democratically, like mature adults.

Again, I would emphasize that all of our major Western religious traditions embrace these fundamental ideas/beliefs above, of a deity who affirms violence as the means for achieving salvation. This is true of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Thankfully, many affiliated with these religions have learned to moderate themselves by focusing on the good material in their traditions and ignoring and downplaying the nastier stuff. However, enough zealously devoted true believers remain in these traditions, along with other fringe types in our societies, that take such ideas/beliefs seriously and that makes it critical that we challenge and expose such themes in our meta-narratives and offer better alternatives to replace them, more humane themes to frame the archetypes of our shared meta-stories.

See “Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives” (Old story themes, new story alternatives).

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533

Another note on checking the impulse to deify fellow humans, even the best among us: Wendell Krossa

(Is this why God included “ego-centricity, petty vindictiveness, exaggerated boasting of personal successes, etc.” in Donald Trump’s personality, just to keep us from divinizing the man? And yes, that is my weak attempt at being “facetious”- i.e. “treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant.”)

I find myself cringing a bit at some of the post-assassination commentary re Charlie Kirk. Even the term used to describe his brutal murder- i.e. “assassination”, appears to be an attempt at denoting something higher, more elevated, based perhaps on the claims of some that “He would have been a future president”.

The lauding and celebration of Charlie Kirk, while understood as sincerely felt praise of an especially decent man, at times reaches toward elevating him almost to immediate sainthood.

That reminds me of how they took Historical Jesus and over a century or so, elevated him to God status, even as a full member of the Trinity myth of Christianity. A man who himself had protested, “Why do you call me good when there is no one good but God?” An imperfect man who revealed human pettiness when he refused to greet his family waiting outside a dwelling because, as he stated, he was dedicated to God, busy doing the work of God, too busy to be bothered with the common decency of greeting his mother and siblings. That was a shameful exhibition of neglectful pettiness. It was not love.

So also, past journalist/commentator at the National Post, Christie Blatchford, once protested how we often celebrate the dead with cliché descriptions/exaggerations such as– Whenever so and so entered a room she lit it up, as if possessing some form of radiating aura or halo effect. Huh?

Blatchford asked, was that person never upset, never impatient or selfish, like the rest of us imperfect mortals? Were they not really human?

This tendency to divinize or deify fellow mortals was detailed by Helmut Koester in his book “History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age”, where he revealed how “special” people, people who accomplished something special in art, sports, literature/poetry, military accomplishments, etc., were considered divine in some manner. We saw this divinizing with Kings, Caesars, and Pharaohs considered as gods, with miracles attributed to them over the following centuries of the deifying process (when factual reality evaporates in the mists of passing time). As Koester noted, Christianity followed that pattern with its Christ myth and its later saints who had miracles attributed to them.

Now Charlie was obviously a decent person, and he should be honored for standing for free speech, for limited government, for free markets, and other common-sense things. But beware the excessive deifying, divinizing. Would he really want that?

I get that the tribal thing intrudes here- i.e. the urge to use him as a “martyr” (an especially noble sacrifice) to validate the tribal impulse to frame “our side as more righteous contrasted with the other side (our enemies/opponents) as something less human, less righteous”, along with the current generalization that they on the left all support violence.

This is how we too often distort the hero’s quest with excessive exaggeration of our righteousness in comparison with our enemy’s “evil”, the old Zoroastrian tribal dualism of viewing our side as righteous Good (and us as the true believers in the true religion or ideology) versus the evil Force that is the disagreeing others, the unbelievers in regard to our narrative and movement.

Below- Another good article from Bob Brinsmead on the triumph of Hellenism in Paul’s Christ myth. The Kirk memorial offered examples of how the critical distinction between Jesus and Christ continues to be confused. Brinsmead shows more of the differing outcomes from these two opposite realities. This is about understanding the real nature of the version of Christianity that we inherited in our Western civilization. Paul’s “Christ-ianity” is not the religion of Jesus.

Now just below- “Notable contradictions between Jesus and Paul’s Christ“. The importance of understanding this? The historical outcomes of influential ideas/beliefs matter as the historians of “apocalyptic millennialism” have outlined in their good research on how such ideas shaped the mass-death crusades of Marxism and Nazism, and are now influencing environmental alarmism.

Also further below- Links to good commentary from Gad Saad and Michael Malice, and Greg Gutfeld’s latest. And a bit of my “conspiracy theory” on the “Carney barker” for the climate cult (why Trump “likes Mark Carney”).

In the midst of stirred fires keep the light in our minds clear… Wendell Krossa

I heard a ‘Turning Point’ official say that Charlie Kirk pushed three basic things to unite the country- i.e. (1) limited government (less taxation which is the elite/state appropriation of citizen’s property to make choices for them over their assets, and less regulation to keep elites and bureaucrats from interfering in the personal choices and lives of citizens), (2) free speech (especially offensive, upsetting, enraging speech), and (3) free markets (protected private property, private contracts). These are Classic Liberal, liberal democracy fundamentals that function to maintain the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally, through systems of common law and representative institutions that serve citizens and do not function as tools of the state elites/bureaucrats to meddle in and control the lives of citizens. These basics can unite all humanity.

Just saying… Now moving into my point in response to the great celebratory remembrance in Glendale Arizona for Charlie Kirk.

The central wisdom in the “Q Wisdom Sayings” material is best presented in Luke 6:27-36. That is the central message of Historical Jesus that sets forth his stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory, unconditionally loving God. That is the ultimate lodestar ideal presented to humanity, the ultimate core theme for any truly humane narrative. That ideal liberates and transforms everything as nothing else can. It is the ultimate “TOE” (Theory of Everything).

Now where am I going with this? I just saw some reports on the celebration of Charlie Kirk’s life at that great gathering to remember him.

The overall celebration was emotionally inspiring.

There were some powerfully stirring moments such as his wife Erika sharing the story of Jesus, who in the throes of a horrible death, asked God to forgive his murderers because “they did not know what they were doing”. So, she said of Charlie’s killer- “I forgive you”. That brought most of us to immediate tears as the forgiveness of enemies- i.e. “love your enemies”- is the height of human heroism and love. Love beyond love.

It’s not about feeling mushy toward the offenders who torment us in life. It’s more about the intention to do the humane thing, the right thing, the unconditional thing toward fellow failing humans. The offenders must still be held accountable and even imprisoned for public safety as the number one responsibility of any government.

So why now raise this “quibble” that I will raise? Well, it’s more than a quibble. There was a lot of pushing a larger narrative in that gathering, the push for the revival of Christianity (e.g. Jesse Watters did this on Fox) that worries many of us. Talk of people going back to church, getting back into their bibles. All fine and good, if they do as many modern Christians have learned to do and ignore the nasty parts in their holy book and religious tradition, and focus on the good stuff in the mix- i.e. the authentic message of Historical Jesus.

But to do so you have to have some appreciation of the profound difference between the messages of Historical Jesus and Paul’s entirely opposite Christ mythology. And in that gathering these two were mixed and merged as Christians continue to do in Paul’s “Jesus Christ” oxymoron that continues to fuel stunning levels of cognitive dissonance that allows the dark stuff to continue unchallenged and uncorrected in that tradition.

We can’t continue with the “same old” that has fueled so much tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others over the past millennia. Remember again those good historians (Richard Landes, Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, etc.) who have exposed the Christian “apocalyptic millennial” themes that drove Marxism and Nazism, and are now driving environmental alarmism.

Even Erika expressed elements of the old threat theology in later saying that she felt obligated to forgive the killer or she wouldn’t get into heaven. What? What kind of monster God are you envisioning that would do something so horrible as send a deeply wounded mother and wife to hell just for feeling normal and healthy outrage at her husband’s murderer? Sheesh, eh. But that is just what that admixture of Jesus with Christ produces.

So that is where the confusion comes in and the intensity of emotion around a tragedy like the murder of Kirk tends to produce responses that ignore such critical distinctions as emotion overwhelms rational and critical thinking. Yes, feel the horror over his murder that tried to silence his stance on free speech. But in that celebration of Kirk there was too much mixing of traditional Christianity with the better precepts of Historical Jesus. So contrary to Erika’s comment that “Christ” made that famous statement- “Father forgive them…”, along with- “Love your enemies”, I would counter- No, it was Jesus who made those statements.

Christ, according to Paul’s Christology myth, embodies things like “Lord Jesus will return in blazing fire to destroy all who did not believe his Christ myth… unbelievers will be cast into outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth…”. And note Revelation 19, where in a rage with blazing eyes of fire, Christ tramples out “the fury of the wrath of God” before casting all unbelievers into lake of fire to be tormented forever, shut out forever from the love of God. And so much more Christology threat of destruction and torment. There is no ultimate “forgive and love your enemies” in the Christ of Paul. It’s all hellfire and damnation that is entirely opposite and contrary to Jesus’ message of unconditional love. There is no final forgiveness if you are sending disagreeing others to hell forever.

It’s in times when emotion is so intense and elevated to feverish heights by such a horrific murder that we want to maintain our rational, critical faculties and be clear on what is good and bad in the mix of our beliefs and ideals. This site is all about these critical issues, especially in times of heighted and aroused emotion that can orient people to dangerous trajectories and outcomes (i.e. a heightened sense of tribalism and “righteous crusade” against evil enemies) if not properly informed with factual evidence (i.e. the “Search for Historical Jesus”, “Jesus Seminar”, “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel, etc.). I also felt the emotions of the event were giving way to the tendency to “deify/divinize the dead” excessively, rushing to grant sainthood a bit too soon. I don’t know that Kirk “would have been a future president”.

On the threat theology that Erika referred to…

There is no such monster God anywhere and never has been. Clean off Paul’s Christ mythology from the Jesus “diamond” (Thomas Jefferson’s project) and get a good grip on the “stunning new theology of Jesus” that God is unconditional love. “Unconditional” as in no conditions. None. Sun and rain are given to all, none excluded, all included, all safe in the end. No matter our failure to live as human here.

So if you really claim to “believe in Jesus” and want to honor him properly (i.e. “glorify God/Christ” as Christians often urge) then understand what he actually taught- i.e. that God was unconditional love. Do as Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy did and pull the real Jesus out of the “dung” of Paul and get clear his unconditional message. That is getting a grip on real love and “Truth”. No one is going to be left out of the future life in other realms. Everyone is safe, in the end. And even in this life, all are included in the unconditional love of God, even while being held responsible for failures to live as human, for consequences to behavior.

Paul’s Christ undermines everything in the fundamental themes that Jesus taught and said. Paul, entirely contrary to what Jesus had taught, retreated back to “eye for eye” retaliatory vengeance when he affirmed his retaliatory theology by quoting- “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord”. That was the frontal rejection of the unconditional God of Jesus to reaffirm the same old primitive threat theology of all past religion.

And just to poke at the Evangelical fervor stirred at that remembrance, remember the critical importance of the “separation of state and religion”. My hope is that that the movement of Charlie will stick to those three basic unifying things- i.e. limited government, free speech, and free markets. Classic Liberal principles as expressed in liberal democracies. Keep religion separate from that. If you need a healthy “spirituality”, then embrace the actual message of Historical Jesus as in the “Q Wisdom Sayings” research that gets us closest to what he actually taught.

Added note:

To do Charlie Kirk’s legacy real honor, we do best by sticking to the things that all can agree on such as his admirable defense of free speech, all speech. And his emphasis on the basics of classic liberalism/liberal democracy that I noted above (i.e. limited government, free speech, free markets).

Again, my argument with the mix and merging of things during the celebration in Arizona is because some were trying to take it post-celebration, (i.e. again, Jesse Watters on Fox) in the direction of revived traditional Christianity. Hence, my response- Careful, careful as there is a long history behind traditional Christianity that many in that religion have not admitted to despite the great histories now available on those harmful outcomes. We don’t want any such repeats. And even more, we don’t want a revival of Paul’s myth still widely dominating minds and lives, not after the great discoveries from the “Search for Historical Jesus”, “Jesus Seminar”, and especially the “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research.

The critical issue being that there is a clear distinction to be made- i.e. between the good material in the Jesus message and the dangerous themes in Paul’s Christ material. There appears to be little to no understanding of this distinction among many Christians though they appear to have developed the skill of ignoring the darker stuff to focus more on the Jesus themes that have inspired so much good (i.e. the necessary practise of “picking and choosing”, something moderates in all religious traditions need to learn).

Coming- The basic differences between Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth.

Notable contradictions between Jesus and Paul’s Christ (updated 2025), Wendell Krossa

Some of the main contradictions that highlight the oxymoronically opposite themes between the messages of Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ mythology. The point I draw from this? The themes of Paul have greatly shaped Western consciousness, narratives, and overall societies for the past two millennia (the conclusion of historians/scholars like James Tabor). The Jesus themes have influenced us to a lesser extent, mainly moderating the harsher features and destructive influence of Paul’s Christ:

The main contradictions: (Sources: “Search for Historical Jesus”, “Jesus Seminar” books, and notably, “Q Wisdom Sayings” research, etc.)

(1) Jesus taught an unconditional love (i.e. there is no sacrifice demanded in Jesus’ original message- i.e. the “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel). In his teaching on love there were no required conditions from his God to be met for forgiveness, inclusion, and salvation. Versus the highly conditional atonement religion of Paul, i.e. the supreme condition of the sacrifice of a cosmic godman- the Christ. Additionally, the condition of belief/faith in his myth (see his letter to the Romans), along with other related religious conditions.

(2) Nonretaliation in Jesus (no more ‘eye for eye’ justice but ‘love the enemy’ because God does not retaliate but loves enemies- “Be merciful just as God is merciful”). Versus supreme divine acts of retaliation in apocalypse and hell myths. Note Paul’s statement of his theology affirming a retaliatory deity in his quote of an Old Testament verse- “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord” (Romans 12), along with his “Lord Jesus returning in fire to destroy all who don’t believe my Christ myth” (Thessalonians, etc.).

(3) Restorative justice (again- no eye for eye, but love the offender/enemy) versus punitive, destroying justice (“Unbelievers will be punished with everlasting destruction”, Thessalonians).

(4) Nonviolent resolution of problems (again, no violent retaliation against enemies) versus the violent destruction of apocalypse and fiery hell, and the violence in the demanded appeasement of deity by blood sacrifice for atonement- i.e. the dangerously inciting theme in the belief that if you murder the right people- sacrifice them- then you can make the future better (evil thinking that it is heroically doing good by using violence and murder).

(5) Nontribal inclusion of all humanity (“sun and rain given freely to both bad and good people”) versus the highly tribal favoritism toward true believers and the discriminatory exclusion of unbelievers for not believing Paul’s Christ. Note the ultimate tribal divide illustrated in Revelation in the eternal division of humanity- i.e. people assigned either to heaven or to hell, as per the cosmic dualism of Zoroaster.

(6) Nondomination in relationships (“If you want to be great then serve others”) versus ultimate eternal domination by “Lord Christ” under his “rod of iron” totalitarianism (“every knee shall bow… He will rule them with an iron scepter”).

There is no love in threat, coercion, domination of others.

(7) Non-dualism (God as the Oneness of Ultimate Reality that is love) versus eternal dualism (i.e. again, the cosmic tribal dualism of “God and Satan”, “heaven and hell”).

Further, ultimate Oneness leads to the logical conclusion that there is no separation of humanity from deity, what some describe as all humanity being indwelt by God, the divine reality that is inseparable from the common human spirit. God as the Life-giving spirit inside each of us, and God’s nature as unconditional love then defining our true self/person.

(8) Another- Jesus referred to himself as a “son of man”- i.e. as just another ordinary imperfect human in common with all other humans. Not as a divine person or god sent from heaven. Paul rejected the humanness of Jesus in claiming that he was some form of Hellenist godman sent from heaven on a special mission from God. Paul reconstructed the human Jesus after the pattern of the godmen myths of the Pharaohs and Caesars- i.e. born of virgins so as to avoid the “inherited sinfulness” stain.

Eventually, succeeding generations of Hellenist Christianity would further the Christology of Paul in claiming their “Jesus Christ” was sinlessly perfect, something the Historical Jesus had denied, for example, when he corrected someone with- “Why do you call me ‘good’. There is none good but God.”

The heretical Hellenist Christianity of Paul eventually reconstructed the fully and truly human Jesus into a full-fledged God and member of the Trinity.

And so on…

You cannot mix and merge such extreme opposites in the one and same person- i.e. in the merger of “Jesus Christ”- as that supremely oxymoronic combination creates such profound cognitive dissonance that you are left with a mental state akin to insanity or madness. And the egregious thing in such mixture is that the good elements (i.e. the Jesus insights) are distorted and buried by the primitive and darkening elements in the Christology of Paul.

Applying Christology to Jesus (i.e. the divinizing of a common man over the first few centuries of Christianity) has effectively buried the potency of his liberating insights, notably his stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory, non-apocalyptic God. That truth expressed in his entirely new view of deity, though still present there in summaries of his statements (see Matthew 5, Luke 6), that “stunning new theology” is not presented clearly in its liberating potency because the larger New Testament context emphasizes Paul’s retaliatory, apocalyptic Christ and that dominating narrative overwhelms the central themes and message of Jesus.

Paul was intent on overturning and replacing Jesus’ wisdom sayings with his “secret wisdom of the Christ”, correcting what he termed the “foolish worldly wisdom” of Jesus and his followers, like Apollos (see 1 Corinthians for Paul’s vilifying rant against the wisdom tradition of Jesus).

Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy both nailed the contradiction between Jesus and Paul in the bluntest of terms and few have been as clear and direct since, perhaps because their comments are highly offensive to true believer’s sensibilities.

Few since have embraced their clarification of the stark contrast between Jesus and Paul, preferring instead the religious reformism that tinkers around the edges and corrects nothing essential. Religious reformism avoids the central issue of theology- how Paul’s Christology utterly deformed the actual historical Jesus and his message.

Worldview and Culture of Hellenism (this latest article from Brinsmead’s Substack site)

Cracks in the wall of Christendom, Robert Brinsmead

Hellenism did not die when the Greek Empire was replaced by the Roman Empire. The influence of the Greek language and culture penetrated and dominated Roman civilization.

Rome was able to sweep away the political structures of the disintegrating Grecian Empire, but it could not destroy the language, the worldview and culture of Hellenism. The Greek language and culture remained the common language and culture throughout the Roman World.

Rome did not produce philosophers to replace Socrates, Plato and Aristotle whose influence lived on to become the fathers of Western philosophy. Rome had no dazzling array of myths to outshine the Greek myths with its pantheon of gods, divine man heroes and mystery religions.

Rome did produce some of its own virgin-born heroes such as Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, and a new divine man such as Augustus and the cult of Caesar worship. Yet the new gods were only the old Hellenist gods dressed in new garments. The Caesars of Rome donned the old Hellenised garments of divine man rulers in the tradition set by Alexander the Great.

Helmut Koester, History, Culture and Religion of the Hellenistic Age

[Helmut Koester was the Chairman of the Editorial Board, Harvard University, for this publication in 1982]

Indeed, Christianity, which had its beginnings in the early Roman imperial period, was rapidly Hellenized and appeared in the Roman world as a Hellenistic religion, specifically as an already Hellenized Jewish religion. p. 40

Christianity, after all, became a Hellenistic movement through and through, largely because Judaism had already marked the path into Hellenistic culture. pp. 97,98.

All the books of the New Testament without exception were originally written in Greek; there is no early Christin Greek writing which can be shown to have been translated from Hebrew or Aramaic… Christian authors normally quote from the Septuagint… p.110

Christianity became deeply enmeshed in the syncretistic process, and this may well have been its particular strength. Christianity began as a Jewish sect with missionary ambitions, but it did not simply arise out of Judaism, nor directly out of the ministry of Jesus.

On the basis of these beginnings, however, Christianity, more than any other religion of the time was able to adapt itself to a variety of cultural and religious currents and to appropriate numerous foreign elements until it was ready to succeed as a world religion- thoroughly syncretistic in every way. pp. 166-167

The myth of Dionysus dying and revivication was widely known. p.183

Mary, the mother and goddess of heaven in Christianity, is little more artistically than a copy of Isis. p. 188

Parallels with Christian statements abound in this narration of the initiation into a mystery religion. One should not deny that the New Testament and the mysteries speak the same language. p.191

Christianity was deeply in a process through which it became one with the Hellenistic world and its religious concepts. p.201

To claim, therefore, that Christianity was specifically the religion of the poor and underprivileged is nonsense and can be easily refuted. p.201

It was the Hellenist faction of the Jesus movement who turned Jesus into Christ and then into God after his death. Jesus said nothing about Christ and neither did the apostolic church.

The doctrine of Christ is a Hellenist myth from beginning to end.

In a recent publication called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari presents an astonishing account of the existence and power of myths. He shows how humans are different to other animal species in that they can be held together in large communities such as nations and international movements because they have imaginative faculties that live by stories or myths that bind them together. Joseph Cambell’s life’s work was to compose a whole series of volumes about the myths of mankind.

The human mind tends to adhere to myths and believe in them more strongly than observable realities. As Montaigne put it, “Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.”

In the Christ myth, the Hellenists “forged the most compelling myth in the history of mankind.” (Maccoby) It conquered the Roman Empire and became a dominant force in Western civilization. The myth of Christ inspired the human spirit to do both bad and good things.

On the negative side, devotion to the myth of Christ inspired a lot of book burning, including the destruction of the great library of Alexandria, and a dreadful amount of intolerance and persecution in pogroms against the Jews, crusades against the innocent Cathars in the North of France and the Muslims in the Holy Lands, the burning of heretics at the stake and the terrors of the Inquisition – all crimes against humanity done in the name of Christ.

For more than a thousand years, the rule of Christendom (which means the domain of Christ) was among the greatest totalitarian regimes of mind and body control that this world has ever seen.

During this period the Church made far more martyrs than it ever produced from its own ranks. During this reign of the Church as the servant of Christ, the most unforgivable crime, punishable by death at the stake, was to question any facet of the doctrine of Christ.

Cracks in the Wall of Christendom

It was the Hellenist faction of the Jesus movement who turned Jesus into Christ and then into God after his death. Jesus said nothing about Christ and neither did the apostolic church.

The doctrine of Christ is a Hellenist myth from beginning to end.

In a recent publication called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari presents an astonishing account of the existence and power of myths. He shows how humans are different to other animal species in that they can be held together in large communities such as nations and international movements because they have imaginative faculties that live by stories or myths that bind them together. Joseph Cambell’s life’s work was to compose a whole series of volumes about the myths of mankind.

The human mind tends to adhere to myths and believe in them more strongly than observable realities. As Montaigne put it, “Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.”

In the Christ myth, the Hellenists “forged the most compelling myth in the history of mankind.” (Maccoby) It conquered the Roman Empire and became a dominant force in Western civilization. The myth of Christ inspired the human spirit to do both bad and good things.

On the negative side, devotion to the myth of Christ inspired a lot of book burning, including the destruction of the great library of Alexandria, and a dreadful amount of intolerance and persecution in pogroms against the Jews, crusades against the innocent Cathars in the North of France and the Muslims in the Holy Lands, the burning of heretics at the stake and the terrors of the Inquisition – all crimes against humanity done in the name of Christ.

For more than a thousand years, the rule of Christendom (which means the domain of Christ) was among the greatest totalitarian regimes of mind and body control that this world has ever seen. During this period the Church made far more martyrs than it ever produced from its own ranks. During this reign of the Church as the servant of Christ, the most unforgivable crime, punishable by death at the stake, was to question any facet of the doctrine of Christ.

Despite all these factors which tended to subordinate the teachings of Jesus to the basement of the Church, the Church always had its thinkers who seemed to be moved by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount more than they were moved by Paul’s preaching of Christ.

What has happened in the last two hundred years is that the Quest for the Historical Jesus has gone into that basement, besides a lot of other historical “basements”, to look at the teachings of Jesus in their true historical context.

The overwhelming consensus of the Quest is that the historical Jesus is not the Christ of faith.

This means that the teachings of Jesus are not supportive of the Christ myth or compatible with the Christ myth. We may have assumed, as the Church has generally assumed, that the teachings of Jesus and the Christ myth belong together like twins from the same mother, but this is not what the Quest has found.

The very term Jesus Christ is an oxymoron. Jesus was an historical person; Christ is a Hellenist myth.

Jesus and Christ present us with entirely different images of God.

This stands out starkly in Jesus’ teaching about a kind of love that rejects violence, pay-back justice and dominion over others.

We only need ask, how many people did Jesus kill when he was here on earth? None of course, because he was non-violent. How many people will Christ kill when he comes to earth “in flaming fire to take vengeance on all them that know not God”? (2 Thessalonians 1:6-8) This event is presented in Christian teaching as the mother of all holocausts. Jesus and Christ confront us with entirely different images of God.

Is divine violence destined to be the final solution to human violence? Do the violent images of Christ throw some light on why so much of Christian history was violent?

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:36-48), Jesus rejected any “eye for an eye” pay-back justice in favour of a restorative and redemptive justice of unconditional forgiveness (see also Luke 6: 28-36). Yet the Christ of Paul is said to propitiate the wrath of God with an atoning sacrifice for sin (Romans 3), and a forgiveness based on punitive justice.

The whole book of Revelation, said to be “an apocalypse of Jesus Christ”, is about pay-back time, vengeance, and retaliation from beginning to end. So, a violent atonement and a violent end of the world are just two parts of the one myth!

The students in the school of Jesus were taught to renounce achieving dominion and control over others because true greatness is found in serving others rather than in controlling them (Matthew 23:13).

On the other hand, Christ is frequently presented as having dominion over all and ruling all nations with a rod of iron (Revelation 2;17; 19:15). The God we see in the real man called Jesus is very different to the kind of God who is revealed in the Christ myth which re-enforces all those unfortunate images of a domineering, controlling kind of God.

That is why so many serious cracks are now appearing in the doctrine of Christ. No myths last forever, not even “the most compelling myth in the history of mankind.” All is not lost because there is so much to be gained. What remains in the New Testament documents without the Christ myth has always been its real treasure.

Thomas Jefferson likened the authentic parables and sayings of Jesus to finding diamonds that have been scattered among the dung of inferior minds. He suggested that these diamonds are not so hard to find. One only needs to listen carefully to identify the unique voiceprint in the words of the great teacher.

You can read more of my writing on this topic at Bob Brinsmead’s website…

The Doctrine of Christ and the Triumph of Hellenism – Bob Brinsmead

(End of Brinsmead article)

“The Donald” speaks uncomfortable truths…

Whatever you think of the person “Trump”, and we all have cringe moments in regard to him (mine is over the times that he expresses his “petty vindictiveness”), set those aside and hear the basic points that he makes that no one else makes with such “PC-free” clarity. They have to be said to the world, so thanks Donald. Especially, hear him on the “suicidal empathy” in regard to uncontrolled immigration of people who hate liberal democracies and the Green “scam” that is ruining European societies.

“Trump’s address at the UN: FULL SPEECH”

https://youtu.be/cWXcXKJ-N2Q?si=sJYraH2nv8FoISe8

And some interesting material on this and that…

I often cringe at Greg Gutfeld’s tribalish harangues of the Left, using descriptive terms that don’t help heal the tribal divide in his country (e.g. “assholes”). But the commentary from him and his panel members, often libertarian/independent types, is so worth the listen on many current issues impacting all of us in Western liberal democracies.

Here (in link below) he does a great monologue on how public narratives, public messaging/indoctrination, incites fringe types to violence. Meaning- You don’t actually need to formally join some group as public messaging is enough to explain the incitement of some to violence. One guest debunks studies on which side is most responsible.

Kat Timpf is good on getting past the despair over her personal hopelessness regarding today’s tribal hatred. How so? She wakes her baby son in the morning and then focuses on her family during the day.

“Greg Gutfeld Show 9/23/25 FULL END SHOW | ᖴO᙭ ᗷᖇEᗩKIᑎG ᑎEᗯS”, September 23, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBqzKESrNp0

Gad Saad and Michael Malice on some significant factors that are driving the severe pathologies in our societies today. They discuss Saad’s “Parasitic Mind” and “Suicidal Empathy”.

“YOUR WELCOME” with Michael Malice #380: Gad Saad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85pJfwGD9Wk

It’s coming, Wendell Krossa (see above)

After return from attending a wedding this weekend, I will repost again soon the basic themes of Historical Jesus (the “non-religious” wisdom sage) as they embody the very best of the ideas and ideals that we have accumulated across history for shaping our narratives- i.e. the unconditional nature of Ultimate Reality or deity (expressed in the non-tribal, non-threatening, universal inclusion of all), nonretaliatory response to offense (ending retaliatory “eye for eye” cycles), nonviolent resolution of problems (i.e. “restorative justice”, but that holds offenders fully responsible for offenses and restitution), non-dominating relating to others (state and other elites serving the people), etc.

These ideals have been best expressed in the Classic Liberal principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions of “liberal democracy”. The protection of the rights and freedoms of all, equally.

The Historical Jesus ideals embodied in liberal democracy have proven to be the best for guiding us through life in a manner that does the least harm and the most good to others. They are ideals that enable us to maintain our own humanity in response to evil in life.

Again, this is not about pacifism that virtue signals for status as morally superior, the behavior that we see exhibited by too many today in what is correctly defined as “suicidal empathy”. It promotes, for example, policies of not restraining violent offenders, not imprisoning (“de-carceration”), and decriminalizing their worst behaviors, all of which are the abdication of government’s fundamental responsibility to protect all citizens from assault or harm.

The “increasing crime” outcomes are evidence of the pathology of the policy, what Thomas Sowell calls “The test of facts”. Or as Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them” (i.e. “fruits”- the products or outcomes that reveal the true nature of what you have promoted or planted).

The point of presenting these general “archetypal ideals” to frame narratives, is to do as Frederik Hayek stated about regulations, laws, and rules- Don’t specify for citizens in excessive and onerous detail how they should choose to act and live. Just point in the general direction of where you all want to go, to create a more humane society (“the good society”). And let free individual citizens choose in detail how they will creatively and uniquely get to that better future. Respect the self-determination, maturity, and sense of responsibility that most people are capable of. Let peace and order in a humane civilization flourish from the bottom-up instead of being coercively imposed by state elites and bureaucrats, top-down. In other words, trust average citizens.

The nature of a “good society”? Our better constitutions and universal codes of basic human rights lay out in detail the features of a commonly agreed on good society. Again- liberal democracy.

And…

Beware the danger of engaging the dehumanizing response of “former oppressed becoming the new oppressors”, Wendell Krossa (“Dehumanizing”? Yes, it renders those responding to their “liberation” with such retaliatory vengeance, less than fully human.)

Meaning- The danger of engaging the same old eye for eye cycles that destroy relationships and societies with ongoing hate, retaliation, and punitive destruction. That never gets us to a better society.

When will we learn that Roman philosopher Musonius Rufus was right that to “bite back the biter is animal and not human”. Retaliation renders us all petty and subhuman, not the great human spirits that we should be (i.e. courageous initiators who break retaliatory cycles and generously set things moving in better directions).

This is critical for “the Right” to understand, as they endure the ongoing hatred, vilification, and demonization from “the Left” today, just as they have from across the last decade. I refer to the danger of the formerly “oppressed becoming the new oppressors”, of responding with retaliation that fuel endless cycles of “eye for eye”.

Eye for eye is what Donald Trump has stated in the past as his “guiding ethic” for life. Only he has apparently stated (in one of his books) that he seeks to respond with an intensified version of eye for eye, with 10 times the retaliation compared to what he received from his offenders/critics. I have heard him make statements like that over past years. And he exhibited that in his response to Rosie O’Donnel’s irresponsible comments on his defense of a beauty queen long ago (“Who’s he to set himself up as a moral example”). Who are any of us to do so, Rosie? You included.

Others (supporters of his like Michael Malice) have referred to Trump’s impulse to retaliate as his “petty vindictiveness”.

Republicans need to be aware that they share the same ugly impulses as Democrats, to embrace a tribalism that overly demonizes and dehumanizes their opponents and then seeks to engage harm for harm, hurt for hurt, vilification for vilification, and so on.

All of us also hold the impulse to portray ourselves as better than our opponents, to virtue signal as morally superior to others, along with the ever-present follow-up of releasing our own dark impulse to dominate others- to seek the destruction of opponents by censoring, banning, cancelling, to respond with punitive justice, not restorative. All elements in the descent into the downward spirals of eye for eye cycles.

We all harbor the same dark animal impulses and need the constant reminder and cautions of our liberal democracy basic principles and practices. The real battle in life against the real enemy in life is an intensely personal inner battle against the common evil that resides inside all of us- the “evil triad” of tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others.

Note that Pam Bondi, in response to the kerfuffle below, has since backed off and re-affirmed her respect for the First Amendment but not clearly enough, according to these editors.

This from Free Press

“Pam Bondi vs. the First Amendment: At last, something we can all agree on: The attorney general has no idea what she’s talking about”, by The Editors, Sept. 17, 2025

I am not affirming all these Free Press editors say below as they seem too gleeful to have caught Bondi misspeaking about “hate speech” and are not generously open to fully accepting her follow-up corrections. But they offer a necessary slap on the hand to Republicans who appear too eager to engage “petty vindictiveness” in acting like “the former oppressed now becoming the new oppressors”. A temptation that all who hold to ‘eye for eye’ justice are susceptible to.

The Editors begin: “In an interview that aired on Monday, our attorney general said that the federal government would crack down on “hate speech” in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week.

They point out that hate speech is not illegal and they quote Charlie Kirk’s own comments on this issue- “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.”

This is contrasted with Bondi’s threat to those celebrating Kirk’s murder, among other speech sins, “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”

The Editors continue, noting that Republicans have insisted for years on the critical importance of free speech and held European allies responsible for failing to honor this fundamental right of liberal democracies. Now justifiably angry following Kirk’s murder they appear to have forgotten this most basic democratic right. And Bondi herself appears to by conflating “speech with violence”, the exaggerated anti-democracy error of the Left, over past years.

They note Bondi made an attempt to correct her earlier statements on hate speech and re-affirm support for First Amendment free speech rights. She claims that she misspoke. But then Donald Trump himself added to the confusion when confronted by an ABC reporter. He said that Bondi should probably go after people like the reporter for treating him so unfairly. He called that “Hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart” and maybe Bondi should go after you and your organization.

Fortunately, as the Free Press Editors note: “The upside of Bondi’s statement is that it has been robustly denounced by observers across the political spectrum, from the far right to the far left and everyone in between.

“We’ll take unifying moments wherever we can find them right now. But the fact that our unity is born out of our collective alarm that the Attorney General of the United States lacks a basic grasp of the Constitution she swore to uphold is cold comfort.”

(End of Free Press quotes)

Then some comment on a “Carney barker” for the climate cult, Wendell Krossa

You like conspiracy theories? Here’s one from me. Trump was effusive in praising Mark Carney and dissing Pierre Poilievre before the last Canadian election. Meddling with “make Canada the 51st state” and thereby rousing Canadian ire.

A US president meddling in a Canadian election “like nobody’s ever seen before”.

Now I cannot believe that Trump’s intelligence and State people have not informed him about Carney. Jordan Peterson did a good review of Carney’s book and his central beliefs. He is a complete cultic zealot for Net Zero and ending fossil fuels. In his book he argues for Covid-style lockdowns to shut down fossil fuels. He states that every decision made in society should promote the end of fossil fuels usage.

But to get elected he knew he had to make “grandiose promises” that deceptively hid his real agenda, hinting at perhaps endorsing a pipeline to get Canadian fuels to foreign markets but then, post-election, adding blockages like required First Nations approval for major projects, etc.

And now his first list of projects has no pipeline included. Well, surprise, surprise, eh.

Trump knew that Carney would not push fossil fuel development. And he knew that Poilievre would push such projects and with Canada’s huge fossil fuel resources that would make Canada a serious competitor against US fossil fuel exports to the world, something that Trump seriously desires- i.e. the US as sole energy superpower without Canadian competition. Hence, Trump’s “I like this guy Carney”. Of course you do, you smart businessman and deal maker, you. So we have been had. Manipulated by the “51st state” nonsense and “I like Carney”, etc.

Anyway, just my “conspiracy theory” bit for today…

“Mark Carney’s vaporous narcissism: The PM has a penchant for making grandiose promises that are unachievable and incoherent”, John Robson, Sept. 18, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/mark-carneys-vaporous-narcissism?itm_source=index

Pinker seeing Red on DEI

This from self-identified “liberal Democrat” Stephen Pinker, author of “Better Angels of Our Nature”, among other bestsellers.

“Canadians should thank Steven Pinker for denouncing DEI in Parliament: Distinguished scholar tells MPs that discriminatory policies at universities and government institutions are harming science and the nation”, Peter MacKinnon, Sept. 24, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadians-should-thank-steven-pinker-for-denouncing-dei-in-parliament?itm_source=index

MacKinnon comments on Stephen Pinker’s testimony to a Canadian “House of Commons” committee.

Quotes:

“Pinker called for universities to disempower DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) … Moderate voices on these issues are often silenced by advocates for race and gender quotas who resort to the racist label to discredit those who do not agree with them. The words of Steven Pinker may encourage them to speak up, and to join what we should hope to be a growing chorus favouring non-discrimination, cosmopolitanism and viewpoint diversity. Indeed, Canadians should be grateful to Dr. Pinker.”

And this also re Pinker seeing Red…

“FIRST READING: Diversity mandates killing Canadian science, famed academic tells Commons committee: Racial quotas now standard for Canadian academic hiring, grant funding”, Tristan Hopper, Sept. 19, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/diversity-mandates-killing-canadian-science-famed-academic-tells-commons-committee

Hopper opens: “Diversity mandates as practiced by Canada are eroding basic science and discrediting the academic system, the renowned Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker warned in recent testimony to a House of Commons research committee.”

According to Hopper, Pinker argued that “universities need to drop their ‘obsession’ with enforcing ethnic diversity and focus instead on cultivating ‘viewpoint diversity’”.

Hopper says that in Canada, identity-based policies have been driven by federal order and funding. He notes that Pinker told the House committee, “it’s not reasonable to expect that every single branch of science is going to have an ethnic makeup that’s exactly proportional to the general population.” The result has been “that under the guise of ‘looking’ diverse, universities have increasingly become subject to chilling ‘monocultures’ that shun and punish dissenting opinions.”

He quotes Pinker’s statement, “As a cognitive scientist, I can attest that the human mind is vulnerable to many biases and fallacies. The strongest is the ‘my side’ bias, the conviction that my tribe or coalition or party is correct and that a rival coalition is ignorant or evil or both.”

“Pinker said the usual way around this is to maintain an intellectual culture in which biases can be freely attacked and criticized by colleagues who think differently. ‘One person can point out another’s errors and the whole community can be more rational than any of the individuals in it’”.

“Defusing hatred, retaliation, and violence” is just below… Note also below, Grok’s response to a query if the advocacy for political violence was more of a problem on the “left/liberal” side of the US. He provides results of varied surveys. Also, “Bury the ‘Words are Violence’ cliché. We need maximal tolerance for speech; zero tolerance for force”, by Greg Lukianoff. And varied other summaries of good articles, and comment on the “madness of crowds” era that we are living through.

I want to be clear that I approach the central themes of Historical Jesus (posted below as the best defusers of hatred and violence) as a non-religious person who views this wisdom sage and his message as entirely non-religious. Yes, it has been preserved within Christianity for some two millennia now, but research over the past 3 centuries has enabled us to understand what Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy were arguing when they stated that the “diamonds” of Jesus had been buried (trigger warning) in the “dung” of Paul’s Christ myth that dominates the New Testament.

“Buried” in that the main themes of Historical Jesus- i.e. themes of a non-retaliatory God (no more eye for eye but love enemies because God does), a non-apocalyptic God (a non-retaliatory God will not engage the ultimate act of retaliation that is apocalypse), an unconditional God who did not want sacrifice but instead desired love and mercy (Jesus took up the protest of Old Testament prophets against the sacrifice industry, and also presented the unconditional nature of God in stories like the Prodigal Father). He taught themes of non-domination (do not lord over but serve others), non-discriminatory inclusion of all as equals (sun and rain given to all, to both good and bad), etc.

Paul rejected the early “Q Wisdom Sayings” Jesus movement two decades later (50 CE) and re-affirmed the very opposite theology of Jesus in presenting again a retaliatory God (he quoted, “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord”), an apocalyptic God and Christ (“Lord Jesus will return in flaming fire to destroy all”). He reaffirmed the ultimate divine condition of the sacrifice of a godman, taking Jesus’ death for protesting against sacrifice and turning that into the very opposite- i.e. his death as ultimate cosmic sacrifice. He took this wisdom sage who rejected domination (do not lord over others) and turned him into the ultimate Lord, “Lord Jesus”. And Paul re-instated tribal exclusion in the eternal separation of true believers in his Christ myth from eternally damned unbelievers, etc.

Paul’s Christology dominates the New Testament, with gospel writers (all four affirming Paul’s Christology) putting many things into Jesus’ mouth (claiming he said them), things that contradict entirely Jesus’ basic Q Wisdom Sayings (see, for example, the Jesus Seminar book “The Five Gospels”).

The conclusion above that Paul buried the diamonds of Jesus under his Christ myth is credibly reliable from “Jesus Seminar” and “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research (e.g. the research of scholars like James Robinson, Stephen Patterson, James Tabor, etc.). I have covered this research in varied articles and summaries in sections below. I would also suggest the excellent research of Bob Brinsmead on this…

“The Historical Jesus: What the Scholars are Saying”

https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/

“The Doctrine of Christ and the Triumph of Hellenism”

https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-doctrine-of-christ-and-the-triump-of-hellenism/

I watched Bill Maher’s podcast interview of Charlie Kirk and they both, when arguing about Jesus and Christianity, seemed entirely unaware of this critical research on Historical Jesus. The historical person existed but presented a message that Paul contradicted on all the main themes when he created his Christ myth.

Why does any of this matter? Because the ideas presented by these two iconic historical persons have influenced Western civilization in profound ways (see James Tabor quotes in sections below). The main themes of Paul’s Christ myth- i.e. apocalyptic millennialism- have shaped the mass-death crusades of Marxism, Nazism, and now shape environmental alarmism. The opposite themes of Historical Jesus have presented the counter message that moderates the influence of Paul and orients us to the basic principles of Classic Liberalism/liberal democracy.

Added note:

To make proper sense of Jesus, and what he actually taught, you have to do as Thomas Jefferson did and take Jesus’ Wisdom message and parables out of the New Testament context (he used his scissors), uncover the diamond by cleaning off the distorting Christology of Paul, and then you can clearly see the profound contradictions between Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth. They are so entirely opposite that the merger of Jesus with Christ (“Jesus Christ”) then appears for what it is- a supreme oxymoron that has resulted in two millennia of immense cognitive dissonance called Christianity.

That religion has never presented the true wisdom sage as really he was and has never presented his stunning new theology of an unconditional God. No conditional religion (they are all most essentially about religious conditions) has ever presented such unconditional theology to humanity. And hence, billions remain enslaved in mind and spirit to the primitive threat theology that our religious traditions have inherited and re-affirmed in their belief systems- i.e. angry God threatening apocalypse and hell, and then demanding the salvation conditions of sacrifice/payment and submission to religious authorities.

Some new stuff- I asked Grok:

Grok, any thoughts on this comment for my site at wendellkrossa.com- “This site is committed to alleviating fear, especially ultimate fears (i.e. fear of divine punishment through the natural world, fear of after-life harm) created by the threat theologies of religions- i.e. angry God threatening judgment, exclusion, punishment, and eternal torture. Fear incites the human survival impulse and renders people susceptible to irrational salvation schemes that have had destructive outcomes.

Notable in this regard- the mythical themes of the “apocalyptic millennialism” complex that promotes “salvation through destruction” (i.e. the theme of “murder the right people in order to make things better”, as in the required human sacrifice portrayed in Paul’s Christ myth, or the larger-scale apocalyptic destruction as necessary to purge the present corrupt society so saviors/messiahs can introduce their new utopian society). Fear is often behind rage and violence, fear of some threatening enemy (posed as the threat to one’s world) that incites felt obligation to conquer, defeat, and exterminate such threat in order to save one’s self and one’s world. These themes drove Marxism and Nazism and now drive environmental alarmism.”

Grok responded:

Your comment for the site strikes at a profound intersection of psychology, theology, and ideology, emphasizing how deeply ingrained fears— particularly those amplified by narratives of divine or cosmic retribution— can warp human behavior and societal structures. It’s a compelling mission statement, positioning the site as a counterforce to what you describe as “threat theologies,” which exploit the survival instinct to peddle salvation through catastrophe. This resonates with historical patterns where apocalyptic thinking has fueled not just religious fervor but also secular movements, often with tragic consequences.

At its core, your point about fear inciting irrational “salvation schemes” aligns with observations from thinkers who’ve traced how existential dread manifests in collective actions. For instance, the myth of apocalyptic millennialism— envisioning a purged world leading to utopia— has indeed appeared in various guises. In religious contexts, it’s evident in prophecies of judgment and renewal, like those in apocalyptic literature that promise salvation after widespread destruction. You extend this to the Christ myth in Paul’s theology, where sacrifice (personal or mass) becomes a prerequisite for redemption, echoing themes of “necessary” violence to cleanse corruption.

Extending this to modern ideologies makes for a provocative critique. Marxism, for example, incorporates a dialectical view of history culminating in a revolutionary upheaval that overthrows the old order to birth a classless society— a secular millennialism where the proletariat’s triumph requires dismantling capitalist “evils.” Nazism twisted similar motifs into its “blood and soil” ideology, blending racial purity with a romanticized return to nature, where purging perceived threats (Jews, minorities) was framed as essential for national rebirth. Your linkage to environmental alarmism is particularly bold: here, the “threatening enemy” shifts to human impact on the planet, with calls for drastic measures (e.g., de-growth or population control) portrayed as salvation from impending doom.

Critics like Michael Shellenberger have argued that this apocalyptic framing in environmental discourse mirrors religious end-times narratives, fostering hysteria that prioritizes fear over practical solutions and can lead to anti-human policies. Some even draw parallels to “ecofascism,” where environmental purity justifies authoritarian control, though this is a fringe association not representative of mainstream environmentalism.

That said, while these connections highlight shared psychological mechanisms— fear of annihilation driving demands for radical purification— they’re not without pushback. Equating environmentalism directly to Marxism or Nazism risks oversimplification; Marxism’s environmental critique focused on capitalism’s exploitation of nature and labor, but socialist regimes often prioritized industrial growth over ecology, leading to their own disasters (e.g., Soviet environmental degradation).

Nazi “environmentalism” was more about racial mysticism and autarky than genuine conservation— policies like reforestation served wartime needs and ideology, not biodiversity. Critics argue such linkages can be a rhetorical tool to discredit legitimate environmental concerns, ignoring how modern movements often emphasize equity and science over coercion. Apocalyptic rhetoric in climate discussions can indeed mobilize action but also risks burnout or backlash if predictions falter, as seen in past doomsday forecasts.

Ultimately, your site’s focus on dismantling these fear-based narratives could foster more rational discourse. By highlighting how they recur across ideologies— from ancient prophecies to today’s alarmism— you invite readers to question salvation-through-destruction tropes. It might even bridge divides, encouraging environmental advocacy rooted in hope and innovation rather than dread. If you’re open to expanding, exploring counterexamples (e.g., optimistic environmental successes like reforestation or pollution reductions) could strengthen the argument against alarmist extremes. Solid piece— it could spark some lively debates.

(End of Grok comments)

Defusing hatred, retaliation, and violence, Wendell Krossa

Qualifiers will punctuate this material below but it has to be said again and again because we have no better ideal to aim for in order to maintain our humanity in the face of offenses and evil in general. This ideal endlessly functions to reorient us to what it means to be authentically human in the midst of assaults and consequent suffering.

What I repost below from the Palestinian Wisdom sage Historical Jesus (“H. Jesus”) is not a precept urging warm or fuzzy feeling toward offenders who rightly deserve anger and outrage for the horrors and insanity that they inflict on others. I would insist that the wisdom precept below is more about maintaining our own humanity in the face of the inhumanity and evil of all sorts that we will endure in varied ways during our life stories in this world. It offers us a lodestar ideal about how to think, respond, and act toward offenders, not descending to become like them but to try and act as God does which is the summary point of the Jesus message below- “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful”.

We don’t have to respond as the Jesus precept advocates. It doesn’t come with threat of punishment if we don’t. It just shows us how God acts, what God is like, and what God does. And it is the basis of Jesus’ “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God” that overturned entirely all religious theology of what God was like. It pointed to a stunning new image of deity that no religion has ever communicated to humanity. A stunning new understanding of love and hence the ideal for human ethics/behavior. Most religions, including Christianity, still refuse to fully acknowledge this new theology of Jesus and continue to bury his “diamonds” (Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy) in the theologies that they have inherited and copied from past primitive mythologies.

There is simply no better ideal anywhere in human history or human narratives to remind us who we are, or who we should try to become, and how we should act if we want to “tower in stature as maturely human”, as the heroes of our own stories.

More qualifiers: The unconditional ideal presented by H. Jesus is not a call to back down from advocacy for our personal beliefs, to become silent on our differing positions on varied issues just to de-escalate someone else’s intolerance and create a false environment of peace that gives the bully dominance. It is not a call to relinquish the vigorous defense of what we believe is right or true.

I take it more as a potent approach to defusing the hatred that wants to incite a similar hatred in response and fuel ugly “eye for eye” spirals of hatred, of violence for violence, of coercion and force for force, etc. And the fact that approaches oriented to unconditional work at a personal scale and national scale is evident in that Nelson Mandela was able to defuse the push of his colleagues for retaliatory civil war in South Africa, while at the same time similar situations of tribal hatred in Rwanda and Serbia, that chose eye for eye responses, descended into the horror of mass-death outcomes. See, for example, Richard Stengel’s statements on this in his biography of Mandela, “Mandela’s Way: Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage”.

Obviously, when situations reach the level of actual attack we are responsible to respond to such assault and defeat the violent attackers in order to protect ourselves and others. That is why we support police and military to fulfil the number one responsibility of government to protect citizens from assault, to arrest and imprison violent people. So unconditional does not counter such fundamental responsibilities. It is not the advocacy for pacifism in the face of violence. It is not a call to abandon common sense as we see in US cities releasing repeat violent offenders or decriminalizing crimes out of some “suicidal empathy” that may be more “virtue signaling for status as morally superior” to one’s opponents.

I take it more as attitudinal or intentional advice- to not yield to hatred, but to eventually come to some recognition and pity for the failure of the offending other to act as human. And then to not be like the offender in response but to hold to the intention to act differently, to act better and to show a better way in response, that will have more chance for success over the long-term to resolve differences and defuse “eye for eye” trajectories that just lead to endless war/conflicts.

As Mandela said of his approach of unconditional love for opponents- “It turns enemies into friends and brings out the best in others”. Not all, but most. Obviously, psychopathy or mental illness change the formula/mixture in the equation of how to respond, etc.

So rather than outright rejection of this precept, I offer it as something critical to wrestle with, just as Simon Wiesenthal did in his books after surviving the Nazi death camps, losing his family to that murderous hatred, and spending the remainder of his life hunting down Nazis. He urged fellow Jews, who suffered in the Holocaust, to not take hateful vengeance against their Nazi tormentors, to “not be like them” in retaliating with similar violence. Note especially his dealing with the Jewish father who wanted to kill the Nazi soldier who had murdered his young son.

Moving along… Here is my point:

There is a way out of the darkness of the current time where hatred has been unleashed too constantly across the public, in news media, social media, etc. The endless petty name calling, vilifying differing others, excessively demonizing, dehumanizing those who disagree with us, with follow-up efforts to destroy reputations, character, careers. What is this urge to make instant harsh judgments and condemnations on the comments, and even just the words that are spoken by differing others, that do not resonate familiarly with our narratives, that upset us, disturb us, make us uncomfortable, even anger us. Why do we then follow with excessively harsh demands for punishment, censoring, banning from public spaces, and then demand cancelling, even criminalizing of the differing others? What is all this obvious stirring of tribal hatred toward differing others?

How do we crush the hatred that drives this judgment, condemnation, and ultimately too often results in the insanity of violence?

Insert on an epitome example: The insanity of the intensifying tribal hatred is most evident all day long in the media spewing of their hatred of and constant vilification of Donald Trump, demonizing, dehumanizing everything that he says and does (I see this in the daily news article titles on MSN homepage Canada). And this is not a defense of all that he says and does, as I am in disagreement with him on varied things, notably his unseemly tendency to “petty vindictiveness”. But overall, there is something pathological in the constancy and intensity of the public hatred for him.

There is a pathology in the refusal of many to recognize the basic humanity of disagreeing others, like Trump.

Getting right to the point:

We were told thousands of years ago how to defuse this inhumane madness of retaliatory hatred and violence. What the ancient sages told us is still the premier feature defining authentic love- i.e. unconditional “love for our enemies.”

There are other definitions of love that are less shocking to our conventional senses and traditional views of “justice”, that are less disturbing to such orthodoxy. That do not in a full-frontal manner feel like a shove or direct punch in the face to long-established views. That give us escape clauses to still retaliate in some similar manner to the one offending or assaulting us, that permit us to hit back in some way and we can still validate such response as proper “justice”.

The adjective “unconditional” has the impact of appearing to advocate for abandoning millennia of “common-sense” on justice and replace that with silly Kumbayah-like pacifism. Unfortunately, for those of us willing to at least wrestle with understanding this ideal, many around us just react to the ideal as impractical for real life and take its meaning directly to the nonsensical extreme of pacifism in the face of violence and evil.

But then why do most of us intuitively respect and honor the Mandelas of life for what they exhibit? We sense that they are doing what all of us should be doing.

Again, unconditional pushes us to consider what Simon Wiesenthal did as he wrestled with “Justice, Not Vengeance” and asked readers if he had done the right thing in refusing to offer forgiveness to the dying young SS man who wanted to confess his taking part in atrocities toward Jews (“The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness”).

Note- I add the feature of “unconditional” to the Jesus’ statement “love your enemies” because it is clearly implied in the total context of his message below, and in his illustrations such as the story of the Prodigal Father. I add also further defining features like “universal inclusiveness”, noting that there are no discriminatory exceptions of anyone in his statement that God generously gives “sun and rain to both good and bad people”.

And what does the “unconditional love of enemies” mean in terms of forgiveness, in terms of tolerance of the slowness of others to change their behavior, and the generosity and mercy to offer “second/third/fourth/etc.” chances to reform, develop, and grow? What does “love your enemy” mean in terms of respect for the basic humanity of offending and differing others, no matter their offenses and the disagreements, or in terms of the fundamental obligation to treat all as family (i.e. recognizing the human oneness thing)? And what does it mean in terms of holding all fully responsible for behavior and outcomes- i.e. the obligation to restrain and imprison violent people in order to protect all others? And the responsibility to make full restitution?

Joseph Campbell on recognizing our oneness, even with enemies: “For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Jesus’ “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Myths To Live By).

Note in Campbell’s advice the recommendation to remember our oneness (“brotherhood”) with all others, something affirmed by the “Mitochondrial Eve” hypothesis that states all humans on Earth today are descendants of an East African woman. Add the discovery of “quantum entanglement” that affirms an underlying fundamental oneness to all reality. And then the NDE revelations of our fundamental oneness.

And critical, when thinking of this unconditional response to offense and violence, is consideration of the victim’s viewpoints on this. It is very interesting how some victims deal with tragedy and pain. I think of one mother whose son was brutally murdered by some thug and yet she found the way to think through and past her personal agony to argue in court against the death penalty for her son’s murderer. She argued against it, not for the sake of the murderer, but because she did not want his mother to suffer the same horror that she had to endure at the loss of a son.

That is empathy beyond heroism. Add the father who decided to “forgive” his young daughter’s murderer, not for that man’s sake, but so as to liberate himself from the hatred and bitterness that would harm his other children subsequent to that offense against their family.

Or “The Forgiven” in South Africa (movie on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission), and many similar stories where victims find some reason for embracing these different responses to violence. Others hold the hope that the offenders can be rehabilitated in some way.

Moving on…

This precept to “love our enemy” defines, more than any comparable precept, what it means to think and behave as truly human. It argues that we should consider that anything less is subhuman, even inhuman. As Bob Brinsmead has noted- Anything less is not authentic love. Certainly, similar retaliation in response to offenses committed is not fully human. It is considered anti-human, even animal, by some. Listen to the Roman sage Musonius Rufus of the first century AD- “To bite back the biter is animal and not human”. Think of angry dogs in the street.

This precept to love your enemy goes way back before Jesus, to the Akkadian father, who told his son,

“Do not return evil to your adversary; requite with kindness the one who does evil to you, maintain justice for your enemy, be friendly to your enemy. Give food to eat, beer to drink, grant what is requested, provide for and treat with honor. At this one’s god takes pleasure.”

Returning to my opening point- The way out the present darkness is not through perpetuating “eye for eye” cycles. That retaliatory response has always furthered the descent into more darkness and hatred, and then even violence. Retaliatory vengeance renders us all petty and subhuman.

Yes, “Justice”, as holding offenders responsible, including restraining/imprisoning the violent to protect others, this is obligatory to any common-sense love.

And it takes those among us with great spirits and great courage to initiate and break the natural descent into “eye for eye” cycles by choosing to be the first to take things in entirely new directions with forgiveness, de-escalating anger, calming things down. The self-sacrifice of courageous spirits to break such cycles may be misunderstood, misconstrued, and mislabeled as “weakness, backing down, being a pussy, letting others walk all over one, etc.” So be it. But subsequent history, legacy, will prove such an approach to have worked better to lessen violence.

Again, yes, we hold all people responsible for behavior and consequences, including restraint and imprisonment of the violent. I hesitate at times to even make these balancing qualifiers lest I lessen the blunt impact that the unconditional feature may have on some that will lead them to choose to freely take this precept somewhere unconventional, even pacifist-like in the face of violence.

I see it as a freedom of choice issue, not an across-the-board demand for all in all situations of offenses. That is the point of the generous vineyard owner story of Jesus. He argued with the pissed all-day workers that it was his money to do with as he chose. Matthew 20- “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”.

We all need the constant reaffirmation of love as our ultimate common responsibility to one another. As Leo Tolstoy said, “The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care.”

Love, especially “love of enemy”, is the authentic expression of our true self, our essential human spirit in its oneness with the “Ultimate Unconditional Love” that is God (the oneness or unity thing). This version of love offers the most potency in enabling us to defuse our darker inherited impulses to tribal hatred, lust for vengeance, and the urge to humiliate and destroy differing others.

Listen, for an example, to this governor of Utah and his uplifting call to be something better, to heed the words and behavior of Charlie Kirk…

“FULL UPDATE: Arrest made in fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk”, CityNews, Sept. 12, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsyCoHOSTjc

The full statement of Historical Jesus on what it means to love with no conditions.

Loving all unconditionally, even enemies, is how we tower in stature as ‘maturely human’, conquering the real enemy and monster that is inside each of us- i.e. our inherited animal drives to tribalism, domination, and retaliatory destruction of differing others.

Unconditional love is the “weapon from the wise man” that enables us to fight and conquer the real enemy in life, in the real battle of life, the real Hero’s Quest that is an inner battle inside each individual heart.

As a non-religious person who views Historical Jesus as an entirely non-religious person with a non-religious message, I view these wisdom sayings just below, with Thomas Jefferson, as the “diamonds of Jesus” that were buried in the larger New Testament context that distorted them with Paul’s retaliatory theology.

Jesus’ core message:

“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full.

“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving”. (My paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36 or Matthew 5:38-48.)

This can be summarized in this single statement: “Love your enemy because God does”.

Prime example of non-retaliatory, unconditional love: The Prodigal Father story in Luke 15:11-31.

The Father (representing God) did not demand a sacrifice, restitution, payment, apology, or anything else before forgiving, fully accepting, and loving the wasteful son. Again, this is not to affirm general policies of pacifism in the face of violence or not holding others responsible for behavior and its consequences. There is always the primary responsibility of government to protect all citizens from violence, meaning the restraint and imprisonment of repeat violent offenders. This is more about the individual freedom of choice in how people want to respond to and treat their offenders.

Added note:

I am with Tyrus (independent, libertarian) who stated that he was not a religious person (and disagreed with Charlie Kirk on that issue) but he admired Kirk for his approach and treatment of those who disagreed with him, as in the defense of competing ideas, his patience in listening to those who mistreated him, calling him names and yet he still gave them the mike to voice their different views because he believed so passionately in such liberal democratic things as free speech.

Others on this Gutfeld panel speak passionately of the man, and note that after his murder there was no rioting, no burning of stores, and no abuse of police, etc. Very different from what we saw after the death of George Floyd, and other similar deaths on the left side. Interesting to consider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4jWntgYsIc

“Gutfeld! 9/12/25 Greg Gutfeld FULL END SHOW”, ᗷᖇEᗩKIᑎG ᑎEᗯS Tᖇᑌᗰᑭ September 12, 2025

“Transcript – America This Week, September 12, 2025: “The Assassination of Charlie Kirk, and a New Age of Political Violence”: Recalling the rising level of incivility and rage surrounding the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, a symbol of political dialogue. Also, the conventions of Conan Doyle’s detective novel”, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn, Sept. 13, 2025

https://www.racket.news/p/america-this-week-september-12-2025-b66

Interesting points from these two this week:

They note that Charlie Kirk was a young person doing what universities in the past were supposed to do, encourage open debate over differing ideas, in a civil manner. Kirk, they recount, did exactly that “sitting back in his chair, listening, engaged” and then suddenly he was shot. And then, say Taibbi and Kirn “the dehumanization of this person before he had even left the earth, truly, literally, was for me,,. the most terrifying aspect of the whole thing.”

They note that Kirk was not rude, abrasive, or profane. He “(did) one thing that a lot of these others don’t do quite so well, which is, listen. The guy is a good listener.” And they add, he was a gentle soul.

“This person, whose lane was discussion, and as you said, the old school way of the sort of right-wing conservative radio person was to bark over you and not give you a chance to answer. And I’ve been in some of those discussions and been very frustrated. That’s not what he did. As you say, he listened…”

Then they note that many commentators have responded to his death, blaming Kirk for his own death because of his “hate speech”.

“But that trope has been revived quite a lot lately. Also, there’s a thing that Dow did in that clip that has become incredibly common and drives me up a wall as a journalist. It’s referring to hateful acts and hateful speech and not telling you which ones.

“What do you mean ‘hateful acts, hateful speech’? It’s saying, ‘Well, measured against Trump’s lies, which lies? Which ones?’ That has become a shorthand thing that happens all the time now. And look, we all understand that cable news is a job where you have to take up a lot of time with discussion, and maybe you don’t always have the facts at hand, but if you’re going to use an inflammatory word, if you’re going to call it, say somebody is guilty of hate speech, you got to quote them. You got to make it clear what you’re talking about exactly.

“Walter Kirn: Well, and they invented the category too, let’s remember, so they get to use it at will and flexibly. And by that, I mean places like MSNBC mean by hatred something that’s almost technical compared to what you and I mean by it. You, and I mean violent emotion, powered by loathing. On MSNBC, hate speech can be merely being against some movement or political idea or not signing on with the transgender orthodoxies, for example.

“Matt Taibbi: I think that’s the thing that he’s most commonly pilloried for as… Most often when they talk about hate speech, it’s because he won’t say that a trans woman is a woman, right? Or he talks about keeping men out of women’s bathrooms, that kind of thing.”

Meaning that the smear “hate speech”, much like “racist, fascist, Nazi”, is just thrown at opponents without specifying exactly what they mean or which statements are referred to.

Kirn then expresses his frustration at the state of affairs today:

“You want to blame the victim, go to hell. You want to dehumanize them or somehow cast their death as righteous judgment on their political opinions, go to hell. You want to believe that this is a both sides thing, well, for the moment go to hell because it’s not. It seems to be a war on this populist surge in American politics. If you want also to believe that there are simple morals to be driven from, to be derived from it, that you can apply, go to hell too.”

Taibbi talks about the eruption of nihilistic violence today that scares people and discusses the general environment that incites such violence. They quote Clay Travis on this:

“Riley is so brave, and I am so glad that she is speaking out, and so many people are, but let me hammer something home here. I am sick and I am tired of hearing people say, like Barack Obama did, like Hillary Clinton did. “Oh, we condemn this violence.” Guess what? You can’t call the President of the United States for 10 years, Adolf Hitler. And you can’t say that he’s a fascist dictator. And you can’t say that anyone who voted for Trump or advocated for him like you, me, Riley and Charlie Kirk are Nazis.

“And then when someone tries to kill us, you can’t suddenly say, “Oh, we condemn this violence.” You caused it. Look at me right now. You caused this. When you tell people that someone is Hitler, you are telling crazy people go kill them. I am sick of pretending that that is anything other than what they’re doing. That guy in West Palm Beach, what did he say? He was killing Trump because he believed Trump was Hitler. This is what they do. All right. This left-wing violence, it’s out of control.”

(End of Taibbi/Kirn discussion.)

A short one from Brit Konstantin Kisin (Independent) on issues like the dehumanization of political opponents as “Nazis, fascists” over the past 10 years, and what that does to people in the general population. Plus a good one on the point that no one expected this would be followed with riots, looting, burning cities, and more violence (after the assassination of Charlie Kirk). But we all saw what happened when there was a death on the other side, says Konstantin. Interesting point.

He says that if we are told and we believe that “Fascists/Nazis” are in power then we are all validated in using force to fight them, commenting on the shift toward violence on the left today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5YHR4Zz-rs

“These People Have Blood On Their Hands” – Konstantin Kisin of “Triggernometry”

“Thinking About Charlie Kirk”, Theo Von

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA6enA1wWSU

Theo is not a religious guy and says that he does not agree with Charlie Kirk’s views on varied things but he admires Kirk’s courage to go talk with people and defend free speech. Here Theo tries to express what he feels about Kirk’s murder.

I think what Theo is trying to express is similar to what many of us are feeling. Though we are not religious and would disagree with Charlie Kirk on religious issues, among other things, we sense that he was a decent man, a good man, who just wanted to discuss all sorts of things with differing others in a respectful, civil manner. Not shouting angrily over others, refusing to let the others share their points without interruption. Not raging at one another like angry kids in a sandbox argument.

Charlie is like the many Christians that we all know. Kind, gentle people, good people trying to do the right thing, like most of us. I know these people as members of my family, and as friends. Even though I have left Christianity, they still talk to me, we laugh together, share views on all sorts of things, and they tell me that they pray for me. Just really good people that I respect, valued friends that are a pleasure to know and communicate with.

The fact that Charlie Kirk was a person like that, makes his murder all the more painful to most of us. And as Theo says, he feels “scared” now that there are hateful people out there who won’t come up and speak civilly to you, but from a distance will vent that hate in violence, and murderous destruction.

There are too many such people today. And as many are trying to understand- What drives them to such hatred and violence against differing others?

This Email from a friend, responding to some article that I posted on this site honoring free speech advocates like Charlie Kirk:

He said,

“Kirk was killed by a befuddled young man who had found him not extreme-right enough. This was fascist on fascist, and the left had nothing to do with it. As an American leftist, I fully support the First Amendment, even when the protected speech is repellent to me, as it was every time Kirk opened his mouth. Killing him served only bad purposes. Kirk was enriching himself spewing hate, Christian nationalism, etc. He was a repellent schmuck, but his death has in some people’s eyes made him a martyr. As for the Second Amendment, it never stood in the way of gun laws until fascists on the US Supreme Court misinterpreted it. I regard it as obsolete and I favor gun restrictions at least as strict as, say, those in Canada. But the strictest laws probably could not keep a bolt-action hunting rifle out of an assassin’s hands.”

My response:

“_____, I position as Independent/Classic Liberal and with you fully support First Amendment speech freedom similar to positions of those like Ira Glasser, former ACLU director. Tolerance even for offensive speech. I am not very familiar with Charlie Kirk except from varied clips and comments of others and it appears that he was not a “repellent schmuck” but actually quite civil except for minor exceptions. And appears to have defended free speech rights for all and treated opponents quite civilly. “Spewing hate”. Not sure about that.

“And I would affirm what many say today that there has been a shift on the Left over past years in the US toward an extremist Woke Progressivism that has become too hateful and hysterically demonizes and dehumanizes disagreeing others (the endless smears of “Hitler, fascist, dictator, Nazis, racists, etc.”), even intolerant toward those on its own side just for holding unorthodox ideas and words that don’t toe the leftist elite’s narratives. We see this in media daily. Hence, the environment for fringe types to find incitement and validation for violence. And actually, too much direct advocacy of such violence. Yes, from the left. I think, for example, of comments by Joy Reid and others on this.

“While both sides have the extremist factions to guard against, the predominance of dangerous extremism today appears to be coming from the left (I put up an article that noted surveys on this- the growing support from Democrats for censorship of opponents and political violence). Consider that over past years there has been a predominance of leftist narrative ideology shaping mainstream media, and that same dominance in much of state institutions/agencies, certainly leftist domination of higher education, with the majority of censorship from that side as the Twitter Files exposed. So also Russiagate (trying to overturn a democratic election), Hunter Biden laptop coverup with push of the “Russian disinformation” lie that influenced an election, and so much other “threat to democracy”, a charge that leftists constantly project onto opponents.

“Some good sources on all this- former State Dept. guy Mike Benz in both his appearances on Joe Rogan, and others. Also, note how many solid Democrats/”leftists” have had to leave that side due to its shift too far left into extremist Woke Progressivism dominated by DEI. Joe Rogan, RFK, Tulsi Gabbard, Musk, even Maher, and on and on…”

“I forgot to add that “leftists/liberals” (all previously life-long Democrats) like Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn, Michael Shellenberger, give some of the best information and balanced takes on all this in their “Substack/Public/etc.” forums, probably the best of independent news media today.”

(End of post)

What’s this “eye for eye” stuff going on now? I thought the man stood for free speech.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/charlie-kirk-supporters-targeting-critics?tbref=hp

“Charlie Kirk supporters leading campaign to have people punished for mocking his death: Teachers, firefighters, federal workers and military personnel among those targeted for their public comments, with some losing their jobs”, National Post, Sept. 14, 2025

This is just one example: “Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered members of the military to identify colleagues who mocked or celebrated Kirk’s death.”

Do you really think Kirk would want this? Apparently, he sat and calmly listened to opponents, even when they berated him with ugly smears, and answered politely. He thought that free speech had to be tolerated and protected, not punished. No matter how offensive. What about continuing his project? Doing what he fought for.

The National post on campus fear and silenced majorities: Who’s your bully now?

Backed by a majority of “leftist woke progressive” professors a tiny minority of threatening activists (0.4% in Canada) bully majorities into fearful silence. Where in this is the “inclusion, diversity, and equality” (not “equity”)? Is this training future generations to understand and defend a free and liberal society?

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/nearly-half-of-all-canadian-university-students-are-actively-hiding-their-real-beliefs-survey?itm_source=index

“Nearly half of all Canadian university students are actively hiding their real beliefs: survey. The survey by Aristotle Foundation also finds that students with conservative views now outnumber those with liberal views”, Tristan Hopper, Sept.3, 2025

“Liberals basically feel free to say anything they want on any subject, regardless of consequences — that’s not an overstatement — while moderates and conservatives and libertarians feel like they have to radically self-censor, if they want to avoid consequences for their beliefs,” wrote David Hunt, research director for the Aristotle Foundation, in an email to the National Post.

“He added, ‘we knew students were self-censoring and that some students felt their views weren’t welcome in class discussions … but the data was even more damning than expected’.”

And… Lorrie Goldstein: “Liberal bias in Canadian universities is a fact, study says”

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-liberal-bias-in-canadian-universities-is-a-fact-study

“73% of academics sampled from 40 top-ranked Canadian universities identified as left-wing, 4% as right-wing.”

This does not sound at all like a man who is constantly smeared and vilified as “Hitler, fascist, racist, dictator, etc.”

Could it be the media has been lying to us about Trump the Orange Monster?

In this article, Conrad Black provides some insight into how President Trump responded on hearing that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated. Black was present in the Oval Office as Trump and J.D. Vance first heard of and commented on the murder.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/conrad-black-i-was-with-trump-when-charlie-kirk-died-he-grieved-like-a-leader?itm_source=index

“I was with Trump when Charlie Kirk died. He grieved like a leader: The president had no thoughts except charity for the bereaved and concern for the country”, Conrad Black, Sept. 14, 2025
Here is what Black observed in the Oval Office as Trump and Vance responded to the news of Charlie Kirk’s murder.

“We were shortly joined by the vice president, J.D. Vance, known even by me to be a close friend Charlie Kirk. He was reporting on the initial results of the investigation. My offer to excuse myself was declined and there followed a surrealistic and unforgettable scene: the president and vice president lamented their deceased friend and I was likely almost as improbable a third party as could be found to participate in such an exchange. In the circumstances, I only commented when my opinion was asked.

“Especially in the light of ungenerous imputations of motives to both men in their public remarks in ensuing days. I would be remiss not to emphasize that neither the president nor the vice president expressed any sentiment except sorrow at the death of their friend and sympathy for his wife and family and close associates, and calm, deep concern at the extent of violence in the country.

“There was not a vengeful or partisan word or even an ill-tempered one. Both men were absolutely exemplary and in fact somewhat inspiring in their sole preoccupation with the horribly premature and violent death of a talented friend and supporter, and their shared concern at the frequency of recourse to political violence in America and much of the western world.

“The only reference to the immediate political implications of this tragic event was by me when I said that this was such a ghastly episode it might have a salutary effect in sobering public discourse and discouraging violence. This elicited a noncommittal response.

“All Americans, whatever their political leanings, should be reassured that the two holders of the national offices of the United States, in a poignant hour of great sacrifice and sadness, had no thoughts except charity for the bereaved and concern for the country. It was my sad privilege to be a witness to this and the completely spontaneous tastefulness and generosity of the thoughts of the president and vice president did not reduce but somewhat ameliorated the deep sadness of the occasion.”

Also, this observation of Black as he had earlier waited in an outer room to see the President:

“As I was arriving at the White House visitors’ entrance I saw on my mobile phone that Charlie Kirk had been wounded in an assassination attempt. I did not really know him and was only generally conversant with his Turning Point movement and from the initial wording of the bulletin I hopefully assumed that he would recover. There was no sign of alarm as I sat in the outer anteroom with a number of distinguished fellow visitors including a prominent senator and the well-known economist Arthur Laffer…

“Although I had been a number of times to the White House before, it was in groups and in reception rooms. Here it was possible to see how the private office functioned and it was clear the president’s staff is devoted to him personally and that he, unlike some holders of great offices that I have known, is unfailingly polite to staff.”

Compare Black’s comment on Trump’s treatment of staff to reports of Kamala Harris’s treatment of her staff:

“Vice-President Harris has an abnormally high staff turnover rate”

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1f26zdz/vicepresident_harris_has_an_abnormally_high_staff/

Quote from article: “She would routinely berate and cuss out her staff, and that the office environment around her was, quite frankly, a toxic hellhole.”

So also with Joe Biden…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/07/when-it-comes-mistreatment-workers-biden-fails-his-own-test/

https://www.thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/joe-bidens-four-letter-temper-tantrums-leave-staff-shaken-w7kslh9tn

Now who’s your real monsters?

Celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk

Tim Dillon spends the opening minutes of his podcast commenting on people who are celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk. As he says, he had substantive disagreements with Kirk (Dillon is a gay man) but he still could not celebrate another person’s murder- the father of young children. Dillon says Kirk was a decent man willing to sit and discuss differing views with others.

Dillon tries to reason with such people that something is profoundly wrong if they can express delight in Kirk’s assassination.

I would suggest that is the deforming power of our narratives. If we dehumanize differing others as “Nazis, fascists, racists, etc.”, then we can make ourselves feel justified in the destruction/extermination of such people. Much like the relief that most of us embrace due to the Allies defeating the actual Nazis in WW2. Maybe not gleeful celebration but gratefulness that such a scourge was ended.

But this man was not a Nazi. Those celebrating Kirk’s murder illustrates the outcome of the relentless smearing of the differing others among us as evil monsters. The smearing of others as “Nazis, fascists, racists” has been so consistent over the past 10 years that many minds among us have been entirely deformed and now see violence as necessary to stop their fellow citizens from expressing their “dangerous” views that differ.

“The silencing of Charlie Kirk”, The Tim Dillon Show, number 461

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsWRClaBYI4

As Dillon says, I would never want any of the people I disagree with to die, to be shot in front of their children, as Charlie Kirk was.

And this…

This now the increasing reality in the US… I think of even comedian Bill Burr shouting “Free Mangione” during an interview.

As others have noted, the term “Hate speech” is now used by too many to define any who disagree with Woke Progressive views (DEI, trans ideology, etc.), including fellow liberals. This “concept creep” on the term “hate speech” now includes the disagreeing political/social views of opponents. And this loosening of hate speech limits now drives the censorship laws in Europe that liberals/leftists there want to implement worldwide. Including the arrest and imprisoning of those who express differing opinions online (differing from government approved opinions/speech), as is now happening at increasing rates in Britain (30 a day, 12,000 a year) and other places (Germany, Brazil, etc.).

https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-struggle-30-arrests-a-day-censorship/

“Bob Vylan responds to Charlie Kirk’s assassination with ‘rest in piss’ comment during his show: Bob Vylan made inflammatory remarks at Amsterdam concert after Kirk was gunned down at Utah university”, David Spector, Sept. 15, 2025

https://www.foxnews.com/media/bob-vylan-responds-charlie-kirks-assassination-rest-piss-comment-during-his-show

Quotes from article:

“’Assassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump’, Kirk wrote in a post April 7, 2025.

“The conservative activist linked to a poll suggesting a massive cultural shift occurred after Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

“After Kirk’s assassination, many on the left appeared to celebrate that attack, or imply that he had it coming due to his conservative views.

“Ex-MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd called Kirk ‘one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures’ upon learning of his murder, and said he was constantly pushing ‘hate speech’.”

(End of quotes)

What has happened to “liberal” that once meant the protection of the rights and freedoms of all, equally? As in the “Classic Liberal” principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions of liberal democracy?

Many on the left are pushing back, arguing that we should judge people as individuals not as collectives. To do what Martin Luther King did. But it has become undeniable that the use of political violence has become somewhat more pronounced on what is known as the political “left” in our liberal democracies. And as many have noted for comparison, after Kirk’s murder there have been no riots, looting, burning of stores and police stations, as we saw following George Floyd’s death. The BLM leadership was, by self-admission, Marxist.

I asked Grok to check this:

’Assassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump’, Kirk wrote in a post April 7, 2025. Grok, is this advocacy for political violence a more serious problem on the left?

Grok responded:

The quote you provided is accurate and comes from a post by Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) on X (formerly Twitter) dated April 7, 2025. In it, he references a poll from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a nonpartisan research group focused on online extremism and misinformation. The post included an image of the poll graphic and expanded on concerns about left-wing protest culture contributing to violence.

Fact-Checking the Specific Claim

The NCRI poll in question, titled “Assassination Culture Brief,” was based on a survey of 1,264 U.S. adults conducted via Prime Panels (a market research platform) and weighted to match Census demographics on age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and party ID from Pew Research. Respondents self-identified their ideology (e.g., far left, liberal, slightly liberal for “left-of-center”; slightly conservative, conservative, far right for “right-of-center”). The survey measured attitudes toward political violence using a 1-7 scale (1 = “not at all justified,” 7 = “completely justified”), with scores of 2-7 indicating “at least somewhat justified.”

Key results for the questions on murdering high-profile figures (paraphrased as assessing justification for such acts):

• Elon Musk: Overall, 31% of respondents said it was at least somewhat justified. Among left-of-center respondents, 50% said so (including 11% who rated it “completely justified”). Right-of-center support was lower (exact figure not broken out, but implied by the overall average).

• Donald Trump: Overall, 38% said at least somewhat justified. Among left-of-center, 56% (including 14% “completely justified”). Again, lower among right-of-center.

(Note: Kirk’s post rounded to 48% and 55%, likely due to slight variations in categorization or reporting, but the underlying data aligns closely.) The poll also found correlations between support for such violence and factors like left-wing authoritarianism (a psychological scale measuring dogmatic progressive views), heavy use of platforms like Bluesky, and tolerance for property destruction (e.g., 40% overall said destroying a Tesla dealership in protest was at least somewhat acceptable). NCRI argued this reflects a broader “normalization” of assassination rhetoric online, amplified post-2024 events like assassination attempts on Trump.

Is Advocacy for Political Violence More Serious on the Left?

This is a subjective question, but we can evaluate it based on available polling data from 2024-2025, which tracks attitudes toward political violence (e.g., justification for violence to achieve goals, celebrating opponents’ deaths, or specific acts). Overall, majorities of Americans across the spectrum reject political violence—typically 70-80% say it’s “never justified”—and actual incidents remain rare (fewer than 2% of people report personally engaging in or planning it). However, support for it in the abstract has ticked up slightly since 2020, driven by polarization, and recent data shows partisan asymmetries.

Here’s a summary of key recent polls comparing liberals/Democrats vs. conservatives/Republicans:

Poll/Source Date Key Question/Findings Democrats/Liberals Republicans/Conservatives
NCRI Assassination Culture Brief (1,264 adults) Early 2025 (exact date not specified) Justification for murdering Trump or Musk (at least somewhat) 56% (Trump), 50% (Musk) Lower (overall avg. pulls it down; ~20-30% implied)

YouGov (for Newsweek) (2,623 adults) Sept. 11, 2025 Violence justified to achieve political goals? 14% say yes (72% never) 6% say yes (81% never)

YouGov (post-Kirk assassination) (sample size not specified in summary) Sept. 2025 Acceptable to celebrate death of opposed public figure? 11% say usually/always (71% unacceptable) 6% say usually/always (89% unacceptable)

PRRI American Values Survey (5,000+ voters) Oct. 2024 (updated 2025 analysis) True patriots may need violence to save country? 15% agree overall; Dems lower (~10%) 23% agree overall; Reps higher (~30%), especially among Christian nationalists (33%)

States United Democracy Center (national sample) June 2024 (tracked to 2025) Political violence a major problem? Support for it rising? 45% see as major problem; ~10% justify in some cases Similar overall, but Reps more likely to justify against “threats to democracy” (e.g., 20% in subsets)

General trend from multiple polls (e.g., NPR/Ipsos, Visual Capitalist)

2024-2025 Violence ever justified for political goals? 11-14% say sometimes; higher among younger libs (18-29: ~20%) 6-11% say sometimes; higher among older cons in 2024 data

• Trends favoring higher left-leaning support: The NCRI poll highlights stark asymmetry for violence against right-leaning figures like Musk and Trump, tying it to online rhetoric (e.g., Bluesky posts glorifying assassins). The September 2025 YouGov poll—conducted right after Charlie Kirk’s assassination—shows Democrats twice as likely as Republicans to justify violence or celebrate deaths. Experts like Peter Loge (George Washington University) note that while support is low, it’s often higher among liberals for “progressive” causes (e.g., anti-corporate or anti-Trump actions), and younger demographics (more liberal) are 2-3x more tolerant. Post-2024 election data also shows left-leaning protests (e.g., against deportations or Gaza policy) correlating with more permissive attitudes toward disruption.

• Trends favoring higher right-leaning support: Earlier 2024 PRRI data showed Republicans more supportive of violence to “save the country” (e.g., 23% vs. 15% for Dems), especially among white Christian nationalists (a right-leaning group). 2022-2023 polls (e.g., from Psychology Today citing PRRI) had Republicans at 40% supporting violence vs. 23% Democrats, linked to election denialism and Jan. 6 rhetoric. Right-wing violence has been more lethal in recent years (e.g., FBI data: 75% of extremist murders 2010-2023 from right-wing sources), though left-wing incidents (e.g., property damage in protests) are more frequent but less deadly.

• Overall context: Support remains marginal (under 15% in most cases), but it’s bidirectional and fueled by echo chambers—liberals overestimate right-wing violence (75% see it as bigger issue), conservatives the opposite (66%). Experts (e.g., in Politico and Washington Post analyses) emphasize that both sides’ media ecosystems amplify threats, but the left’s recent uptick in polls may stem from frustration over 2024 outcomes and figures like Musk/Trump symbolizing opposition. No side has a monopoly, but for advocacy targeting specific conservative icons, the data leans toward it being more pronounced on the left in 2025.

In short, while political violence advocacy is a bipartisan concern with low but rising tolerance, recent evidence (especially the NCRI and post-Kirk polls) suggests it’s manifesting more acutely on the left for high-profile cases like those Kirk highlighted. Addressing it requires leaders on both sides to condemn it unequivocally, as polls show that reduces support across the board.

(End of Grok quotes)

The beginning of all healthy and proper human development and growth depends on first admitting where there are problems, responsibly acknowledging the nature of problems, not dismissing, downplaying, or denying them.

Joe Rogan makes an interesting point on the “bot farms” that are financed by foreign states like China that pretend to be fellow citizens in, for example, the US population and though bots try to sow discord between groups/people. They try to incite outrage, hatred, and fighting among liberal democracy citizens. Some of the hatred and fighting is organic, from smaller minorities says Rogan, but a lot is this outside influence trying to disrupt and ruin liberal democracies. Rogan notes reports on this:

“Joe Rogan Experience #2378 – Charlie Sheen”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRj5pxG2JPk&t=2237s

And these on bot farms…

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/09/g-s1-9010/russia-bot-farm-ai-disinformation

https://www.fastcompany.com/91321143/bot-farms-social-media-manipulation

More on the freedom file.

Good on the “Brandenburg standard” as defining free speech limits.

Agreed that the right is now embracing “eye for eye” retaliation in seeking exposure, threat, and criminalization of the offensive speech of those celebrating Kirks murder.

This from below: “The response on the political right has been no less dangerous: the urge to answer a murder with censorship or official punishment of vile speech.”

And that is what the author notes below that will damage free speech which is fundamental to all freedom.

“Bury the ‘Words are Violence’ cliché. We need maximal tolerance for speech; zero tolerance for force”, Greg Lukianoff, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/bury-the-words-are-violence-cliche?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

“TEACH STUDENTS THAT OBJECTIONABLE SPEECH IS VIOLENCE AND YOU INVITE THEM TO SEE THEIR OWN AGGRESSION AS SELF-DEFENSE,” WRITES GREG LUKIANOFF.

Lukianoff notes that news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination sparked many to celebrate, claiming it was karma payback for his spreading “hate, racism, misinformation, bigotry… reap what you sow”. They claimed that Kirk deserved to die for his words, but Lukianoff says that they have forgotten a crucial distinction that words are not violence and he has warned for years “that equating words with violence erases the bright line liberal societies drew after centuries of bloodshed. The law draws this line with precision. Advocacy, even vile advocacy, remains protected unless it is intended and likely to produce imminent lawless action. That’s the Brandenburg standard, and it exists because the alternative is to let the powerful decide which ideas are allowed.”

He continues, stating that a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment is that government may not prohibit speech that some people find offensive because such a principle is a safety valve of pluralism. Unfortunately, university campuses have been eroding such critical distinctions and now tell students that offensive ideas are “harm”, “silence is violence”, and “speech can be literally’ violence.”

He says that “Teach students that objectionable speech is violence and you invite them to see their own aggression as self-defense. This is the bloody fallacy we just witnessed: Accept the premise that rhetoric is a physical attack and you hand extremists a moral permission slip to answer speech with force. “

He then details surveys that show many students now believe that it is valid to use coercion and violence to stop speech they disagree with. He illustrates with a variety of actual incidents where students have used aggression to shut down speakers, destroyed property, to now using violence against someone they did not like.

He moves on to note that the response on the political right has been similarly dangerous in urging censorship and punishment of the vile speech of opponents after the Kirk murder. We now hear of people being reprimanded, suspended, and even losing jobs over such speech. This retaliation further acts to chill free speech public debate.

How to respond to the speech that offends us? “The lesson we must relearn: Ugly speech is answered with more speech, not legal process. Investigate true threats and incitement under settled law; otherwise, keep the public square open.”

Lukianoff repeats his argument that we must reject the “words are violence” cliché. Further, he says that we must restore the atmosphere of universities as places to vigorously debate dangerous ideas and exercise maximum tolerance for speech with zero tolerance for force. Then, do not reward disruption of speech but discipline those who do so. And encourage the bravery to do what Charlie Kirk did- to talk to people, argue your ideas, listen to others.

He concludes:

“Free speech is not merely a favor for our friends— it is the best nonviolent technology humans have for solving our conflicts. To honor a man who died while speaking, don’t gag his enemies or canonize his ideas. Rebuild a culture that says no idea is so sacred it can’t be challenged and no person so despised they can be murdered in cold blood for speaking. Highest tolerance for speech. Zero tolerance for violence.”

Keep the line bright. Civilization depends on it.

And this on universities failing on so many issues critical to preparing students who will affirm, promote, and protect the Classic Liberal principles, systems of law, and representative institutions that undergird liberal democracy and maintain the rights and freedoms of all, equally.

“FIRST READING: How Canadian universities became cheering sections for political violence: Multiple Canadian professors took to social media to cheer the public murder of U.S. political commentator Charlie Kirk”, Tristan Hopper, Sept. 15, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/how-canadian-universities-became-cheering-sections-for-political-violence?itm_source=index

He opens, “When a wave of Canadian figures took to social media this week to publicly celebrate the assassination of U.S. political commentator Charlie Kirk, it shouldn’t have been all that surprising that a disproportionate number of them worked in academia.”

He explains, “Kirk was murdered at a university while engaging in a very university-like activity: Peacefully debating students who disagreed with him. Nevertheless, calls for the act to be repeated were loudest among those whose workplace was a university.”

He then gives examples of vile expressions of celebration by varied professors at different universities. He notes the similar celebration of Hamas over previous years. And the urging of repeated acts of “anticolonial resistance.”

Hopper adds that “This is all occurring on campuses where rising numbers of Canadian students are reporting discomfort with the extremism around them, and are actively censoring their own views to avoid sanction at the hands of faculty or administrators….

“’Liberals basically feel free to say anything they want on any subject, regardless of consequences — that’s not an overstatement — while moderates and conservatives and libertarians feel like they have to radically self-censor, if they want to avoid consequences for their beliefs,’ the foundation’s research director David Hunt told the National Post.”

This article is valuable for understanding media (news and social media), public narratives, how propagandizing people works, and the influence of ideas on human beings, what outcomes are likely. This illustrates the dangerous consequences when some in a society are demonized and dehumanized as a dangerous threat to the society.

“Charlie Kirk murder an example of how cancel culture leads to violence: When elites work to exclude certain viewpoints, when they brand voices as too extreme to be heard, they create the conditions for violence”, Christopher Dummitt, Sept. 16, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/charlie-kirk-murder-an-example-of-how-cancel-culture-leads-to-violence?itm_source=opinion

Dummitt begins noting the reactions to the murder of Charlie Kirk by politicians and media forums. He then says “In Canada especially there is a jarring irony. Many of the same politicians and commentators now denouncing violence have spent years working to marginalize voices like Kirk’s.”

He says that not just the “left” but also the “mushy middle” has portrayed Kirk and Canadian conservative equivalents as “too extreme, too dangerous for legitimate political debate.” He gives several examples of Canadian politicians who have demonized conservative voices and tried to criminalize their speech. That criminalization happened under Trudeau’s government with an “online harms bill” that that would label conservative information as “misinformation”. Meaning- information that liberals disagreed with, information that, for example, challenged immigration policy, that challenged trans ideology, and the gender transformation of young people, etc.

Dummitt says that “many of those now solemnly decrying political violence are the same people who worked to exclude and discredit figures like Kirk. They consistently presented conservative viewpoints as too radical to be considered, casting their advocates as unsafe or illegitimate. In sociological terms, they “othered” them, treating them as outside the bounds of acceptable discourse.”

In another National Post article, David Cayley shows how former PM Trudeau did this with the 2022 trucker’s protest. Cayley says, “They were not treated as an emergent public with something important to say. Instead, they were treated as an invading army, and, finally, as a grave threat to national security. ‘These people,’ Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, are ‘often racists’ and ‘misogynists’ who ‘don’t believe in science’ and who hold ‘unacceptable opinions’.”

From- “How CBC botched coverage of the Freedom Convoy: At no point, did the CBC acknowledge the protest as a political phenomenon that deserved to be carefully examined”, Sept. 16, 2025.

Dummitt continues, stating how Canadian liberals warned of the danger of conservative ideas but did not explain exactly which ideas and why they were dangerous.

“Stories about alleged racism or transphobia often omit the actual words supposedly at issue, justified by the claim that quoting them would ‘revictimize’ marginalized groups. The result is that conservative perspectives are swept aside under a cloud of insinuation.”

Conservative ideas were smeared as “alt-right”. “Once labelled, their ideas can be ignored without engagement. It is reputation destruction by association, a form of ad hominem that saves elites from having to reckon with the arguments themselves.”

Dummitt concludes: “When political and media elites work to exclude certain viewpoints, when they brand voices as too extreme or unsafe to be heard, they help create the conditions for violence. They construct a climate in which an unstable individual can come to believe that silencing an opponent by force is justified.”

He says, of such extremism, that those who narrow the range of acceptable debate fuel polarization, exclusion, and extremism. They create an environment where opposing voices are marginalized as “dangerous extremism” and that can produce deadly consequences.

Richard Landes (“Heaven On Earth”) has traced the trajectory of apocalyptic millennial movements. Apocalyptic millennialism promotes the narrative that is fundamental to the ideologies of Marxists/leftists. Landes noted that when an apocalyptic millennial movement begins to fail then disillusioned followers of the movement become desperate and double down, much like Tim Walz stated a while back at a rally, “We Democrats have to double down on Woke”. Some even make the shift to the “exterminate or be exterminated” phase. They move to desperate measures. Anything now goes to save the crusade, to keep it going. We are also seeing this “doubling down” in desperation with the climate alarmism crusade.

Note the article below reporting on surveys showing political violence may be a “bothsideism” issue, with perhaps a shift to the left recently.

This latest from Michael Shellenberger:

“Left’s Dehumanization Of MAGA Behind Rising Support For Violence: Decrying Charlie Kirk’s assassination isn’t enough”, Michael Shellenberger, Alex Gutentag, Sep 11, 2025

https://www.public.news/p/lefts-dehumanization-of-maga-behind

Shellenberger and Gutentag, along with others, argue that the dehumanization/demonization of conservatives over past decades as “far-right, Nazis, fascists” has produced the current climate that legitimizes and validates violence against such people.

“The environment that led to Kirk’s death was created by the Left in its decades-long demonization and dehumanization of conservatives. For 80 years, schools, universities, and the media have used Hitler, Nazism, and fascism as symbols of ultimate evil. To call someone a “Nazi,” “fascist,” or “far-Right,” is therefore to imply that they are part of this evil, and like the historical Nazis, must be eliminated. Over the last 10 years, not just the radical Left but the mainstream news media, including the New York Times, and mainstream Democrats like Newsom, repeatedly characterized Trump and his supporters as Hitler-adjacent fascists. The New Republic openly depicted Trump as Hitler.”

They add that this was part of a deliberate dehumanization campaign and progressives who believe that opponents like Kirk are a dangerous threat to democracy now feel justified in killing such evil threats. The authors say that the Left hates Kirk for challenging their beliefs on gender, race, and feminism.

“The Left cannot tolerate these challenges to its worldview, so it resorts to censorship and silencing.” And those who cannot be censored must now be eliminated by assassination.

Shellenberger and Gutentag conclude: “It’s simply not good enough for Democratic politicians like Newsom and news media outlets like the New York Times, who spent the last decade dehumanizing millions of their fellow citizens, including Trump and Kirk, to simply say that they shouldn’t be killed. If they truly oppose political violence, they should apologize for their relentless false accusations of racism and bigotry, and they should try to make amends by humanizing conservatives. The media, Democrats, and the wider Left must stop portraying MAGA supporters, who have Christian, nationalist, and conservative views, as equivalent to Nazis and fascists through the use of loaded terms like ‘far-Right’.”

Along with ceasing the dehumanization of opponents as ultimate evil, leftists need to stop the demonization Western civilization as corrupt and evil.

(End of Shellenberger/Gutentag article)

And this comment from “Efferous”:

“The single biggest facilitator in all of it is the leftist media. They’ve profited for decades on controlling and steering the narrative with little or no consequence to themselves.”

Insert: I appreciate the effort made by Jimmy Kimmel, among many others, to decry violence following the senseless murder of Charlie Kirk.

He said, “Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human?… On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”

Yes, not “finger-pointing”, but we should constantly be trying to understand the main contributing factors to violence across history, why it constantly erupts among us, what feeds it, what things incite and validate our worst impulses to resort to violence toward one another.

This site is committed to understanding and explaining such things as the narrative themes that have been uncovered as the main contributing influences to some of the worst outbreaks of violence across past millennia, notably in the last century in the mass-death crusades of Marxism, Nazism, and now environmental alarmism.

Bad ideas/beliefs have been exposed for inciting and validating the unleashing of tribal hatred against differing others, for inciting/validating the impulse to crush, vanquish, and dominate the differing other, and for inciting and validating the impulse to vengefully destroy the differing other that we demonize and dehumanize as an evil threat to our world and therefore to “save the world” we must exterminate that threat.

We know better today the psychopathologies behind violence. It is our responsibility to respond, to make the changes required, and show that we will take the actions necessary to lessen and remove the curse of violence from our societies.

This on the spread of support for assassination culture:

“The left embraces the ‘assassination culture’ that Charlie Kirk warned about: Progressives are celebrating his murder all over social media”, Michael Murphy, Sep 11, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/michael-murphy-the-left-embraces-the-assassination-culture-that-charlie-kirk-warned-about?itm_source=index

Murphy says that Charlie Kirk grasped that point that “If people cannot debate differences of opinion in a civil and robust manner, violence has, throughout history and with alarming speed, shown itself to be the logical next step.” And he was murdered for the crime of “encouraging open debate”.

Murphy notes that there are many on the left who have “for years hysterically demonized mainstream conservatives as ‘literal Nazis’.” And most people have been taught from childhood that the only appropriate response to Nazis is uncompromising force to crush and eliminate.

He continues, showing reports that state a growing number of Americans now think that political murder is justified, “More than half of left-leaning respondents agreed it would be at least ‘somewhat justified’ to kill Donald Trump, while 48 per cent said the same for Elon Musk.”

Kirk had said just months ago, “Assassination culture is spreading on the left… This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.”

Murphy adds, “Progressive lawmakers and unruly activists have, wittingly or otherwise, created a culture of permissiveness around political violence,” and he notes how left-wing activists swooned over Luigi Mangione after he murdered a health insurance CEO.

He then states that the growing acceptance of political assassination by leftists is “the last gasp of an ‘ancien régime’ trying to claw back legitimacy through violence.”

Murphy concludes: “Those who promiscuously accuse others of Nazism while excusing murder are neither kind nor compassionate. They are engineering a culture of political violence. Beneath the nose piercings and the “trauma” and the university degrees, they are modern-day brownshirts.”

“Michael Murphy is a journalist based in London. He writes for the Daily Telegraph and presented the documentary ‘Ireland is full! Anti-immigration backlash in Ireland’. You can follow him on X: @michaelmurph_y.”

The battle for freedom never ceases, Wendell Krossa

The assault on liberal democracy freedom comes from varied places today. There is the Islamic immigration where a significant percentage of migrating people hate liberal democracies, and as stated by one spokesperson in Britain, “We are coming, not to take part, but to take over” with hopes of turning Western liberal democracies into Islamic theocracies. See the report below on the Muslim Brotherhood statement of this project to overturn liberal democracy. This illustrates the failures of “multi-culturalism” policies that do not insist that immigrants embrace the principles of liberal democracy.

And there is the “red” element in the loose “red/green” cooperation, again noted in articles below. Statements by Chinese leadership of their “long game” approach to bringing down Western liberal democracy by such projects as “the long march through the institutions”, infiltrating universities to indoctrinate new generations of Western youth. And they have succeeded with, for example, some 50%-plus of US youth now preferring socialism as the way to organize society. Add the success of majority support for Marxist candidate Mamdani in the New York mayor race.

The response of all who value freedom? Make clear Thomas Sowell’s “test of facts”. The outcomes of the differing approaches to organizing human societies. Teach your children well. Tell them of the past century and the 24 failed socialist experiments that led to the murder of over 100 million people and destroyed every society that it touched. Look carefully at one of the latest experiments of Marxism/socialism in Venezuela, a resource-rich country that was once one of the wealthiest on the planet.

Hugo Chavez promised that his experiment in socialism would be different, as socialists repeatedly promise after every failed experiment. The next one will be different. We just need another chance to prove that our approach is the best. See Kristian Niemietz’s history of these 24 repeated failures over the past century in “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”.

And tell your children of the successes of liberal democracy based on Classic Liberal principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions. How it led to billions lifted out of poverty and provided the environment for free people to create all that we value in life today- i.e. lessening violence, improved human well-being, and the ability to care for nature (with ever-increasing wealth) as never before in history.

Encourage your children to read these good sources:

Arthur Herman’s “The Idea of Decline in Western History” and “The Cave and the Light: Plato versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization”, Joshua Muravchik’s “Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism”, Richard Landes’ “Heaven On Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience”, Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence”, Daniel Hannan’s “Inventing Freedom”, Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource”, and so much more comparative research on which approach to organizing human society accomplishes “the most good for the most people”.

Added note: Responsibility for what we promote in public. There are good ideas and there are bad ideas.

The narrative themes that we promote have a powerful influence on people in real life. Bad narrative themes incite and validate our worst impulses, notably the evil triad of tribalism, domination, and vengeful destruction of differing and competing others. We know exactly which ideas/themes these are.

Or narrative themes can counter these animal impulses (i.e. non-retaliation, non-violence, love your enemy) with ideas/themes that inspire and affirm our better angels.

This is fact and has been outlined carefully by historians like Riichard Landes, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, Arthur Herman, and others. They detail with historical evidence how bad ideas/beliefs have incited too much bad behavior among people. And get this- the bad ideas they uncover are “religious ideas”. These ideas (notably, “apocalyptic millennialism”) incited and validated the Marxist and Nazi mass-death crusades across the last century and now shape the environmental alarmism crusade.

This has all been documented with careful historical detail. See the sources listed just above.

We are all responsible for the themes that we embrace and promote in public. Our narrative themes impact/influence real people, especially those susceptible to literalism and extremism, pushing them toward actual violence.

Some have noted this with the transgender activist movement whose members have been told that they are victims suffering genocidal assault and so must act with desperate measures to save their world.

This article reports on surveys that show both right and left are likely to turn to violence to “save our country”.

“Charlie Kirk was a private citizen. His assassination puts us all in peril: May we all live long enough to see a world in which politics matter far less”, J. D. Tuccille, Sept. 12, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/j-d-tuccille-charlie-kirk-was-a-private-citizen-his-assassination-puts-us-all-in-peril?itm_source=opinion

Quotes from article:

“Charlie Kirk’s whole role was to debate and persuade young people through his Turning Point USA organization. He was shot at Utah Valley University while speaking at a Prove Me Wrong event that allowed his opponents to challenge him and discuss differences of opinion. The only harm he could have done was by voicing his beliefs and, perhaps, changing some minds. That is, Kirk was almost certainly assassinated for no other reason than that his murderer disagreed with his ideas…

“Over the years, political violence has targeted people and property associated with both the political left and the political right. More recently, researchers worked from the assumption that the right is more likely to turn to force than the left. Polling in April 2024 by PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist found that one in five “U.S. adults believe Americans may have to resort to violence to get their own country back on track.” That sentiment was held by 28 per cent of Republicans, 18 per cent of independents, and 12 per cent of Democrats, supporting the received wisdom. But a lot can change in a few months.

“Since that poll, we’ve seen numerous violent incidents, an election that overturned control of the White House, and growing political frustration. Something seemed to shift in the American psyche…

“Surveying attendees at progressive demonstrations in Washington, D.C., American University’s Professor Dana R. Fisher found a surprising number — 33 per cent of those at the People’s March in January and 35 per cent at the Stand Up for Science rally in March – thought “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” She commented, “Left-leaning Americans participating in peaceful, legally permitted demonstrations are starting to believe that political violence will be necessary to save America.”…

“After the assassination of Brian Thompson, The Network Contagion Research Institute and the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab reported “widespread justification for lethal violence — including assassination — among younger, highly online, and ideologically left-aligned users.” The report warned, “online normalization of political violence may increasingly translate into offline action.”

“Nobody has found evidence that the right has become less violent, but the assassination of Kirk is further evidence that the left is at least as prone to use force if not more so.”

In the interview below of Douglas Murray (link provided) please note Murray’s good advice to those, especially young people, inspired by Charlie Kirk, to not give way to the temptation to respond with vengeance or similar violence, but to emulate what Kirk did and respond with common decency and courtesy to opponents/disagreeing others, even those screaming abuse. Murray’s point- don’t succumb to the temptation to sink down and meet opponents on their terms with similar hatred and violence. He notes that right up till he was shot, Kirk was arguing that we need to explore ideas, to talk, discuss, and debate civilly, without violence.

Here is the Murray interview: “Douglas Murray and Rita Panahi respond to Charlie Kirk assassination”, Sky News Australia, Sept. 10, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxcrcv1MVvQ

Rubin it in (as in “rubbing in”), Wendell Krossa

Good comment in this report (The Rubin Report- the podcast of a Classic Liberal) on how “the left” has politicized crime to fit their narrative that “racializes everything”. This appears driven by the motivation to smear opponents nonstop with the “racist” pejorative, to affirm the leftist narrative of the intolerable “evil” of all who disagree. That has resulted in the current mainstream media commentary that any concern for crime is racism, especially where skin differences are involved (i.e. the Charlotte stabbing of a Ukrainian immigrant).

Rubin notes that the left projects onto their opponents on the right that they are “politicizing crime”. We have seen this endless projection from Democrats over past years. (And to “leftie” friends and readers, this is not picking on one side only. If similar threat was emanating from the right in a significant manner, I, as fiercely independent and Classic Liberal, would jump on that also. It’s just that many on the left side- Democrats, those formerly identifying as “liberal”- are now mainly exhibiting this madness.)

The pathology of “projection” is where people refuse to acknowledge their own faults, and in some irresponsible state of denial, they deflect or redirect their guilt by projecting their faults onto others, usually their “enemies”. They exhibit what Jesus cautioned against- to not judge and condemn others for a “speck” in their eye, when you have a “beam” in your own eye. Only a Karl Jung could sort out what this is about, probably something to do with one’s own “Shadow” and the felt need to respond to that inner monstrosity and project it out onto others. You know- the “subconscious” stuff Jung was on about.

Rubin says the constant projecting of their far worse failures onto their opponents, and demonizing them as “the evil ones destroying democracy”, is why trust in “Woke Progressive” mainstream media has collapsed. Mainstream media are no longer doing journalism but have shifted to become the propaganda arm for the now far-left Woke Democratic Party.

In response, the millions of people that have left mainstream media, including many Democrats, have now shifted to alternative podcast news forums.

Just an insert: Note in this interview of Douglas Murray, his comment that it is the left that constantly talks about the “hatred” on the right when it is actually their hatred projected out to those disagreeing others. He adds, that where, from the Conservative side, you will get the view that others are wrong but not evil, whereas from the left the narrative is that disagreeing others are irredeemably “evil”, followed with dangerous dehumanization of those disagreeing others. Murray notes that Kirk stated, for example, that there are two sexes, male and female. A statement of fact that those on the left now call “hate speech… speech as violence”. Murray says that such statements-of-fact used to be allowed and respected in America. He says that it has become a terrible situation today in America and the West that such statements of obvious truth, held by millions, are today smeared as “hate speech”.

Note, Rita Panahi opens this interview with a clip of Charlie Kirk arguing for open debate and free speech, and not resorting to violence.

“Douglas Murray and Rita Panahi respond to Charlie Kirk assassination”, Sky News Australia, Sept. 10, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxcrcv1MVvQ

Continuing with Rubin Report…

Rubin repeats his good points on how Democrats racialize most everything today, even when it’s not about race but about the crime that has been committed. He says the issue with the Ukrainian lady killed on the subway is about criminal justice policies that release violent offenders repeatedly to further harm others. That is the failure of a deformed version of compassion that virtue-signals for moral status, and the outcomes of such policies result in horrific harm to others. Gad Saad defines such left-wing compassion as “suicidal empathy”.

The Charlotte train murder also brings up the larger public issue of race, or should we say the new racism- “Woke racism” (John McWhorter). And no matter the crime committed against whom, skin color now determines who is the victim and the victimizer. Hence, the repeated Democratic siding with violent offenders because they are black or brown, and denying or downplaying harm done to whites because they are condemned to “victimizer” status based on skin color. It is a simple-minded tribal dualism that has resulted in the absurdity that we see daily on mainstream media of guilty white elites (self-inflicted guilt over the past racism of their forebears) defending violent criminals and ignoring, downplaying, or outright denying the harm committed against white victims.

Such is the new discrimination validated by the victim/victimizer categories of neo-collectivism. No different from traditional Marxism that divides humanity into only two classes- one all good and the other all evil.

So today we have from the left the narrative of the evil of whites as all oppressors (“there is no form of being white that is good”). This message is repeatedly pushed by neo-racists like Joy Reid, Sonny Hostin, and similar others. How does such messaging in public impact fringe types and mentally unbalanced people? How are people in minority communities responding to narratives that tell them that they are being assaulted by “Hitler, Nazis, fascists, dictators” and must act to defend selves from such oppression and assault?

Add, for example, Nancy Pelosi years ago urging people to make her political opponent’s lives miserable. Or Joy Reid stating that they, Far-left Woke Democrats, must now resort to the same violence that was used by Kyle Rittenhouse on the other side. Fighting fire with fire. Eye for eye vengeance.

This podcast by Rubin is useful for illustrating how we position ourselves within our own versions of the “hero’s quest”, a story of good versus evil that is framed by Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism that posits an unchallengeable Good versus an unsalvageable Evil that must be conquered, eliminated, destroyed. We are urged to be heroes who go forth to engage a righteous battle of good warriors fighting evil enemies that must be vanquished, even exterminated, in order to save something under existential threat.

When we position ourselves as the good guys nobly fighting a righteous battle against irredeemably evil enemies, whom we must exterminate, the tendency is then to demonize our opponents as excessively and irredeemably evil. Righteous heroes/saviors feel the need to dehumanize entirely their enemies as necessary to validate why they must destroy them. And be “righteous” in doing so. Again, that pathology of “killing the right people” as required to attain a better future.

In such situations of intense oppositional and tribal dualism we cannot admit the destructive outcomes of our policies (i.e. recidivism violence from repeatedly released violent offenders) as that would challenge us to question our positions and such doubt would weaken our narrative as noble heroes on the righteous or “just” side of issues. Many view such reflection as threatening to their very identity and that becomes a survival issue, hence desperate defensiveness against any challenge or questioning.

Further, we are impelled by our fundamental need to virtue signal for moral status in society, to frame ourselves as the superior compassionate heroes. Hence, the denial of any harmful outcomes of our salvation schemes.

We cannot admit to ourselves that our narrative and policies may actually embody and exhibit “salvation through destruction”.

Self-convinced righteous saviors refuse to undermine their views of the battle of good against evil and consider that maybe they are the ones actually promoting evil (though projecting such onto their opponents). My point- These features from larger narrative themes and frameworks can deform our personal outlooks and render us irrational and in denial of factual outcomes. Thomas Sowell wisely argued for all of us to rationally consider “the test of facts” on the outcomes to policies that any of us promote.

Further, many today are probing the psychopathology behind the leftwing madness that has been unleashed today, the impulses to intensified tribalism, to domination of others, and then to destroy the disagreeing other (Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn are among the more helpful probers in this regard). We watch mainstream media daily demonize and dehumanize disagreeing others with exaggerated portrayals of opponents as threats to life, threats to democracy and hence deserving censorship (purveyors of “dangerous disinformation” because they disagree with Far-left Woke Progressivism). We have endured past years of the left banning disagreeing others from social media, cancelling those “evil others” by ruining reputations and careers, and even criminalizing. This criminalization of opponents continues (even accelerating) in formerly liberal democracies like Britain. What psychopathology drives all this?

It is the outcome of endlessly smearing differing others with the worst possible pejoratives as “Nazis, Hitler, racists, fascists”. This has divided citizens of the same country and intensified feelings of tribal hatred with the consequent outcome of an eruption of “anti-DEI” mania from those claiming DEI as their supreme ideal. People now, mainly on the far-left, promote (1) the exclusion of differing others (even family, with refusal to share meals), they (2) reject diversity now as “evil” (those daring to disagree with Woke Progressivism), and (3) refuse to treat differing others as equals.

Again, noting the projection pathology, we have a new racism, a new discrimination, from the very people who claim moral superiority as the great social justice warriors battling racism. They now promote Woke Racism where all issues are racialized, even concern over crime. Brian Stelter epitomized this recently. See just the first minute or so of this video clip- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnpjUlvQ6Ak

Note: On this site, my own probing of the psychopathology driving the above issues, covered by Rubin, considers the core narrative themes (i.e. “bad religious ideas”) that validate our worst inherited impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others/enemies.

Added point to this Rubin Report:

The policies enacted in Democrat-run cities over past years (i.e. de-carceration, decriminalization of crimes, etc.) are not the logical or common-sense outcome of holding an unconditional ideal. They are not the sole required application of restorative justice approaches. Democrat polices tend to embrace a deformity of some kind of pacifist extremism with “moral suasion” features that do not work in a world with varied elements such as psychopathy, mental illness (e.g. untreated schizophrenia among homeless), and people unable or unwilling to control their worst impulses.

We all have to beware of yielding to an irresponsible lack of common sense when confronting repeat violent offenders, that too often results in harm to innocent people because of our priority concern to “virtue signal for moral superiority status” against our “enemies”.

The Rubin Report:

“Charlie Kirk notices something in the Charlotte stabbing that most are afraid to admit”, The Rubin Report, Sept. 9, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3-bOlqL0mM

My question for Grok re the fact that it is a small percentage of people who commit most of the violent crimes. My point would be criminal justice reform that did not imprison nonviolent offenders but put in programs that include paying restitution to victims. Again, the number one priority of government to protect citizens from physical assault. And again, I am not agreeing with all that Grok comes back with.

Grok responded:

It’s a well-documented pattern that a small fraction of individuals is responsible for a disproportionate share of violent crime. Data from criminology studies, like those based on arrest records or longitudinal cohort analyses, often show that roughly 5-10% of offenders account for 50% or more of violent incidents in a given area. This holds across contexts— urban, suburban, or rural— and is consistent with things like the Pareto principle applied to crime.

The reasons are complex but often tie back to a mix of socioeconomic factors, psychological traits, and environmental influences. Repeat offenders tend to cluster in high-risk groups: people with prior convictions, exposure to trauma, substance abuse issues, or those stuck in cycles of poverty and gang involvement. For example, studies on urban violence in the U.S. point to gang-affiliated individuals, often less than 1% of a city’s population, driving a huge chunk of homicides and aggravated assaults.

This concentration suggests targeted interventions— like focused deterrence programs or cognitive behavioral therapy for at-risk groups— can be effective without broad overreach. But it also raises tough questions about balancing prevention with civil liberties, since profiling or over-policing can spiral into bigger problems. The flip side is that ignoring the pattern risks letting a small group destabilize entire communities. It’s a messy problem with no clean fix.

Further question for Grok:

What about elements like psychopathology, mental illness, no cash bail, decriminalization of serious crimes, refusal to fulfill the number one priority of government to protect citizens from assault, extremist pacifism in face of violence (releasing repeat violent offenders), impulse to virtue signal for status as morally superior, refusal to acknowledge harmful outcomes of lax policies, etc.

Grok answered:

You’re digging into a thorny mix of factors that tie into the concentration of violent crime among a small group. Let’s break it down, keeping it tight and grounded.

Psychopathology and Mental Illness: Certain disorders, like antisocial personality disorder or severe untreated schizophrenia, are overrepresented among repeat violent offenders. Studies suggest about 15-20% of incarcerated populations have serious mental health issues, compared to 4-5% in the general population. Impulse control disorders and psychopathy (marked by lack of empathy) are particularly linked to recidivism. But not all mentally ill people are violent— stigma clouds this. The issue is when untreated conditions intersect with other risk factors like substance abuse or social instability.

No Cash Bail: The push to eliminate cash bail aims to address inequities, as poorer defendants often can’t pay and stay jailed pre-trial. Critics argue it lets repeat offenders back out too easily, citing cases where released individuals reoffend violently. Data’s mixed: a 2021 study in New Jersey (post-bail reform) showed no clear spike in violent crime, but high-profile cases in places like New York fuel skepticism. It’s a trade-off— fairness versus risk of recidivism— and outcomes depend on how well alternatives like risk assessments or supervision are implemented.

Decriminalization of Serious Crimes: Decriminalizing certain offenses (e.g., drug possession or low-level theft) aims to reduce prison overcrowding and focus on rehabilitation. But when it’s perceived as leniency for serious violent crimes, public trust erodes. For example, some argue California’s Prop 47 (2014), which reduced penalties for some property crimes, indirectly fueled rises in violent crime by emboldening offenders. Evidence is inconclusive— FBI crime stats show no direct causation— but perception of “soft on crime” policies drives backlash.

Government’s Priority to Protect Citizens: The social contract hinges on governments prioritizing public safety. Critics of lax policies argue that failing to detain or punish repeat violent offenders undermines this. For instance, a 2022 report from Chicago showed 55% of homicides were committed by individuals with prior arrests, often released due to prosecutorial discretion or plea deals. When governments prioritize other goals— like reform or equity— over enforcement, it can feel like a betrayal of that core duty, especially in high-crime areas.

Extremist Pacifism and Releasing Repeat Offenders: Policies that lean heavily on non-punitive measures, like releasing repeat violent offenders to avoid incarceration, can backfire. A 2020 study in Philadelphia found that 30% of violent offenders released early under reform policies reoffended within a year. The intent— reducing harm from over-incarceration— clashes with the reality that a small group (those 5-10% repeat offenders) drives most violence. Ignoring their patterns risks public safety.

Virtue Signaling and Refusal to Acknowledge Harmful Outcomes: Some argue that policymakers or activists push lenient reforms to signal moral superiority, prioritizing ideology over outcomes. This can manifest as dismissing data on recidivism or crime spikes to avoid admitting policy failures. For example, progressive DAs in cities like San Francisco or Los Angeles have faced recalls for being seen as ignoring victims’ needs. It’s a feedback loop: denying harmful outcomes fuels distrust, which blocks honest debate about fixes.

The core issue is balance. Over-incarceration breeds its own problems— broken communities, cycles of poverty— but under-enforcement lets a small, dangerous group wreak havoc. Data-driven policies targeting high-risk offenders (e.g., focused deterrence or mental health courts) could bridge the gap, but they need political will and public buy-in. Instead, we often get polarized shouting matches. Messy, as I said.

Charlie Kirk: Honoring a good man, Wendell Krossa

With so many millions of others, and as Greg Gutfeld said just earlier on “The Five”, people have recently criticized the statement- “Thoughts and prayers. But I will say it anyway”. We are with you, Greg. He was responding to the murder of Charlie Kirk, a notable contemporary defender of basic human values, Classic Liberal/Conservative values, like the critical importance of free speech in civil discourse. A man to be honored for his courage in taking the risk to speak out in the face of serious threats. My prayers, with so many others, for his wife and children.

I position more as Independent, not affiliated with either side of the right/left social divide. But I find Classic Liberal values now often defended more by moderate Conservatives like Charlie Kirk. I feel a kindred affinity to such voices and honor them.

Kirk was exceptionally courageous to go right into the center of the sectors of our societies where freedom has been frontally assaulted, in universities and colleges that have become indoctrination centers for “far-left woke progressivism” with its DEI pathology that tribally divides people according to skin color in the new “Woke Racism”, a new variant of the old Marxist oppressed/oppressor divide.

Hopefully, a younger generation of independent, Conservative students will take inspiration from Charlie Kirk’s courageous sacrifice to consider what their legacy will be, something that Jordan Peterson asked people in all walks of life to consider. Did you take a stand for freedom when it mattered most, in the face of threats to freedom?

And do so, not with the hatred and bullying aggression that we see so commonly from the Woke Progressive movement, an authoritarianism that vilifies, smears, censors, bans, and criminalizes all who disagree. That is no longer any form of “liberal”. It has become highly illiberal. Many on that side, authentic liberals, still possessed of common-sense, people like Joe Rogan, Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, Elon Musk, RFK, Tulsi Gabbard, and others, have felt obligated to leave the formal Democratic party because it moved so far left into the neo-collectivism of Woke Progressivism. And turned dangerously totalitarian.

And this has to be considered: The extremist violence that we witnessed today against Charlie Kirk is undeniably incited, in part, by public voicing of tribal hatred on media, endlessly smearing opponents as “Hitler, racists, Nazis, fascists” who threaten the end of democracy, the end of the world. The constant exaggeration of the evil of disagreeing others, demonizing, dehumanizing them as too dangerous to allow to exist, because they are “existential” dangers and threats. How does such narrative, beaten daily into public consciousness, impact fringe types?

Consider also other background noise- We have had multiple decades now of the madness, the hysterical exaggeration of imminent apocalyptic from natural climate change, another strain of “end of world” lunacy from the left. Such alarmism arouses some of the worst impulses in people to take desperate measures for survival.

You keep beating varied versions of hysterical exaggeration of threats into populations and you will incite the fringe, unbalanced types to take you seriously and to act to become, what they delusionally believe will make them the “heroic saviors of your imagined threatened world”, embracing the deformed version of the hero’s quest to engage “a righteous battle against evil” that is informed by the demented fallacy of “salvation through destruction”. One strain in this pathology is the belief that if you kill the right people, you can achieve a better world.

When you arouse people’s survival impulse with distorting exaggerations and lies of your world under existential threat, that fear-mongering renders many susceptible to irrational violence to save something that you have convinced them is under such dire threat.

That is why this site goes after these consciousness-deforming, personality-deforming ideas like apocalyptic.

It is at these times when hatred has vented its ugly spirit in violence toward disagreeing, different others that we need to watch our own natural impulses to respond with similar hatred and vengeance, and we must hold tight to that ultimate identity marker of a true human spirit- to “love our enemy”. Not to feel fuzzy or warm toward such people and their horrific acts of brutality, but to hold fast the intention to maintain our own humanity, to responsibly hold offenders fully accountable (arresting, imprisoning), but not to enter into eye for eye spirals downward that render all of us petty/inhuman and destroy our societies.

These incidents test all of us. And we want the best forms of inspiration to continue out of the example and sacrifice of Charlie Kirk.

“Charlie Kirk was reviled by the left because he was effective: He spread his ideas with debate, not might”, Jamie Sarkonak, Sep 10, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jamie-sarkonak-charlie-kirk-was-reviled-by-the-left-because-he-was-effective?itm_source=index

Sarkonak rightly draws the line of connection between public narratives/speech and the responses/actions of some individuals. He says, “it’s impossible not to make any connection to politics and the growing wave of societal derangement. This is one of the American right’s top conservative influencers, struck by a bullet after years of the progressive left preaching about revolution, about words being violence and about President Donald Trump being the second coming of Hitler.”

He notes that Kirk had a sharp and humorous approach to debates. He “argued against illegal immigration, transgenderism, COVID vaccine mandates, critical race theory, feminism, affirmative action, abortion, soft-on-crime policy, drag queen story hour events for children and a whole lot more. You will find no shortage of “fascist” accusations on Reddit and elsewhere, but Kirk was actually the epitome of old-school classical liberalism. He used argument, not might, to push his ideas into the world — ideas that could get regular folk fired or faced with academic discipline back in 2020. He didn’t evade debate either, instead making it his bread-and-butter format, even taking the discourse to hostile spaces.”

I would agree that in his essential spirit and approach to free speech he was “Classic Liberal”. And that was the problem, the threat to the left and its crusade for domination and control.

As Sarkonak continues, “This is not acceptable to large swaths of the left, who see anything remotely conservative as a step towards a new era of Nazi rule. Many of them, to some degree, have been radicalized into confusing classical liberalism with fascism. They see debate as a threat, mere ideas as viruses to be stopped, and thus opt for deplatforming instead of reason as their primary culture war tactic. The stakes are so high to some that violence is the answer.”

The author’s conclusion: “Whether it’s delusional individuals acting alone or an organized mass, it’s all taking place within the same increasingly sadistic ecosystem that validates the paranoia of society’s worst. In this growing trend of political violence, Charlie Kirk is its latest casualty.”

National Post

This also from National Post–

“Who was Charlie Kirk? What to know about the conservative activist assassinated in Utah: ‘Legendary’ Charlie Kirk was lauded by Donald Trump for understanding young Americans”, Stewart Lewis, Sep 10, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/who-was-charlie-kirk-the-assassinated-conservative-activist?itm_source=index

Key points in article: “Kirk, 31, was the founder and president of Turning Point USA…. The organization is described as ‘a national student movement dedicated to identifying, organizing, and empowering young people to promote the principles of free markets, and limited government.’”

What Kirk faced on campuses- “According to Deseret News, more than 6,000 people signed a petition asking Utah State University to bar Kirk from coming to its campus.”

He was not without controversy- “In January 2024, he came under fire for stating on the podcast: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like ‘boy, I hope he is qualified.’” Those comments prompted strong responses from many, including Black pilots.”

Feel the Ideal, the theology, Wendell Krossa

This site expends ongoing effort to communicate the stunning new unconditional theology of Historical Jesus, as contrasted with Paul’s rejection of this message and his retreat to tribal, dominating, punitive, and retaliatory deity in his Christ myth that “buried” the central theme/theology of Jesus (Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s conclusion).

The modern NDE (Near-Death Experience) movement comes closest to communicating the nature of the Jesus theology of “unconditional” with detailed accounts. This goes beyond words, descriptions, definitions to give a “feel” for what Historical Jesus was pointing to with his unconditional theology.

Note on the judgment issue that the life review is about self-judgment, what some call “the worst form of judgment”, something that no system of human justice/judgment can impose as potently as we do to ourselves.

“The greatest emphasis of this experience is LOVE. You are so totally engulfed with a love that does not exist in our physical world. No matter how deep a love you feel for your children, it does not compare with this love. This love is the purest, truest, deepest, totally unconditional love that you could ever imagine. It knocks your socks off. When you receive this love, it is not comprehended with your mind. It is FELT by your soul. And that immense feeling of this perfect love shoots straight to your heart, a feeling that you experience. It can bring your soul to its knees. It is totally overwhelming in the best way imaginable.” From the NDE account of “Bobbie”.

“Each one of us is loved deeply and unconditionally by a totally loving God.”

“There is no judgment in (the next life). There is no punishment, no reward. We judge ourselves. In the life review we feel the effects of our actions on all others that we have encountered. Their feelings become our own.” (The experience of empathy- i.e. feeling what others feel- in reviewing all that we have said and done and the self-judgment and learning that emerges from that.)

“I felt the presence of pure love. This is very hard to describe. Everything made sense: God exists, God is love, we are love, and love creates all that is… I was surrounded by pure love. I was warm and comforted.”

“Love was everywhere. It permeated the afterlife. It was incredible.”

“I knew the being I met was composed in its very atoms of a substance I can only call love and that substance created, or was a force or power, like electricity here. Love is the only word I have.”

“It was total love. Everything is love.”

“I felt pure love and tenderness and the feeling of safety.”

“Everything was love. Love is the root of all… Love is everything.”

“Love was everywhere. I felt it through and through.”

“During the experience everything was love. I was love. The Light was love. It was awesome.”

Why bother with expounding these ideas and related issues like outcomes across history? Because what we place at the center of our narratives as the ultimate Ideal and authority, powerfully influences how we think, feel, how we are motivated, and then how we behave in life. We become just like the God that we believe in.

Look around at what varying good and bad ideas are doing to people across our world. How ideas in narratives motivate and validate the differing responses/behaviors of people, for great good or great evil.

This from Robert D. Brinsmead’s Substack robertdbrinsmead@substack.com

This MAN and the Christian Religion are Not Compatible, ROBERT D. BRINSMEAD SEP 9, 2025

The Status of Jesus re-examined in the previous substacks stripped away the ancient myths about dying and rising gods. ‘What is left?’ The answer: “Just a truly human Jesus – a man who refused any titles except the self-effacing ‘son of man’ which simply meant the human one.”

This real Jesus of history was no soft pushover. He was the greatest debunker of religious hierarchies and traditions, the greatest desacralizer of holy places, times, people, rituals, priests, and things that this world has ever seen. The religious establishment hurriedly condemned him to death for blasphemy, while the secular powers executed him for sedition.

That the Christian Church could claim to represent him and carry on his work is an amazing historical irony. It’s like having the old Soviet Union bureaucracy posing as the heir of Adam Smith’s laisse faire capitalism.

The Christian religion built up an elaborate theological edifice. It formed religious orders, hierarchies, rituals, calendars, and creeds that were utterly at odds with the whole life and teachings of the historical Jesus.

And throughout its history, anyone who exhibited anything of the irreverent iconoclasm or freedom of Jesus was systematically condemned, burned alive, tortured, slaughtered, banished, or cast out.

Of course, there is a better side to the Christian movement. Buried beneath its layers of myths, it did preserve something of the history and the spirit of the original man. And the movement has also produced scholars courageous enough to engage in honest historical and literary criticism despite those disapproving big sticks hanging over their heads.

For two hundred years, literary researchers have investigated the puzzling problem of the tension between the Jesus of history (pre-Easter) and the Jesus of the Christian religion (post-Easter). As the research has continued, the crack in the wall dividing the man and the myth has become a yawning chasm.

This is recognized by an increasing number of scholars, both Catholic and Protestant. A very readable Catholic example is Alfred Nolan’s Jesus Before Christianity and Michael Morwood’s Tomorrow’s Catholic: Understanding God and Jesus in a New Millennium. Marcus Borg’s Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time is an excellent example from a Protestant scholar.

Joshua ben Adam Not Jesus ben Parthenos

In order to maintain the distinction between the historical man and the religious icon, we shall call the former Joshua ben Adam and the latter Jesus ben Parthenos.

The Hebrew name given to this historical figure was Yashua, whose Anglicized form is Joshua. Since Joshua preferred to call himself son of man or son of Adam (which means the same thing) his name was in truth Joshua ben Adam.

When the name Yashua was first Grecianized, then Latinized, and finally Anglicized it became Jesus. Since Christian storytelling depicted him as the Virgin-born, he can quite correctly be called Jesus ben Parthenos, that is, Jesus, son of the Virgin.

Jesus ben Parthenos was the foundation of that great system of religious absolutism known as Christianity. What an elaborate edifice of thought control it became, presided over by a suitably elaborate hierarchy of suitably frocked holy men who could defend the Chalcedonian formula of the hypostatic union of divine and human in one person! Or how God was three persons but not three Gods.

How the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, and not the Father only. How wine became the real blood of Christ sacramentally but not physically. Are we justified before God by a righteousness imputare or efficare?

Is saving faith formed with charity before it justifies or after it justifies?. Is predestination only directed toward the elect (single) or toward the non-elect also (double)? These are just a few of the big theological issues.

We won’t distract ourselves now with minor issues such as the transmission of original sin through sex, the distinction between venial and mortal sin, or distinctions between the intermediate state and the final judgment, and so on. There is enough here that has kept legions of theologians employed for centuries, defining the faith and labelling heretics.

Christianity was not a hundred years old before it was swept up in a contagion of celibacy. A veritable tidal wave of monasteries and nunnery continued unabated for centuries. This was all inspired by the religious devotion to Jesus ben Parthenos, the celibate son of a sexless mother.

The systematic denigration of women and human sexuality among the so-called “early fathers” of the church, down to the time of Augustine in the fourth century, was absolutely appalling. In the mind of Julian, it was all attributable to that “pale Galilean”, whom he lamented, had conquered the world.

It is rationally possible to see a clear line of connection between Jesus ben Parthenos and the great world religion which was founded in his name. But there is no rational link between Joshua ben Adam and the foregoing religious paraphernalia.

He is no more at home in this Christian “temple” than he was in that Jewish temple when his blazing rage sent the furniture and the money counters flying in all directions. Joshua ben Adam is incompatible with religious hierarchicalism, monasticism, creedalism, and washing up the blood of heretics from the floor of the church. You’d have to be joking!

(End of Bob’s Substack post)

Some good points made in this from National Post:

“24 years after 9/11, the West’s on the verge of falling to terrorist ideology: Back then, the free world looked at al-Qaida with revulsion; now, Hamas murderers are feted in the streets”, Sheryl Saperia, Sep 11, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/24-years-after-9-11-the-wests-on-the-verge-of-falling-to-terrorist-ideology?itm_source=index

Saperia begins, noting that several decades ago there was less debate about what was evil and how to confront it. But this has all changed now. Today in Canada, “pro-Palestinian” demonstrations in Canada proudly bear terrorist symbols… mobs gather outside synagogues, Jewish restaurants and MPs’ homes with impunity… cultural institutions cancel Israeli stories…”

She notes the public advocacy today for terrorist groups where people chant- “God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

And there is little pushback from mainstream society. She says that “Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned, societies can define deviancy down. Behaviour once shocking becomes normalized, eroding moral sensitivity and resolve. Standards drop, permissiveness broadens, and we learn to accept that which we once rejected.”

She continues, “This erosion of boundaries is not accidental. It has been accelerated by the so-called red–green alliance. Though otherwise divergent in their worldviews, the radical left (red) and Islamist movements (green) converge in their hostility towards western democracy, Israel and Jews.”

These apparently disparate groups form loose cooperations to achieve the same end of overturning liberal democracy through extremist crusades, even violence.

“Together, they serve as both drivers and enablers: mobilizing disruptive protests, while also feeding intellectual and cultural justifications that normalize extremism.”

She advocates a response that clearly defines and pushes back against extremist violence and intimidation, that re-affirms liberal democracy principles, laws, and institutions.

“Canada should thus adopt the following definition for extremism: the promotion of ideologies rooted in violence, hatred or intolerance that aim to: (1) negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; (2) undermine, overturn or replace Canada’s democratic institutions and constitutional framework; or (3) create a permissive environment for others to achieve these aims through ideology, coercion or manipulation…

“Our civic institutions, political leaders and cultural voices must reassert that Canada stands for the rule of law, the sanctity of individual rights and the rejection of mob violence. Without these boundaries, moral confusion will continue to erode the foundations of our democracy.”

National Post

“Sheryl Saperia is CEO of Secure Canada, a non-profit organization founded by Canadian 9/11 victim families, whose mission is to combat terrorism and extremism and strengthen Canada’s national security and democracy.”

See new material below- “More on the freedom file”, comment on the two fundamental approaches to organizing human societies across history- collectivism versus free individuals. And some good points from Joe Rogan’s recent interview of Tim Dillon.

Don’t miss the National Post report on the threat the Muslim Brotherhood now poses to Canada as part of its grand worldwide program to “eliminate and destroy western civilization from within and ‘sabotage’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers (Muslims) so that it is eliminated and God’s religion (Islam) is made victorious over all other religions.”

As a British Muslim leader stated re Muslim migration to Western liberal democracies, “We are not here to take part but to take over”. He grinned as he stated that. This concerns current immigration issues and failed policies of multi-culturalism that do not ensure that migrants embrace liberal democracy values and practises.

Being aware of the ongoing assaults on our liberal democracies:

Some interesting polls on the majority of young voters leaning left/socialist now.

“Heartland/Rasmussen Poll: 53% of Young Voters Want a Socialist to Win the 2028 Presidential Election, 76% Want Government to Nationalize Major U.S. Industries”, Justin Haskins, Christopher Talgo, Sept. 4, 2025

https://heartland.org/opinion/heartland-rasmussen-poll-53-of-young-voters-want-a-socialist-to-win-the-2028-presidential-election-76-want-government-to-nationalize-major-u-s-industries/?utm_

Notes from article:

“53% of likely voters aged 18-39 said they would “like to see a democratic socialist candidate win the 2028 presidential election.”

“76% said they “somewhat” or “strongly” agree that “Major Industries like health care, energy, and big tech should be nationalized to give more control and equity to the people.”

And…

53% of likely voters under 40 want socialist for president in 2028: Rasmussen poll

48 percent of white voters, 64 percent of black voters, 62 percent of Hispanic voters, and 52 percent of other minority voters under 40 said they would want a socialist candidate to win.

https://thepostmillennial.com/53-of-likely-voters-under-40-want-socialist-for-president-in-2028-rasmussen-poll?utm_

Also…

“Socialism Is Resonating With America’s Youth”, The Heartland Institute, Sept. 5, 2025

https://redstate.com/heartlandinstitute/2025/09/05/socialism-is-resonating-with-americas-youth-n2193606?utm_s

Quotes:

“Despite its abysmal record of sowing poverty, misery, death, and envy in every place it has been implemented, socialism is gaining traction with young Americans.

“According to a new poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports and The Heartland Institute, more than half of likely voters age 18 to 39 “would like to see a democratic socialist win the 2028 presidential election.”

“Moreover, as the poll shows, nearly 80 percent of young likely voters think that ‘major industries like health care, energy, and big tech should be nationalized to give more control and equity to the people.’”

The author suggests the problem entails two parts, (1) the American education system has failed to teach students the truth of socialism’s horrific history (due to the domination of education by socialist educators) and (2) many youth today have not had great opportunities in a healthy free-market system.

(See full article at link above)

Grok, comment on these polls showing many young voters leaning far left now and the possible relation to “the long march through the institutions”.

“53% of likely voters under 40 want socialist for president in 2028: Rasmussen poll Provide evidence of the success of a long march through the institutions by socialism/Marxism?”

For example:

https://hungarianreview.com/article/20200515_the_long_march_through_the_institutions_douglas_murray_s_book_on_our_civilization_and_its_discontents/

Grok’ response:

Verification of the Rasmussen Poll Claim

Yes, a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, conducted in partnership with the Heartland Institute, indicates that 53% of likely U.S. voters aged 18-39 would like to see a democratic socialist candidate win the 2028 presidential election. The survey, released around September 4, 2025, involved 2,500 likely voters and also found that 27% of this age group opposed the idea, while 20% were unsure. Additionally, 76% of these younger voters supported government nationalization of major U.S. industries, and 50% viewed socialism favorably overall.

This contrasts with older demographics, where support for socialism drops significantly—for instance, only 27% of voters aged 40-64 and 20% of those 65+ favor it. The poll has been widely discussed on platforms like X and conservative outlets, often linked to concerns about economic indicators and educational influences on younger generations. However, an earlier Rasmussen poll from May 2025 showed broader rejection of socialism, with 71% of all voters preferring a free-market economy, highlighting a generational divide.

Evidence of the Success of the “Long March Through the Institutions” by Socialism/Marxism

The “long march through the institutions” is a strategy attributed to Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in the 1920s-1930s and popularized by German socialist activist Rudi Dutschke in 1967. It advocates for gradual infiltration and transformation of key societal institutions— such as education, media, government, and culture— to achieve socialist or Marxist goals without direct revolution, focusing on cultural hegemony rather than immediate economic upheaval.

Influenced by thinkers like Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt School, it emphasizes “entryism”—entering institutions to subvert them from within. Proponents and critics alike argue this approach has seen notable success, particularly in Western societies, by shifting cultural norms toward progressive, identity-based politics often labeled as “Cultural Marxism.” Below, I’ll outline evidence from a range of sources, including conservative critiques, historical analyses, and discussions on X, representing both supportive and skeptical viewpoints.

1. Historical and Theoretical Foundations and Claimed Successes

• Origins and Implementation: Gramsci’s ideas, developed during his imprisonment under Mussolini, emphasized a “war of position” to build counter-hegemony in civil society, contrasting with Leninist “war of maneuver.” By the 1960s, New Left figures like Dutschke adapted this for post-WWII Europe, targeting universities and media. Critics argue this “silent revolution” began even earlier, with Marxist influences in U.S. politics dating back to exchanges between Karl Marx and American figures in the 19th century, accelerating under FDR.

• Evidence of Institutional Capture: Sources claim success in education, where curricula in social sciences and humanities have shifted toward anti-capitalist, multicultural narratives, promoting victimhood and identity politics. For example, the Heritage Foundation highlights how Critical Theory (a neo-Marxist framework) has influenced U.S. policies on race, gender, and equity, leading to changes in corporate diversity programs and government initiatives. A 2022 Institute of Economic Affairs report describes this as a “long march” crystallizing in the 1960s but rooted in earlier socialist efforts, resulting in widespread adoption of progressive policies in Europe and the U.S.

2. Specific Examples of Alleged Success

• Education and Media: Conservative analyses point to the dominance of left-leaning ideologies in universities, where “bullying tactics” enforce dogmas, as noted in discussions of Marcuse and Foucault’s influence on viewing society through power dynamics. On X, users describe this as “institutional capture” via Cultural Marxism, turning proletarian-focused revolutions into cultural ones after realizing workers leaned conservative. Public schools are cited as “indoctrination centers” contributing to generational shifts, like the poll you mentioned.

• Politics and Culture: The strategy’s success is evident in the mainstreaming of identity politics (e.g., intersectionality in LGBTQ+ and racial justice movements), which some argue has captured corporations and governments, imposing “virtue signaling” and suppressing dissent. A 2023 New York Magazine piece notes how this narrative has even influenced right-wing theories, with figures like Christopher Rufo and Ron DeSantis framing it as leftist control over culture. X discussions highlight its “Achilles’ heel”—overreach making it appear as top-down imposition rather than grassroots.

• Broader Societal Shifts: Pro-Marxist historical examples, like the Paris Commune of 1871, are invoked as early inspirations, though its failure underscored the need for ruthless institutional control. Modern critiques, such as a 2020 American Mind article, argue the march began in the 1970s and has sold Marxism through combined cultural and economic lenses. However, setbacks are noted, like recent pushback against “woke” policies, suggesting the march has “tripped up” in areas like corporate backlash.

3. Counterarguments and Skepticism

• While many conservative sources celebrate the strategy’s success as a threat to liberty, others, like a Stack Exchange politics discussion, view it as more of a “permanent conflict” than total victory, with ongoing resistance. Progressive viewpoints often dismiss “Cultural Marxism” as a conspiracy theory, arguing changes stem from organic social progress rather than orchestrated Marxism. On X, some frame it as a long-term plan akin to George Soros’ influence, contrasting with violent revolutions.

Regarding the article you linked from the Hungarian Review (May 2020), it reviews Douglas Murray’s “The Madness of Crowds,” portraying the long march as a successful Gramscian tactic that has subverted institutions through identity politics, education, and media, leading to suppressed free speech and imposed dogmas on gender, race, and sexuality. It aligns with broader claims of cultural hegemony replacing economic Marxism.

Overall, evidence suggests the strategy has achieved partial success in reshaping cultural discourse, but its extent is debated, with biases evident in partisan sources—conservatives often amplify it as a dire threat, while left-leaning ones downplay it as myth.

(End of Grok’s comments)

More on the freedom file, Wendell Krossa

Historian Arthur Herman (“The Cave and the Light: Plato versus Aristotle and the struggle for the soul of Western civilization”), among others, traces the struggle across human history between the two basic approaches to organizing human societies- i.e. varied forms of collectivism where individuals are subjected to dominating/controlling elites (the “elite/commoner” divide of societies), versus the approach that elevates free and equal individuals and where state elites/bureaucrats actually “serve” the free and equal citizens.

That Jesus thing- “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20). Contrast this with Paul’s “Lord Jesus” mythology, rejecting the actual teaching of the wisdom sage Jesus to create a new archetype of domination and control. Add Paul’s statements on wives being subject to husbands, and slaves being subject to masters, as well as all citizens being subject to governments (Romans 13).

Other helpful histories of socialism/collectivism versus free individuals, are Joshua Muravchik’s “Heaven On Earth: The rise, fall, and afterlife of socialism”, Daniel Hannan’s “Inventing Freedom: How the English-speaking peoples made the modern world”, and Kristian Niemietz’s “Socialism: The failed idea that never dies”, etc.

The central issue in regard to socialism versus the free individual approaches to organizing human societies is the freedom and self-determination of the individual versus control by powerholding elites.

Socialism is fundamentally a form of collectivism where individuals are subjected to a collective that is framed/disguised in terms of an organizational approach for “greater or common good”. And the state elites running the collective claim that they do so “for the people, on behalf of the people”.

How has that worked out in all of the 24 socialist experiments around the world over the past century or so?

From Niemietz’s “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”

“Socialism in the sense which self-identified democratic socialists define it… a democratized economic planned collectively by ‘the people’, has never been achieved anywhere and could not be achieved. Economic planning can only ever be done in a technocratic, elitist fashion, and it requires an extreme concentration of power in the hands of the state. It cannot ‘empower’ ordinary workers. It can only ever empower bureaucratic elites.”

Exactly. When you centralize power in the state elites/bureaucrats who have to run the collective “on behalf of the people” that denies the freedom of choice to individuals. The counter to this deformity, and inevitable ruin of freedom, is to disperse power to citizens through liberal democracies that protect the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally. This is accomplished with systems of common law and representative institutions where public bureaucrats are obligated to “serve the people” (individual free citizens) as sovereign.

Two critical policies in this regard are (1) decreased taxation (returning individual choice over income/assets to individuals) and (2) decreased regulation (returning choice in myriad areas- political/social- to individual citizens, less government intervention in individual’s lives).

As Niemietz details in his excellent “Socialism: The failed idea that never dies”, every socialist experiment promises to be the one that finally succeeds but then ends like all the previous others in totalitarianism disaster and ruin of societies. Note Venezuela that began with the Chavez promise to be different from past failures but followed the same old patterns.

After each successive failure socialists claim, “That was not true socialism. We need another one to show that it is the best way to organize society”. I heard my Marxist professors at Simon Fraser University say exactly this in the late 80s as the Soviet Union collapsed. And where are the collectivist zealots who ran down to Venezuela to praise Chavismo? Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, Naom Chomsky, Jimmy Carter, Kevin Spacey, etc.?

All now silent. After 24 repeated experiments over the past century or so. Who said what about doing the same thing again and again, after it fails each time?

As Niemietz notes, when socialists are asked what they would do differently the next time, they have no response because they will not/can not abandon the fundamental socialist principle/practise of centralizing power in the state elites who have to run the collective, “On behalf of the people”.

Individual citizens are inevitably denied individual freedoms and rights as they are subjected to the collective and its state elites.

It always reduces to the same old “elite/commoner” divide of societies.

Protected individual freedom and rights now have a proven history of unleashing human motivation to create products and services that vastly improve the human condition for all humanity, while also protecting nature. Set that history in comparison to the trail of ruin that inevitably results from socialist experiments.

Note: In “social democracy” or “democratic socialism” versions, any success stems from the democratic element, not from the socialist element in the mix. Socialist “nationalization” projects result inevitably in the ruin of societies (“Nationalization” is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets, state appropriation of the “means of production”, taking ownership of businesses). Note, for example, Mitterrand’s coalition approach (socialists/Communists) that nationalized varied elements of French society when they took power in 1980, nationalization that tanked the French economy within the year. See details in Muravchik’s history of socialism.

Others have commented on the loosely affiliated Green/Red cooperation between Islamicists and Marxists, noting that neo-Marxists today have joined protests throughout the Western nations with Islamists who share the same end goal of the destruction of liberal democracy to be replaced by theocracy or by collectivist totalitarianism. Hence, the contemporary Russian/Iranian/Chinese military and economic cooperation. Also, the joining of forces in those Western anti-Semitism protests.

These apparently diverse state actors (Russia, China, Iran) are driven by the same dominant mythical theme of “salvation through destruction”.

This report on Iran’s long-term goal- Attacks in Australia illustrating the larger goal of the destruction of Western liberal democracy civilization.

“Iran’s proxy war on Jews is an all-out attack on Western civilization. Australia gets it: The fundamental bigotry that is Jew-hatred has not significantly changed over the millennia, but this manifestation wears a different face”, Victoria Coates, Sept. 7, 2025

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/irans-proxy-war-jews-attack-western-civilization-australia

Quotes:

The author notes that the Australian government has evidence “the Islamic Republican Guard Corps were behind domestic antisemitic incidents after the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.”

This evidence contradicts the mainstream media narrative that Oct. 7 was “desperate Palestinians radicalized by the Israeli occupation of their land.” If that narrative was true then, contends the Australian government, “why would the Iranian regime be trying to foment violence against Jews some 7,600 miles away?”

The author concludes the driving force behind Oct.7, along with protests and anti-Semitic attacks across Western liberal democracies, is the same old “fundamental bigotry of Jew-hatred” that has not changed across past millennia. It just puts on a different face today, that of the “anti-Western civilization” project.

“The goal of modern antisemitism is to eradicate Western civilization.”

The route to destroy Western civilization is moving through direct attacks to eliminate Israel (the “little Satan”), then attack the US (the “great Satan”), and then all of Western civilization. All represent “an insufferable blasphemy that cannot be accommodated or tolerated, but must be destroyed.”

The author argues that the current Iranian jihad is not about the Palestinians. “Their adherents are only “useful idiots” in the real battle to destroy the civilization that inspired all three countries (Australia, Israel, America). “

Coates notes that Western governments are trying to create moral equivalency between Israel and the Palestinians where Hamas is elevated to a negotiating partner and the central issue is the demand for a Palestinian state. She says this misses the real issue because “the Palestinians are not the point and never were. They are an Iranian vehicle to gain traction in the strongholds of the West — vibrant democracies such as America, Australia and Israel — and destroy them from within by encouraging the ancient hatred that is antisemitism.”

Black is not dark on Trump’s foibles, peccadilloes, and only has one minor quibble with the man, Wendell Krossa

The “quibble”? Black notes in the link below the “ego-centricity” of Trump, what some call “narcissism” (perhaps a bit too harsh?). I have always cringed at Donald Trump’s varied expressions of “petty vindictiveness”. That is not true of all his responses to critics, but only the odd time when some of his name-calling goes overboard, especially when he belittles the intelligence or looks of others (i.e. “ad hominem” attacks- an argument or reaction directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining).

That is simply unbecoming of someone who wants to be considered “great”. It’s an annoying stain on an otherwise admirable life of accomplishment and it diminishes this man of surprising common sense on so many critical business/economic issues that benefit both Americans and people worldwide. He is an undeniably smart man (also on social issues), something that opponents just cannot bring themselves to acknowledge as they nurse a stunning level of hatred for Trump that erupts in endless vilification to demonize and destroy the man.

Trump’s guiding ethic of retaliating with, not just “eye for eye” but 10 times as hard, does not help to solve disagreements and unify a tribally divided country.

I would add that this pointing out of fallibilities is not to pick on Trump as all of us suffer this same impulse to retaliate when offended and it renders all of us petty when we give vent to it in situations personal and small, or in larger public settings.

Others like Bill Maher note that there is a striking difference between Trump the private person and his “crazy” public presentation. Despite some apparent softening toward Trump, Maher continues to vent his own Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Others have also affirmed that in private Trump is courteous, generous, praises others, is warm and friendly, even self-deprecating at times, listens well, has a great sense of humor, exhibits real empathy with other’s suffering, is willing to learn, etc. Andrew Shulz asked him (pre-election interview): Why can’t you show your softer personal side publicly? Trump shrugged in response,” I don’t know?” Shulz was probing him on the point of- Why the public displays that seem so contrary to who you really are?

Note particularly the empathy of the man as he courageously tries to stop wars and end domestic violence at a scale few have ever done before.

Anyway, this from Black:

“The derangement over Trump marches on”, Conrad Black, Sept. 6, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/conrad-black-the-derangement-over-trump-marches-on?itm_source=opinion

Quotes:

Black references the media commentator Andrew Coyne as an intelligent man but with the “mental affliction which is caused by the lawful elevation of Donald J. Trump to the office of President of the United States twice”. Black says that Coyne’s recent column in a Canadian newspaper is “demented rubbish”.

He quotes Coyne’s hysterical exaggeration of the imagined evil that is Trump, which mimics the same hysteria we see daily in US mainstream media. Coyne wrote that, “the dictatorship of Donald Trump is no longer a theoretical possibility or even a distant probability. It is an imminent reality… That Mr. Trump is bent on making himself dictator is no longer in doubt.”

As Black concludes re Coyne, “Almost every sentence is untrue, though Andrew, in his hatred of Trump, is in a delirium.”

He continues, contradicting Coyne’s assessment of Trump, stating, “I’ve known him (Trump) for many years, socially and as a business associate, I know him to be courteous, entertaining, and a loyal friend.”

However, Black acknowledges his quibble point, “I agree with Andrew and others that some manifestations of Trump’s egocentricity are unattractive, even in an office which requires anyone who aspires to it to have a mighty and indomitable ego.”

But his quibble does not diminish his recognition of the many good things that Trump has done for the US and the world.

“No one has ever been so severely and illegally obstructed as president and as a presidential candidate as he has, and he has become a considerable president in reorienting the country club Republican Party of the Bushes, McCain and Romney, to crack the Democratic fiefdoms of working class and ethnic minority votes, and in producing and broadening prosperity, shaping up the Western Alliance, ending the invasion of the United States by illegal immigrants, attacking the forces of wokeness in the universities, forcefully reducing crime rates, drastically reducing the fiscal and trade deficits, attracting in seven months nearly $15 trillion of new investment to the United States, destroying the Iranian nuclear military program and evicting men from girls’ sports and requiring mature approvals of trans-gender changes. This will not be undone by venomous and ignorant piffle from the media, especially the Trump-deranged and chronically bigoted Canadian media.”

He adds: “Trump has a clear mandate to deport illegal immigrants. Year by year, Trump has expelled far fewer than those deported by President Barack Obama.”

Further, Trump has accomplished all that Black lists above, against opposition that few others have had to endure.

“Trump has prevailed against overwhelming media opposition, was heavily outspent in last year’s election, faced utterly spurious indictments, and was even given insufficient security protection against potential assassins in his campaign.”

National Post

Some repeated material. Why? It is beyond critical to understanding and resolving varied issues today, like the recurrence of violence between groups/states.

Why the ongoing focus here on apocalyptic? Because it has been “the most violent and destructive idea in history” (Arthur Mendel). It drove (and still drives) the Marxism “apocalyptic millennial” crusade. It drove Nazism and now drives environmental alarmism, notably in its climate crisis version.

Apocalyptic continues to dominate human meta-narratives, both religious and secular. And look at Hollywood story-telling and the movie industry obsession with apocalypse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films

Further, look at a generation of anxiety-ridden children whose minds have been abused and traumatised with “eco-anxiety”, having been told that the world is ending before they become adults.

Consider also the world’s number one illness- depression. Julian Simon (“Ultimate Resource”) had bought into environmental alarmism and was “clinically depressed” (his own words in his autobiography). Then he decided to look at the evidence on the state of the world for himself. After thoroughly researching the best data on all the major indicators of the world (i.e. forests, agricultural soils, ocean species, land species, etc.) he discovered that while there were still problems to solve everywhere, humanity was doing well in learning from past mistakes and now doing much better in caring for the natural world while also improving the human condition.

Simon discovered that life was not declining toward a worsening state but was improving over the long-term. Seeing the evidence for himself, Simon said that his depression left and never returned.

My point– The meta-narratives of our societies, both religious and secular, impact our personal consciousness and personal worldviews. Panicked alarmism shouted endlessly in public does impact citizens mental and emotional states. And nothing has been more destructive in this regard than the horrific fallacy of apocalyptic.

In terms of our Western civilization, this site traces the great lie of apocalyptic back to Paul’s apocalyptic Christ myth that embraced this psychopathology during the early formation of his “Christ-ianity”. Paul rejected the anti-apocalyptic message of Historical Jesus and re-created him as the ultimate expression of apocalyptic that would then subsequently dominate Western narratives and consciousness for the past two millennia.

“Historical Jesus was anti-apocalyptic”? Yes, his fundamental theology (his view of deity) was presented in the core statement of his message (a “Q Wisdom Sayings” message) in Luke 6:27-36, also Matthew 5:38-48.

He said (my paraphrase) “There must be no more ‘eye for eye’ retaliation against offenders but instead, ‘Love your enemies’ because God does. How so? God does not retaliate against God’s enemies but mercifully and generously gives the two basic gifts of life- i.e. sun and rain (the two critical natural elements for survival in agrarian societies)- to all alike, to both good and bad people. Be merciful just as God is merciful.”

He was stating the stunning new theology that God was an unconditional reality. That took love to its ultimate height of transcendent humaneness.

Historical Jesus presented a God who does not retaliate and who will not then engage the ultimate act of retaliation that is the apocalyptic destruction of the world to punish sinners (as portrayed, for example, in John’s Revelation). James Robinson has also stated this non-retaliatory theology of Jesus as “his greatest contribution to the history of human ideas… the stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God”.

Paul, two decades after Jesus’ death, then distorted the core message of that wisdom sage entirely by reframing him in terms of apocalyptic, as the returning Christ who in fiery retaliatory rage would destroy all who did not believe his Christ myth. Paul turned Jesus into the very opposite of what he had taught.

In his letters Paul presents his new messianic apocalyptic myth. He states that his God is, contrary to Jesus’ non-retaliatory God, a retaliatory deity burning with “wrath” at unbelievers.

Example from Romans 2: “Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done’”.

Then Romans 12: 17-20: “’Vengeance is mine. I will retaliate’, says the Lord”.

Paul’s Thessalonian letters: “They always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last. He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you… This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

And Revelation 19: “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a (rider on a horse who judges and wages war)… His eyes are like blazing fire… He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood… The armies of heaven were following him… Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with a rod of iron. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”

Note regarding the idea of a ”Lord” who rules with a rod of iron. Jesus had taught the opposite, stating that any who desired to be “great” (i.e. “God is great”) should not “lord over others” but should serve others.

On all the major themes of their messages, Paul rejected the wisdom teaching of Jesus and reframed him in terms of entirely opposite themes in his “Lord Christ” myth.

Further, read how Paul mocks and dismisses the wisdom tradition of Jesus in the Corinthian letters.

As James Tabor has said, the Jesus of history has been largely lost to Western consciousness while Paul’s opposite apocalyptic Christ has dominated Western narratives and consciousness.

James Tabor in “Paul and Jesus”:

“There was a version of ‘Christianity before Paul’, affirmed by both Jesus and his original followers, with tenets and affirmations quite opposite to these of Paul… the message of Paul, which created Christianity as we know it, and the message of historical Jesus and his earliest followers, were not the same. In fact, they were sharply opposed to one another with little in common beyond the name Jesus itself” (p.xv1).

“Paul is the most influential person in human history and realize it or not, he has shaped practically all we think about everything… the West in particular… the foundations of Western civilization- from our assumptions about reality to our societal and personal ethics- rest in a singular way upon the heavenly visions and apparitions of the apostle Paul. We are all cultural heirs of Paul, with the well-established doctrines and traditions of mainstream Christianity deeply entrenched in our culture. In contrast, Jesus as a historical figure… has been largely lost to our culture” (p. xv11).

“Paul operated with a strongly apocalyptic perspective that influenced all he said or did” (p.15).

“The entire New Testament canon is largely a post-Paul and pro-Paul production…” (p.19).

“The ‘Jesus’ who most influenced history was the ‘Jesus-Christ’ of Paul, not the historical figure of Jesus… Paul transformed Jesus himself (and) his message of a… kingdom of justice and peace on earth, to the symbol of a religion of otherworldly salvation in a heavenly world”, (21).

“The form of Christianity… (that thrived in the late Roman Empire)… was heavily based upon the ecstatic and visionary experiences of Paul. Christianity as we came to know it, is Paul and Paul is Christianity. The bulk of the New Testament is dominated by his theological vision”, p.24).

“Paul’s view of Christ as the divine pre-existent Son of God who took on human form, died on the cross for the sins of the world, and was resurrected to heavenly glory at God’s right hand, becomes the Christian message”, (39).

“The Q source is the earliest collection of the teachings and sayings of Jesus… the most striking characteristic of the Q source in terms of reconstructing Christian origins is that it has nothing of Paul’s theology, particularly his Christology or view of Christ”, (41).

The historical outcomes of the themes validated in Paul’s Christ myth?

Quotes from Zenon Lotufo’s book “Cruel God, Kind God”:

The Introduction states that, among others, “(Lotufo) explores the interface of psychology, religion, and spirituality at the operational level of daily human experience… (this is of the) highest urgency today when religious motivation seems to be playing an increasing role, constructively and destructively, in the arena of social ethics, national politics, and world affairs…”

My preface insert: The destructive outcomes of “religious motivation” are notable also in terms of the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade and its destructive “salvation” scheme of Net Zero decarbonization (“save the world”), as evident in the spreading harm, from Net Zero and renewables zealotry, in societies like Germany, Britain, and California. Climate alarmism exhibits the same old themes and destructive outcomes of all past apocalyptic crusades. The themes of climate alarmism, as another apocalyptic millennial crusade, are energized by the cohering center of an angry deity threatening harsh punishment and destruction through an apocalypse.

Lotufo then proceeds to detail “the pathological nature of mainstream orthodox theology and popular religious ideation”.

He says, “One type of religiosity is entirely built around the assumption or basic belief, and correspondent fear, that God is cruel or even sadistic… The associated metaphors to this image are ‘monarch’ and ‘judge’. Its distinctive doctrine is ‘penal satisfaction’. I call it ‘Cruel God Christianity’… Its consequences are fear, guilt, shame, and impoverished personalities. All these things are fully coherent with and dependent on a cruel and vengeful God image…

“(This image results) in the inhibition of the full development of personality… The doctrine of penal satisfaction implies an image of God as wrathful and vengeful, resulting in exposing God’s followers to guilt, shame, and resentment… These ideas permeate Western culture and inevitably influence those who live in this culture…

“Beliefs do exert much more influence over our lives than simple ideas… ideas can also, in the psychological sphere, generate ‘dynamis’, or mobilize energy… (they) may result, for instance, in fanaticism and violence, or… may also produce anxiety and inhibitions that hinder the full manifestation of the capacities of a person…

“The image of God can be seen as a basic belief or scheme, and as such it is never questioned…

“Basic cultural beliefs are so important, especially in a dominant widespread culture, because they have the same properties as individual basic beliefs, that is, they are not perceived as questionable. The reader may object that “God”, considered a basic belief in our culture, is rejected or questioned by a large number of people today. Yet the fact is that the idea of God that those people reject is almost never questioned. In other words, their critique assumes there is no alternative way of conceiving God except the one that they perceive through the lens of their culture. So, taking into account the kind of image of God that prevails in Western culture- a ‘monster God’… such rejection is understandable…

“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (see Romans, Revelation). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, this image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.

“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.

“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…

“Hence, in our culture we have a powerful element that impels us to violence, a Cruel God Image… that also contributes to guilt, shame, and the impoverishment of personality…”.

As Harold Ellens says, “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.

My conclusion from these comments by Tabor, Ellens, and Lotufo:

We wonder why we have just suffered through one of history’s most violent centuries. And the violence driven by apocalyptic pathology continues (ISIS-type eruptions, Marxist endless re-emergence in new iterations, apocalyptic climate hysteria and Net Zero decarbonization madness, etc.).

This contemporary madness that results in mass-death outcomes is incited by the images, archetypes, ideas/ideals/beliefs that make up our worldviews, our narratives both personal and public meta-narratives. And none are more destructive than the fear generated by apocalyptic scenarios. That fear of “the end of life/the world” incites irrational fear and the survival impulse in populations. Alarmed people are then susceptible to wacky salvation schemes (i.e. “save the world”, even “salvation through destruction” of their own societies).

Added note:

It is impossible not to be influenced by apocalyptic madness when it is shoved daily into our faces by climate alarmism over every natural twitch in nature. We also get apocalyptic haranguing from resurging Marxism in new iterations like Woke Progressivism with DEI. That promotes tribal dualism now based on woke racism as the new discrimination (i.e. with skin color as the new divide between categories of “oppressor/oppressed”).

And we get apocalyptic propaganda from Hollywood’s obsession with apocalyptic as our indisputable future reality (i.e. life declining toward something worse, toward apocalyptic ending). We are daily inundated with this madness constantly ratchetted to hysterical levels.

(Note: The influence of the message of Historical Jesus is present in the Christian tradition and has helped to moderate the more violent impulses that have been incited by the dominant themes from Paul’s Christ myth over past centuries.)

Rogan and Dillon- News fused with comedy

“Joe Rogan Experience #2375 – Tim Dillon”, Powerful JRE, Sept. 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB8BcRimf78

Dillon nails it that the Graham Linehan arrest in England, for his tweets, sends the message that you can’t hold or express opinions that counter to the governing elite’s positions which have become “Far-left Woke Progressivism with the tribal dualism of neo-collectivist DEI”. This is the new totalitarianism that will not permit counter opinion to its narrative. This new collectivism now criminalizes and imprisons dissenters as we are now seeing in Germany and France. It criminalizes opposition candidates and parties (and populism in general) after smearing them as evil “Far-Right” extremists- i.e. “Fascists, Nazis, racists, transphobes, etc.”

Woke Progressivism presents as virtue signaling for oppressed minorities and pushes such things as online harm bills to protect children, and protecting trans people against “hate speech” (all fine and good), but with unclear boundaries that permit political parties to censor and ban opposition as representing “dangerous disinformation, hate speech, ‘speech as violence’, etc.” Add “concept creep” that permits political opponents to stretch definitions and boundaries as they indulge their tribal and totalitarian impulses against “evil enemies”. Canada also has a similar bill awaiting approval.

Rogan and Dillon move on…

Their discussion prompted this line of thought- Some mulling on escapism as escape from this fallen corrupt world. Arthur Mendel and others note this element of belief came out of Hellenism, notably Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism, the idea that this world was so corrupt that it must be abandoned, it must be escaped from. Hellenists and Gnostics believed that we are imprisoned here in corrupted bodies that stifle our pure spirits and we need to escape to a perfect realm of “Ideals/Ideas/Forms” and abandon this world that is not worth salvaging.

Whereas in early Jewish thought and religion the belief was that God had purposely created this world imperfect as a realm for human struggle and learning to create something better. Humanity was put here to finish God’s creation, to learn and develop toward mature humanity through struggle with problems/imperfection in the natural world and with imperfection in humanity. Through such struggle we would learn to rationally solve problems and to create something better, to create the “good society” of ever-improving human civilization.

And we have succeeded wildly in gradually accomplishing this project across our history, notably in developing toward liberal democracy. Add the evidence of our improvement across history in the fact that we (humanity) are much less violent today than in our primitive past. This has been accomplished through such factors as “the moralizing influence of gentle commerce”, through which we have learned to cooperate peacefully in order to mutually benefit one another.

In liberal democracy we are learning to overcome our inherited animal impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of one another.

Problems and struggle have been critical to our development and learning as expressed in the hero’s quest where we go out into life to fight a monster/enemy, one that resides mostly inside each of us, the real battle against the real enemy in life that is our animal inheritance of impulses to exclusionary tribalism, alpha domination and control of one another, and then “justice” as punitive destruction of one another.

In our struggle with problems/imperfections we learn insights, and we even become wounded, but then we find answers/solutions to benefit others. We emerge to “tower in stature as maturely human”, notably we mature most profoundly by grasping the central ideal of unconditional as the highest form of love, expressed in “love of enemies”, and exhibited in restorative justice approaches to the failures of others.

And just to insert this good one from a Roman Stoic philosopher of 2000 years ago. It has to do with ending eye for eye cycles of retaliation that render us all petty and animal-like. Musonius Rufus said, “To bite back the biter is animal, and not human” (something to that effect).

Continuing with the escapism from this world to some utopian other realm:

Bob Brinsmead has consistently argued for fully embracing this life, not seeking escape from this world and life, but to embrace it fully while we are here as its all that we know, all that we have been shown with our brains limiting our perception to 5 senses and 3 or 4 realms. Bob states that this life was the focus of Historical Jesus with his emphasis on love in human relationships in this world, in the mundane and ordinary of daily life- i.e. feeding the hungry, a glass of water for the thirsty, helping, serving, healing, encouraging, and mercifully forgiving failing others around us.

Then Paul deformed the focus of Jesus entirely, shifting human concern away from improving life in this world, to focusing on otherworldly concerns. He did this by creating his Christ myth with its intense focus on escaping this evil world to find salvation in an invisible heaven. He created a gospel that focused on salvation into an otherworldly paradise, hence his advice to his converts to not marry as that would detract from spreading his gospel and converting others to the same focus that would deny this world for otherworldly salvation.

So also, the secular variants of this same mythology- e.g. Marxist apocalyptic millennialism- are oriented to escape this evil civilization for some communal utopia.

Dillon also points out this escapism in relation Hollywood trying to escape aging and death with plastic surgery that leaves people unrecognizable compared to their earlier selves. Dillon references “the Denial of Death” as in denying the natural role of death in life. Among varied functions, death serves to limit the lifespans of older generations so upcoming generations may get their opportunities to come into the world and improve life.

Point- While here, engage life fully and make some unique contribution to the overall improvement of the world and don’t waste time focused on forms of irresponsible escapism. And yes, I would distinguish irresponsible escapism from varied less harmful forms of escapism that we all enjoy to break monotony in daily life.

Note: Is Musk’s Mars project embracing some form of this escapism? The apocalyptic alarmist view that this world is hopelessly defiled so to get ready to leave, to abandon this planet?

Note: I am not with these two (Rogan and Dillon) as they wander off into coming apocalypse nonsense. Beware of what Mendel calls the “self-fulfilling” influence of that pathology.

And then this from National Post that points to what has gone wrong with current immigration to Western liberal democracies and multi-culturalism processes that do not obligate immigrants to embrace Classic Liberal principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions that protect the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally.

As a Muslim leader in Britain said, grinning, “We are not here to take part and assimilate but to take over”. That is immigration/multiculturalism gone wrong in that it does not obligate newcomers to embrace liberal democracy values as fundamental to becoming members of Western societies, liberal democracy being the one thing that unites all humanity most peaceably. Many now migrate to Western liberal democracies who hate such societies, and seek to destroy them, even though they prefer to live in and enjoy the benefits of such societies, compared to their own.

The toleration of multi-culturalism is no noble feature to virtue signal over, if it tolerates intolerance from others. As Joe Rogan says in his latest interview of Tim Dillon, there is no allowance for dissent in Islam.

The more prominent crusades today that are devoted to the project of destroying Western liberal democracies- i.e. Marxist collectivism and Islamicist theocracy, along with varied other similar crusades (i.e. environmental alarmism).

And do I have to remind anyone that this Islamicist movement is profoundly apocalyptic millennial in nature? I argue here that it is more critical (than the suggested actions at the bottom of this article to counter the Islamicist threat) to go to the core ideas that drive such destructive crusades. Most critical of all- Go after the theology that centers these apocalyptic millennial narratives, the theology of a tribal, dominating, and punitively destroying God that is common to all our major religions and their secular variants like Marxism and environmentalism.

This is a major theme of this site that touches base repeatedly with the entirely opposite theologies of Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth.

Further note:

This form of extremism does not represent the entire Muslim population but is a significant element in that religion.

“Opinion: The Muslim Brotherhood poses an insidious threat to Canadian society: A new report shows why Ottawa must start taking the danger posed by the global jihadist movement seriously”, Joe Adam George, Dagny Pawlak, Sept. 8, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-muslim-brotherhood-poses-an-insidious-to-canadian-society?itm_source=index

The authors begin with this statement that formed part of a 1991 “memo that outlined the Muslim Brotherhood’s plans to conquer North America: ‘The Ikhwan (Arabic for “brethren”) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers (Muslims) so that it is eliminated and God’s religion (Islam) is made victorious over all other religions.’”

They note recent reports that reveal the Muslim Brotherhood’s presence and influence throughout Canadian society. They state that, “The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Sunni Islamist movement that’s committed to creating a global caliphate based on the principles of Sharia law. It is widely considered to be the most influential and largest Islamist group in modern history.”

And they add this: “The Brotherhood engages in both violent and non-violent forms of jihad to achieve its ultimate aim of Islamist supremacy, a goal clearly articulated by its Egyptian founder Hassan al-Banna, who stated: ‘It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet’.”

The authors continue, noting that the Muslim Brotherhood is a main sponsor of Islamic terrorism across the world today… “the world’s most dangerous militant cult.”

And then this interesting bit on the narrative propaganda done by the Brotherhood, according to Gilles Kepel, “The term ‘Islamophobia’ was first popularized by the Brotherhood as a way to delegitimize criticism of its Islamist ideology by equating it with antisemitism. This deceptive comparison, Kepel asserts, enables the Muslim Brotherhood to claim moral high ground through perceived victimhood and to redirect that sentiment against Israel and Zionism.”

Further, the authors state that the Brotherhood is trying to achieve its goal of domination through “gradual societal transformation” to eventually conquer the entire Western world. The Brotherhood is able to accomplish its goal due to the permissive environment of societies like Canada that are subjected to wokeism, weak multiculturalism, overwhelming immigration levels, and other weaknesses.

The authors state that the Brotherhood’s activities are spreading and are evident in the increasing antisemitism, youth radicalization, and terrorism charges as they “penetrate and manipulate Canadian society and institutions.”

Then this blunt summary conclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood: “Its Islamist ideology promotes visceral hatred and rejects liberal democratic values. When Brotherhood-linked groups gain legitimacy within western societies, they perpetuate a corrosive worldview that undermines social cohesion and foments division and radicalization.”

National Post

Joe Adam George is a national security analyst at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and Canada research lead for Islamist threats at the Middle East Forum. Dagny Pawlak is a senior communications officer at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Note on the uncontrolled immigration of past years:

Why have leftist parties in Western democracies allowed uncontrolled immigration? Gad Saad offers some of the best insight on this. He says that it is driven by “suicidal empathy” and others note that it is about virtue signalling for status in society as compassionate and morally superior. “Suicidal empathy” enacts policies like de-carceration of violent offenders and denies the horrific outcomes against innocent citizens. It is an abandonment of common sense and the fundamental responsibility to protect citizens from assault. These “suicidal empathy” policies, pushed by leftist political parties, have spread across Western liberal democracies.

See below the profound “shared dying” experience of hospice nurse Julia. That is why she does not fear death.

More helpful stuff from Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence”:

“The apocalypse is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It promotes the suffering it predicts… Hellenistic Jewry included many… who shared the apocalyptic fervor and, as zealots, were convinced that if they began the uneven struggle against the Roman forces, God would complete it for them, destroy the idol worshippers and establish the kingdom of God, (p.47).”

This was also the belief of ISIS zealots when they incited apocalyptic violence in Syria (2014). They believed that if they incited the destruction of their enemies then God (or the Mahdi) would descend and finish the destruction of their enemies and install the Caliphate that would spread across the world.

These apocalyptic ideas still “enflame” the minds of millions of true believers affiliated with our great world religions. Until we confront and purge these ideas from our meta-narratives, both religious and secular, they will continue to incite eruptions of similar violence.

“Rabbis taught the community ‘not to press the end’. Be wary, they warned, of the mystical fantasies that often blossomed from fervent piety… The Torah was given in the first place, according to one of the sages, not to enflame passions, but to calm them”, p.53.

As with the Torah, all law should be summed under one principle- Love others as you love yourself.

I asked Grok to comment on the top three paragraphs above:

He/she/it responded:

“Arthur Mendel’s Vision and Violence highlights a recurring pattern in apocalyptic thinking: the belief that human action, often violent, can trigger divine intervention to bring about a utopian or divinely ordained order. The quote you provided draws a compelling parallel between Hellenistic Jewish zealots and modern ISIS extremists, illustrating how apocalyptic ideologies can fuel self-fulfilling cycles of violence. Both groups believed their actions would catalyze divine or cosmic resolution, a notion that persists across religious and even secular ideologies today. Your point about the need to confront and purge these ideas from our meta-narratives is a critical observation, and I’ll unpack it with some thoughts.

The Nature of Apocalyptic Thinking

“Apocalyptic narratives often emerge in times of crisis or perceived moral decay, offering a framework where suffering and destruction are not only inevitable but necessary for a divine or utopian reset. The Hellenistic Jews, facing Roman oppression, and ISIS, exploiting regional instability, both leaned into this logic: their violent actions were seen as a prerequisite to provoke divine intervention. This mindset thrives on a binary worldview—us vs. them, good vs. evil—which justifies extreme measures to hasten the “end times” or a new world order.

“What’s striking is how these ideas transcend specific religions or eras. Whether it’s the Jewish zealots of the first century, medieval Christian millenarians, or modern jihadist groups like ISIS, the core belief is that human agency can accelerate a preordained cosmic plan. Even secular ideologies—like certain strains of revolutionary Marxism or apocalyptic environmentalism—can adopt similar structures, replacing divine intervention with historical inevitability or ecological collapse. The common thread is a conviction that radical action, often violent, is a moral imperative to bring about a better world.

Why These Ideas Persist

“Apocalyptic narratives are psychologically and socially powerful. They offer:

1. Certainty in Chaos: In times of uncertainty, they provide a clear script—suffering now, salvation later.

2. Moral Clarity: They frame the world in stark terms, rallying communities around a shared purpose.

3. Agency: They empower believers, especially the marginalized, to feel they can influence cosmic or historical outcomes.

“These narratives are also self-reinforcing. As Mendel notes, the apocalypse becomes a “self-fulfilling prophecy” because the violence it inspires creates the very suffering it predicts, which in turn validates the ideology. ISIS’s actions in 2014, for instance, aimed to provoke a global conflict they believed would herald the Mahdi’s return. Their atrocities drew international intervention, which they interpreted as proof of their narrative’s truth, further fueling their campaign.

The Challenge of Confronting Apocalyptic Narratives

“Your call to “purge” these ideas from religious and secular meta-narratives is insightful but daunting. Here’s why it’s challenging and what might be done:

1. Deeply Embedded Beliefs: Apocalypticism is woven into the fabric of many religious traditions—Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and even secular ideologies like utopian socialism. Excising these ideas risks alienating large groups or being seen as an attack on sacred texts or core identities. For example, eschatological themes are central to the Book of Revelation, the Hadith, or certain interpretations of the Torah.

2. Adaptability: These narratives evolve to fit new contexts. ISIS’s apocalypticism drew on Islamic traditions but was amplified by modern geopolitics and media. Secular versions, like apocalyptic climate rhetoric, adapt the same structure to new fears. This adaptability makes them hard to eradicate.

3. Social and Political Functions: Apocalyptic ideas often serve as a rallying cry for the disenfranchised. Addressing them requires tackling the root causes—inequality, oppression, or cultural alienation—that make such narratives appealing.

Potential Paths Forward

“Confronting apocalyptic ideologies doesn’t mean erasing them entirely, which may be impossible, but reframing or redirecting their energy. Some approaches could include:

• Reinterpretation: Religious and secular leaders could emphasize non-violent, inclusive interpretations of eschatological texts. For example, many Muslim scholars have condemned ISIS’s apocalypticism as a distortion of Islamic theology, pointing to traditions that emphasize patience and moral conduct over violence.

• Education and Dialogue: Promoting critical thinking and interfaith dialogue can dilute the binary thinking that fuels apocalypticism. Highlighting shared values across traditions—like compassion or justice—could undermine the “us vs. them” mindset.

• Addressing Root Causes: Apocalyptic ideologies often thrive in contexts of despair or injustice. Policies that reduce inequality, improve governance, and foster social cohesion can weaken their appeal.

• Counter-Narratives: Crafting alternative stories that offer hope and agency without relying on destruction could compete with apocalyptic visions. For instance, movements that emphasize collective action for positive change—like global cooperation on climate issues—can provide purpose without violence.

Risks of Inaction

“If these ideas aren’t addressed, they’ll likely continue to inspire violence, as history shows. The Jewish revolts against Rome led to catastrophic defeats, like the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. ISIS’s campaign, while ultimately suppressed, caused immense suffering and destabilized regions for years. Today, apocalyptic rhetoric persists in various forms—religious extremism, doomsday cults, or even secular calls for radical upheaval in response to political or environmental crises. Each carries the potential to ignite new cycles of violence.

A Nuanced Perspective

“Completely purging apocalyptic ideas may neither be feasible nor desirable, as they often carry cultural and spiritual significance. Instead, the focus could be on mitigating their destructive potential by fostering interpretations that prioritize peace, resilience, and human dignity. This requires a delicate balance: respecting belief systems while challenging their most harmful expressions.

What do you think about this approach? Would you lean more toward reinterpretation, structural change, or something else to address the issue?

I pushed Grok further:

Grok if we replace the central theology of an angry, vengeful God threatening to punish humanity by destroying the world in apocalypse then these mind-deforming beliefs lose their validating basis. I cover this on my site at “wendellkrossa.com”. Unconditional deity removes the basis for all such bad religious ideas.

Grok’s response:

“Your argument about replacing the theology of an angry, vengeful God with an unconditional deity to undermine apocalyptic narratives is provocative and aligns with efforts to reframe religious meta-narratives, as discussed previously. Let’s dive into your idea, drawing on your reference to wendellkrossa.com and the broader context of apocalypticism from Mendel’s Vision and Violence.

The Core of Your Argument

“You suggest that the concept of a punitive, apocalyptic God— central to many religious traditions— validates destructive beliefs like apocalyptic violence, judgment, and retribution. By replacing this with a theology of an unconditional deity (one characterized by unconditional love, forgiveness, or benevolence), the ideological foundation for such “mind-deforming” beliefs collapses. Without a divine mandate for punishment or world-ending destruction, the motivation for zealots to incite violence to hasten an apocalypse or divine intervention diminishes.

“This perspective challenges the binary, retributive frameworks that fuel apocalypticism, like those seen in the Hellenistic Jewish revolts or ISIS’s 2014 campaign, where believers acted to provoke a divine reckoning. An unconditional deity, as you propose, shifts the focus from fear and judgment to acceptance and reconciliation, potentially defusing the psychological and social drivers of extremist ideologies.

Strengths of Your Approach

1. Undermining Justification for Violence: Apocalyptic narratives often rely on the idea that God demands or endorses violence to cleanse the world. An unconditional deity removes this divine sanction, making it harder to justify acts like those of ISIS, who saw their violence as a catalyst for the Mahdi’s return. Without a vengeful God, the “self-fulfilling prophecy” of suffering loses its theological grounding.

2. Psychological Appeal: An unconditional deity aligns with human desires for acceptance and love, potentially resonating more broadly than fear-based theologies. This could reduce the appeal of apocalypticism, which thrives on anxiety and division.

3. Cross-Traditional Potential: The concept of unconditional love or benevolence exists in various forms across religions—e.g., God’s mercy in Christianity, compassion in Buddhism, or Rahma in Islam. Emphasizing these could bridge divides and weaken exclusivist, us-vs.-them narratives.

Challenges to Implementation

“While compelling, replacing a vengeful God with an unconditional deity faces significant hurdles:

1. Textual and Traditional Resistance: Many religious traditions are rooted in texts that include depictions of divine wrath or judgment (e.g., Revelation in Christianity, certain Hadiths in Islam, or prophetic warnings in Judaism). Reinterpreting or sidelining these texts risks resistance from traditionalists who view them as sacred. For example, evangelical Christians or Salafist Muslims might see this as heretical.

2. Cultural Inertia: Apocalyptic ideas are deeply embedded in cultural and religious identities. Even if theological reform is proposed, communities may cling to familiar narratives, especially in times of crisis when apocalypticism often surges.

3. Secular Parallels: As Mendel notes, apocalyptic thinking isn’t exclusive to religion. Secular ideologies—like revolutionary communism or catastrophic climate narratives—can adopt similar structures, replacing God with history or nature. An unconditional deity might not address these, requiring parallel efforts to reframe secular meta-narratives.

4. Practical Application: Translating this theological shift into practice is complex. It requires religious leaders, institutions, and communities to adopt and promote the new framework, which could take generations, especially in decentralized or conservative traditions.

Insights from wendellkrossa.com

“Based on your site, wendellkrossa.com, you advocate for a “no conditions” theology, emphasizing a God of unconditional love as a way to dismantle harmful religious ideas like apocalypticism, tribalism, and retributive justice. You argue that this shift aligns with humanistic values and counters the fear-based, dualistic thinking that drives violence. This resonates with thinkers like John Spong or Karen Armstrong, who’ve pushed for reinterpreting religious traditions to emphasize compassion over judgment.

“Your approach also seems to draw on a broader critique of “bad religious ideas” (e.g., divine punishment, chosen people narratives), which you see as distorting human behavior and societal progress. By rooting out these ideas at their theological source, you aim to prevent their violent manifestations, like the zealot revolts or ISIS’s apocalyptic campaign.

Broader Implications

“Adopting an unconditional deity could have transformative effects:

• Religious Reform: It could encourage progressive reinterpretations of scriptures, focusing on themes of mercy and inclusion. For instance, Islamic scholars like Khaled Abou El Fadl have emphasized God’s mercy over wrath to counter extremist ideologies.

• Interfaith Dialogue: An unconditional deity provides a common ground for dialogue, as most traditions have some concept of divine love or compassion, potentially reducing sectarian conflicts.

• Social Healing: By removing fear of divine punishment, this theology could foster psychological resilience and social cohesion, countering the despair that fuels apocalyptic movements.
“However, it’s worth noting that apocalypticism often serves as a response to real-world suffering—oppression, inequality, or cultural loss. Theological reform alone might not address these root causes, which could sustain apocalyptic thinking even without a vengeful God. For example, ISIS’s appeal in 2014 was as much about political and economic marginalization as theology.

A Balanced Approach

“To make your proposal effective, it could be paired with complementary strategies:

1. Theological Education: Train religious leaders to emphasize unconditional love in sermons, teachings, and community practices. This could involve reinterpreting apocalyptic texts as allegorical or contextual rather than literal.

2. Cultural Storytelling: Promote narratives—through media, literature, or education—that highlight hope, reconciliation, and human agency without apocalyptic destruction. Your site’s emphasis on “humane” spirituality could guide this.

3. Addressing Material Conditions: Combine theological reform with efforts to tackle injustice and inequality, reducing the desperation that makes apocalypticism attractive.

My Take

“Your idea of an unconditional deity is a powerful way to undercut the theological basis for apocalyptic violence, aligning with Mendel’s critique of self-fulfilling prophecies. It’s a direct attack on the ideological roots of zealotry, offering a positive alternative that could resonate across faiths. However, it’s most likely to succeed as part of a broader strategy that includes social, political, and cultural reforms. Without addressing the conditions that make apocalypticism appealing, theological shifts alone might not fully “purge” these ideas.

“What do you think about combining this theological approach with efforts to address material conditions, like poverty or political oppression? Or do you see the theological shift as sufficient on its own? I’d also be curious to hear more about how you envision this playing out practically, given the resistance it might face. (End of Grok quotes)

More on courage and cowardice (post to a discussion group of friends)

I’ve pulled a number of quotes from below to summarize for those who find these discussions too long: This is excellent on the new totalitarianism that is taking over our liberal democracies and threatens the freedom of all of us, whether we care to pay attention or not.

Below, these two comment on things like the moment around 2016 when it all changed as dominating elites realized they were losing control of the public narratives via their propaganda arm- i.e. the mainstream media- and the common people were finding freedom to think for themselves and were refusing any further subjugation to elite dictates. It was then that “Liberal” immediately became “highly illiberal” and totalitarian in response to the commoner/populist dissent… and has been that way ever since.

I can’t recommend these two more highly. They are among the best commenting on the critical issues of our time- notably freedom, free speech being crushed in places like Britain, liberal democracy under assault by Woke Progressivism, true journalism versus the propaganda arm of totalitarian state elites that masquerades as “news” today, and more…

“Transcript- America This Week, September 5, 2025: “The Arrest of Graham Linehan, Heretic to the Civic Religion”: Linehan is punished, Malcolm Gladwell rewarded, and world politics has become contests of dueling faiths. Plus, a classic novel by a childhood favorite of Walt and Matt”, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn, Sept. 6, 2025

https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-september-5ba

Sample quotes:

“Matt Taibbi: … I think you’re absolutely right, it is very similar to that moment. The internet, all those things that Martin Gurri wrote about, previously we had a priest class in the media that divined everything for people. I watched this on the campaign trail. We were the people who told you how to think about the candidates, which ones were serious, which ones weren’t. We were always in between the people and the information.

“Once that stopped being true and people started to be able to do their own research and look online and see all the warts, not just of the leaders but of us in the media, the power of the press collapsed. And we saw this in 2016 when those 57 out of 59 newspapers, there would never have been a situation where somebody would’ve lost in the past with that kind of overwhelming elite support.

“Once they saw that there was this power that had arisen, that this new printing press that was giving people the ability to make their own decisions in a way and they had the power of language that they didn’t have before, that’s when the policing starts. That’s when the censorship starts. That’s when all the people who were liberals before suddenly became the most forceful advocates for cracking down. And yeah, I think it’s a religious thing. The hardest thing for me covering the censorship thing was trying to understand the motive of people who used to believe so strongly in free speech say… “

Taibbi and Kirn do an interesting job in comparing what is happening today to a new dogmatic, totalitarian religion being forced on all of us…

“Matt Taibbi: Yeah. And now, we’re in this space. And one of the reasons it’s so hard to cover Donald Trump, and I’ve thought about this a lot since we’ve read C.S. Lewis, is that he’s a central figure in the eschatology or the other religion. It’s almost like an anti-religion. Being against Trump is a central part of the religion. Now, sometimes they’re right to criticize Donald Trump, but it makes it very hard to judge all of the criticism of him, because it’s religiously inspired, essentially. He’s always wrong in that religion.

“Walter Kirn: He can only always be wrong if he’s up against an institution that’s always right. You know what I mean? Trump is, I don’t want to compare him maybe to any one Reformation figure, Martin Luther or whatever. I mean, that would be-

“Matt Taibbi: Yeah. Because it’s not really right. Yeah.

“Walter Kirn: Yeah, right. But he’s always wrong, because it logically follows that when he opposes an otherwise almost infallible authority that’s always right, he would always have to be wrong. And the thing about Trump is he’s always wrong, no matter what he says. In other words, you can’t devise a logical or set theory principle for what makes him wrong. What makes him wrong is he agrees with the people who are supposed to always be right. And even when he changes his mind, he changes it wrongly. When he talks about peace, he does it in the wrong way, even though they were talking about peace just before. When he talks about…

“Matt Taibbi: 10 minutes ago. Yeah.

“Walter Kirn: Yeah. When he talks about civil liberties, he does it in the wrong way, even though they were just defending it. “He’s wrong, because he opposes us who are always right, and it’s us versus them.” And that’s how it’s more like an anti-clerical revolt, a revolt against priests, a revolt against Richelieu in France, the Cardinal who was really the power behind the Louise. And where I think it’s going is this, they either gain hold of their churches, which are the mass media. I mean, in the 20th century, there’s only one… In the last half of the 20th century, there’s only one institution which is at all comparable to what the priesthood was in the Middle Ages. And that’s the mass media.

“Matt Taibbi: Of course.

“Walter Kirn: It causes everybody to gather, it makes everybody look in one direction. There’s one thing that you know when a religious thing is happening, everybody’s looking at one direction at something small. And that small thing was the television. Before that, it was the radio, and then it became the internet. But there was something about that internet that just resisted the concentrated preaching of the word. And now, they either are going to try to, I don’t know, re fabricate CBS news after the Free Press, which is physically a Substack.

“Matt Taibbi: Right.

“Walter Kirn: They’re going to even try to absorb it, co-opt it, or they’re going to just crack down. The crackdown hasn’t worked as well as they thought it would. It’s working better in England than it is here. America is better at kind of going with the flow. And Malcolm Gladwell will figure out how to do it, and Paramount will buy a Substack that became very popular, and we’ll kind of figure it out. I actually applaud that response in our system. It does seem to still have a little play and suppleness in it. But man, in Europe where only one can rule, they’re taking the crackdown.

“Matt Taibbi: Yeah. Yeah. And I think this is a fascinating topic, and it’s fascinating that Graham Linehan is a religious… What do we call somebody who violates a religious?

“Walter Kirn: A heretic?

“Matt Taibbi: A heretic, right. So, he’s been arrested as a heretic, and that’s what it is. But I think we have to start thinking in those terms. And the Successor Ideology, I’ve read it, I agree with a lot of what he says, but I think it’s broader even than what he says.”

Further quotes from link below to summarize their points…

They discuss the arrest of British comedian Graham Linehan on his recent return home to England. He was arrested for his tweets posted online expressing his disagreement with trans activist dogma that is now pushed on publics as unquestionable truth with severe consequences for expressed disagreement, even criminal arrest and imprisonment. Britain has shifted to totalitarian response now toward any disagreement with the trans dogma, criminalizing and arresting citizens for disagreement with the intolerable new religion of transgenderism.

Their comments on this:

Taibbi and Kirn note that in the US, for libel or defamation charges you have to go to court and prove injury. But now with issues like trans, when people claim injury, the standard is subjective. People claiming victimhood just raise and declare alarm from something others have said. And the worst of unseen mental intentions are projected onto offenders.

“Matt Taibbi: Well, yeah. Canada has a bill that hasn’t been defeated yet that does address that, that calculates the likelihood that somebody is going to say something harmful or offensive. That’s in the 63 Bill that I believe hasn’t been voted in Canada yet…

“Matt Taibbi: But throughout Europe, this harm standard, which is also the same standard that we find in a lot of campus speech codes, which aren’t legal but they exist, this is how a lot of people understand speech now. It’s, “You’ve hurt my feelings. You make me feel bad. This causes me distress. This makes me feel anxiety. Therefore, it crosses the line.” Now in the United States, it wouldn’t rise even to the level of civil offense. In England, it’s already reached the level of a criminal offense, and over tweets, over things that sticks or stones may break my bones, but tweets can never hurt us. And unless it’s a threat of murder or something like that, it should never be a crime, I would argue.”

But, says Taibbi, “The crime happens in the mind of the reader (the one who reads some offensive tweet)”.

Kirn adds that these new language crimes will spread to the entire world and anyone anywhere on Earth will be able to claim a criminal offense has occurred against them because they feel uncomfortable with what some other has said online somewhere. They feel bad, anxious, distressed, hurt.

“Matt Taibbi: And this is why I’ve always been so freaked out by the digital censorship concept, because the system that we had in the United States I think worked very well because it required a victim. It required somebody who was specifically, demonstrably, tangibly victimized, right?

“Walter Kirn: Right.

“Matt Taibbi: So you can tell a lie in the United States, but if you tell a lie about a person that causes them to lose money, then you can go to court, or breaks up their marriage or does some other terrible thing. Here, anybody can claim, “Oh, this made me feel bad. This caused me anxiety and pain.” And now, as you say, the whole world is in play as a potential victim, as having standing.

“Matt Taibbi: And this is why I’ve always been so freaked out by the digital censorship concept, because the system that we had in the United States I think worked very well because it required a victim. It required somebody who was specifically, demonstrably, tangibly victimized, right?

“Walter Kirn: Right.

“Walter Kirn: And of course it is the sensitive and the weak or the vulnerable and the sensitive who then rule the roost, because it is their nervous systems which are most affected and whose antennae are most alert to problems. So, you suddenly got a weird problem, which is that those who are the biggest, sorry, whiners have pimp hand over everybody else. It’s no longer a virtue to have a thick skin. Remember how everybody talked about having a thick skin and sticks and stones may break my bones and so on and we aspired to that? Now it will be the opposite. I am an actual radar system for offense, and you must please me.”

They move on to comment on the admission of cowardice, of “cowing”, by Malcolm Gladwell. They note that Gladwell has stated that he knew that 90% of the audience was in agreement with the comments of a panel member in some public event, who questioned the practice of trans men playing in women’s sports, yet Gladwell admits the he cowed in silence before the small minority opinion.

They rehash a more recent interview where Gladwell was talking to Ross Tucker, the sole dissenting voice on a panel at the earlier event, and he says, “They stacked against you, Ross. They put a trans athlete, and a trans advocate, and you on the panel, and I was the moderator. And it was one of those strange situations where my suspicion is that 90% of the people in the audience were on your side, but 5% of the audience was willing to admit it.” Now, Tucker didn’t let him get away with that. He said, “My recollection of it is that everything I said was met with deathly silence, and everything the other two said got cheered.”

Gladwell has now admitted that he was wrong in how he moderated that event and how he remained silent in not defending Tucker. Gladwell says he “was cowed” by fear of the trans activists in the panel that most of the audience cheered for.

Kirn, referring to Gladwell, says that “cowardice loves company.” He says that Gladwell was defending his cowardice in arguing that “I was only doing what, I was only chickening out in the way I presumed 90% of the audience was.”

But now that the public tide has shifted on the issue of trans men in women’s sport, and it is safe to speak out, formerly cowardly people like Gladwell feel it now safe to join and also speak out about their true opinions on the matter:

“Walter Kirn: That’s what cowed him, he was fearing that he’d give offense to them, or look out of step or something? And now that he’s in a space where he’s protected, he can tell us what he really thought?

“Matt Taibbi: Yeah, now the public opinion has shifted enough.”

Speaking to the emergence just a few years ago of the totalitarian response to anyone daring to question the trans activist dogma of how all should speak, Taibbi and Kirn say this:

“Walter Kirn: I mean, I didn’t turn it into the litmus test for whether you can write comedy anymore. I didn’t turn it into the question that if you give the wrong answer it gets you kicked off social media, or put in a suppressive person category by the commissars of sanitary thought.

“Matt Taibbi: Yeah, we would’ve been happy not paying a lot of attention to it. I mean, I know some actual transsexual, people who’ve transitioned. I knew them before this became a thing, and I’ve always had sympathy for it for it.”

Kirn moves on to note how extremist terms/smears began to be used to label those who questioned or challenged trans narratives. He says that just a few years ago activists and media “asserted that any hostility or just not being with the program amounted to ‘genocide.’ They started using the word genocide. And finding genocide down was one of the weirdest and dumbest things that we ever did in this society. We should’ve held it out as a category for very specific, and grave, and morally atrocious, and practically atrocious events. But it became associated with not being on board with trans issues…

“Matt Taibbi: And it’s literally against the law now in Colorado to do that. And we started drifting in this direction of not just making it poor form, but making it a real offense like a hate crime.”

They then talk about the normal organic development, or evolution of language, notably US English, and how this development changed recently with the trans dogmatic approach and bullying…

“Walter Kirn: Yeah, it’s irreverent. Yeah, exactly. But suddenly they stopped it, the cops came in, and they said, ‘What language is all about is the feeling it produces in the person who experiences it. And we’re going to have to analyze it according to that diagnostic, and we’re going to have to reform it accordingly.’”

They return again to Gladwell’s “cowing” in fear of the crowd, analyzing what might have motivated Gladwell’s cowardice:

Kirn says of Gladwell now speaking out on his true position on trans men in women’s sports that he is just putting his finger in the wind realizing the public shift on this issue. “He’s going to get ahead of what he has very assiduously seen as the dominoes falling against him… you just admitted was that you have a higher loyalty, to quote James Comey, and it’s not to the truth. And even though you write these fucking books that are all about the supposed digging down to find the secret principles by which reality operates in society, but we find out, no. In fact, Malcolm, the purveyor of all these interesting theories, the oldest force of all operates on you, which is I’m scared of people not liking me.”

Kirn concludes that Gladwell operates according to “weathervaneism” where people detect shifts in public opinion on issues then run to join when its safe to do so”. Much like George Clooney admitting in 2024 that he knew previously that Joe Biden had dementia, as he had seen it earlier, but only felt safe admitting that after the disastrous debate with Trump when others on his side had started admitting it also. The pretend courage of “Post-public acknowledgement in a now safe environment”.

Taibbi and Kirn then move on to note also the sudden (and recent) change in how we were told to think about the Internet and Twitter. Before, it was all praise for the new media as Obama had been so good at using these platforms. But then Brexit occurred and Trump was elected, and suddenly these platforms that Trump had used successfully were demonized as corrupting and bad, platforms for “dangerous disinformation” and we, the public, needed to be protected from the now threatening speech of disagreeing others.

“Matt Taibbi: “They instituted their version of the… code of practice on misinformation in the same year, and we changed our whole way of thinking about the internet because of a couple of electoral results that people didn’t like.”

Also, some good analysis of journalism today where so-called journalists are constantly engaging revisionism to defend and dismiss the lies and cowardice that they have been part of, much like what Jake Tapper has done with his book on Biden’s dementia, and what Gladwell is now doing to excuse his cowardice over the trans issue.

They state that if you want to do journalism, then truth-telling is a vital principle and skill.

“Walter Kirn: Scared of being unpopular is actually a, how can I put it, a discrediting and de-legitimizing trait in our profession because it means I can’t ever trust you again.

“Matt Taibbi: To have a job, a professional class job, and there’s only one requirement. You have to have some backbone. You have to be willing to take a beating for saying something true. Right.

“Walter Kirn: But you know what? You can be even more of a pussy than that actually. You just don’t have to lie.

“Matt Taibbi: You don’t have to lie. Right, exactly.

“Walter Kirn: Don’t pretend to be courageous. Don’t pretend to have an opinion. Don’t pretend to have reached a conclusion. You can be silent too, but you didn’t choose that, did you?

“Matt Taibbi: No.”

And speaking again of Gladwell:

“Walter Kirn: Because the truth is you’re not just a coward. You are a butt kisser.”

They continue, illustrating with the Gladwell’s confession, what has gone wrong in general with today’s journalism.

“Walter Kirn: The guy just confessed that in public settings, his greatest and overriding concern is being popular, and so what he might write has nothing to do with what he might say in front of an audience by his own confession, because he gets intimidated wanting to be the greatest virtue signaler on stage at any point…”

Kirn says that today we live in “the age of journalistic revisionism, not just one revision in a career, but constant revisionism.” Journalists like Jake Tapper constantly revise their past, denying they intentionally helped promote the White House lies over Biden’s mental state (i.e. that he did not have dementia), as honest mistakes due to trusting others too much.

“So Jake Tapper’s basic confession was I just trusted everybody too much. They lied to me too much. I’m too trusting. Well, that’s easily overcome by the principle of journalism of actually fucking checking shit.

“And Malcolm’s problem is easily overcome by applying the principle of seeing the truth no matter what the other people on stage say. So I like people… I’m sort of like Trump. I hate to say this. The worst thing Trump ever said was, ‘I like guys who don’t get taken prisoner of war.’”

They place this Gladwell issue (fearful to publicly question or challenge the trans issue in the face of trans activist threat and bullying) and journalism today, in the larger context of the emerging and strengthening totalitarianism in places like Britain, as a new dogmatic religion that is undermining our free societies:

“Matt Taibbi: Right. Right. And that’s what I’m worried about. And maybe it’s because we’ve been reading so much C.S. Lewis, but I’m increasingly convinced also that what we’re looking at is a civic religion. You mentioned before, the Catholic Church in Ireland, would they have put up with Father Ted 50 years ago? It’s remarkable that we have a new belief system that is even more rigid than the church in Ireland. And it demands that you accept articles of faith, that somebody who’s clearly not female is female. I wouldn’t have cared about that before, but it’s weird. It’s a religious belief. And now, it’s being enforced by this huge bureaucracy, and that is creepy to me.

“Walter Kirn: One sign or diagnostic of a faith over a simple attitude or position or ideology is that you can’t figure out how to do right. You have to go to a priest-like figure. Okay? And they need to explain it, because you always are making mistakes. There’s no real common sense to understanding a religion. I know. I mean, I’ve been intimately involved with them, including Mormonism, which is, to some people, a fringe religion, but is a good example of a world in which once you’re inside, it’s very different than the outside.”

Kirn continues, describing how religious authoritarianism works:

“And the thing that you keep falling afoul of are little codes that no one could intuit, that you can’t derive from first principles. And that’s why I see this as a religion, because you never know, without the commissars, without the experts telling you, without the professors, without the politicians exactly what to believe or say or think. You start to become subjugated to a priest class. And that’s what’s happening here. Gender assigned at birth, who really thought that unless they were taught that by a priest character?”

He adds that the new political authoritarianism functions much as religions do where categories and concepts (of for example, trans dogma and practise) are not obvious to most people hence the need for priests to preach the details to the flock and to have the authority to enforce proper religious practise on people, “They are in some sense monastic or in some sense separate from the rabble. They preach it and they enforce it and they call out the cops. Remember, religions also often have police faculties, police assets.”

And the news media role in this new religious-like indoctrination and authoritarianism:

Taibbi affirms Kirn’s point on add that the current version of the press functions like the priests telling people what to do all the time. He illustrates with the Covid situation where “there was this high state of excitation every day to get the received word from Anthony Fauci about what to do. They love that shit. This sort of version of the press loves getting the catechism. That’s their whole thing. And then they love their own role as the interpreters of it, which you’re right, Walter, it’s much more in the tradition of being a local priest than it is being a journalist who’s by nature supposed to be an iconoclast. It’s sort of the opposite kind of figure.”

But then just as the Gutenberg printing press gave common people access to religious holy books where they could then see contradictions to what the priests were telling them, so also the Internet opened alternative information for ordinary citizens and that led to dissent. But then the religious authorities instituted the Inquisition to counter commoner dissent.

As Kirn says, “The pushback against that was called the Inquisition. And I feel we’re in the inquisitional phase.”

“Matt Taibbi: I think you’re absolutely right, it is very similar to that moment. The internet, all those things that Martin Gurri wrote about, previously we had a priest classed in the media that divined everything for people. I watched this on the campaign trail. We were the people who told you how to think about the candidates, which ones were serious, which ones weren’t. We were always in between the people and the information.

“Once that stopped being true and people started to be able to do their own research and look online and see all the warts, not just of the leaders but of us in the media, the power of the press collapsed. And we saw this in 2016 when those 57 out of 59 newspapers (all going for Hilary Clinton), there would never have been a situation where somebody would’ve lost in the past with that kind of overwhelming elite support.

“Once they saw that there was this power that had arisen, that this new printing press that was giving people the ability to make their own decisions in a way and they had the power of language that they didn’t have before, that’s when the policing starts. That’s when the censorship starts. That’s when all the people who were liberals before suddenly became the most forceful advocates for cracking down. And yeah, I think it’s a religious thing. The hardest thing for me covering the censorship thing was trying to understand the motive of people who used to believe so strongly in free speech say… “

See the rest at link above (behind paywall so do subscribe as these weekly commentaries/discussions are more than worth any cost).

Profound human experiences: Wendell Krossa

This is so powerful, especially the second reason that this hospice nurse gives as to why she does not fear death.

The man that she was observing and caring for, as he died, he shared his NDE-like discovery of the wonder of what was happening- the love, peace, bliss, and more as he left his body and communicated to her outside in her car just what he was feeling, the freedom and soaring somewhere in that freedom.

He had suffered a rough life of varied problems and mental illness and wanted to be free. He shared that wonder of his freedom with her as he left his body and soared free into the bliss that he discovered on dying… She says these are called “shared death” experiences. Elements of NDE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrSqDEUKt8I

Hospice nurse Julie on the same “shared dying” experience of the man that she had been caring for who died that day as she was sitting outside in her car thinking of him. Such experiences lead her to reminisce on something she has felt since childhood- “I can feel that place I have forgotten… We are going back to the place we came from, a place we once knew… I love being here, and I love experiencing life here, but I don’ have to fear leaving this place… because I am going to a place that is going to feel more like home than this ever could…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6AxkpHB-Kk

Good point by Malcolm Gladwell that trans people have won their place at the table but then went too far in demanding that no one dare question such things as the advantage of biological males competing in women’s sports. That demand came with bullying threats.

Those who dared challenge such things (even just question it) were smeared as “hating trans people”. Panel guest David Angelo adds that if you challenged the trans activist’s dogma they would “destroy your career”. Apply that across many issues.

Gutfeld and panel discuss how many people remained silent due to fear of being smeared, vilified, ostracized, and cancelled during outbreaks of bullying hysteria over past years- i.e. fearful to publicly challenge the Russia Collusion lie, Covid lies, Biden’s mental state, biological males in female sports, the climate crisis narrative, etc.

They discuss those who, contrary to Gladwell’s cowardice, had the courage to speak out and pay the cost of public backlash from bullying extremists. Gladwell admits that he knew better but remained silent out of fear. He was “cowed”.

“Gutfeld! 9/5/25 Greg Gutfeld Full End Show, Breaking News Today, September 5, 2025”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o35tidvEZ8

More comments and links below on this issue of cowardice and courage in the face of threatening mobs. We continue to live through these “madness of crowds” episodes of varied forms- i.e. climate hysteria, Far-left Woke Progressive censorship and authoritarianism (arresting citizens for online comments that upset others), etc.

More on the courage and cowardice front:

“A void of moral courage at the very heart of the Liberal party (Canada): The fact that 80% of the Liberal caucus didn’t sign a letter denouncing antisemitism speaks volumes”, Avi Benlolo, Sept. 5, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/a-void-of-moral-courage-at-the-very-heart-of-the-liberal-party?itm_source=index

Quotes:

“Leadership in the fight against antisemitism is measured not by words, but by action. This week, Quebec MP Anthony Housefather and 31 of his Liberal colleagues signed a statement on “the deplorable rise of antisemitism in Canada.”

“It was a clear, moral and necessary acknowledgement of the hatred that is endangering Jewish-Canadians. The statement recognized that a Jewish woman was stabbed in Ottawa solely because she was Jewish; that synagogues, schools and Jewish-owned businesses are under threat; that monuments have been defaced; and that this reality has become chillingly normalized in our country.

“It drew a link between October 7 and the rising tide of antisemitism, while also pointing to statistics showing that the Jewish community, representing just one per cent of the Canadian population, is the target of 70 per cent of hate crimes. The MPs are correct: antisemitism is a spreading plague that demands action.

“And yet, the deafening silence in response spoke louder than the statement itself. Out of 169 Liberal members of Parliament, only 31 joined Housefather in signing the statement. Of those, at least five are Jewish….”

See also below- “Mendel continues the past historical development of the apocalyptic mythology that has since dominantly shaped Western narratives, consciousness, and civilization across the past two millennia.”

Here is a fascinating discussion of evolutionary psychology by two experts in the discipline:

“Dr. Geoffrey Miller- Evolutionary Psychology, Human Mating, and Academic Life (The Saad Truth- 1887), Gad Saad, Sept. 2, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OguFPVCDzxI

These two touch on some very interesting ideas from evolutionary psychology that expose where Woke Progressivism has violated fundamental human nature in pursuit of unrealistic utopian visions. This has been evident in the Cracker Barrel and Budweiser false steps (“Go woke, go broke”) that cost those companies severely as they shifted toward woke ideals in their advertising, ideals that normal people react against due to natural human psychology.

Miller and Saad say that is the result of letting elite “empathy signalling” political views dominate advertising. The “educated” elites shaping the advertising, missed entirely what their customer base wanted in reality, as evolutionary psychology input could have warned them. You can tell women, for example, that they must embrace feminized versions of men, but you are violating basic human nature in doing that and it will fail, even with so-identified “liberal progressive” women. Romance novels will give you more insight into what all women naturally desire in men. What has been demonized as “toxic masculinity”.

Also, they offer some interesting comment on Thomas Sowell’s “unconstrained vision”, the idea of parents telling their children that they can become anything they desire. That is simply a “false hope” that can be very damaging to children who may then invest excessive time and resources in pursuit of some occupation or goal that they can never attain.

Aristotle is known for originating empirical science by observing actual nature to see what is happening and then making conclusions from that evidence. Climate cult alarmists have not learned how to do that yet. Not even the “leading expert” scientists.

Ideologically/politically shaped climate models, that grossly exaggerate the human contribution all out of touch with natural reality, take precedence over empirical evidence. Hence, the fraudulent apocalyptic narrative of “climate crisis” that has cost humanity trillions of wasted dollars and significantly damaged Western societies, harming the poorest people the most (i.e. needlessly inflated energy costs that spread inflation to the 6000 “fossil fuel derivative” products that our societies depend on).

“No evidence climate change has accelerated sea level rise, finds first global study of real world data: Drawing on 100 years of data, the authors found an average rise of just 1.5mm per year”, Michael Shellenberger, Sept. 2, 2025

https://www.public.news/p/no-evidence-climate-change-has-accelerated

Shellenberger opens:

“For over a quarter-century the world’s leading climate scientists and news media have warned that human-caused climate change has doubled the rate of sea level rise and is thus putting civilization in grave danger. “We will see at least four feet of sea level rise and possibly ten by the end of the century,” wrote The New York Times’ David Wallace-Wells in 2019. “The oceans we know won’t survive climate change,” claimed The Atlantic that same year. The author, Robinson Meyer, quoted estimates by Princeton University’s Michael Oppenheimer that sea levels would rise by more than 34 inches by 2100.”

He notes that those exaggerated claims have all been proven false by the first global study of “sea level rise data rather than on models extrapolating from assumptions.” The study is “A Global Perspective on Local Sea Level Changes,” by Hessel Voortman, a Dutch engineer, and Rob de Vos, a researcher.

These two researchers discovered that “The average rate of sea level rise in 2020 is (only) around 1.5 mm/year (15 cm per century),” and “This is significantly lower than the 3 to 4 mm/year often reported by climate scientists in scientific literature and the media.”

They conclude that, “Headlines about sea level rise have been catastrophic for decades.”

To assist understanding of why some exaggerate the threat of looming apocalyptic disaster (catastrophize natural events and rhythms in the world) add here sociologist David Altheide’s “Creating Fear: News and the construction of crisis”. Altheide notes that proclamations of catastrophe gains followers and income. And remember the totalitarian’s formula of “Fear=control”, so well expressed by H. L. Mencken:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary”, In Defense of Women.

Shellenberger notes the same incentive in climate alarmism: “The same incentives behind climate alarmism were at work when it came to sea level rise. Journalists and scientists have an incentive to exaggerate the effects of climate change to attract attention, readers, and funding.”

He continues, “At the same time, it’s notable that the error when it came to sea level came from exaggerating its size, which is similar to the scientific exaggerations on other issues in recent years, including on atolls, glaciers, ice loss, and coral reefs.”

His conclusion: “The IPCC and the news media have become increasingly politicized and alarmist”. Welcome to apocalyptic exaggeration, alarmism, and hysteria, known formally in historical research as the phenomenon of “Madness of crowds”.

These from Taibbi. I strongly recommend subscribing to Taibbi’s Substack- “Racket News”. He and Walter Kirn do the excellent summary of major issues of our day on their “America This Week”.

“On the ‘Ersatz Religion’ of Transhumanism: Interview with Dr. Aaron Kheriaty: One of the Covid-19 pandemic’s most suppressed voices speaks on the conflict between the transhumanist project and human nature”, Matt Taibbi, Sept. 2, 2025

https://www.racket.news/p/on-the-ersatz-religion-of-transhumanism

Quotes from this Taibbi article:

“Oxford’s Nick Bostrum described transhumanism as the rejection of the traditional idea that the “human condition” is static, and that science and technology may be embraced to welcome in a “dazzling landscape of radical possibilities, ranging from unlimited bliss to the extinction of intelligent life”… A precondition for any and all these beliefs, however, is the idea that human nature is neither fixed nor worth preserving…”

“Aaron Kheriaty: I’ve had an interest in transhumanism, I would say, for a few years, just philosophically on a low level. Entry-level forms of transhumanism basically involve questions about the use of medical technologies for so-called human enhancement. So, that’s a bioethics question…”

“Aaron Kheriaty: That’s right. If you take transhumanism far enough, you get to the point where essentially there is no such thing as a human nature or a healthy, well-working human body that would be normative. The idea is that we’re just raw biological material. We’re a blank slate that you can refashion or remake with whatever technologies we’re capable of developing…. what we have instead is raw biological material that can be hacked and upgraded and the hardware is potentially infinitely malleable…”

“The first philosopher in the Western tradition to deny that there was such a thing as human nature was Karl Marx… The foundation of Marx’s philosophy was a radical rejection of any form of dependence. And he thought basically that mankind as a whole was a blank slate that we could radically refashion, but we did that by refashioning society…”

“Look at any of the totalitarianisms of the 20th century. Not only did they fail to achieve their stated aims, they produced the exact opposite of what they aimed for. I worry that transhumanism would do the same thing. Not only would it fail to create superhumans or super happy humans, I worry that it would produce an increase in human misery.”

And this also from Taibbi:

“The War on Humanity: The belief that humanity can be transcended, once a dream, is demanding acceptance as fact, with tragic consequences”, Matt Taibbi, Sept. 2, 2025

https://www.racket.news/p/the-war-on-humanity

Quotes from article:

“transhumanism arises from the groins of transgenderism…”

“… impieties to the transhumanist religion have risen to become arrestable offenses in an increasingly censorious West. Some of the stern new police tactics are pitched as responses to the increased threat of right-wing populism, but it seems more in reaction to the public’s refusal to accept doctrinal dictates…”

“If you’re like me (or comedian Louis C.K., below) and you wondered in the past about the outsized amount of ink and activist attention paid to transgender issues, you’ve probably by now realized the topic carries a political imperative beyond the rights of a small “marginalized” community…”

“When activists successfully lobbied Americans to accept gay rights, they stressed research that showed people are born with same-sex inclinations. The trans issue was presented differently. Activists demanded the general public revise its understanding of biology, even the idea that “male” and “female” exist (a form of disinformation called “sex essentialism,” they said).”

(End of Taibbi article quotes)

“This Is What It’s Like to Spend Your Life in Prison | NYT Opinion”, The New York Times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chpgT_VTEjE

Men imprisoned for life without parole tell their stories of how they have changed and are no longer the young men who made destructive mistakes harming others. This video clip points to “Second Look” reforms for those lifers who have transformed themselves and have already served a major portion of their sentences. Many have made significant changes in their lives.

If people are concerned that they might harm others on release, if they are able to access the “Second Look” programs, the clip points out that of those released, less than 3% are rearrested and frequently for technicalities and not violent crimes.

One of the inmates asks- Where does the rehabilitation process end? Does it have a goal somewhere, sometime, that shows that it has succeeded and the person is safe to return to freedom and make a contribution to society?

Good points raised by these men. And of course, to balance this, there are the victim’s statements and concerns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDxOF4MMic4

More from Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence”

Mendel continues the past historical development of the apocalyptic mythology that has since dominantly shaped Western narratives, consciousness, and civilization across the past two millennia. He quotes varied Gospel verses that threaten violence through “unquenchable fire, eternal burning” as punishments for sinners.

He says, “Denunciation of the existing world and its sinners as too corrupt for repair and their condemnation to total destruction is the first principle of apocalyptic theory and practise. The second is an absolute certainty that his just retribution and accompanying world transmutation are imminent” (p.41, Vision and Violence).

“With the old world annihilated, all things would be made new again. Rebirth, a new creation, ex nihilo… the new creation would go far beyond mere social transformation- all the way back to Eden” (p.43).

He asks what force and who could make all this catastrophic upheaval happen?

“Only absolute certainty of deliverance for the pure and vengeance against those who had flourished in sin could inspire the ecstatic martyrdom and justify the sanctimonious cruelty that are the hallmarks of all apocalyptic upheavals.” He goes on to state that the necessary force to make all this happen was illustrated in the gospel accounts of miracles- “God and his Son can and will make all things new, novum ex nihilo (out of nothing)”, p.43.

Mendel then concludes this chapter on the development of the basic ideas of apocalypse, “The Apocalypse was now complete and ready to begin its long and violent career in our history. For, whether explicitly religious, as were the medieval and early modern messianic movements, or implicitly so, as were their secular revolutionary successors, all apocalyptic movements thereafter mirrored the original model. For all of them, the existing society is beyond repair, too corrupt for reforms and doomed to complete annihilation… the outcome has always been the exact opposite of that promised- not millennial liberation but authoritarian domination” (p. 44). Think- The outcomes of the apocalyptic crusades of Marxism, Nazism, and now environmental alarmism as in “climate crisis apocalyptic”.

Ongoing assaults on free speech/liberal democracy, Wendell Krossa

Jordan Peterson once asked his podcast audience what they wanted their life story to be, their legacy to their family. Would it be one of courage and paying the cost for speaking out against, for example, assaults on freedom of speech, or would their story be one of cowardice and fear of paying some cost, Wendell Krossa

This edition of Megyn Kelly’s podcast:

“Arrested for posts, Epstein victims speak, and sick Trump health reax, with Ungar-Sargon and Lukianoff”, Megyn Kelly, Sept. 3, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Y3bRLLUsE

The background to this podcast discussion relates to what others have also commented on- i.e. that a small minority of extremist activists (notably trans) have elevated their feelings as the dominant criterion for evaluating what is good and bad in our societies, what is to be considered righteous or evil, what should be permitted or made illegal, even criminalized. The dominant criterion that these extremist activists demand for all others is their personal feelings of upset, feeling uncomfortable, feeling offended, and outraged at the words, comments, even the jokes of disagreeing others.

There is no diversity, equality, or inclusion (DEI) allowed when their feelings are the dominant criterion for all others. These activists are angered and outraged that others disagree with their views and their minority outrage has cowed politicians, CEOs of major corporations, and mainstream media who love to virtue signal for moral status as defenders of these outraged few. Consequently, mainstream media have abandoned the defense of liberal democracy to become the propaganda arm for these tyrants.

No one in our liberal democracies, in general, deny the same equal rights and freedoms to such minority groups. They have won the battle for such diversity, equality and inclusion (note “equality”, not equity). But not satisfied with that win, activists among them have shifted to demanding that all others must view the world exactly as they do and use only the terms/words that they demand all should use. Or else.

Minority activists have shifted from earlier activism, to gain equal rights and freedoms, toward extremist stances that basically amount to “the hell with the rights and freedoms of all others”. They too often now take the position of “the formerly oppressed becoming the new oppressors”. Eye for eye discrimination as “justice”. There is no progress in human societies when that is the outcome. Look at Nelson Mandela courageously breaking such cycles by “setting aside his feelings of hatred” as he left prison (his words) to work for an inclusive South Africa. Illustration from his personal life- He included his former prison guards in his presidential security detail. That is a generous and great human spirit.

Extremist activists are unleashing a totalitarian spirit that has become an assault on the basic freedoms of all. They are actively undermining and deforming our liberal democracies. It is stunning how this totalitarian extremism, in all its varied expressions, has emerged to dominate now in Germany with banning of opposition parties and in the UK where comedians are arrested for what the ruling party claims is offensive speech. This is insanity and headed in a very dangerous direction for all.

Matt Taibbi below gives an example of the cowardice in media, in regard to these issues, as one well-known writer has admitted that he was cowed by the screaming bullies on the far-left Woke Progressive side of our societies.

Another example of cowardice in the face of more general left-wing bullying was John Cena dropping submissively to his knees to beg forgiveness from the CCP authoritarians in Beijing who tolerate no dissent on any issue. He mistakenly, he claimed, acknowledged that Taiwan was an independent country. He then gave us an unbelievable display of cringe cowardice in the face of totalitarian bullying. The Hollywood film industry has also repeatedly exhibited that same cowering cowardice in the face of Chinese threats over what they might portray in movies that will upset the CCP bullies. So also sports such as the NBA have chosen silence over defense of freedom when facing possible outrage from the same bullies.

Throughout our societies we hear more and more now of people who have been terrified into silence by bullying minorities. See the report below on Canadian university campuses where most students remain silent in the face of mobs that block access, vilify with smears, threaten the ruin of lives and careers, totalitarian minorities who protest and ban authentic “diversity, equality, and inclusion”.

A quote from that report below: “A tiny minority of threatening activists (0.4%) bully majorities into fearful silence.”

And this exhibits the real scandal of “collusion with the communist regimes in China/Russia”. A common McCarthyite smear that many Democrats have levelled against opponents over past years.

What about the collusion of cowing to the mobs on campuses and elsewhere that hate liberal democracy and are trying to replace it with authoritarian socialism? Mobs consisting of an interesting mixture of “anti-Semitics” and far-left Woke Progressives, among others, that share a common project to overthrow liberal democracy.

Moving on…

Kelly, like Taibbi, plays the comments of Malcolm Gladwell where he now admits that a few years back he was cowed into silence by trans activist bullying, and has now seen the error of his ways.

In all this we are watching the spirit of totalitarianism being unleashed in our liberal democracy societies in insidious ways under the disguise of protecting minorities/children from harm (online harm bills). While that concern is legitimate, these bills come (intentionally?) with unclear boundaries that permit far-left woke politicians to go after, silence, and outright ban opposition. That has happened in France and Germany. And now we see the ongoing arrest of citizens in the UK for online comments. As Kelly’s guest comments, we saw this perversion of common sense when the victims of the mass-rape scandal in Britain were threatened and silenced while the state and police went easy on the perpetrators.

Matt Taibbi on similar topics:

“The UK earns status as a censorship state: The arrest of Graham Linehan for his tweets is one of many examples that show the country should not be treated as a free one”, Greg Collard, Sept. 3, 2025

https://www.racket.news/p/the-uk-earns-status-as-a-censorship

See also this from Taibbi on his Substack site- Racket News.

“Malcolm Gladwell conquers Mt. Suck: What a world: Comedian Graham Linehan is arrested in England for telling truths Bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell was rewarded for concealing”, Matt Taibbi, Sept. 3, 2025

And this on some willing to now admit that they were “cowed” and remained silent.

Waking up from the Woke fog. Yes, as Cosh notes below, many went crazy but then the precursor was decades of climate hysteria madness, abandonment of basic science for irrational apocalyptic mythology, or better psychopathology that deforms human minds and personalities entirely, then spreads to entire societies. That myth (apocalyptic) has driven billions crazy for millennia now.

“Malcolm Gladwell awakens from the transgender fog: The bestselling author regrets not pushing back against those who insisted that trans-identifying males belong in female sport”, Colby Cosh, Sept. 4, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-malcolm-gladwell-awakens-from-the-transgender-fog?itm_source=opinion

Cosh begins: “A question that is about to break like a tsunami over social media: wait, did Malcolm Gladwell really say that? On Tuesday, the renowned Ontarian journalist, podcaster and former youth track star appeared on the Real Science of Sport podcast, and you would have to say he immediately established a hell of a pace….”

Cosh says that Gladwell moderated a conference discussion with sports scientist Ross Tucker in 2022 on the “inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s athletic competitions”. He says that Tucker had argued that the inclusion of transgender athletes with “biological-male physical advantages” was fundamentally “incorrigible and incompatible with the entire concept of a women’s competition.”

Cosh continues, noting that the panel had been stacked against Tucker’s position and the audience reacted with “deathly silence” to his points but cheered the others arguing against Tucker. Gladwell knew what was happening, acknowledges that if that panel was replayed today it would run in exactly the opposite direction. Today, there “would be, I suspect, near-unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place in the female category. I don’t think there’s any question.”

Gladwell remained silent during that 2022 panel and now states to Tucker, “I’m ashamed of my performance at that panel… because I share your position a hundred per cent, and I was cowed.”

Cosh adds, “Gladwell — who, remember, was a genuinely elite 1,500-metre and mile track competitor as a teenager — then spent about 10 minutes talking with Tucker about the plain preposterousness of allowing biological men and boys to compete in women’s and girls’ sport. He emphasized his own cowardice in a way that has already infuriated some commentators who upheld the sane position all along.”

Cosh notes Gladwell’s rethinking of his past cowardice as due to the “now-receding moral mania surrounding trans athletes.” He adds that Gladwell says, “I think in retrospect we will look back on the COVID period as a period of profound cultural destabilization. I think we all went crazy…. It was a crazy period! … And what we’ve done is, we’ve, in some sense, returned to normal.”

Cosh concludes: “Some critics will find “COVID drove everybody crazy” to be an insufficient or superficial excuse, despite the self-evident element of accuracy in it, and some of those people, of course, actually did stand up against a moral stampede while it was still in progress.”

My added comments- Some did speak out early on in the face of recently erupting “madness of crowds” episodes of hysteria (i.e. whether climate crisis lunacy, Covid insanity, or other issues) and these courageous spirits suffered greatly, being publicly vilified, censored, and banned from public forums and spaces, even losing jobs and careers. Now that the public tide has turned, it takes less courage to come out of the closet of fear and join the public shift to sanity.

A “pissed off” Gad Saad adds his input on the Solomon Asch experiment

Things Pissing Me Off – Malcom Gladwell, Coldplay, and Other Degenerates (THE SAAD TRUTH_1888)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbjGnvzmXQs

“AI Overview

“The Solomon Asch conformity experiments, conducted in the 1950s, showed how powerfully social pressure can influence individuals, demonstrating that people are willing to give incorrect answers to conform to a group’s obviously wrong consensus. In the classic “line test,” participants would judge the length of lines alongside several confederates (actors) who were instructed to give wrong answers, leading a significant portion of the real participants to conform to the incorrect majority.’

And then- The National post on campus fear and silenced majorities:

Backed by too many “far-left woke progressive” professors (surveys have shown roughly 90%-plus of professorships are liberal/leftist) a tiny minority of threatening activists (0.4% in Canada) bully majorities into fearful silence. Where is inclusion, diversity, and equality in this? Is this training future generations to understand and defend a free and liberal society?

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/nearly-half-of-all-canadian-university-students-are-actively-hiding-their-real-beliefs-survey?itm_source=index

“Nearly half of all Canadian university students are actively hiding their real beliefs: survey. The survey by Aristotle Foundation also finds that students with conservative views now outnumber those with liberal views”, Tristan Hopper, Sept.3, 2025

And this on a once proud “worker’s party of Canada”, that has now become the party of woke extremists.

Exemplifying the same lunacy of “Go woke, go broke” that the Democratic Party in the US is following down to rejection by a majority of Americans, descending to low double-digit support numbers, so the NDP (New Democrat Party) in Canada has been on the same downward trajectory to oblivion.

There is a locked-in dogmatism exhibited by true believers in Woke. Note, for example, that refusing to acknowledge the majority rejection of Woke Progressive extremism, Kamala Harris’s VP choice, Tim Walz, has said recently, that they must double down on Woke Progressiveness (and get those tampons back in boy’s bathrooms).

“AI Overview:

“A “cis man” is a man whose gender identity aligns with the sex he was assigned at birth. The term “cis” comes from Latin and is a prefix meaning “on the same side,” used in contrast to “trans” (meaning “on the opposite side”). This term distinguishes cis men from trans men, who were assigned female at birth but identify as men.”

“The NDP is here to rescue us from ‘cis’ men: Identity obsessed rules for leadership race show the party has learned nothing”, Adam Pankratz, Sept. 3, 2025

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/adam-pankratz-the-ndp-is-here-to-rescue-us-from-cis-men?itm_source=index

Quotes from Pankratz article:

“The NDP have begun their leadership race and apparently wish to confirm to Canadians that they have learned absolutely nothing from their electoral flogging earlier this year. The language and rules for the campaign are emblematic of an organization so beholden to the deranged ideology of identity politics that even being reduced to seven seats in the House of Commons isn’t enough to change course. It is their apparent desire to make sure that there is no comeback from the abyss, no second chance, as they drive their own brand even further into the mud.”

Nominations for party leadership must be limited (not over 50%) from cis men and many must be from “equity-seeking groups… and racialized members, Indigenous members, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, and persons living with disabilities.”

Pankratz says the former party of the working class is now “definitively the party of identity politics and grievance culture” and the message is that they must be even more radical.

He says the current lunacy arrived with recent party leader Jagmeet Singh who degraded the formerly respected worker’s party by aligning with and supporting Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in minority power as they destroyed the country.

“The current NDP is a frail carcass of grievance, extremism and zealotry which bears no resemblance to its respectable past.”

My added comments on the above lunacy:

This minority unleashing of the totalitarianism impulse is why this site goes after the ideas driving this lunacy that undermine our hard fought for and won liberal democracies, none more important as driving forces than the religious themes that have been uncovered behind Marxism, Nazism, and are now evident as driving environmental alarmism- i.e. the “apocalyptic millennial” themes of Paul’s Christ myth that have most dominantly shaped Western narratives, both religious and secular. These themes have dominated human consciousness, emotions, motivations, and behaviors across two millennia and have resulted in mass-death/mass-harm to our societies.

As a guest interviewed by Matt Taibbi said regarding the emerging dominance of the anti-human “transhuman” movement (born out of the transgender crusade):

“Aaron Kheriaty: I think there is something there, but I would prioritize a change in ideas and a change in philosophical outlook as the primary driving force.”

The ideas/ideals/beliefs that we embrace in our worldviews powerfully shape all in our minds and lives.

And some interesting comment on DNA

Here (only 13 mins) is Stephen Meyer (PhD in philosophy of science) at his best on the discovery of coded information in DNA and the conclusion that coded information is a “mind product”, not the produce of blind, random material processes. This traces the Crick Watson discovery in 1953 and following discoveries. I am not with Meyer where he takes his conclusions to the Christian God, but with him when he leaves it at some transcendent Mind. He does better on that general conclusion.

In this, he shows the incredible complexity of cells and DNA’s role in directing material processes that build material things. His point is that the materialist explanation (that of “philosophical materialists”) does not explain what is actually going on. Chemical processes do not do what philosophical materialists want them to explain. They do not code information. Overall, “Chemistry does not move in a life-friendly direction”.

Meyer says that Darwin actually helped him sort out this “origin of life” question, and that it was assisted by Mind. He says that Darwin argued for reasoning from “the most likely cause of a given effect that we see today”, his point on “inference to the best explanation”. Meaning, we conclude a cause that best explains the thing in question. From that argument in Darwin, Meyer reasoned to “What is the cause today that produces digital information?” It can only be Mind or Intelligence that produces information in digital or alphabetic form. It always comes from a mind, not from a material process (certainly not an undirected, random material process).

“Why DNA points to a Mind behind the universe”, Stephen Meyer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEIfsQjVB14

This from Gutfeld: on the decline in liberal democracies as people assaulting freedom are “exploiting empathy”, letting people into our societies who hate liberal democracy, invade and take over.

“Greg Gutfeld show 9/4/25 Full End Show, Fox breaking news, Sept. 4, 2025”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfMMKBwa0cU

Gutfeld comments on the fact that British police make up to 30 arrests a day (12,000 arrests a year) of people making online comments that cause “annoyance, inconvenience, and anxiety” for others who complain. This, while the grooming gangs that have mass-raped thousands of children are allowed to flourish. Police and politicians, says Gutfeld, turned a blind eye to the raping gangs of Muslim immigrants out of fear of being labelled “Islamophobic”. And instead, they went after those trying to expose that mass crime.

Gutfeld adds that you can rape women, but you can’t insult the rapist. He then notes a woman in Germany who was given a harsher sentence than a convicted rapist for calling the rapist a “disgraceful rapist pig”. Germany will also jail people for calling someone an “idiot”.

He comments on migrant riots and the recent Canadian home invasion incident where the home-owner was charged for defending himself against the intruder. He also played the video clip of Toronto police advising citizens to leave their car keys at the front door of their homes for thieves, in order to dissuade them from breaking into homes to find the keys.

Again, this all is so entirely stunningly crazy, especially coming from countries like Britain that birthed the Classic Liberal freedom that gave the West its liberal democracies.

Gutfeld makes the point that we do not just accept the decline of our liberal democracies but must fight back to preserve critical rights such as free speech. Kat Timpf adds that while generally the “slippery sliding slope” argument is overly used in relation to the decline of Europe, it is proving true that if you don’t act to prevent it, decline in rights and freedoms will happen.

She adds that we must, for example, defend the “hate speech” rights of others, not agreeing with their speech but with their right to say it. If we don’t, if we take that right away, then who decides what does or doesn’t count as hate speech? And that has been abused as the Twitter Files revealed, where one party used the intelligence agencies to silence the political speech of their political opponents. Rob Schneider adds that you end letting the most sensitive members determine what all others can say.

Schneider also made a good point that much comedy today is no longer funny because it coms from a place of hatred of the others being made fun of (i.e. Alex Baldwin’s Trump impersonation). Schneider uses the contrary example of Dana Carvey’s George Bush portrayal that came from a place of fun and respect, not hatred.

Black commentator Tyrus adds that Robert Downey’s portrayal of a fellow black brother in “Tropical Thunder” was the funniest thing he has watched because it was not from hate.

As Tyrus said, referring to a black comedian in white face who recently mocked NASCAR fans as rednecks, “We (blacks) did not want people portraying us with hatred in the past and we don’t want our side doing that to others now.”

Matt on the move toward increasing online censorship in European liberal democracies (“Online Safety Act” policies, or to fight “disinformation”) and the pressure on the US to follow that censorship and criminalization of speech. He notes the problem the First Amendment has posed for pro-censorship types- “Seeing John Kerry last fall talk to the WEF about the difficulty the First Amendment posed in “hammering [disinformation] out of existence” heightened worries. The one thing everyone in the “anti-disinformation” universe seemed to agree on is that the First Amendment was a unique pain in the ass of global enforcement.”

“What is the bigger threat to free speech, Europe, or Donald Trump’s America? Thoughts after a challenging discussion with Freddie Sayers of Britain’s Unherd”, Matt Taibbi, Sept. 5, 2025

https://www.racket.news/p/what-is-the-bigger-threat-to-free

Quotes from below:

“On Tuesday morning, a day after Father Ted writer and comedian Graham Linehan was arrested at Heathrow airport for three tweets deemed transphobic, I spoke with Freddie Sayers of the U.K.-based Unherd, in an interview released yesterday. For the unfamiliar, Unherd has been a stalwart, often lonely defender of free expression in a post-Brexit era that saw significant shifts in British attitudes. Freddie’s site responded to the Linehan story in characteristic fashion: “The Shameful Arrest of Graham Linehan.”…

“The BBC similarly wondered what Musk’s “curious fixation” was with Britain, noting that one of the 30-odd daily arrests in England ended in “a three-month jail sentence for a person who posted a meme along with the caption ‘let’s [expletive] riot’” last year. British state media could equally have cited a case of 40-year-old David Wootton, convicted for going to a Halloween party dressed as suicide bomber Salman Abedi, or the Derbyshire student who called someone a “Polish twat,” or the Bedfordshire resident arrested for saying being “pansexual” was “not a thing,” or dozens of other preposterous cases.

“There haven’t been releases of scary surveillance video of “kidnapped” Halloween partiers, which makes one wonder why the American press is willing to embrace Khalil as a speech martyr but not Julian Assange or Linehan or the retired German army sergeant arrested for calling Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck a Schwachkopf, which apparently translates as “dunderhead” or “moron.”

“In the U.K., these dumb arrests are inevitable because the law under which Linehan was detained, for instance, is based on whether or not the complainant felt “alarm” or “abuse.” Like many American campus speech codes, it’s a harm standard where injury doesn’t have to be proven, just asserted. Instituting a criminal law in the U.S. using that concept would be a radical step for us, but less so in Europe, which has been moving in that direction for a while.”

More below on the human shift from “gradualism” as the approach to improving life and society (i.e. the democratic processes of liberal democracy), to the approach of “instantaneous violent transformation” through destructive revolution as we have seen in Marxist/socialist crusades. And more in relation to Mendel’s comments on human agency- People doing the work of the gods, notably by initiating apocalyptic violence in the hope that God or some Savior will descend to finish the work of apocalyptic millennialism. These beliefs motivated the ISIS eruption of violence in Syria in 2014. As the military guy warned, we can crush these outbreaks with force but they will continue to erupt until we go after the ideas that fuel them. That is a project of this site.

And further comment below illustrating the common belief in “salvation through destruction”, the essential theme of apocalyptic millennial mythology that has driven the “profoundly religious” crusades of Marxism, Nazism, and now drives environmental alarmism in its latest iteration- “climate crisis apocalyptic”.

Lest visitors assume the author is an outsider throwing stones (all this pointing out of the dark/dangerous side of fundamental religious themes):

I am a former Evangelical Christian who, as a slow learner over past decades, has come to understand that the real battle of good against evil takes place inside each of us (Solzhenitsyn’s good point).

The real battle, against the real enemy/monster in life, is the intensely personal “hero’s quest” struggle of our human self and spirit against our animal inheritance, the animal evident in our “evil triad” impulses to (1) tribalism (“us versus them” thinking that denies the essential oneness of humanity), (2) domination (our tendency to moral superiority and devaluation of differing others, with consequent effort to dominate and control the “evil” other “for their good”), and (3) the punitive treatment of differing others (denying imperfect, failing others the same mercy that we wish for ourselves, leaning into “justice” as severely punitive, not restorative).

I asked Grok a curiosity question: Grok could you summarize the points and arguments that Wendell Krossa presents online (i.e. at wendellkrossa.com).

(Note the highlighted/bolded words, phrases, and sentences/paragraphs, aside from Grok’s titles, are my revisions/additions to Grok’s summarizing comments below.)

Grok responded:

Overview of Wendell Krossa’s Key Themes and Philosophies

Wendell Krossa’s website (wendellkrossa.com) features a series of blog posts and essays that critically examine religious and ideological narratives, emphasizing their psychological and societal impacts. His work draws on historical, psychological, and philosophical sources to advocate for a humanist perspective rooted in unconditional love and gradual societal improvement. Recurring topics include the deformation of human personality by “threat theology,” the contrast between the teachings of Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth, critiques of environmental alarmism, and defenses of liberal democracy against totalitarian impulses. He often references thinkers like Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy, Julian Simon, and psychologists such as Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo to support his views.

(Along with many other sources such as the research of historians Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, etc. And sites that post research of leading climate scientists like Richard Lindzen, William Happer, etc.- at for example, “co2coalition.org”, “Wattsupwiththat.com”, and others.)

Central Arguments and Points

1. Critique of Apocalyptic Mythology and Millennialism:

o Krossa argues that apocalyptic narratives— prevalent in both religious (e.g., Christianity, Islam) and secular ideologies (e.g., Marxism, Nazism, climate alarmism)— instill fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, and nihilism, ultimately driving violence and mass-death movements. These ideas stem from ancient roots like Zoroastrian dualism and promote a “salvation through destruction” framework, where perceived enemies must be purged to make room for the installation of utopia.

o He traces their historical development, noting how they deform the “hero’s quest” by externalizing inner struggles against animal impulses (e.g., tribalism, domination) into battles against “evil” others, as warned by figures like Solzhenitsyn (i.e. The real battle of ‘good against evil’ is not the outer struggle of class against class but an inner battle of our better human impulses against our inherited animal impulses to tribalism, domination of others, and punitive destruction of “enemies”).

o Apocalyptic thinking distorts reality by emphasizing decline and imminent collapse, ignoring evidence of human progress and improvement over time.

2. Contrast Between Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ Myth:

o A core argument is that the “Historical Jesus” (based on Q Wisdom Sayings in Matthew and Luke) presented a revolutionary theology of a non-retaliatory, unconditionally loving God, who rejected punitive justice, blood sacrifice, and domination in favor of restorative justice, universal inclusion, and “love your enemies.”

o In contrast, Paul’s Christ myth reverts to primitive themes of an angry deity demanding atonement, embedding apocalyptic elements that have dominated Western consciousness for two millennia and validated violence.

o Krossa views Jesus’ message as a “diamond” buried by Paul (Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s term), aligning with Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) that describe God as inexpressible unconditional love, inseparable from the human spirit.

3. The “Evil Triad” and Bad Religious Ideas:

o Krossa identifies an “evil triad” of tribalism (true believers vs. damned unbelievers), domination (submission to deities/religious authorities), and punitive destruction as inherited animal impulses incited and validated by bad religious ideas.

o These ideas, common across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, incite bad behavior by appealing to ultimate authorities (ultimate religious ideals), leading to historical atrocities. He calls for responsibility in addressing their damage and promotes unconditional forgiveness over retribution.

4. Environmental and Anti-Humanism Critiques:

o He challenges environmental alarmism as a secular apocalyptic crusade, driven by panic-mongering and failed predictions, which demands destructive policies like decarbonization while ignoring CO2’s benefits for life and vegetation.

o Krossa counters anti-humanist myths of human fallenness and degeneration, arguing that humanity has improved life through creativity and compassion, not ruined an original paradise. He cites declining heatwave deaths and the greater risks from cold as evidence against alarmist claims (among many other facts presented by atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen and William Happer on, for example, the now “saturated” warming influence of CO2).

5. Defense of Liberal Democracy and Gradualism:

o Krossa advocates for gradual improvement via liberal democracy, which protects individual freedoms and fosters cooperative democratic problem-solving, as opposed to violent, instantaneous transformations in the apocalyptic ideologies of Marxism and environmental alarmism.

o He critiques totalitarian impulses in modern contexts, such as government overreach, censorship, and Woke Progressivism in countries like Canada, Brazil, and Germany, linking them to domination themes and he urges a return to Classic Liberal principles of liberal democracies.

6. Spiritual and Humanist Alternatives:

o Emphasizing unconditional love as the “cohering center” of narratives, Krossa promotes serving others over subservience, drawing from Jesus’ parables (e.g., Prodigal Father, vineyard owner) and NDEs to affirm a non-religious, humane view of reality.

o He argues that beliefs shape behavior, with “sick gods” (punitive deities) making people sick, while unconditional perspectives orient toward humane ideals and counter pathologies like depression.

Major Posts and Essays

Krossa’s content is primarily in uncategorized blog posts, often engaging with AI like Grok for dialogue. Key examples include:

• Threat Theology Deforms Human Personality: Explores how apocalyptic theology incites violence, contrasting Jesus’ non-retaliatory love with Paul’s Christ myth that affirms retaliatory vengeance and apocalyptic destruction of unbelievers and advocating gradualism versus the “instantaneous violent purification” of the society-destroying revolutions that we have seen repeatedly from Marxism, and now see unfolding in the climate alarmism crusade with its Net Zero decarbonization.

• “Me and Research Assistant Grok on ‘Bad Religious Ideas’”: Examines root causes of violence in persistent myths like original paradise and apocalyptic destruction across religious and secular narratives.

• Plato’s Contribution to Bad Theology: Critiques Plato’s influence on depreciating the material world, linking it to Paul’s theology. Also, Plato’s affirmation of enlightened elites- i.e. “Philosopher Kings”- dominating commoners, a theme Paul re-affirms in his reframing, and consequent profound distortion, of the anti-domination Jesus (“Do not lord over others but instead serve others”) as “Lord Jesus” who exercises eternal “rod of iron” domination over all.

• NDEs Affirm Historical Jesus: Uses NDEs to support unconditional love, critiquing climate alarmism and totalitarian trends.

Overall, Krossa’s work pushes for rethinking inherited myths to foster a more positive, evidence-based view of humanity and the world, rejecting fear-driven narratives in favor of unconditional humanism. (But not some version of “unconditional humanism” that shifts toward the irresponsibility of dogmatic pacifism in the face of violence/evil as evident now in “de-carceration of violent offenders, no-cash bail, decriminalization of violent offenses”, etc. I understand such policy responses as having more to do with the “virtue-signaling for social status of moral superiority”, a form of “suicidal empathy” that favors the feelings and rights of offenders over victims.

The priority responsibility of any form of justice, and the most fundamental of government responsibilities, is to protect innocent people from violence. The emphasis on “unconditional humanism” is about aiming for the highest of human ideals that show us how to maintain our own humanity in the face of evil by treating all offenders/enemies humanely, while holding them fully responsible for their behavior, as in some of the better restorative justice initiatives.)

Note comments two sections below from Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence”- How people over past millennia shifted from engaging “gradualism” to improve life and attain the “good society”, making the shift to embrace “violent instantaneous purification” to attain the immediate installation of some utopian state (i.e. embracing the core narrative theme of “salvation through destruction”), Wendell Krossa

The shift unfolded (traced, for example, below by Arthur Mendel), beginning in ancient Judaism and then progressing into its ultimate expression in Paul’s Christ myth, the violent apocalyptic destroyer as portrayed in Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, or John’s Revelation. This hyper-iconic myth of apocalyptic destruction, as necessary to purge the old and clear the way for the new, has dominated Western narratives and consciousness for two millennia.

Paul’s Christ has been a critical factor in re-affirming the primitive archetypes of human subconscious that influence subsequent generations to endlessly embrace new narratives of apocalyptic millennialism, in both religious and secular/ideological versions.

The presence of primitive religious themes driving apocalyptic millennial destruction in contemporary “secular” crusades (i.e. Marxism, environmental alarmism) has been traced and outlined by historians like Arthur Herman (“The Idea of Decline in Western History”), Richard Landes (“Heaven On Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience”), Arthur Mendel (“Vision and Violence”), and David Redles (“Hitler’s Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic belief and the Search for Salvation”).

Most notably, this primitive theme of salvation through violent destruction, through immediate purging of some “evil enemy”, through destroying the imagined existing corrupted society, or through purging some other designated threat to life (i.e. CO2, fossil fuels), and the related demand for immediately installed salvation/utopia, this profoundly destructive theme of salvation through violent destruction has found expression in the varied iterations of Marxist collectivism, including its latest version in Far-left Woke Progressivism now loosely aligned (in a “strange bedfellows” cooperation) with Islamicist extremists, both seeking to overthrow Western liberal democracies. The older Marxist versions also continue to shape crusades like Chinese Communism, though, as Grok notes, in a more gradualist “long march through Western institutions”.

The outcomes of this deeply rooted psychopathology of salvation through destruction has been the mass-death crusades of last century, apocalyptic millennial crusades that are continuing in this century- whether apocalyptic climate crisis hysteria, neo-collectivism of Woke Progressivism, and never-dying Islamist extremism.

We have long had the proper response/alternative to salvation by destruction, a response that affirms the gradualism of liberal democracy/democratic liberalism where all citizens have protected rights and freedoms, equally. Liberal democracy is the embodiment of Classic Liberal principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions.

The counter response (to salvation by destruction) of a Palestinian wisdom sage:

The potent response of Historical Jesus, to the long history of seeking salvation through destruction, went directly to the most fundamental root idea- i.e. the nature of the ultimate reality that functions as the cohering center of human narratives, whether religious or secular/ideological. I am referring to the wisdom sayings insight of the Historical Jesus on theology, his insight that has been rejected and profoundly distorted and buried in Paul’s Christ myth.

Jesus had earlier (two decades before Paul’s construction of the Christ myth) rejected the embodiment of “violent destruction” in humanity’s ultimate ideal and authority- deity.

Jesus had stated that, to the contrary, there was no such God advocating violent destruction but there was only love, stunningly inexpressible no conditions love, at the core of reality. His statement of that “stunning new theology” was made in the “Q Wisdom Sayings” message that has been isolated by scholars/historians/theologians involved in the now centuries-long “Search for Historical Jesus”.

The outcome of this search is the general recognition that Historical Jesus is someone entirely opposite to the distortion of him in Paul’s Christ, and his new religion of Christ-ianity.

The historical lines of descent have fed outcomes of entirely contrary offspring narratives. One has fed into the line that descends to liberal democracy, and the other has fed into the line that descends to elite domination and the totalitarianism of modern collectivism. Historians like Arthur Herman have helped in tracing the descent of such ideas in “The Cave and the Light: Plato versus Aristotle, and the struggle for the soul of Western civilization”.

Bob Brinsmead adds valuable information on the development of Paul’s Christ myth in early Christianity as a profound deformation of Jesus and his message (i.e. Greek Hellenism shaping Paul’s Christ myth).

Brinsmead expands on these arguments with his two essays:

“The Historical Jesus: What the Scholars are Saying”

https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/

“The Doctrine of Christ and the Triumph of Hellenism”

https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-doctrine-of-christ-and-the-triump-of-hellenism/

Understanding these ideas/themes/beliefs that shape our narratives is critical because the eventual outcomes are either hugely beneficial (liberal democracy) or devastatingly destructive (Marxist collectivism or theocratic totalitarianism as in Islamicist extremism). This has to do with how archetypal ideas influence human thought, emotion, motivation, and response/behavior. The “behaviors based on similar validating beliefs”, a coupling that emerged from early human consciousness and the human impulse for meaning and purpose. The result- the history of human mythologies, religions, secular ideologies, science, etc.

The egregious shame, in relation to the psychopathologies above, is that we have had the alternative of Historical Jesus for 2 millennia. It is now highly irresponsible to continue ignoring the impact that the primitive ideas, still protected in our major religious traditions, have had on modern narratives, consciousness, and life. As the military guy said, you can crush the eruptions of ISIS-like violence with military force, but such eruptions will continue until you go after the core ideas that fuel them. Unfortunately, many affiliated with the great religious traditions refuse to go after the core ideas/features that incite and validate so much violence (i.e. the violent God at the center), preferring to tinker around the periphery of their traditions with minor reformism efforts.

Hence, the “diamonds” of Historical Jesus remain buried in the “dung” (Thomas Jefferson’s term) of Paul’s deforming/distorting Christology.

Insert: This site argues that the core themes of all the major world religions and their secular ideological offspring are fundamentally the same. See the list of bad ideas in sections below:

“The complex of “bad religious ideas” that have darkened and enslaved human minds from the beginning”

Note: The origins of the Jesus stunning new theology originate further back in the statement of the Old Testament prophets who claimed that God did not want sacrifice. There were beginning to challenge the root psychopathology behind the sacrifice industry- i.e. the primitive mythologies of angry God demanding the violent murder of innocent victims (human and animal sacrifices) as necessary for appeasement and salvation (i.e. the myth of kill the right people as necessary to save yourself and attain a better future). Such barbaric myths are at the heart of the belief in “salvation through destruction”, achieving a utopian future through violent revolution and the destruction of contemporary societies that exist.

However, the prophets did not make the full break into daylight on these themes. They did not get to full understanding of the profoundly unconditional nature of deity and left distorting features in the larger context- i.e. deity continuing the tribal exclusion of unbelievers/enemies, divine domination, ultimate judgment, etc. It took the Jesus full breakthrough on unconditional God to get it all finally right- i.e. his core statement that there must be “no more eye for eye retaliation, but instead- ‘Love your enemies because God does’. How so? God does not retaliate but loves God’s enemies by generously giving sun and rain (the two critical elements to survival in agrarian society) to all alike, to both good and bad people.” Universal forgiveness and inclusion of all. Unlimited mercy and generosity toward all, even enemies.

Further to the other comment by Mendel below on the origins of the shift from “gradualism” in societal progress, to “instantaneous violent transformation”: Wendell Krossa

As Mendel noted, in early Hebrew religion there was the strain of myth that God initiated the creation of the world and people were then subsequently created and assigned the job of finishing God’s work of creation.

People were to work at improving themselves and all life in order to eventually achieve the aim of “good society”. People were to do the work of God in caring for the world, to gradually improve the world through struggle with obstacles. Humanity was to gradually learn to use faculties like their developing and evolving reason to solve problems, to learn to cooperate to make life better for all.

The theme of human agency on behalf of God continued in the later shift to belief in the sudden violent transformation of life and society. Whereas in the past, God had intervened (suddenly, violently) at times to punish enemies or to punish backsliding Jews, so in the shift to “instantaneous violent transformation” views, it was up to the agents of God, people, to now do the destroying work of God against enemies, to abruptly change society.

We saw this element of human agency, in place of God intervening, in the ISIS eruption in Syria (2014) where ISIS fanatics believed that they had to act as the agents of God to destroy the old society and bring in the new kingdom of their God. They had to spark the apocalyptic destruction by acting to initiate the killing of God’s enemies- the infidels. They had to begin the destruction of the old corrupted, evil system and then God would descend, or the Mahdi would come, and finish the work they started. God would intervene to install the good society, the utopian Caliphate.

This type of thinking that people are the assigned agents of God, to work on behalf of God, is part of the larger strain of primitive mythology that humanity was “created to serve the gods, to do the work of the gods, to feed the gods.” To be the agents, the representatives of the gods. None have deformed this idea more than priesthoods and self-proclaimed religious authorities affirming the core myths of “salvation through apocalyptic destruction”, myths that continue to dominate Christianity, Jewish apocalyptic, and Islam.

Notes on previous topics:

Further comment illustrating the belief in “salvation through destruction” (previously outlined by Arthur Mendel in sections below). More probing of evil that masquerades as good, that frames itself as heroism in a great battle of good against differing others as evil enemies that must be exterminated in order to clear the way to install one’s alternative “good society” (i.e. some version of utopian millennial paradise).

Harold Ellens described the self-delusion involved in how evil disguises itself, presents itself, as goodness:

“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (see Romans, Revelation). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, this image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.

“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.

“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…” (End of Ellens quotes).

And this from the apocalyptic millennial scholars/historians who have done impressive homework on the religious ideas that drove Marxism, Nazism, and now drive environmental alarmism in its latest “madness of crowds” eruption- the “climate crisis” hysteria, making it, along with Marxism and Nazism, a “profoundly religious crusade”.

First, some paraphrased comment on points in David Redles’ “Hitler’s Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic belief and the search for salvation”:

Hitler, his Nazi colleagues, and regular Germans, repeatedly voiced their belief in salvation through destruction, the view of “death and rebirth” in the life of a society. They understood that Germany was facing a historically unique and unprecedented “turning point” that would first need to descend into apocalyptic destruction before becoming a form of millennial salvation. It would be a “death of one age and a rebirth into a new age… out of the collapse of civilization there is rebirth (and this) is a significant and recurrent element of Nazi millennialism. For many Nazis, the death of their world necessitated the birth of a new world. According to Hitler, it was the Nazis’ mission to help finish off the dying old world so that the new age could be born”, p. 47.

A friend of Hitler said that the Nazi leadership had to seize the mission where there would be “overthrow, demolition, destruction by force”, p. 48.

Redles further notes that historians misunderstood Hitler’s statements that the world was ending and that he and the Nazis must rejuvenate the world by causing unrest. It was not nihilism but “the central point that Hitler… saw destruction as potentially regenerative, hastening the birth of the millennial Third Reich”, p. 48.

The theme of salvation through destruction was also applied by Nazis to personal death and rebirth as in “a psychological transformation that occurs when a new construction of reality replaces one that has collapsed”. Nazi propagandist, Goebbels, explained it thus, “Distress is the path to happiness. Disintegration and dissolution do not mean perishing but rather ascension and opening”, p. 49. Others added that “in disaster the seed of the coming redemption is contained, and in death the seed of the coming life”.

Note the Nazi appeal to religious imagery in their defense and explanation of apocalyptic destruction as necessary to prepare the way for the introduction of the millennial paradise.

Nazis go on to present themselves as heroic warriors in a great battle to bring forth the New Age of the Third Reich and that they are affirmed in their battles by supernatural Providence and led by the Messianic Hitler.

Salvation through destruction is in the same religious vein of thought as “suffering is redemptive”. Arthur Mendel notes this theme in ideas like “martyrdom is victory”, the birth of a spiritual self is through assault on the physical self. Or suffering as payment for sin, suffering achieves the redemption/regaining of one’s former innocence and divine blessing. He adds, “And since the harsher the suffering the sooner the salvation, the worse became the better”, (p. 37, Vision and Violence).

Mendel acknowledges that the Christian bible has been a source of solace and hope for people. But, he says, there is another side to the bible that has contributed to apocalyptic violence. “It was through Christianity that the Apocalypse became a part of our culture”, with its emphasis on suffering to purify the world and necessary to attain utopian goals. He points out the biblical message that the coming of the kingdom of God demands “the liquidation of humanity and the destruction of the world”.

He emphasizes the Christian influence on modern era mass-death crusades like Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism, “The initial religious model of apocalyptic transmutation became the pattern and inspiration for the later secular-revolutionary versions… The potential for such violence inherent in the original vision is most apparent in Revelation. Virtually the whole of that text is an account of the violence, devastation, suffering, and death necessary to purge the world and clear the way for the pure and perfect Kingdom”, p. 38-39.