See new comment below on “The loss of ‘general public’ support for social movements” when Woke elements pull movements toward extremist positions.
How’s this for a fact-check challenge to global warming alarmism?
Worldwide Record Cold Challenges Climate Rhetoric and Risks Lives by Complacency
And another from Robert Bradley- “Climate, CO2 Optimism”
The real crisis facing humanity/world, Wendell Krossa
There is a human-caused crisis spreading across the world, but it is not the supposed “climate crisis” that alarmist prophets have been terrorizing and traumatizing populations with. The human-caused crisis is the decarbonization crusade that is ruining societies and harming the poorest people the most, due to government policy (i.e. the Net Zero policies that block the development and use of fossil fuel resources). These policies are inflating energy costs, and thereby depriving many of the abundant and cheap energy that is vital to human success and flourishing.
Example:
The human-caused decarbonization crisis is driven by ideas and supporting “facts” that are not scientific but have been properly identified as being more mythological/cultic in nature, and some of the most primitive of mythical themes like apocalyptic (i.e. the endless prophecies of the looming “end of days”- “climate catastrophe… species holocaust… existential crisis…” etc.).
The “scientific facts” that are regularly used to affirm the climate crisis are the products of confirmation bias distortion. We see this in the media obsession with every severe weather event that is presented by alarmists as more proof of “catastrophic climate change” becoming worse day by day. This is the alarmist obsession with exaggerating historically common weather events to apocalyptic scale (“the worst on record”) and claiming that they are evidence of the imminent climate apocalypse. But fact-checking research, by credible climate scientists, shows that the weather events of our era are no different from the past- no worse, and no more frequent. Most weather events are more correctly attributed to natural local factors and not overall climate.
Advocacy disguised as ‘science’: ‘Intergenerational inequities in climate extremes’
Doomsday Climate Models Wrong Again! Hurricanes Declining…Flooding Over Europe Not More Frequent
Note also the reports by Jim Steele on Wattsupwiththat.com, for example…
How Pressure Systems Control The Climate Part 1 – Decline In Extreme Weather
The insanity of the decarbonization crusade has now become evident in the mounting damage to societies from anti-fossil fuel policies that have resulted in energy scarcity that is causing rising energy prices and general inflation (i.e. the 6000 basic products that are derived from or dependent on fossil fuels). The consequent human suffering from decarbonization is especially egregious because there is no good evidence that human use of fossil fuels, and related CO2 emissions, causes climate change (see Senator Malcolm Roberts “Submission to Australian government” in the section below). The trace greenhouse gas CO2 is not the control knob for climate change.
Further, there is no evidence of any dangerous warming occurring. Our world has experienced only a mild and beneficial 1 degree C of warming over the past century. There is no evidence of worsening storms, floods, droughts, fires, or other supposed climate disasters from this mild warming (even the IPCC, in its more rational assessments, acknowledges this).
Basic climate science affirms that CO2 is not the main influence on climate change as other natural factors show stronger correlations to the climate change that we have seen over past decades, centuries, and millennia. Further, climate physicists (Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and others) have shown that the warming effect of CO2 has already become “saturated” and is now declining logarithmically. Meaning that increasing CO2 levels will not contribute much to any possible further warming.
The fact remains- We need several more degrees of warming in our still too cold world where 10 times more people die every year from cold than die from warmth. More warming will save far more lives from cold mortality than the possible additional lives lost to more warming. And more CO2 will continue to green the planet more, thus providing more food for animals and increased crop production for humanity. All beneficial outcomes, and not a threat to life. Further warming will mean a return to more normal and optimal conditions for all life because for over 80% of the Phanerozoic history of life (past 500 million years) climate has been 3-6 degrees warmer than today’s world. And all life flourished in that much warmer world.
Insert note: The fact that deaths from climate-related disasters have fallen 98% over the past century, and the fact that far fewer people die from heat than die from cold, shows that people can adapt and survive more warming better than we can survive cold.
https://financialpost.com/opinion/bjorn-lomborg-climate-change-and-deaths-from-extreme-heat-and-cold
The climate alarmism crusade has revealed itself as an apocalyptic cult that has embraced the same old themes of past similarly religious apocalyptic crusades. Historians have written books detailing the similarities between mythical/religious and ideological apocalyptic movements (Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, Dave Redles, among others).
This site looks at the basic themes of apocalyptic cults and their destructive outcomes. This site probes the origins and descent of the apocalyptic complex of ideas/themes down through history- beginning with the original primitive mythologies, then to the world religions, and now to “secular/ideological” movements like 19th Century Declinism that dominates today’s world.
Awareness of the root issues related to a problem is a first step to finding solutions. Note in this regard Julian Simon’s autobiographical testimony that he had formerly embraced environmental alarmism narratives and was consequently a “clinically depressed” man. Then he researched for himself the key indicators on the true state of the world and found that alarmist narratives were all wrong. Yes, there were problems everywhere that needed attention and solving, but, he discovered, humanity was doing well in solving the problems and caring for the world. He said that after finding out the true state of the world, his depression left him and never returned. Good evidence revealed that the exaggerations and distortions of environmental alarmists were wrong.
This site also recognizes that most people live more by story than by scientific fact. And the themes that shape human stories are often residual pathologies from an ancient past, an inheritance of beliefs that profoundly distort reality and life.
Julian Simon re-evaluated the apocalyptic themes that he had embraced from environmental alarmism and then changed his personal narrative with factual evidence to better express the true state of life. He rejected the doom and gloom narrative of environmental alarmism. His new narrative transformed his mind, emotions, and overall outlook on life. This site argues for the same re-evaluation of personal narratives to detect residual pathologies of apocalyptic/millennial themes and then expunge them for better ideas that get us closer to the true state of things.
The apocalyptic/millennial complex of themes that has long deformed human narratives and consciousness: Here are the main myths/themes, the basic framework of apocalyptic millennial salvationism…
(1) The world was originally a paradise, but (2) human corruption/sin ruined paradise, and (3) life then declined toward something worse, and eventually (4) will degenerate to an apocalyptic ending. The hope for salvation demands that humanity (5) must purge the “evil” threat to life (the “sin”), (6) make a sacrifice to appease some upset Force/deity, and (7) then paradise can be restored.
In contemporary environmental alarmism, these apocalyptic millennial themes are presented in the “secular/ideological” Declinist narrative which states that (1) the past wilderness world was the original paradise, (2) corrupt people in industrial civilization have ruined that paradise world, (3) now life is declining and will end in (4) environmental/climate apocalypse. Salvation demands (5) that humanity purge the thing that threatens life- i.e. today the great evil threat to life is supposedly fossil fuels/CO2. The sacrifice that humanity must make to appease the angry deities of today is (6) to abandon the good life in modern civilization and return to a simple low-consumption lifestyle, and (7) then paradise can be restored, according to the alarmist prophets.
The threat of apocalypse incites survival fear in populations and consequent irrationality. People then become susceptible to irrational salvation schemes like decarbonization, even when the salvation plan so obviously ruins society. This is the insanity of apocalyptic movements, the “madness of crowds” that embrace- “destroy the world to save it”.
Sites of interest affirming there is “no climate crisis”:
Indur Goklany: “No Empirical Evidence that Anything Bad is Happening B/C of Climate Change”
Added note:
The body of evidence on climate has now become overwhelming (i.e. the “unknowns/uncertainties” and the better knowns) yet this evidence is still denied by alarmists who base their climate apocalypse narrative on discredited models (“running too hot”). This means that the charge of “climate change denier” (used constantly by climate alarmists to smear those who disagree with their apocalyptic narrative) is a case of “psychological projection”. The alarmists are the real deniers of the good science showing that there is no climate crisis, not the skeptics of their apocalyptic-scale exaggeration.
Alarmist projection is much like the Leftist/Woke Progressive claim that all their opponents are “threats to democracy” when the actual censorship on social media, the banning of dissenting opinion and speech, the distortion of dissent as “misinformation/disinformation”, and the cancelling of careers, even endeavor to criminalize dissent (e.g. Pres. Obama’s AG, Loretta Lynch, in 2016), etc.- all such authoritarian, anti-democratic crackdown has been mainly coming from the Woke Left over the past decade. That creeping totalitarianism from the Left has been the real threat to democracy. Yet these people claim that the other side is the threat to democracy- even claiming that Elon Musk’s advocacy for free speech is a threat. What an upside down, topsy turvy world, eh.
Some related comment from Glen Greenwald on the media hysteria over the left’s loss of censorship powers and restoration of free speech for all.
“The media’s deranged hysteria over Elon Musk’s promised restoration of free speech”, Glen Greenwald
“It was easy to predict that there would be an all-out war from Western power centers if Musk sought to mildly reduce censorship on Twitter. Still, the media outdid itself.
“It is hard to overstate how manic, primal and unhinged is the reaction of corporate media employees to the mere prospect that new Twitter owner Elon Musk may restore a modicum of greater free speech to that platform. It was easy to predict— back when Musk was merely toying with the idea of buying Twitter and loosening some of its censorship restrictions — that there would be an all-out attack from Western power centers if he tried. Online censorship has become one of the most potent propaganda weapons they possess, and there is no way they will allow anyone to dilute it even mildly without attempting to destroy them. Even with that expectation in place of what was to come, the liberal sector of the corporate media (by far the most dominant media sector) really outdid itself when it came to group-think panic, rhetorical excess, and reckless and shrill accusations.
“In unison, these media outlets decreed that not only would greater free speech on Twitter usher in the usual parade of horribles they trot out when demanding censorship — disinformation, hate speech, attacks on the “marginalized,” etc. etc. — but this time they severely escalated their rhetorical hysteria by claiming that Musk would literally cause mass murder by permitting a broader range of political opinion to be aired. The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz even warned of supernatural demons that would be unleashed by these new free speech policies, as she talked to a handful of obviously neurotic pro-censorship “experts” and then wrote about these thinly disguised therapy sessions with those neurotics under this headline: “‘Opening the gates of hell’: Musk says he will revive banned accounts.”
“But the self-evident absurdity of this laughable meltdown and the ease of mocking it should not obscure that there are lurking within these episodes some genuinely insidious and serious dangers. These preposterous media employees are just the sideshow. But what they are doing, unwittingly or otherwise, is laying the groundwork for far less frivolous and more serious people to use the attacks on Musk to further fortify the regime of censorship they have been constructing: the limitlessly demonizing language heaped on him, the success they have already had in driving away many if not most corporate advertisers from Twitter, the threats to once again abuse the monopoly power of Google and Apple to destroy Twitter or at least cripple it if Musk does not comply with their censorship orders (as they succeeded in doing last year to the free speech site Parler when it became the most-downloaded app in the country and refused to censor on demand).
“To examine the media tactics being invoked, and to highlight the underlying conflicts among power centers at stake in this battle, we devoted our monologue to this topic as part of Friday night’s episode of the pre-launch test-runs we are airing of our new live SYSTEM UPDATE program, soon to debut nightly on Rumble.”
And this addition from another post:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/twitter-elon-musk-cnn-satirical-chyron-threats-free-speech
“Elon Musk caused a flurry on social media after the tech CEO posted a meme mocking CNN’s concerns about free speech on Twitter.
“Musk posted a picture of CNN’s Don Lemon on Monday, alongside a satirical chyron that read “Elon Musk could threaten free speech on Twitter by allowing people to speak freely.””
The root ideas behind apocalyptic cults/crusades, Wendell Krossa
Here is more on this site’s project of going to root ideas to probe inhumane themes that distort human narratives and deform human consciousness and life, notably, how the themes of primitive mythologies continue to dominate contemporary “secular/ideological” narratives. This site presents the apocalyptic/millennial ideas from primitive mythologies that were passed down to world religions and then embraced by “secular” ideologies like Declinism and its offspring- climate alarmism.
Next: A summary of the core teaching of Historical Jesus, based in part on “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research. This material is critical to solving the problem of apocalyptic in today’s “secular/ideological” narratives because the Christ myth of Paul has been the main factor in keeping apocalyptic pathology alive in Western and world consciousness and narratives.
The core message of Jesus:
“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.)
The greatest religious contradiction ever foisted on humanity (or “My position on Historical Jesus versus the Christian Christ myth”), Wendell Krossa
I basically accept the outcomes of the now almost three-century long “search for the Historical Jesus”. The latest stage of that search has been the Jesus Seminar, organized in 1985. It is widely affirmed now that Jesus existed but what he actually taught was only a small portion of what the New Testament (NT) attributes to him. Much of what the gospels claim that he said and did contradicts entirely his central theme and message. The closest that we get to what Jesus actually taught would be the “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel material presented by scholars like James Robinson and John Kloppenborg, among others.
Note, for example, Jesus’ statement recorded in Matthew 5:38-48 to “love your enemies”. A statement of supreme love. Then a few chapters later Matthew claims that Jesus stated that those hamlets that rejected his miracles and message would be damned to hell (“cast into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”). To state that unbelievers would be damned is a statement of utmost hatred for others that cannot be reconciled with the previous statement of supreme love for even enemies. Those entirely contradictory statements do not come from the same person.
My position- Historical Jesus is not the same person as the Christ of Paul that is presented all through the New Testament. The Christ myth of Paul, that dominates the rest of the New Testament, profoundly distorts the message and life of Jesus.
Additionally, I don’t “believe in Jesus”. But I do recognize and appreciate that the historical person offered an insight on theology that was unprecedented in human history.
The core teaching of Historical Jesus is the “diamonds/pearls”, that Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy referred to, that are buried in the “dung, slime, muck, garbage” that is the surrounding New Testament context. Harsh words, eh. But they express something of the stunning contradiction between Jesus’ actual core message and the other NT teaching that has been attributed to him.
Historical Jesus, in his main teaching, offered a brilliantly new and unique insight into theology, a “diamond” insight that was entirely original in the history of human mythology, religion, or spirituality. To present his new insight, Jesus employed the ancient practice of relating a human behavior to a similar theological belief. His basic argument: Do this because God is like this. He based an ethic on a similar theological insight or belief. He appealed to a particular feature of God to validate similar human behavior.
I am referring to the behavior/belief relationship that people have used all across history. Note how the Hebrews (Old Testament) did the same centuries earlier when they claimed that all the details of their lives were modelled after the divine word/will/law of God that they believed was revealed to them. They were following the divine pattern even down to details like where the 12 tribes were to be located around the temple during the camping stops on the journey from Egypt to Palestine. They validated their behavior/lives with appeal to a divine model or pattern- what they believed to be the word/law/will of God.
Jesus also used this behavior/belief relationship when he stated his core teaching (repeated again here- note especially the highlighted sections of his 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.)
On Jesus’ “stunning new” breakthrough insight regarding deity:
James Robinson says that Jesus was the first to introduce the “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God”. No one before Jesus had ever presented such a view of deity anywhere in human history. Others had preceded Jesus in advocating for a non-retaliatory behavioral response to enemies. Like the Akkadian Father some 2200 years before Jesus 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”.
But that Father had then added, “Make sacrifice to your god”, meaning- appease your threatening and retaliatory deity. The Akkadian Father did not base the non-retaliatory behavior on a similar non-retaliatory theology as the validation for the behavior. He still embraced the same old views of gods as retaliatory, punitive monsters that needed appeasement with blood sacrifice.
It took further millennia, until Jesus, before non-retaliatory behavior was finally based on an entirely new theology of a non-retaliatory God, an unconditionally loving God. That was the brilliant new theological discovery, the uniquely humane insight of Historical Jesus.
Flesh out fully what Jesus was actually stating in the full context of his message. He said that God does not retaliate with eye for eye justice but instead loves enemies, meaning that there is no retributive, judging, punishing God. And that means, fundamentally, that there is no need for atonement- i.e. no need for a blood sacrifice to appease an angry, retaliatory deity, and thereby gain forgiveness and acceptance. Jesus’ statement further means that there is no separation of humanity from God, a sundered relationship that needs to be reconciled. And ultimately no future punishment in hell- the ultimate form of divine retaliation.
Jesus was the first person that we know of to state this new theology. See Matthew 5 and the better version of the same message in Luke 6. Matthew, obsessed with righteousness, ends the chapter 5:38-48 section with “Be perfect as your Father is perfect” and thereby misses Jesus’ overall unconditional point. Luke expresses the unconditional spirit of Jesus better by concluding that same Jesus’ message with- “Be unconditionally merciful just as your Father is unconditionally merciful” (my paraphrase).
A God who loved enemies is a statement that argues for a love that includes all, forgives all, loves all the same. Again, take this new feature of unconditional divine love to its full conclusions: There will be no ultimate judgment by God, no ultimate exclusion of anyone, and no ultimate punitive destruction of anyone, whether in apocalypse or hell. This is an entirely new God theory- that of an unconditionally loving God. And it sets forth an entirely new ultimate ideal of how to love offenders/enemies in this world. It is an entirely new and fully humane ideal to validate similarly humane behavior and life.
Qualifiers:
An unconditional deity is not a call to abandon common sense in an imperfect world with violent people and pathologies like psychopathy. Unconditional deity is not a call to feel mushy, fuzzy, or warm toward offenders and offenses that rightly evoke rage as the normal human response. It is not a call to free violent people from incarceration, people who cannot or will not control their worst impulses to harm others. It is not a call to dogmatic pacifism- i.e. to back down (“turn the other cheek”) in the face of larger movements of aggression or violence, as in wars started by totalitarian dictators. No. It means none of that.
But it is a call to maintain one’s own humanity in the face of evil by holding the intention to treat all humanely with restorative and not punitive justice. It argues for the intention to love (as response, action), no matter how one feels about the offenders and their offenses.
The need for such common sense in a violent and imperfect world does not change the theological insight made by Jesus that God was non-retaliatory (no more eye for eye), that God was unconditional love (love even your enemy, “sun and rain given to righteous and unrighteous alike”). Keep the theology clear and grant others the freedom to respond to that ultimate ideal as they choose- i.e. the choice to give to those who will not repay, to be good to those who are not good in return, or to not choose such “love your enemy” responses. That is all part of human freedom to wrestle with a theological insight that is profoundly liberating.
Treating all people unconditionally, both good and bad, liberates us from the animal-like impulse to retaliate with eye for eye or punitive responses. It liberates us to engage the supremely human impulses that include all people equally- both believers and unbelievers, both good people and bad people. It liberates us to forgive all, knowing that there will be no ultimate separation of anyone from God, no ultimate judgment, and no ultimate punishment or destruction of anyone.
But the question remains: Why then does evil exist in this world? Some suggest that dualism- notably, the dualism between good and evil- is a reality that is limited to this physical world (Joseph Campbell, for one, made this point). But there is no ultimate metaphysical dualism as in myths of a cosmic dualism between God versus Satan. So then, we wrestle with why dualism exists here. Perhaps dualism is only a temporary element of material reality, useful for living a story here and now, something that enables us to experience the freedom to choose good from evil and thereby grow and develop as human. Perhaps dualism exists here to provide a contrast with good so that we may fully understand and experience good as contrasted with its opposite? Philosophers of evil suggest that dualism between good and evil is necessary for authentic moral good to occur. They suggest that true moral good is only known and experienced when we struggle with its opposite and freely choose for good against its opposite- evil.
Whatever our conclusions on such things, the struggle with evil here does not change the core theological insight, the ultimate ideal in that brilliant insight of Historical Jesus- i.e. that God is a non-retaliatory reality, an ultimate Reality that is unconditional love toward all, toward both good and bad people. The responsibility to use common sense in the “here and now” world does not change the nature of ultimate reality and the ultimate ideal of a non-retaliatory, unconditional God. That ultimate reality serves to inspire and validate behavior based on a similar belief- “be like this (non-retaliatory) because God is like this (non-retaliatory)”. “Love your enemy because God does”. That is the single most profound insight ever spoken and does more to liberate human consciousness and transform human existence, than anything else. There is limitless potential for an unconditional ultimate ideal to take humanity into a better future.
None of the above diminishes the need to fight evil in this life/world. It does not diminish the responsibility of all for their behavior and the consequences of behavior. Even in restorative justice approaches toward offenders there must be proper restitution to victims. All such responsibility is part of “growing the fuck up” and becoming maturely human.
Added note:
Historical Jesus was a common man just like any other human being across history. He was not specially incarnated by God in any manner that is different than the rest of us who share the common human spirit that he possessed. He was clearly imperfect as seen, for example, in his nasty treatment of his mother and siblings who arrived outside a house and just wanted to talk to him (Luke 8: 20-21). He responded to their visit and concern for him with callous irresponsibility, stating that he had devoted himself to God and could not be bothered to treat his family with common human decency. That was an episode of embarrassingly petty and inhuman behavior from Jesus.
Further, scholars suggest that it was likely that Jesus was the child of a rape by Roman soldiers as noted in gospel comments made by Jesus’ detractors- i.e. “Who is his father?” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-verhoeven-idUSN2334241120080423
But nonetheless, the man offered this great insight on non-retaliatory, unconditional theology, and his stunning insight has been widely affirmed by the NDE movement- i.e. that God is an inexpressibly wondrous unconditional love. Meaning, as some NDErs conclude: “My Christian beliefs are all wrong. There is no angry God, no judgment, no hell, only a stunningly inexpressible unconditional love and light”.
And they add the further discovery/insight that we are all one with that ultimate reality. As the Hindus say, “We (atman- human selves) are that (Brahman or deity- the greater “All”)”.
Further Note:
Jesus died protesting sacrifice and the need for atonement. Paul ignored that central point of Jesus message and life and perverted Jesus entirely by claiming that he represented an ultimate cosmic sacrifice and the need for blood atonement made to God. Paul’s Christ myth is simply the greatest contradiction in all history- the greatest perversion of a historical figure to claim that the person represented the very opposite of what he had taught.
And this site repeatedly notes that the Christ myth has been mainly responsible for keeping pathologies like apocalyptic alive in Western consciousness over subsequent millennia. Look at the ongoing damage from such mythology even today in climate apocalyptic and decarbonization. Historians have traced out the historical shifts from ancient mythology to contemporary “secular ideology” and the consequent damaging influence from continuing to embrace primitive myths like apocalyptic, the consequent mass-death that is the outcome of apocalyptic movements like Marxism, Nazism, and alarmist environmentalism.
Mendel- “apocalyptic has been the most violent and destructive idea in history”. Nuff said, eh.
And another note:
I would add my own point to arguments over whether Jesus was apocalyptic or not, affirming that Jesus was not apocalyptic because he clearly stated that he rejected the idea of a retaliatory God in his Math.5 and Luke 6 comments (both versions are the same message but just given different settings by different authors). Jesus rejected eye for eye retaliatory justice based on his view of a God that did not retaliate against offenders but instead loved enemies.
If, as Jesus claimed, God did not retaliate against enemies but instead loved God’s enemies, then God was not apocalyptic because apocalyptic is the ultimate act of retaliation against enemies, the supreme and final destruction and punishment of enemies.
In the central part of his message (i.e. the first version of Q Wisdom Sayings gospel), Jesus presents nothing that would lead us to conclude that he believed in a retaliatory God using violence to destroy the world and punish enemies (i.e. apocalyptic destruction). Later versions of the Q Wisdom Sayings gospel were apparently edited to include an apocalyptic element that changed entirely the original message of Jesus.
Paul took the opposite stance to Jesus and embraced a retaliatory God that would destroy God’s enemies. Paul states his retaliatory theology in Romans 12, quoting an Old Testament statement, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord”. His embrace of an apocalyptic deity is also expressed in his retaliatory/apocalyptic Christ myth presented in his Thessalonian letters. He states that “Lord Jesus will return in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus”.
Paul’s retaliatory Christ myth, and his retaliatory theology/God, is entirely contrary to the non-retaliatory theology of Jesus. Paul’s apocalyptic theology is entirely contrary to the non-apocalyptic message of Jesus.
This site is all about an adventure, a quest.
This site goes after monsters with the dream of conquering, slaying those monsters (perhaps a bit like Don Quixote? Or John Lennon?). This site argues that the greatest monsters are embedded in human narratives from where they have wreaked incalculable destruction across history- mental, emotional, motivational, behavioral damage. I refer, notably, to the theological monsters/gods that are the most dominant ideas that validate all other features of our narratives.
The reasoning for this quest to bring down monstrous ideas is that the ideas/ideals of our narratives incite/inspire human thought, perception, emotion, motivation, and consequent response/behavior. Human god theories play the dominant role here. We become just like the God (the ultimate ideal) that we believe in. Monstrous gods have always incited and validated monstrous behavior by the followers of such gods.
While the earliest monster gods were created at the very beginning, little has changed across subsequent history, except the forms of expression. The earliest gods had already been fully shaped by our ancestors who projected onto them features that were subhuman, inhuman, more animal-like than human.
I have repeatedly summarized those base features in the triad of- (1) tribal exclusion, (2) domination, and (3) punitive destruction of differing others. If you engage and practise these three, they will identify you as more animal-like than human. And engaging/practising the opposites of these three will take you to authentically human existence- i.e. (1) including all as free equals (embracing and celebrating human diversity), (2) non-dominating relating (again, respect and treatment of all as free equals), and (3) non-punitive justice (holding all responsible for behavior, restraining the worst behavior but treating offenders with restorative justice).
The earliest monster deities became the prototypes, archetypes for many prominent human ideals that followed down through history. Those early deities were embraced by the great world religions, and then in the modern era they were embraced by “secular/ideological” systems, even scientific thinking. I have suggested before that there was an element of apocalyptic belief in the formerly dominant idea that the 2nd Law of thermodynamics dominated the direction of the cosmos. A kind of declinism that is fundamental to apocalyptic mythology.
We see the old threatening monsters again today in contemporary deities like “vengeful Gaia, angry Mother Earth/Planet, punitive Universe, and payback karma”. These threatening deities have wreaked incalculable psychic misery on billions of people across history by stating that the physical suffering people experienced through natural disaster, disease, and predatory cruelty was punishment from gods for human “sin/imperfection”. This added psychic burden of fear, anxiety, shame, guilt has deformed human personality and life with despair, depression, fatalism/resignation, and violence. See good treatments of how bad theology deforms human life in books like Zenon Lotufo’s “Cruel God, Kind God”, or Harold Ellens’ “The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam”.
You will never fully liberate human consciousness and transform life for the better until you go to these root monsters (monstrous ideas/themes) and purge them from our narratives, whether religious or ideological.
This site offers the feature of unconditional as a foundational theme for transforming narratives from the core on out- i.e. the “stunning new theology” of a God that is inexpressibly transcendent “no conditions love”. This feature more than any other liberates consciousness from our most primal fears of this-life harm and after-life harm. Whatever happens to us in life we can be sure there is no God behind life that is trying to punish us for our imperfections. And there will be no future judgment (only self-evaluation as in the NDE life review), no future exclusion of anyone, no eternal servitude to dominating lords, and no punitive destruction of anyone.
Projecting base animal features onto deity, was a profound distortion of deity at the very beginning that has enslaved human consciousness far too long. It is far past time to slay those monsters once and for all. And enter the real kingdom of God in this life- an existence free of mythologically-based fear of divine monsters. Unconditional deity affirms that we are surrounded and interpenetrated by a stunningly inexpressible love. We are one with the Ultimate Consciousness/Reality that is that profound love (closer than our own atoms, our breath). That love is also our essential nature, our true self. Chew on that for a while, eh. Wendell Krossa
Another post from me (Wendell Krossa) responding to a post from Bob Brinsmead to our discussion group:
There is no way you can gussy up (i.e. put lipstick on a pig) what sacrifice/atonement has been about over history and across the world. While accompanied by so much hocus pocus looney ritual features, the brutality of human sacrifice is beyond disgusting and it is all based on such primitive distortions in thought/perception- i.e. that there are angry deities threatening people with disease, disaster, death mainly via the natural world. So placate/appease the monsters with blood. Get a grip on the essential barbarity of all this and don’t waste time trying to defend it, or gussy it up as something else than what it essentially is about. And the Christian version is just the same in its basic elements. Again, I refer all to Nigel Davies’ “Human sacrifice: In history and today”.
This from Bob:
“Yes, and one has put it, “the (Christ myth) is the most compelling myth in the history of man”. It was such because Paul brought all those basic myths- i.e. combat myths, apocalyptic myths especially set out by Zarathustra, all those dying and rising divinities (i.e. Osiris in Egypt), the spilling of royal and divine blood for salvation, and shortly following Paul to his logical end, all those virgin born godmen and heroes- Paul was able to meld all of the ancient myths– yes, I nearly forgot– including the myths about sacrifice- and he brought them all together as the most compelling myth in the history of man because he wrapped up and embodied all those myths in the history of man in his one brilliant Christ myth. Greco-Roman civilization was ready to embrace such a myth because in its cultural genes it already embodied all those myths– and even Celcus, the great pagan critic of the Christian religion, as well as Justin the first great Christian apologist, recognized that all those old myths were absorbed into Christianity. No wonder the so-called Jewish Christians were appalled by the way that their Jesus had been hijacked by Paul’s Gentile version of Jesus.”
Tribal collectivism versus the common humanity of individual persons, Wendell Krossa
There is too much focus today on the peripheral identity markers of people, namely skin color. Scientists have noted that skin color is a very peripheral thing on human DNA. As one scientist said, it amounts to nothing of more importance on the genome than a “sun burn”. Actually, it is just about “active versus inactive melanocytes”- the tiny organs in our skin that produce melanin and color skin. Some people with ancestry in high sunlight areas (tropical regions) will still have active melanocytes and hence more color in their skin (the prized “well tanned” people that look healthier). Others from low sunlight areas will have inherited less active melanocytes and hence less color in their skin (the paler ones).
But again, this is all very peripheral on the human genome. Something of very little importance genetically in defining what a human person is. This is why some argue that race is more of a social construct than a biological reality. And to focus on such peripheral things as active/inactive melanocytes is to detract from the essence of being human- i.e. that we all possess human consciousness, human minds, and are unique human selves or persons.
Martin Luther King pointed to this emphasis on the individual in his Washington mall speech where he urged us to view one another in terms of our individual character or personhood, not in terms of our skin color. That is the world that we ought to be moving toward.
Others have noted that the contemporary focus on skin color (race) is part of a re-emerging collectivism and classism, as related to Marxism. The unique individual is ignored or downplayed for a focus on a collective such as all people of some skin color who are viewed as an entire group and defined by some feature that dehumanizes or demonizes that group- i.e. all whites as “oppressors”. This is the new “Woke Racism” noted by scholar John McWhorter, or Douglas Murray in “The War on the West”.
Classic Liberalism re-affirmed that the individual should take precedence over collectives. Classic Liberalism was created to protect the rights and freedoms of individuals (society organized around free individuals, not collectives). The protection of individual rights and freedoms was understood as the best preventative against the inevitable totalitarianism of collectivism. Collectivism inevitably breeds totalitarianism because it centralizes power and control in some “enlightened elite/vanguard” that must run the collective for the good of all, for what they call the “common or greater good”. Individuals are then subjected to the collective and, notably, individual property rights are banned as an evil (the outcome of “selfish/greedy” individualism). As the World Economic Forum (WEF) statement of purpose says, “You will own nothing and you will be happy”. Because we tell you so.
We have better identity markers than just active/inactive melanocytes, notably, that we are all equals in the one human family, the ultimate collective that really matters. Our oneness in that greater reality is a most basic fact that provides a more credible basis for human identity, not some peripheral tribal difference- whether skin color, or ethnic/national/ideological/religious membership.
The focus on peripheral, minor features like skin color is what tribal-oriented minds like to focus on. But that distorts our true nature as unique individual human persons that are most fundamentally the same because of we all possess common human consciousness, human mind, and a unique human personality or self. Our individual character, as Martin Luther King argued, should take prominent position in our evaluation of one another.
This link on the destructive outcomes from decarbonization, and the related “insanity and hypocrisy” of the eco-fanatics. Wendell Krossa
The world has immense supplies of fossil fuels and they would be inexpensive if it were not for the intentional policies to block their development, policies that have now limited fossil fuel supplies in an era of growing demand, and hence the consequent rise in energy prices that cause inflation across a wide range of goods (i.e. the 6000 basic products of our societies that are derived or related to fossil fuels).
As Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts states- there is no evidence to show that humanity should cease using fossil fuels. The climate physicists- Lindzen and Happer among others- add evidence from the physics of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to affirm that there is no good scientific reason to limit the human use of fossil fuels. The warming effect of CO2 has already reached “saturation” in physics terms and that warming effect is now declining “logarithmically”, and hence CO2 will add very little to any further warming.
Climate is always changing and has warmed mildly over the past century (1 degree C) and this warming has been beneficial in a world where 10 times more people die every year from cold than die from warming. Further, rising levels of CO2 have benefitted all life with a 15% increase in green vegetation across the world since 1980 (more food for animals, increased crop production for humanity). There is no evidence of looming “climate crisis” from more warming. And hence, there is no need to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies.
The eco-hysteria created by discredited climate models drives decarbonization policies that are ruining societies by blocking fossil fuel exploration, development, and supply.
Yes, explore alternative energy supplies- nuclear, renewables, and others- but on private not public dime. The subsidies from government for renewables are an unnecessary extra tax burden on average citizens. Besides, mitigation policies (curbing human use of fossil fuels) will not work because CO2 is not mainly responsible for global warming. CO2 is not the “control knob” for climate. Other natural factors are mainly responsible for climate change and any further warming will not be catastrophic but beneficial to all life in our still abnormally cold world.
On the eruption of political/ideological tribalism
The eruption of hatred for the other side over recent years has been unsettling to watch. But then, when you demonize your opponents as “threats to democracy… Hitler or Nazis…. Fascists… racists…” and so on, then you have convinced yourself that you are in a righteous battle against intolerable evil, a “battle for democracy”, and even for survival, against a threat so terrible that it must be censored, criminalized, banned, and shut down entirely. The undisguised hatred driving this sense of righteous cause is stunning in its intensity and constancy. Fortunately, some on both sides are aware that the boundaries of common decency have been overstepped and they are trying to pull themselves back to more moderation and common decency toward opponents.
Others have noted the uninhibited hatred toward differing others (the tribalism of today) as it is expressed, for example, in late night comedy shows. In the past, comedians like Johnny Carson treated both sides equally as objects of comedic targeting. But today’s light night comedians, to the contrary, have come out as highly partisan defenders and propagandists for one side (the Left), and their comedy is often maliciously intended to humiliate and demean opponents. There is little humor in such hate-fueled dehumanization of differing others.
This is very much part of a larger phenomenon- where former liberalism in the US has become highly illiberal (no longer Classic Liberalism) and embraces more of what we know as extremist Woke Progressivism. What was once all about toleration, inclusiveness, protection of rights and freedoms- has now become highly intolerant of difference of opinion and speech (calling differing speech “hate speech… words as violence and threat”), highly exclusive (banning, cancelling differing others), and it refuses to defend the rights and freedoms of differing others but in very authoritarian ways denies those basic rights and freedoms to others. In other words- “creeping totalitarianism”.
And of course, the Right side of society has similar tribal demons to guard against and control. Wendell Krossa
Intro note to extremist takeover of social movements: While the pathology noted below happens on both sides, it is more prominent today coming from the Left, liberal, or Woke Progressive side of things. And it may be more the pathology of a tiny, but very vocal, minority on the Left. Unfortunately, such extremism gets major public attention as Woke liberal media obsessively favor it.
The loss of “general public” support for social movements: Wendell Krossa
In varied social movements that have emerged over past decades, there has often been a core concern in the movements that all citizens- i.e. the “general public”- can initially identify with and support wholeheartedly. Note, for example, the past movements and general public support for gay rights, for MeToo, for racial/Black Lives Matter (BLM) rights, for hate speech concerns, for disinformation/misinformation, for hate speech concerns, etc.
But then fringe types involved in these movements have repeatedly taken these movements toward more extremist positions and that has resulted in a loss of support from moderate “general public” majorities. We saw this with MeToo developing a more hateful anti-male tone and categorizing varied male misdemeanors across the spectrum of offenses in extremist terms as all indistinguishably part of the same unforgiveable career and life-cancelling crimes. This was evident in the loss of perspective on differing degrees of criminality and the refusal to grant due process.
Even notable female public figures spoke out against such extremist perversion- e.g. Sharon Stone, Margaret Atwood, and others.
We saw extremist distortion in BLM at times when it promoted its own version of racism with claims that all whites were “evil oppressors” (“There is no form of being white that is good”, Robin DiAngelo in White Fragility, also Doug Murray in War on the West, John McWhorter in Woke Racism). Others in the movement tended to ignore actual progress in equality rights and instead claimed that structural racism still existed everywhere.
And we have seen extremist distortion in the ongoing leftist exaggeration and demonization of the political/ideological disagreement of their opponents as “hate speech… disinformation/misinformation… threats to democracy”, etc.
The extremists reject the original goals of the movements that had wide public support and push the movements in directions that distort the original concerns/goals. The result is that many in the general public can no longer support the now “off-the-rails” directions that extremists have taken the varied movements toward.
Further, the extremists frame legitimate dissent to their positions, the dissent of those opting for more moderate views or positions, such dissent in its entirety is demonized as intolerable “evil”.
We have watched this occur in the emergence and spread of the Woke faction of contemporary US liberalism, an element that commentators on both sides say now dominates the liberal side in much of academia, politics, and news media (including Hollywood).
A notable trick of the Woke extremists is to focus on the tiny minority of actual criminal acts engaged by extremists on the other side (for example, actual incidents of extremist hate speech or violence by White Supremacists) and then make the distorting claim that all the differing positions/speech/actions on that other side are also to be similarly categorized as criminal- as threats to democracy, as hate speech, misinformation/disinformation, racism, fascism, and so on. Even the once-honored principle of free speech itself has now been included in the demonization drive of Woke extremists.
The extremists then present themselves as heroes in righteous battles against evil from which there can be no backing down. After all, as Woke extremists have framed the issue- it’s “a battle for democracy, to save democracy” from the differing other side that “will destroy democracy”.
The Woke extremism now dominating much of US liberalism/Progressivism exhibits a shocking loss of perspective, a loss of self-awareness, a loss of common-sense moderation, and a resurgence of intensely antagonistic tribalism. The hatred for differing others (the “enemies”) and the self-righteous glee in the cancellation/destruction of careers and lives is unsettling to watch in these movements like Woke Progressivism.
And again, not to ignore- similar elements of extremist distortion and tribal animosity are also evident on the other side of this social divide- the Right. But due to the dominance of the Woke Left in academia, news media, Big Tech, and Hollywood- Woke extremism poses the greater threat today to freedom.
Most confounding in the above Woke Progressive extremism is the lack of awareness of Classic Liberal principles that Western liberal democracies are founded on and that have brought such freedom and benefit to billions. What we once considered, over previous decades, as the liberal side of society has now become “highly illiberal” (Jimmy Dore). Former liberal inclusion has shifted to become antagonistic exclusion. Former liberal tolerance has become highly intolerant of diversity of opinion and speech. Former liberal advocacy for freedom has become an all-out attack on freedom.
Fortunately, moderates from both sides are pushing for a re-engagement/re-enforcement of Classic Liberal principles that have done an amazing job in protecting us all against past totalitarian infringements from collectivism, a collectivism that is now re-emerging in Woke Progressivism.
Added note: Keep an eye on the Democrat/liberal crusade against Elon Musk- the liberal effort to demonize Musk as a threat to democracy. Woke liberals are demonizing a heroic man who is restoring free speech to Twitter. This is notable public example of the left’s distortion of those trying to do good today and restore Classic Liberal principles.
Post from discussion group re a Gutfeld show on the liberal reaction to Elon Musk restoring free speech on Twitter:
“Note the video clips included here (around 4 minute mark) from MSNBC, CNN, etc. showing them demonizing Musk and the concept of freedom (“Libertarian nonsense”?!?!- which is basically saying- Classic Liberal nonsense). It is insane how authoritarian Democrats/liberals have become, that they now believe freedom for all is a threat (i.e. a threat to them and their control of public narratives).
“Leftist/Democrat Jimmy Dore was right that US liberals have become “highly illiberal”. They have abandoned the principles of Classic Liberalism that Western democracies are founded on. They appear to have no understanding of how critical free speech is to all freedom. As others have noted- they regularly demonize differing opinion/speech as “hate speech… violence-inciting…” etc.
“Gutfeld correctly notes this is what happens “when one defines disagreement as hate speech, and then as a crime. Then free speech becomes a crime for allowing disagreement.” What a twisted, distorting narrative liberals have created and locked themselves into.”
Another
“As one guest says, it is stunning how a political party in a great democracy is making their opponents and their opponent’s opinions and positions “illegal” for disagreeing. These people criminalizing differing opinions and speech claim that their opponents are “threats to democracy”, which is actually a projection of what they are doing to the other side.
“Musk and Twitter are the latest focal points in an ongoing struggle for freedom and democracy now playing out in our societies.”
Another:
“Tyrus makes a good point that instead of owning their corruption that has now been exposed, they are demonizing Musk for exposing them, notably on things like the censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop that would have cost them the election if voters had known. They are demonizing Musk, says Tyrus, not because he is making Twitter a “Right or Republican” forum, but just for opening it up to all to speak freely.”
Another
“Much of what was once known as Liberalism in the US (i.e. Democratic party) appears to have been pulled increasingly toward Woke Progressive extremism, leftist extremism. And many on that side who would identify as more “moderate” may be moving now toward “independent” positions/status, no longer comfortable with the extreme Woke Progressivism that we see now in much of liberal media and politics.
“You see this shifting of moderates away from the Woke extremism in things like the surveys that have shown that most Democrats wanted the same end to political correctness that Trump voters wanted in 2016 (this was noted by Bill Maher on a Chris Cuomo interview years ago). The shift of moderates away from Woke extremism, is also seen in surveys showing that more Democrats were watching news shows like Tucker Carlson than watched CNN and other liberal media. It has also been noted in the one million Democrats who switched parties in 2021. And in Gutfeld’s rocketing to number one slot for late night comedy, surpassing all the others.
“Hopefully, the fed-up-ness with the corruption and distortion on the left will lead to further corrective abandonment by more liberals.” A healthy liberal democracy needs at least two opposing, but moderate parties to keep one another balanced.
Related note from The Telegraph:
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/satanic-verses-would-have-never-been-published-if-rushdie-had-written-it-today/ar-AA14INsY?cvid=60026128e23e4f0caabe1164f3469aaa
This article expresses something of the intolerant extremism of Woke/cancel culture, also termed “outrage culture” and its totalitarian demands and retributive responses. Referring to the attack on Salmon Rushdie, the author speaks of the “unconscionable barbarism” that has terrorized many into self-censorship out of fear of voicing their beliefs and facing “a terrible online backlash of ‘ugly personal insults, putting addresses of homes and children’s schools online, trying to make people lose their jobs’”…
“It is a virtual vigilante action whose aim is not just to silence the person who has spoken but to create a vengeful atmosphere that deters others from speaking. There is something honest about an authoritarianism that recognises itself to be what it is.
“Such a system is easier to challenge because the battle lines are clear. But this new social censure demands consensus while being wilfully blind to its own tyranny. I think it portends the death of curiosity, the death of learning and the death of creativity”.