A brief: Climate is changing. CO2 has a warming effect. No one denies these facts. But there is no “climate crisis/emergency”. We do not need to decarbonize our societies. The science on climate does not support that conclusion. Other natural factors show stronger correlations to the natural climate change that we have witnessed over past centuries and millennia and are observing today.
Environmental/climate alarmism is a “profoundly religious crusade”. That is also very true of Marxism and Nazism/Neo-Nazism as well, just as it was true of the many “apocalyptic millennial” crusades across history. This site explores, tries to understand better, and outlines repeatedly the core mythical themes that shape and drive such movements.
See “A Canuck sticking his schnozz in a neighbor’s business” further below in this opening section…
This site is devoted to fighting fear, irrational fear resulting from over-hyped, hysterical levels of alarmism based on narratives that distort the true state of life and coerce frightened people to embrace destructive salvation schemes that “destroy the world to save the world”. Yes, you know what I mean- that psychopathology of themes in the complex of myths known as “lost paradise, decline toward apocalypse, demand for sacrifice, and salvation as purging some ‘evil enemy'”, the very themes that dominate and shape alarmism movements like climate alarmism. (Again, see the good research of historians Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, among others, detailed below)
It is profoundly irresponsible to push such irrational mythical nonsense onto new generations knowing the history of destructive outcomes in lives and societies. After 5 millennia of repetitive embracing of such primitivism have we learned nothing? And you wonder why our worst impulses to tribalism, domination of others, and punitive destruction of differing others, are endlessly revived and validated?
Understand the basic themes of history’s most dominant and influential complex of ideas (also most destructive)- the “lost paradise, decline toward apocalypse, promised redemption (millennial paradise)” complex of themes. This will provide you with more tools for evaluating the narratives that you hear in the public arena. Understanding the “apocalyptic millennial” complex will help you evaluate the basic narrative framework of environmental alarmism/climate alarmism, resurging Marxist collectivism, Neo-Nazism, and more. Add these tools to your personal criteria for evaluating anything you hear or read, to inform your own skepticism, questioning, and challenging of dominant narratives today. Wendell Krossa
Remember the totalitarian formula- “fear=control”. Panic-mongering is the totalitarian’s favorite tool.
“The silent majority are sick of this”, Piers Morgan on Chris Williamson podcast, Feb. 28, 2024
Here Piers Morgan and podcaster Chris Williamson are discussing the possibility that our societies appear to be passing “Peak Woke” as the silent majority are now sick of it and pushing back against the “tyranny of the minority”. Hope springs eternal. As they discuss- Majorities are sick of the Woke movement where everything people enjoy in life is being redefined as evil and corrupting… even to cancelling comedy in a new Puritanism where if you crack a joke at work, you must then be expunged from life.
Interesting comment on the Wokesters public condemnation of others, while guilty of the same behind the scenes. The “moral smoke-screen” thing that people like LE Maxwell spoke of long ago. A big e.g. of “moral smoke-screening” was Jimmy Swaggart self-righteously damning Jimmy Baker to hell for humping a church secretary, while Tammy Faye was home smearing makeup all over her face, and while Swaggert himself was cavorting with prostitutes. A kind of psychological deflection/redirection of guilt by condemning others for the same “sin” that you are indulging in secret.
They note that Ellen DeGeneres was a lead example of the public virtue signaling while hiding backroom nastiness, as she led the early Woke campaign- i.e. all “nicey-nicey” in public but a tyrant behind the scenes. And then, says Morgan, she got cancelled by her own cancellation movement.
So a spreading tiredness of virtue signaling and Puritan condemnation of others, just for enjoying comedy that the Woke bullies don’t like. Ah, who said that left-wing narcissism is so humorless and Puritan.
Piers then asks about the insane levels of anxiety among young people today and Williamson responds that there has been a pathologization, medicalization, and glorification of normal human emotions. He adds that when existence has become so comfortable, as it has in modern life, then any discomfort feels like a curse. It makes people hyper-sensitized. And this hyper-sensitivity is pushed in modern therapy- where youth at told that “it’s not that you are upset, it’s that you are depressed. It’s not that someone was mean to you, it’s that they caused you trauma”, and hence an overmedicated generation.
Williamson notes a study that showed exercise is more effective than all the SRI meds.
Also, they note the cellphone culture that presents so much negativity to young minds. The human mind is not designed to be inundated by the worst of the world’s news 24 hours a day in real time, says Williamson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDhdkpH3K_c
I would add to the puzzling over the anxiety so rampant today in younger people: If you beat a generation with apocalyptic hysteria as media do all day, shrieking that everything is due to “climate change” and climate change is a “crisis… emergency… catastrophic… existential…” etc., and that is dog whistle for “evil human emissions of CO2 that are mainly causing a dangerous rise in warming that will destroy life and civilization”. Well, terrorize and traumatize young people with such irrational exaggeration and what do you think will be the impact on them?
And you buttress your “madness of crowds” apocalyptic hysteria with endless end-of-days dates repeatedly set and reset to intensify the terrorizing, and then you wonder why kids are scared witless, or shitless, according to your preferred adjectives. Ah, where are responsible adults to rise courageously above the banality of evil that “stands by silently and watches” the terrorizing of a new generation with just another primitive apocalyptic narrative, adults afraid of blowback from the “tyranny of the minority” that bullies everyone who dares disagree with their narratives of despair, threatening all with censorship, banning, cancelling…
Fundamental freedom, human well-being, and civilizational progress are at stake.
See soon to be reposted- “Patterns in alarmism movements”…
This from Shellenberger’s site- “Adam Candeub: Stanford Pioneered The Censorship Scheme That Europe May Impose On Us: “The state of nature is for elites to shut people up,” he says. “They see the Internet as a threat because it’s so radically democratizing”, Michael Shellenberger, Mar 3, 2024
https://public.substack.com/p/adam-candeub-stanford-pioneered-the
Quotes from article:
“Europeans are free to speak their mind as they wish, most of them believe…
“But all of that may soon change. Europe is implementing the Digital Services Act, which is using the exact same censorship system we exposed as part of the Twitter Files…
“You might think you shouldn’t worry about this because it’s happening in Europe….
“But Candeub says that the EU may end up censoring the whole world….
‘As we saw with the Twitter Files, the EU is demanding that supposedly independent fact-checkers do the censorship…
“Candeub understands the Censorship Industrial Complex well…
““If you go to a college campus where I work, people are in the business of shutting other people off. I think a lot of it is 2016. I think they see the Internet as a threat because it’s so radically democratizing.”
“At the same time, he noted, such elitism is old. “The natural state of nature is for elites to shut people up,” Candeub explains. “There are certain people epitomized by the people at Stanford [who are like] ‘We are the clever ones. We’re the ones that did really well in our SATs. We must rule.’” (end of quotes)
Here is the Supreme Court case where Shellenberger and others are pushing back against the spreading censorship from governing elites who coerce social media companies to censor opponents…
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-411/300197/20240208220913623_44722%20pdf%20Candeub.pdf
Program AI with the principles of Classic Liberalism that are fundamental to human freedom and equality… Wendell Krossa
In link below: More on the exposure of the partisan bias and Woke propaganda that have shaped Google’s AI Gemini. I would repeat- Classic Liberal principles should be fundamental to the programming of AI to ensure truthfulness, fairness/equality, freedom of speech, and keep censorship/indoctrination at bay.
“Google Gemini using ‘invisible’ commands to define ‘toxicity’ and shape the online world: Digital expert: The digital consultant said Google may become ‘obsolete’ if it continues to build an AI chatbot that reflects the company’s worldview,” Mar 5, 2024, Nikolas Lanum
Excerpted quotes: A digital consultant who combed through files on Google Gemini warned that the artificial intelligence (AI) model has baked-in bias resulting from parameters that define “toxicity” and determine what information it chooses to keep “invisible.”…
“”The Gemini release has a ton of data in it. It is explosive. Let’s take a look at the real toxicity and bias prompts,” she added. “According to the data, every site is classified as a particular bias. Should that be used as part of the datasets of what will define toxicity?”…
“Real Toxicity Prompts is described as a testbed for evaluating the possibility of language models generating text deemed “toxic,” i.e., likely to offend someone and get them to sign off.
“To measure the “toxicity” of documents, Real Toxicity Prompts relies on PerspectiveAPI, which scores the text based on several attributes, including toxicity, severe toxicity, profanity, sexually explicit, identity attack, flirtation, threat, and insult….
(Note political bias here) “In one example posted to social media by Ruby, the website Breitbart was given a bias=right and reliability=low rating. Meanwhile, The Atlantic was labeled as bias=left-center and reliability=high….
“She (Ruby) suggested that the underlying issue with machine learning technologies like Gemini is how toxicity is defined behind the scenes….
“”When it comes to AI censorship, whoever controls the definition of toxicity controls the outcome….
“The issue, according to Ruby, is not the prompt but rather the foundation of the model and the definition, terms and labels that guide the actions of AI models.
“Unfortunately, we now live in a world where a few corporate executives hold tremendous power and weight on the definition of toxicity. Their view of toxicity will ultimately shape the actions of algorithms and machine learning models…
“”We have been misled to believe censorship only takes place among trust and safety officers in private emails. This is part of the picture, but it is very far from the full picture….
“Ruby concludes that an unwillingness to tell the public the ontology associated with toxicity or safety is censorship. How words and phrases are weighted have a significant impact on what topics are visible or relegated to the background….
“In the case of AI, it is not people that are removed, but rather portions of historical records that enable citizens to engage with society as it is, rather than how an algorithm and its creators perceive it. Ruby said that altering historical records would essentially strip citizens of their right to understand the world around them….
“”AI tools must be used to assist users. Unfortunately, they are being used to assist product teams to build a world that reflects their internal vision of the world that is far removed from the reality of users.” (end of article)
From Wattsupwiththat.com- Remember, apocalyptic has a 100% historical failure rate. See the link further below of the numerous contemporary prophesies already proven wrong. Apocalyptic continues to make fools of the brightest minds…
“Monday Mirthiness, A Tale of Fail”, Charles Rotter, Mar 4, 2024
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/03/04/monday-mirthiness-a-tale-of-fail/
Titles from pictures at the link:
“1970- We’ll be in an ice age by 2000”
“1976- Global Cooling will cause a world war by 2000”
“1989- Global warming and rising sea levels will wipe entire nations off the map by 2000”
“1990- We have five to ten years to save the rainforests”
“1999- The Himalayan glaciers will be gone in ten years”
“2000- Snow will soon become a thing of the past”
“2007- Global warming will cause fewer hurricanes”
“2008- The Arctic will be ice-free by 2013”
“2012- Global warming will cause more hurricanes”
“2014- The science is settled”
For more failed predictions https://wattsupwiththat.com/failed-prediction-timeline/
Try to understand why a majority of the world population believe the fallacy that “the world is getting worse”, when good evidence shows the exact opposite, that life has been improving and today is the best time ever to be alive on earth. Wendell Krossa
https://humanprogress.org/is-this-the-best-time-to-be-alive/#:~:text=Overwhelming
Below are some excellent studies that detail the primitive ideas that continue to shape human meta-narratives, in both religious and “secular/ideological” versions, even scientific. These ideas are summarized as the “lost paradise, decline toward apocalypse, demand for sacrifice, embrace of destructive salvationism” complex of myths. They are themes that deny and distort the true state of life and thereby contribute to unnecessary fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, depression, fatalism, resignation, nihilism, and violence among populations.
The studies: 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”, and David Redles’ “Hitler’s Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation”.
The research in these studies will give you a better understanding of the dominant narratives of our contemporary world, the themes that shape public ideologies and movements, and make you aware of the consequences of the “lost paradise/apocalyptic/redemption” myths- notably, that they produce destructive salvation schemes that “destroy life to save the world”.
The “climate crisis” narrative reduced to its fundamental mythical themes:
“We have sinned by ruining paradise (the past was better), and now we are being punished with a climate apocalypse, so repent because the end is nigh. We must make a sacrifice and suffer as redemptive. So, denying evidence to the contrary, lets rush (“coercive purification”) to decarbonize, de-develop, de-industrialize, retreat to primitivism.
“Let’s embrace an irrational salvation scheme that will destroy the world to ‘save the world’. Oh, and don’t forget to engage the righteous battle against evil and coercively purge the evil enemy that threatens life- the ‘deniers’ of our apocalyptic narrative, the ‘unbelievers’ that prevent us from bringing on utopia.”
Integrity should obligate the climate alarmists to walk our streets wearing sandwich boards with the summary inscription/proclamation used by all apocalyptics across history- “Repent, the end is nigh”. That is the honest essence of the message they are proclaiming.
Why are Greens not celebrating? The Earth is becoming greener with more CO2 and this explains the repeated breaking of annual record crops…
This from Climate Depot Jan.31, 2024- “Study: ‘Global greening is an indisputable fact… the rate of global greening increased’ from 2001-2020- Published in journal Global Ecology & Conservation”, Marc Morano
Quote in the above report by Andy May: “Global greening is not only a fact, it is accelerating. Seven times more area is greening than browning. All studies agree the world has become greener since 1982. If things are getting better with fossil fuels, why end them?”
That’s a huge “Duh”. More food for animals. Increased crop production for humanity as annual crop production continues to break records. And with a slight 1 degree C of warming over the past century, fewer people are dying from cold, even though 10 times more still die from cold than die from warming. More CO2 and more warming in a still too cold world will benefit all life even more. Why do media ignore this good news?
Note: Despite the warming over the past century, we are still in the coldest period of our Holocene interglacial. Since the end of the Holocene Optimum of some 6,000 years ago Earth has been on a long-term cooling trend and the Modern Warm Period is still cooler than the previous warming periods (i.e. Holocene Optimum, Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period).
I would add to Andy May’s comment- “If things are getting better with fossil fuels, why end them?”- “If there is no ‘climate crisis’ from the human use of fossil fuels, and there isn’t, then why end them?”
I sent this post below to a private discussion group and I would pass it on to Alberta premier Danielle Smith…. It’s a response to an article covering Smith’s recent comments on her plans for Net Zero decarbonization in Alberta. Wendell Krossa
My post: Danielle, there is no “climate crisis” and hence no need to “become carbon neutral”, no need to decarbonize. Stop affirming the climate crisis narrative with that agreeing statement.
Just as former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed stood up to Papa Pierre Trudeau and his attempt at nationalization of Alberta oil resources (all collectivist elites nationalize resources/property for the “greater good, common good” and thereby destroy economies/societies), so this latest Alberta hero (premier Danielle Smith) gives the metaphorical finger to sonny-boy Justin Trudeau’s Net Zero zealotry. But she is wrong on the climate file in stating that we have to “be carbon neutral”.
Conservative politicians make this repeated mistake of pushing back against Net Zero policy as too rushed but then pivot to affirm the basic climate alarmism narrative. Smith needs to heed this advice- “Climate Data Refutes Crisis Narrative”- posted on Wattsupwiththat.com. Smith undermines her own general pushback against Net Zero decarbonization by affirming the climate alarmism narrative of imminent apocalypse if we don’t decarbonize and de-develop, de-industrialize…
“Climate Data Refutes Crisis Narrative: ‘If you concede the science and only challenge the policies… you’re going to lose’’, Climate Depot, Nov. 13, 2023
Quote from link- Edward Ring: “If you concede the science, and only challenge the policies that a biased and politicized scientific narrative is being used to justify, you’re already playing defense in your own red zone. You’re going to lose the game. Who cares if we have to enslave humanity? Our alternative is certain death from global boiling! You can’t win that argument. You must challenge the science…”
The science he refers to, has been challenged brilliantly by atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and many others as posted in their reports at co2coalition.org, Wattsupwiththat.com, etc. These respected scientists do not deny climate change or the warming influence of CO2, but rightly conclude from the evidence that the influence of CO2 is not the main influence on climate change. Other natural factors show much stronger correlations to the climate change we are seeing.
The world is not facing a “climate crisis” with the mild 1 degree C natural warming that has brought us out of the 1645-1715 Little Ice Age that devastated the world. And even with the mild warming of the modern era, 10 times more people still die every year from cold than die from warmth (Lancet study). We need a lot more warming and a lot more CO2 to continue the amazing greening of Earth (15% more green vegetation just since 1980).
Here is the article on Danielle Smith and her conceding that we must do something about carbon neutrality….
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/danielle-smith-vs-ottawa-again-and-again
“Why it’s Danielle Smith vs. Ottawa, over and over: Alberta’s premier is pulling no punches: ‘We have a federal government that … chooses to work against the national interest rather than advance it’”, by Donna Kennedy-Glans, Feb. 25, 2024
“This is a conversation series by Donna Kennedy-Glans, a writer and former Alberta cabinet minister, featuring newsmakers and intriguing personalities.
“Earlier this month, Smith visited the U.S. Capitol…
“So, how was her first trip to Washington as Alberta’s premier? “I think perhaps the difference this time is that the technology now exists for us to be carbon neutral,” she says. “In the past, I think it was aspirational.” Today, there’s a lineup of practical net-zero tech in development — net-zero hydrogen, petrochemicals and cement. Net-zero steel is her next target.”
My conclusion:
No Danielle, we don’t have to “become carbon neutral”. There is no good scientific basis for that argument. And conceding that we must become carbon neutral only affirms the larger climate alarmism narrative of looming apocalyptic ending. As the Wattsupwiththat.com article states- If you concede the science then you have lost the battle.
So first and foremost, engage the good science at sites like “co2coalition.org” or “Wattsupwiththat.com” and recognize that there is no credible science supporting the claim that there is a “climate crisis”. The very opposite is true- that the mild warming so far has been net beneficial to life. We would benefit from much more warming if the facts on the Eocene “mammalian paradise” (55-33 million years ago) are affirmed as they have been so far.
“The facts on the Eocene paradise”? It was 3-10 degrees C warmer during the Eocene “mammalian paradise” and the tropical oceans did not “boil”. The Earth did not ignite on fire. But rather, tropical temperatures only fluctuated by a few degrees. That “equable climate” issue confounds climate alarmists. What happened? Javier Vinos argues that the main influence on climate change- “meridional transport”- carried that excess solar energy coming into the tropics to the cooler regions of the planet. (See Vinos reports at “Wattsupwiththat.com” and “co2coalition.org”)
That meridional transport was through ocean and atmospheric convection currents. And that meant faster warming of the polar regions as a natural and beneficial response to global warming. Yes- melting ice as good for life. Just as the Earth has been entirely ice free for over 80% of the Phanerozoic history of life (past 500 million years).
Global warming, as evening out climate across the world, means extended habitats for more diverse life forms and freedom from the destructive impacts of cold climate. As Patrick Moore notes, the most diverse life forms are in the warmer regions of our world. A good thing. All life prefers warmth. Evidence of warmer temps in polar regions- the discovery in recent years of the fossils of tropical plants and animals in both polar regions.
So do not fear much more warming (and much more CO2). There is no paleoclimate evidence that a far warmer world will destroy life. In fact, with the 3 degrees C warmer climate during the Holocene Optimum of 10,000 to 6,000 years ago, agriculture was able to emerge and develop, and the great civilizations were enabled to emerge and flourish.
Yet we are being traumatized today with alarmism over a 1.5 degree C warming that has brought us out of the destructive cold climate of the Little Ice Age of 1645-1715. And we are still in the coldest period of our Holocene interglacial. 10 times more people still die from cold every year than die from warming (Lancet study).
Added note:
The statement that “you will lose if you don’t challenge the science of climate”- so I would argue that you will lose over the long-term if you don’t confront and change the primary mythical themes that are behind alarmism movements. Again, see Landes and Co. research on the profoundly mythical/religious ideas behind Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism crusades. Go to the real root of problems. Solve thoroughly and properly for the long term.
Propagandizing populations with climate apocalypse
“Green Billionaires Press Hollywood to Promote Armageddon Climate Messages in Movies”, Chris Morrison of Daily Skeptic, article posted by Charles Rotter, Feb. 28, 2024
“Green billionaires are pouring money into discreet campaigns to persuade Hollywood writers to catastrophize the climate in future film and television scripts. One of their main vehicles is Good Energy, which tells writers that showing anger, depression, grief or other emotion in relation to the climate crisis, “can only make characters more relatable”….
“Good Energy aims to weave climate alarm into all types of film-making, “especially” if it is not about climate…. It claims the Playbook is “now the industry’s go-to guide to incorporating climate into any storyline or genre”….
“As regular readers of the Daily Sceptic will recall, billionaire foundations are grooming populations around the world by funding a variety of press, political and academic operations…
“And if your story requires a yacht, why not make it solar powered.” That last idea might appeal to super-yacht lover Leonardo DiCaprio, but private planes, the preferred method of transportation for many high-end Hollywood stars, might be a problem. Hypocrisy a problem with all this? Not according to the Playbook, which quotes climate activist Bill McKibben that “hypocrisy is the price of admission in this battle”. For plebs, gammons, fly-overs and deplorables, this of course translates as “you do what you are told and radically change your lives – we don’t give a flying flamingo”….
“For scripted entertainment, observes Good Energy, “the emotional truth is as important as the literal truth”….
“Rolling Stone reports that the operation is “dedicated” to ensuring that within three years, 50% of contemporary TV and film acknowledges climate change.
“It is unsurprising that the power of film and TV to influence large audiences is being captured to promote a political message….
“Elite billionaires are pulling out all the stops to insert climate Armageddon messaging into all forms of media….”
“Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor”.
Now some theology, as related to the “the primary human impulse to meaning” (Viktor Frankl)…
I use the adjective “unconditional” on this site (a lot) for lack of a better term to summarize the profound insight that Historical Jesus made in his “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God” (James Robinson). But my use of that term is not an affirmation of some form of pacifism in the face of evil (i.e. “turn the other cheek”). Wendell Krossa
A Mennonite man that I used to know stated, regarding the common sense that ought to inform our responses in life, “Yes, I am pacifist. But if someone attacks me, I will “pass a fist” to stop him”. Likewise giving priority to common sense, the old pacifist preacher said, “If someone attacks my family, I will knock him out with a 2×4 and when he is unconscious on the ground then I will sit down and discuss my pacifist principles with him”. Hence, the embrace of unconditional as a general guiding ideal for the treatment of others in life is not an affirmation of pacifist absolutism. That does not work in an imperfect world.
My use of the term unconditional is about pointing to the true nature of the love that defines deity as ultimate goodness or humaneness. Unconditional is the single best feature to highlight divine love, as contrasted with the deforming features that have been projected onto deities across past millennia, features that have nothing to do with authentic love- i.e. retaliatory justice, tribal exclusion of unbelievers, domination, highly conditional atonement/salvation schemes, and punitive destruction of unbelievers, etc.
And as with anything in relation to deity, unconditional in deity should be understood as something transcendently, unimaginably, inexpressibly better than anything in human understanding, experience, or explanation. As Joseph Campbell said- “The God infinitely beyond God”.
Unconditional in deity defines and upholds our highest ideals as something much better than where we are at present, in order to judge us and to point us toward the better existence that we should try to head toward, toward something more humane, toward the highest reaches of love. Our ideals should inspire us to be something better than where we are at present. That is what divine ideals should be about, how they should function. To disturb any complacency and urge us that we can still do better. But not excessively so in the sense of contributing to beating ourselves up over failure. It’s a balancing thing.
Unconditional in deity points us toward the meaning of “the authentically human”. It shows us how we fulfill the hero’s quest to conquer the monster/enemy of our inherited animal drives, and then how to “tower in stature as maturely human”.
And while unconditional is never perfected in human experience in this world, it should be considered an absolute truth and reality in deity as perfect goodness and love.
Unconditional, better than anything else, properly informs the “behavior based on belief” impulse. Meaning that unconditional shows us how to be like God. This is about the behavior based on similar theological belief, a relationship that humans have intuitively used across history and across all the cultures of the world.
The behavior based on similar divine belief is an expression of the natural impulse to want to fulfill the reason for which we exist, to fulfill the purpose for which we have been created. Surely, if such a purpose exists then it is common sense to try to understand and fulfill it.
Unconditional in deity tells us how to end the endlessly destructive cycles of eye for eye retaliation and thereby conquer the animal inside us, the real monster and enemy in life.
Unconditional points us to better approaches to human failure in others, approaches like restorative justice of the type that was used post-WW2 in regard to Japan and Germany. That exhibition of unconditional treatment of enemies helped to re-integrate those populations back into the human family.
Most critical, unconditional shows us how to maintain our own humanity in the face of evil when the primal urge to retaliate in kind can overwhelm human consciousness.
I use this term unconditional always with necessary qualifiers- i.e. that violent people must be restrained and incarcerated, stopped with force in order to protect innocent others which is the priority responsibility of governments and criminal justice systems. And such use of force to restrain violent people does not mean the abandonment of love. It is not antithetical to love.
Love, in responding to human pathology is often not about feelings toward offenders but is more about intention and commitment to use proper levels of force and to follow-up with the humane treatment of offenders/enemies after restraint and war are ended. See for example…
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/overview-police-use-force#:~:text=Law%
This is what “maintaining our own humanity in the face of evil” should be about.
Whatever the application of unconditional to ethics means, it is especially critical to define deity as unconditional because deity, even in our modern era, still functions as our highest embodiment of human ideals, the highest understanding of goodness and love. We do well to appreciate the potential humanizing influence of deity on life- as per the “behavior based on belief” relationship.
Most critical: Unconditional in deity overturns the inherited “bad religious idea” theologies that have long incited and validated the worst of human behavior across history. As someone said, “Men never do worse evil than when they do it in the name of God”. Or, “We become just like the God that we believe in”.
Other comment….
This caught my attention as it has been so invariably and inevitably the outcome of collectivist experiments across the past century. It was in an article on the immigration problem at the southern US border and why so many are fleeing Latin American countries for the US.
Quote:
“For example, the socialist government of Venezuela has turned a previously prosperous country into a repressive hellhole, many people are seeking shelter and refuge in the United States”. See also “Socialism: The Failed Idea that never Dies”. All collectivist experiments end inevitably as “repressive hellholes”. That’s why China and Russia have both largely rejected collectivism. It does not work.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/joe-biden-has-failed-to-tackle-the-mess-on-americas-southern-border
A “deep state” conspiracy theory?? (posts to a discussion group) Wendell Krossa
“A “Hmmm-type” video clip. Leftist Jimmy Dore (for those of you scared of anything not from a “left/liberal” source) on the “permanent state” or what some call the “deep state”. As Dore defines it- “The people who said they were here before people like Trump and they would still be there after people like him”, a guy who tried to mess with that hidden state.
“Suspend your “conspiracy theory” initial reaction a bit. Here’s another voice interviewed by Dore, Mel K, screenwriter, journalist, etc., stating what Glen Greenwald also argues- that we live propagandized by the illusion that our societies are locked in the conflict of left vs right- “the false left/right dichotomy and the media who want you to be afraid of your neighbor instead of the people who run things”.
“Richard Landes has pointed out that the “elite powerholder versus commoners” dichotomy has shaped all societies from the beginning of human civilizing projects. The left/right thing just keeps the populace divided, they say, and not focused on the real divide between powerholding elites and common citizens.
“Joe Rogan and guests have discussed similar things- is it really just another conspiracy theory, are there really super elites meeting to plan this stuff out about controlling us, or is it more just ideological agreement among varied agencies, social institutions, and elites that agree to a similar approach to organizing societies?? What really is going on behind the scenes that we only get glimpses of? Glimpses, as with Shellenberger and Taibbi’s revelations of the CIA manufacture of the Russia Collusion to bring Trump down, etc. (the new McCarthyism, coming from the Democrats now). This lady (Mel K) says this deep state thing really exposed itself with the murder of JFK.
“Jimmy notes that 10 years ago Princeton did a study that concluded the US is not a democracy but an oligarchy. They go into examples of how Americans are set against one another in this left vs right divide and miss the larger picture. “We are all equally victims of this….” Good on the call to return to freedom and transparency…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWSu0HKzzPw
Another post on the Jimmy Dore video clip:
“I don’t think this “deep state” thing is conspiracy as in a group of men meeting in dark back rooms and plotting to take over the world, to take power and control. Its more that wealthy, powerful people are true believers in a generally agreed upon ideology and the policies that flow from that ideology. And they believe that the policies should be implemented as the best way to organize societies, for the “greater good, the common good”, as they see it.
“Elites believe that they know what is best for all others and must work (noble cause) to see those policies embraced and implement by societies. So yes, they do meet at places like the big WEF confabs to discuss and plan the “Great Reset”, to fashion and reshape the world economies according to their socialist/collectivist ideology. And in doing that, they agree with the Chinese elites who admittedly use long-game approaches to undermine Western liberal democracy and replace it with their authoritarian control of populations… for the good of all, of course. So yes, “conspire” but more loosely as in agreeing on a common ideology as best for societies.
“We saw this recently with Trudeau’s visit to Alberta and his delusional statements that oil workers and other voters, now in majority numbers against him, they have all been deluded by opposition voices and don’t know what is best for them. Only he does and he will use state power to make sure they learn to submit and agree. That is how an authoritarian thinks, how a true believer in some ideological system thinks. And then works to spread his ideology and meet with like-minded others to ensure their ideology is widely taught and promoted and accepted by populations.
“Classic Liberalism/libertarianism is the best system that we have come up with to counter this totalitarianism of “cruel compassion”- the “psychopathology of left-wing authoritarianism”. Christine Brophy notes that authoritarians want to subject all against their wills but for their “good”, for common or greater good as defined by extremist Woke Progressivism narratives. Classic liberalism operates to protect the rights and freedoms of all individuals equally, to protect the equal treatment of all citizens under common law, to honor and protect the self-determination of free individuals, to protect private property rights, and to uphold institutions that disperse power among competing individuals and competing social institutions, etc.” (end of post)
This site is fundamentally a “Daddy” site, telling visitors, and especially younger people, that its going to be alright- Alright in this world. This affirmation is to encourage people to make their unique contribution to making life better as such effort will be effective. Wendell Krossa
And I add that its going to be alright “ultimately” (all safe ultimately) because there is a stunningly no conditions love at the core of reality and life. I state that, in part, to defuse the common fear of death, and after-life fear, as such fear has deformed and constrained engagement in life for many.
This is about pushback to disarm the totalitarian’s use of fear to control people.
And this site, after presenting information on where and how things went wrong in some area, and especially how things have gone wrong at the level of the basic themes of narratives, this site then engages information on how to make things right again. What, for example, are the better alternatives in terms of narrative themes, the more humane insights from across history to better inform our thinking, emotions, motivations, and responses? That is what my list of 18 “worst ideas and better alternatives” is all about (see below).
My persistent argument is that things are going to be alright in this world. On the material side, this site offers the best evidence from the best sources on the true state of life and on the long-term trend of life which shows an ever-improving trajectory. This continual improvement in the trajectory of life is because humanity is fundamentally good and loving. Goodness is our essential nature. We are not essentially corrupt/bad or what religious traditions call “sinful”. We are not a “virus, cancer, or intruder” on earth. So value “the wonder of being human”, and existing on this planet with some special purpose to make a contribution to life that you alone can fulfill. Don’t fall for the anti-humanism that dominates so much religion and ideology today.
Also, don’t fall prey to the dominant narratives of despair today, like climate alarmism with its hysterical narratives of life and civilization collapsing. Apocalyptic narratives fuel fear, anxiety, guilt/shame, fatalism, resignation, nihilism, and violence toward differing others. Beware the apocalyptic millennial crusades like climate alarmism that distort entirely the true state of life and then push irrational salvation schemes on populations. Do not “stand by and silently observe” the salvation schemes that repeatedly result in mass-death outcomes (“destroying the world to save the world”). Don’t let yourself become caught up in “madness of crowds” eruptions and social contagions. Think critically, question everything, be in control of your own life story. And make some unique creative contribution to your era.
This Daddy reassurance project also presents the best insights from historical spiritual traditions. “Best” in terms of the most humane ethics and behavior that resonate with what we have all commonly agreed on in our human rights codes- i.e. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, or the principles of Classic Liberalism. These principles are the best expressions of the love that we all commonly agree is our defining ideal as to what it means to be human.
Meaning- the love that honors the freedom for individual diversity, individual self-determination, freedom from control by dominating others. As a friend says- ‘Where there is no such freedom there is no love”. So understand and value the Western contribution of Classic Liberalism to the world (see, for example, the Classic Liberal principles outlined in Daniel Hannan’s “Inventing Freedom”, William Bernstein’s “The Birth of Plenty”, or David Boaz’s “Libertarianism: A Primer”).
Be aware of your real enemy, the real monster in life- the animal inheritance inside you where the real battle of life takes place. Our real battle in life is not with other people who differ from us. It is with our own inner impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of “enemy” others. To counter such impulses, understand the fundamental oneness of the human family, recognize that true greatness is serving others, and embrace restorative justice as how we best maintain our humanity in the face of evil.
Don’t allow yourself to be deluded by the constantly re-invented collectivist versions of compassion that subject individuals to a “common or greater good collective”, because all collectives have to be run by someone (for the “common good”) and that role is repeatedly seized by elites who arrogantly believe that they alone know what is best for all others, and who have inevitably turned totalitarian and ruined societies, introducing hell on earth. Centralizing power and control in collectivist approaches has always corrupted the powerholding elites who run the collectives, despite their claims of governing for the good of others.
I refer specifically to the formal ideology of “collectivism” that we saw in Marxist versions last century and today is coming at us through fronts like Woke Progressivism, ESG backdoor infiltration of business, etc. Collectivism holds as a primary principle the rejection of private property rights and the demand that individuals be subjected to the collective or “greater/common good”. An example today would be the World Economic Forum with its now deleted slogan “You will own nothing, and you will be happy” (happy eating insects). The WEF is representative of the Woke Progressivism that dominates so much of Western societies today, as in the current US Democratic Party.
Today collectivist approaches operate by coercively taking private property through excessive taxation, and regulation of all aspects of life, as bureaucratic/governing elites claim that they know best how all should decide and live and will make such choices for the commoners. Rules for thee, but not for me (think Al Gore, Bill Gates, George Soros, and the many others as example of that elite club).
The claims of totalitarianism to compassion, a compassion that coerces others against their will “for their good”, is not love. Coercing people “to be free”, as in the distortion of freedom as submission to collectivist elite powerholders, is no freedom.
https://public.substack.com/p/christine-brophy-narcissism-and-agreeableness
And be skeptical of narratives that proclaim the themes of “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption”. There has never been any lost paradise (i.e. better past) and life is not declining toward something worse, toward collapse and disaster. There is no divine demand to make a sacrifice, to suffer for redemption, to deny the good life. And do not fall for the perversion of the hero’s quest that urges people to engage a righteous war against differing others as “evil enemies” that must be purged from life in order to save the world. Do not believe any narrative that denies humanity’s oneness. We are all the same one family.
Further, there is no utopian millennium coming. But yes, hard work in contributing to the slow and gradual trajectory of improving life through democratic processes will get us to an increasingly ever better world. Gradualism in democracy, slow gradualism, succeeds. The news is good and affirms hope.
Ah, there is so much more to this Daddy project… read on kids. Its going to be alright.
And this….
Abigail Shrier research on anxiety…
Add the fact to the article below that this generation has suffered decades of battering by climate alarmism apocalyptic, that the world is going to end soon, hence many young people fear that the human race will soon go extinct. Add Jonathan Haidt’s research on what contributes to the striking rise in levels of anxiety among younger people…
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729231/the-anxious-generation-by-jonathan-haidt/
Some good comment on what happened to the latest generation– “How Bad Therapy Hijacked Our Nation’s Schools: Forget the Pledge of Allegiance. Today’s teachers are more likely to start the school day with an ‘emotions check-in.’ Abigail Shrier on the rise of ‘trauma-informed’ education”, Feb. 27, 2024
https://www.thefp.com/p/how-bad-therapy-hijacked-american-schools
From the Bari Weiss intro: “American kids are the freest, most privileged kids in all of history. They are also the saddest, most anxious, depressed, and medicated generation on record. Nearly a third of teen girls say they have seriously considered suicide. For boys, that number is an also alarming 14 percent.
“What’s even stranger is that all of these worsening mental health outcomes for kids have coincided with a generation of parents hyper-fixated on the mental health and well-being of their children.
“What’s going on?
“That mystery is the subject of Abigail Shrier’s fascinating, urgent new book: Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up….
“In Bad Therapy, out today, Abigail heads into the breach once more. The book makes the case that the advent of therapy culture, the rise of “gentle parenting,” and the spread of “social-emotional learning” in schools is actually causing much of the anxiety and depression faced by today’s youth. In other words, Abigail argues that in our attempt to keep kids safe, we are failing the next generation of American adults.
Abigail Shrier quotes:
“By 2022, 96 percent of public schools offered mental health services to students. Many of these interventions constitute what I call “bad therapy”: they target the healthy, inadvertently exacerbating kids’ worry, sadness, and feelings of incapacity.
“Mind Institute… provides an online “symptom checker” specifically to help parents or teachers inform themselves about “possible diagnoses.”
“Counselors now routinely monitored the social-emotional quality of our teaching, sniffed out emotional disturbance in our students, and decided what assignments to nix or grades to adjust upward.
“(At a conference on social-emotional teaching) We pledged to treat all kids as if they had experienced some debilitating trauma.
“Social-emotional learning… SEL pushes kids toward a series of personal reflections, aimed at teaching them “self-awareness,” “social awareness,” “relationship skills,” “self-management,” and “responsible decision-making.”
“Teachers (are advised) to ask kids: “How are you feeling today?…
“I asked Leif Kennair, a world-renowned expert in the treatment of anxiety, and Michael Linden, a professor of psychiatry at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, what they thought of practice. Both said this unceasing attention to feelings was likely to make kids more dysregulated.
“If we want to help kids with emotional regulation, what should we communicate instead?
“I’d say: worry less. Ruminate less,” Kennair told me. “Try to verbalize everything you feel less. Try to self-monitor and be mindful of everything you do— less.”….
“Many psychological studies back this up. An individual is more likely to meet a challenge if she focuses on the task ahead, rather than her own emotional state. If she’s thinking about herself, she’s less likely to meet any challenge.
“If you want to, let’s say, climb a mountain, if you start asking yourself after two steps, ‘How do I feel?’ you’ll stay at the bottom,” Dr. Linden said….
“There’s a problem with in-school therapy, an ethical compromise, which arguably corrupts its very heart…. And among the clearest is- or was- the prohibition on ‘dual relationships’…
“As school counselors and psychologists came to see themselves as students’ “advocates,” they slipped into a dual relationship with their students: part therapist; part academic intermediary; part parenting coach. Today, school counselors and psychologists commonly evaluate, diagnose, and treat students with individual therapy; meet with their friends; intervene with their teachers; and pass them in the lunchroom. A teen who has just spent a tear-soaked hour telling the school counselor her deepest secrets might reasonably be fearful of upsetting anyone with that much power over her life….
“I have been so inundated with parents’ stories of school counselors encouraging a child to try on a variant gender identity, even changing the child’s name without telling the parents, that I’ve almost wondered if there are any good school counselors. One parent I interviewed told me that her son’s high school counselor had given him the address of a local LGBTQ youth shelter where he might seek asylum and attempt to legally liberate himself from loving parents….
“Advocates of social-emotional learning claim that nearly all kids today have suffered serious traumatic experiences that leave them unable to learn…. Otherwise happy kids are brought low…
“Good therapists are trained specifically to avoid encouraging rumination, a thought process typified by dwelling on past pain and negative emotions. Rumination is a well-established risk factor for depression….”
“Excerpted from Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, by Abigail Shrier, in agreement with Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © Abigail Shrier, 2024.”
Follow-up posts to a discussion group re the above article: Wendell Krossa
“Jordan Peterson noted that over the past 20 years, psychology has recognized that a generation of youth has been ruined by making kids intensely oriented to their feelings as dominant criteria for viewing all of life…
“Here is a brief clip of Abigail Shrier on the anxiety of this generation, saying that kids of this new generation are afraid to take on life, they don’t feel they have efficacy that they can improve their lives, they don’t want to be in charge, they are afraid, they don’t feel up to it. They are smart kids but don’t feel ready, afraid to try, and they constantly report about their mental health, how they are feeling today, they can’t just take a chance and go for it…
“Joe Rogan says- How do parents help children with such things… but then tell kids there are things you have to do in life that are difficult so just suck it up… and there is a great reward in just trying and doing things. So “suck it up” is not being told to these kids, no one is telling them “you will live”, so shake it off, you will overcome things…
“Studies show that regularly ruminating on your bad feelings, as in therapy, only makes things worse…
“And while many theoretical psychologists affirm the risks of therapy (getting people to ruminate on their bad feelings), the clinical ones minimized the risks of therapy where people are taught to ruminate… a dangerous practice…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z72hgYk-5iI
“As she says, therapists love patients with a little ‘social anxiety’ and they run with that…. that’s their income and then they focus their patients on their feelings and trauma and that makes it worse…
“Rogan summarizes her book and the point that- “thinking about your problems all the time and talking about your problems all the time literally makes them worse”…
“She responds that yes, rumination is the number one symptom of depression, the pathological obsessing over your pain. So, in response get out of your house and accomplish anything… where sitting around and thinking and talking about your problems is a bad habit. Good cognitive behavioral therapists will first thing try to break that bad habit where a lot of other therapists just indulge it. So go out and get into life, suffer the failures and problems of life, suck it up and get going… you will be OK. Now we tell kids- you have trauma and get them sitting around ruminating about it and making it worse….
“Life is pain and resilience and getting on with it…
“Also don’t fear anxiety or medicate it away as anxiety helps you prepare and perform better, anxiety is part of life and has benefits.. even medicating depression can kill the will to make a change… interesting insights…” (She does add that in some cases medication and therapy are certainly necessary and helpful)…
On the (sometimes) pathology of prayer:
Even the old Evangelical preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones, physician to the Queen, noted in his book “Spiritual Depression” that praying about your problems only makes you focus on them more and makes them worse. Its another form of harmful “rumination” that is a main cause of depression. He recommended to get outside of yourself and get involved in helping others and solving their problems and that will help you forget your problems.
Fascinating facts on AP (Associated Press) reporting of news
Jimmy Dore: “(We) are the most propagandized people on earth and we don’t know it”.
This same propaganda noted in the AP article further below just happened a couple of days ago with more hysteria over Russia, Russia, Russia. The unproven story that the Russians were putting nuclear weapons in space. Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn said the story appeared suddenly, manufactured out of nothing with no evidence. Mainstream media ran with it with no fact-checking, acting more as just loudspeakers for state propaganda, to keep the war machine funded.
Democratic Senator Frank Church had warned back in the 70s about the CIA involvement all over US media. As others have uncovered today- the widespread propagandizing from intelligence agencies, social and mainstream news media, political parties, etc.- i.e. Shellenberger, Taibbi and crew. See further below the report on the anti-Israel bias in the main news feed agency on Earth… the AP
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-episode-5d2
Quotes from above link on the “Russian nuclear space weapons” by Taibbi and Kirn…
“Nuclear space weapons became an instantaneous talking point across the board, and it was not just on the Democratic side, Nikki Haley, in classic fashion, got up there, and she was a guest on Fox where they were discussing. They immediately converted the story into a discussion about how Biden was sleepwalking on the Russian nuclear space threat. And the National Review put out a story, Russia’s space weapons capabilities are worth worrying about. It was everywhere, this thing, and there was nothing that we had anything concrete about.
“Bloomberg, “US tells allies, Russia may launch anti-satellite nuclear weapon into space this year.” That has echoes, certainly, of the Iraq period. Remember the famous British Intelligence Assessment talking about how they could launch chemical weapons or biological weapons within 45 minutes? And then, it later came out that there was just nothing behind that at all. But so what? We can tell the public later. Putin came out and of course directly said that this wasn’t happening. “We’ve been categorically against, and are now against, the deployment of nuclear weapons in space,” he said, but whatever, he’s evil, always-liar Vladimir Putin, so that doesn’t really make the news very much.
“But the fact that these stories came out, and there was just nothing in most of these reports talking about the obvious subtext of it, which is that there is a still unpassed piece of legislation that is preventing us from continuing the war in Ukraine, it just tells you how completely ridiculous our system of media is now. We’ve now gone beyond the point of no return with this 1984-style news reporting system. There’s no pretense anymore to any connection to reality with any of this stuff. It was really amazing to watch….
“Let’s pile on the fictional story about which we know absolutely nothing…
“When all people get afraid of the Russian threat in the same way at the same time to the same hysterical level.
“Until we reach that point, Rachel (Maddow) will be on TV, hectoring us for not being sufficiently serious.
“Matt Taibbi: Right. Right. We should all be in the same church worshiping at the same altar of panic before the same unknown thing, or the same unproven threat….”
Note other examples, for instance, of how Google’s Gemini AI manufactured lies about Matt Taibbi
https://www.racket.news/p/i-wrote-what-googles-ai-powered-libel
Go to Taibbi’s and Michael Shellenberger’s sites for numerous stories on how media and intelligence agencies propagandize us with distortions of events and outright lies…
Here is the link to the article on AP’s propagandizing…
“Carson Jerema: Associated Press compromises itself with anti-Israel bias: Global wire service isn’t even trying to provide fact-based journalism”, Published Mar 01, 2024
“Since Hamas murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel nearly five months ago, the Associated Press news-wire service has made the choice to amplify the perspective of the terrorist organization, while painting Israel in as negative a light as possible. Its coverage of the war that was ignited by the attack frequently treats Hamas as the more reliable source, doing a disservice to readers looking for objective, fact-based journalism.
“The Associated Press (AP) is immensely influential, with its reporting appearing in hundreds of news outlets around the world, including in National Post, reaching, they claim, four-billion people a day, making its clear and unequivocal anti-Israel bias a unique problem.
“A particularly egregious example is how AP covered the story of 112 Palestinians who were killed during the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza City on Thursday….
“Israeli forces say they killed up to 10 people as a result, but did not fire on the crowd generally.
“Hamas, which has an obvious interest in Jews being perceived as bloodthirsty war criminals, blames all the deaths on Israel and called it a “massacre.”…
“While it seems obvious that the Israeli version of events is more plausible than the Hamas version, all AP needed to do, at a minimum, was to frame the story as one where the cause of the deaths were in dispute.
“Instead, it took the Hamas version of events as the plain truth….
“This isn’t journalism. This isn’t holding Israel to account. This is Hamas propaganda, plain and simple….
“The Associated Press appeared keen to present the most anti-Israel version of events it could muster, without concern for even a veneer of journalistic standards….
“(AP’s) accounts of the war are among the most widely read in the world. Hamas couldn’t ask for a better public relations team.” National Post
This by Matt Taibbi on Google’s Gemini AI
https://www.racket.news/p/if-ai-thinks-george-washington-is
Quote: “As seen in the Gemini rollout, and heard repeatedly across years of reports about AI products, the chief issue with such tools is that they make stuff up. The term Silicon Valley prefers is “hallucinate” — journalist Cade Metz deserves kudos for helping make it Dictionary.com’s word of the year in 2023— but as podcast partner Walter Kirn points out, this language is too kind. The machines lie.”
A Canuck sticking his schnozz in a neighbor’s business… Wendell Krossa
Qualifier: I affirm his policies as overall good for any society, due to his business experience and success with policies that benefitted especially minority communities, something that even Trump hater Van Jones admitted to Jake Tapper years ago on CNN, and other Democrats are now affirming. But I am no fan of the person Donald Trump in terms of one notable behavior of his. I would tell him to his face that his “guiding ethic of eye for eye” repeatedly renders him petty and childish (i.e. the name-calling and vilification of opponents, the ad hominem stuff). He will never be considered a great president if he continues to engage that infantile behavior. I suspect that nasty retaliatory behavior was a significant contributing factor that cost him the election in the past (shooting yourself in the foot).
But I also acknowledge that a more timid and proper person probably would not have done what needed to be done to clean out the swamp of elitism in DC. A “Bull in a China shop” charge was most likely the only approach that would have worked. But just a little more smoothly and subtly would have helped dampen the hysterical reaction of Woke Progressives. Or would it have? I dunno.
Now my point…
Every morning, I go to MSN homepage (Canada edition) to get a feel for the day’s news and I see endless headlines panic-mongering over the “Orange Monster” (Trump)- as the great dangerous “threat to democracy”. That “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is far beyond obsessive compulsive hysteria. But what do you expect when people have terrorized themselves that their opponent is “Hitler, Nazi, fascist, racist, bigot, dictator…” along with other extremist demonizing smears.
Examples of the mantra of the “dangerousness” of the man:
When you have framed your opponent as the worst of the worst, well, you cannot then back down to a more moderate assessment. You are now obligated (noble cause) to righteously engage a “war against evil” in order to save the world, to save democracy. You have positioned yourself as similar to the righteous Allies fighting the just war against the Nazis.
And you wonder why more and more people are terming this hysteria over Trump and conservatives as part of the larger “lunacy, insanity, craziness… madness of crowds” of our era.
Trump as dangerous? Tyrannical? Why then did that not happen during his first term? Two things are critical that someone wanting to exercise tyranny will do-
(1) They will take away people’s money to spend it for them via increased state programs and control, as Trudeau does here in Canada…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClIhdP0pcLc
And (2) they will expand rules and regulations to meddle in and control the lives of citizens, just as Trudeau’s Liberals are trying to do with their “Online Harms Act” that will tell people just what they can read and hear and what they can say- meaning that nothing will be permitted that the Trudeau Woke Progressives don’t like. They will even “Pre-cog” criminalize and arrest/imprison people they suspect might commit hate speech or crimes (i.e. “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise).
Trump undid the tyrannist’s tool of control by excess rules, laws, and regulations at elimination scales never before seen. And he cut taxes for all, again at strikingly significant levels. Where is the tyranny in that? And he did not go to war to spread “American tyranny” in other areas of the globe.
He did the very opposite of someone wanting to exercise tyranny. And that is what promoting real freedom is about.
And in a great exhibition of cognitive dissonant distortion these screaming Wokesters are the ones who are censoring opponents. Surveys show that a majority of Democrats want to ban opponents from ballots. And these “highly illiberal” Democrats of today have been exposed for using the intelligence agencies to censor the speech of those they disagreed with (i.e. the “Twitter files”). So who really is your dangerous threat to democracy today? Who is really guilty of tyranny? They illustrate the psychopathology of projection daily.
Revised reposting…
Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives, Old Story Themes, New Story Alternatives: Rethinking 18 of the most fundamental bad ideas from across human history, and presenting 18 alternative ideas to transform narratives, human consciousness/subconscious, and liberate the human spirit as never before in history, Wendell Krossa
“Worst” because of the deforming influence of bad ideas on human thought, emotion, motivation, and response/behavior, as in inciting and validating the base impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of “enemies” or differing others.
1. Old story theme: The myth of deity as a judging, punishing, and destroying reality that metes out final justice- i.e. rewarding the good, punishing the bad (i.e. threat theology affirming retributive justice). The myth of a “wrathful violent God” continues as the cohering center of the world religions and is now also given expression in “secular” versions such as “vengeful Gaia, angry planet, pissed Mother Earth, retributive Universe, and payback karma”- the new retaliatory, destroying gods of environmental alarmism, history’s latest apocalyptic movement. (Note: Western religious traditions have always affirmed violence in deities. Eastern traditions have similarly affirmed violence in deity as in “Lord Shiva the Destroyer”.)
The myth of God as a retaliating, punishing reality has long under-girded human justice systems as retaliatory and punitive. From early human beginnings, belief in a punitive deity has incited and affirmed the demand for punitive response to human imperfection and failure.
The primitive view of deity as punitive, i.e. God as the Ultimate Destroyer (via apocalypse, hell), is the single most important “bad idea” to engage and correct. All other bad religious ideas are anchored to this foundational pathology in human thought, because deity has long functioned as the cohering center of human narratives, and continues to do so today, even in “secularized, materialist” versions of theology/ultimate realities.
New story alternative: The “stunning new theology” that God (Ultimate Consciousness, Mind, Intelligence, Self/Personhood, Source, Mystery) is an inexpressible “no conditions love”, a non-retaliatory Reality. The adjective “unconditional” points to our highest understanding of love. It is simply the best of being human and is therefore most critical for defining deity as transcendent “Goodness”.
Takeaway? There is no ultimate judgment, no ultimate exclusion of anyone, no demand for payment or sacrifice to appease angry deity, no need for redemption or salvation, and no ultimate punishment or destruction of anyone (no such mind-perverting horror as “hell”).
Why bother with these speculative metaphysical corrections? Concern for human well-being requires us to counter humanity’s “primal fear of after-life harm” that is the personality-deforming outcome of millennia of shaman/priests/pastors beating bad religious ideas into human consciousness/subconscious. Fear of after-life harm adds intolerable sting to the already unbearable fear of death that many people suffer.
Also, we need to sever the age-old relationship of “bad beliefs validating bad behavior”. However you may try to affirm justice as punitive treatment of the failures of others, know that deity as unconditional reality does not validate such endeavors. See “The Christian Contradiction” below (Historical Jesus versus Paul’s Christ myth). http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533
None of the great world religions has ever presented the reality of an unconditional deity. All religion across history has been essentially about conditional reality- i.e. the required conditions to appease and please religious deities (i.e. conditions of correct belief, religious rituals required of insiders, demanded sacrifices/payment for wrong, and proper religious lifestyle as the identity marker of a true believer in the true religion, etc.).
Further, the new theology of God as unconditional Love overturns the singularly most psychologically damaging myth that has burdened and enslaved humanity from the beginning- the myth of divine retribution/punishment exhibited through the nastier elements of life. While there are natural and social consequences to living in this world, and to our choices and behavior, there is no punitive Force or Spirit behind natural world events and consequent suffering (i.e. no punitive God behind natural disasters, disease, accidents, or the predatory cruelty of others). The myth of punitive deity behind such things, whether angry God, vengeful Gaia, angry Planet, pissed Mother Earth, retributive Universe, or payback karma, has long burdened people with unnecessary guilt, shame, fear, and anxiety. Like the distressed Japanese woman who asked after the 2011 tsunami, “Are we being punished for enjoying life too much?”
Paul used this primitive threat theology on the Corinthians, claiming that their sicknesses and deaths were punishment from God for their sins, illustrating with an Old Testament claim that God punished the sinning Hebrews with snake bites.
(Note the qualifiers in sections below on holding people accountable for their behavior, the need to restrain bad behavior, responsible human maturing and growth in acknowledging failures, and restorative justice approaches. All necessary for healthy human development, in this world.)
2. Old story theme: The myth of a “perfect beginning” and that God is obsessed with perfection in the world and life, that God creates perfection (e.g. Eden, original paradise world, previous golden age Earth), that God is enraged at the subsequent loss of perfection, and now threatens to punish imperfection. This idea of deity obsessed with perfection originated with the misunderstanding that any good and all-powerful deity would only create a perfect world, and if things are not perfect now then blame corrupt humanity for mucking things up that were once perfect. It can’t be God’s fault.
We- humanity- have always had difficulty understanding and embracing imperfection in life and in ourselves. Imperfection, and fear of divine rage at imperfection, has long deformed human consciousness with fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, depression, and fatalism/nihilism. We rightly struggle to improve ourselves and others, and to improve life in general, but we ought to do so without the added psychic burden of fear of angry deity or divine threat over our remaining imperfection. (Balancing note: There are healthy forms of guilt over personal failure and the damaging outcomes of bad religious ideas.)
New story alternative: Life began in the “chaotic imperfection” of a brutal early earth, but has gradually evolved toward something more complex and organized. Life on this planet is never perfect, but with a lot of hard work, humanity has discovered how to gradually improve life. Over history, humanity has created something better out of the original imperfect, wilderness world.
In this new story theme, God has no problem with imperfection but intentionally includes it in the original creation. Imperfection, in a new story, serves the important purpose of providing an arena where humanity struggles with a messy wilderness situation, with human imperfection/failure, in order to learn to solve problems and create something better.
And we learn the most important lessons of life in our struggle with our own imperfection. For example, we learn how to love in our struggle with the animal inheritance in ourselves, those base drives to tribally exclude, to dominate, to punish and destroy differing others. We learn what it means to be authentically humane in our “righteous struggle against evil” (Joseph Campbell), the battle against evil that runs through the center of every human heart (Alexander Solzhenitsyn).
Add here the philosophical points that we cannot know good aside from the contrast with its opposite- evil. And there can be no genuine moral good aside from the free choice against its opposite- evil.
Further, perfection, aside from being boring, does not bring forth the best of the human spirit. To the contrary, struggle with imperfection in life, and in others, brings forth the best in humanity. See Julian Simon’s argument (Ultimate Resource) that our struggle with problems in the world results in creative solutions that benefit others. See also the comment below on Joseph Campbell’s outline of human story (link) and our struggle with a personal monster or enemy (i.e. some life problem that may be physical, mental/emotional, interpersonal, financial, social, etc.). That struggle is where we gain insights and learn lessons that can subsequently help others. Personal suffering also promotes the development of empathy with others that similarly suffer. Empathy is fundamental to being authentically human.
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=8661
(Note: The use of the term “imperfection” is not meant to generalize and diminish the horror and trauma that people suffer from natural disaster, disease, and the cruelty of others. But ‘old story’ explanations of the imperfection of the world as a fall from original perfection due to human corruption/sin, and subsequent imperfection introduced as punishment for that original sin… such myths tend to affirm deity as cruel, punitive, and destructive- i.e. God as the great obsessive-compulsive Punisher of imperfection. That only adds unnecessary psychic suffering to already unbearable human suffering- i.e. the added burden of unnecessary mental, emotional suffering. We can do better and understand original imperfection in alternative ways. And this is the impulse to “theodicy”, as roughly the belief there is Ultimate Good/Love behind all. Add here the view that the world purposefully exists as an experience or learning arena.)
3. Old story theme (related to previous): The myth that humanity began as a more perfect species but then became corrupted/sinful (the “fall of man” myth). The idea of original human perfection, and subsequent human degeneration toward something worse today, is still common in the “noble savage” mythology that dominates throughout academia- i.e. the myth that original hunter/gatherer people were more pure, strong, noble, and more “connected to nature” but humanity has degenerated in civilization. See, for instance, Arthur Herman’s ‘The Idea of Decline’, or Steven LeBlanc’s ‘Constant Battles’.
Contemporary versions of “fallen humanity” mythology include Green religion’s belief that humanity is a “virus” or “cancer” on the Earth. These are pathologically anti-human views.
New story alternative: Humanity has emerged from the brutality of animal reality (original imperfection) but has gradually become less violent, more humane, and overall more civilized. See James Payne’s “History of Force”, and Stephen Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature”. Also, the amassed evidence on humanity improving life over the long-term affirms that “we are more creators than destroyers” (Julian Simon in “Ultimate Resource”).
A new alternative to “fallen humanity” myths will recognize that humanity, with human spirit and human consciousness, is intimately united with the greater Consciousness at the core of reality, a Consciousness that is Love. This “union with deity” is more than relationship. It is more about essential nature. This means that the same Love that is God, is also the essential nature of our human spirit or human self. We can then re-imagine ourselves as most essentially “beings of Love”. We are fundamentally good. This radically changes human self-imaging. We are not the “fallen humans possessing sinful natures” as we have long been taught by mythological and religious traditions.
The real issue is not “how far humanity has fallen” (the mythical perspective) but the real wonder is how far we have risen (the evidence-based perspective) from our brutal animal and primitive human past. Our improvement over history is evidence of the essential goodness of humanity naturally emerging over time.
(Note: How to explain continuing bad human behavior? We have inherited a core animal brain with its base impulses to tribalism and exclusion of differing others (small band mentality), to domination of others (alpha male/female), and to retaliatory and destructive response to others viewed as “enemies”. Our human consciousness/spirit, existing alongside our inherited animal side, explains the great “battle between good and evil that takes place in every human heart”, (Alexander Solzhenitsyn). The bad side in humanity is not “inherited sin” but is better understood in terms of the complex of inherited animal impulses in us. See, for example, Lyall Watson’s “Dark Nature”. Fortunately, to paraphrase Jeffrey Schwartz, “We are not our brains”.)
4. Old story theme: The myth that consequent to the loss of original paradise (“Fall of man” myth) the overall trajectory of life has subsequently been “declining”, or degenerating, toward something worse (“Each present moment is a degeneration from previous moments”, Mircea Eliade).
The trajectory of life as a “decline toward something worse” is a core feature of apocalyptic mythology.
New story alternative: Life does not decline overall but the long-term trajectory of life shows that life actually “improves/rises” toward something ever better. Humanity, as essentially good and creative, is now responsible for the ongoing improvement of life and the world. Note again Julian Simon’s conclusion that we- humanity- have become “more creators than destroyers”.
Evidence of life improving over past millennia and strikingly so over recent centuries: Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource”, Greg Easterbrook’s “A Moment on the Earth”, Bjorn Lomborg’s “Skeptical Environmentalist”, Indur Goklany’s “The Improving State of the World”, Matt Ridley’s “Rational Optimist”, Ronald Bailey’s “The End of Doom”, Desrocher and Szurmak’s “Population Bombed”, Bailey and Tupy’s “Ten Global Trends”, Hans Rosling’s “Factfulness”, James Payne’s ”History of Force”, Stephen Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature”, “Humanprogress.org”, and others.
Brian Green’s “The Universe Story” and Harold Morowitz’s “The Emergence of Everything” offer more on the longer “improving” trend of the overall cosmos, that emerged and developed from chaotic heat beginnings to a state that was amenable for carbon-based life to emerge. And over the long history of this planet, life has developed toward more complexity, organization, and suitability to mediate human consciousness through complex multi-cellular biological forms. Further, even Darwin affirmed that evolution trended toward something more “perfect”.
This theme of long-term improvement, of a fundamental purposeful direction toward something better, is critical for countering apocalyptic nihilism/despair and affirming hopefulness as critical to human motivation to work hard to gradually improve life.
5. Old story theme: The myth that natural disasters, disease, human cruelty, accidents, and death are expressions of divine punishment. This adds the unnecessary psychic burden of fear, anxiety, guilt, and shame to already unbearable physical suffering. Paul tormented the Corinthians with this argument that their sicknesses and deaths were punishment from God for their sins.
New story alternative: While there are natural and social consequences all through life, there is no punitive, destroying deity behind the imperfections of life. Ultimately there is only Love at the core of reality (see alternatives below on the relationship of Love to the elements of freedom and randomness in nature and human life as helpful in understanding the presence of evil in this world).
6. Old story theme: The myth that humanity has been rejected by the Creator, that we are separated from our Source, and we need to be reconciled, we need to restore the broken relationship with God, by means of a violent blood sacrifice as punishment for sin.
New story alternative: No one has ever been separated from the unconditional Love at the core of reality- God. That Love has incarnated in all humanity as inseparable from the human spirit and consciousness. That Love is also the essence of the human self or person, though its expression is often hindered and buried by the free choice of people to act inhumanely.
But be assured that no one has ever been separated from the indwelling love that is God, no matter their failure to live as human. God as love is always closer than our breath or atoms. God as love is inseparable from our common human spirit and consciousness.
Note: God incarnated in all humanity demands a radical rethink of theology or God theory. There has never been any such reality as a separated ‘Sky God’ up in some distant heaven. God has always been intensely and immediately present in all humanity and this is evident in the best of humanity, in all human goodness. Conclusion? The reality that we call “God” is present in all human raging against evil and suffering. God is present in all human effort to make life better. There has never been any such thing as an absent or silent God. Just listen to and observe the common goodness in people all around you.
Again, as stated similarly in number 3 above, this new alternative overturns entirely the historically persistent anti-human myths of “fallen”, “essentially sinful”, or “bad-to-the-bone” humanity.
Further, the idea of God incarnated equally in every person presents a new metaphysical element for affirming equality among people, and equal respect for all. God incarnated in humanity offers a stunning new element to defining the essential core of being human- what we really are as human persons and that every human person ought to be highly esteemed as an embodiment of deity, no matter their failures to live as fully human. The Near-Death Experiences also repeatedly note this feature of the astounding human unity with deity- of inseparable oneness with the divine and of essential human goodness (light emanating from the core of people).
7. Old story theme: The myth of a cosmic dualism, a Good spirit existing in opposition to a bad spirit, a demonic entity or Satan. Deity is thereby portrayed as embodying an essentially dualistic tribal reality- a good God that wars against evil opponents, a God that favors/saves believers and hates/punishes unbelievers. This ultimate ideal and validation by a fundamental cosmic dualism is embraced and exhibited through varied human dualisms- i.e. as in the tribal mindset of “us versus our enemies”, true believers versus unbelievers, or other racial, national, religious, or ideological divisions (include the appeal to gender as an oppositional divide). Dualism thinking deforms human identity and buries the fact of our essential oneness in the human family.
Dualism mythology affirms the inherited animal impulse that orients people to small-band thinking and behavior (the tribal exclusion of differing others). Embracing dualism as a divine reality and ideal then orients people to excluding, opposing, dominating, and fighting/destroying others as ‘enemies’.
New story alternative: We all come from the same Oneness and we are all equals in the one human family. We are not essentially defined by the tribal categories and divisions that we create to set ourselves apart from one another, to devalue one another. We are most essentially defined by our common human spirit and human consciousness. And the essential nature of our human spirit is universal or unconditional love. That love is the expression of our true core humanity.
We base our oneness on the pretty much consensus view that all humans on earth today are descendants of an East African Eve (“Mitochondrial Eve”). Meaning we are one family descended from a common mother. Add here the quantum discovery of a fundamental oneness (“Quantum entanglement”). And the common discovery of the Near-Death Experience movement of human oneness with deity.
Added note: Most modern story-telling (e.g. movies) continues to re-enforce the primitive themes of dualism and tribalism. Note the all-too-common movie theme of good guy versus bad guy, and “justice” as the good guy beating and destroying the bad guy. There is nothing in such narratives affirming the oneness of the human family. To the contrary, only further affirmation of infantile tribalism and “justice” as punitive, violent retaliation toward offending others. The critical dualism that we ought to be concerned about is that of “the battle-line between good and evil that runs through the heart of every person”, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. This is the dualism that exists between our true human spirit or self and our inherited animal brain impulses.
Caution: The above comment on essential oneness is not intended to diminish the urgency to fight evil and affirm good in this world. However, some have suggested that dualism, and the apparent separation related to dualism- i.e. the division between good and bad- is only a temporal feature of this material realm. This world with its dualism provides an arena for us to live out our stories and engage our varied “righteous battles against evil”. Others have argued that we only experience and learn what good means in our struggle with the opposites of good- i.e. the bad in others, and in life. Bad/evil in this realm provides a contrasting context in which we experience and learn good. Joseph Campbell suggests that this dualistic realm is where “we act out our differing roles on God’s stage” (some playing bad guy, some playing good guy). He and others suggest that the dualism between good and bad exists only here in this world. It is temporal and not part of any greater timeless reality. See also Natalie Sudman’s ‘The Application of Impossible Things’ for personal illustration of these things.
Further note on oneness: The oneness of all, along with the unconditional nature of deity, counters the myth of some people as especially chosen of God and favored by God more than others. There are no “elect people”, or special “children of God”. The people who see themselves as “true believers”, more so than others, are not closer to God than any other people. Essential oneness means that all humanity, that is every person, has God within them, equally. All people have equal access to the immediacy of God that is everywhere present as the sustaining Core or Source of all reality. Further, there are no special “holy places”- i.e. temples, churches- where limited religious groups gain more access to God than the ordinary lives and daily mundane spaces of all people. Essential oneness of all with deity is a more humane theological basis for human equality in all aspects.
8. Old story theme: The myth of a looming apocalypse as the final judgment, punishment, and destruction of all things. The myth of an apocalyptic ending embraces the pathological theology of God as the destroyer of all things. This divine ideal has incited endless destructive violence among the followers of such an ideal. Arthur Mendel called apocalyptic “the most violent and destructive idea in history” (Vision and Violence).
To embrace and advocate apocalyptic mythology is to embrace and advocate the epitome expression of nihilism- i.e. the complete and final destruction of life and the world.
Apocalyptic mythology still dominates much of modern story-telling, whether movies, TV, literature (the sub-genre of “post-apocalyptic”), and environmental alarmism or Green religion.
New story alternative: There are problems all through this imperfect world but there is no looming threat of a final destruction and ending of the world (the religious understanding of apocalypse since Zoroaster). The apocalyptic alarmist exaggerates problems in the world out to “end of days” scenarios, thereby distorting the true state of things, and that incites fear (the survival impulse), resignation/fatalism, nihilism, and even destructive violence in populations. The inciting of violence is evident in the consequent felt need of people to “coercively purge” what is believed to be some great threat to life, what blocks the onset of the new paradise. See the notes in other sections on the Marxist, Nazi, and Green apocalyptic movements and their mass-harm and even mass-death outcomes.
In the new story alternative theme there is no destroying Force or Spirit behind the harsher elements of this world. Ultimately, there is only creating and sustaining Love. And again, the imperfection of this world serves the purpose of providing a learning arena for humanity to struggle with in order to create something ever better.
Further, the destructive elements in the cosmos and world exist as part of the ongoing creative process (i.e. death as entirely natural and serving the purpose of making room for new life), just as Second Law dissipation of energy is “virtuous waste” that serves the creation of more order (e.g. Huber and Mills in “Bottomless Well”). Again, the element of destruction in the natural world is not evidence of some punitive deity threatening a final punishment and ending of all things. (See also the notes below on “natural consequences”.)
Further helpful here- In response to the theodicy question “Is this the best possible world?” some have made the argument that there are also beneficial outcomes from the elements of nature that produce destructive outcomes. For example, the plate tectonic movement that generates destructive earthquakes also generates mountain-building, which creates differences in climate and that contributes to the development of diversity in emerging life (i.e. different environmental pressures on populations and the changes that brings forth). Our project is to adapt to such things as the destruction from plate tectonics, and we have done better over time. Our success is evident across history in the decreasing loss of life from natural disasters (i.e. a stunning 99% decline in human deaths from natural disasters over the past century).
9. Old story theme: The urgency of “imminence”. The mythology of imminent apocalypse incites people to embrace the totalitarian push for “instantaneous transformation”, a transformation of life that must be accomplished with coercion and violence. That is an abandonment of the approach that works through cooperative democracy and results in “gradualism” in the trajectory of history and life.
The always “imminent” element in apocalyptic proclamations (i.e. the “end is nigh”) demands urgent action to “save” something, to save the world or life. The exaggerated threat of immediately looming apocalyptic ending then incites the survival/salvation impulse in people. They feel intensely the need to take immediate and sometimes violent action to purge what is presented to them as the life-threatening thing. Alarmed populations are then more easily manipulated to embrace policies that will abandon the democratic process and will instead support “coercive purification” schemes directed at purported threats from opponents/enemies. “End-of-life” or “end-of-world” claims incite populations to embrace policies that will coercively and instantaneously install their version of salvation and security in some promised paradise.
Apocalyptic alarmism that exaggerates and distorts the true state of things has repeatedly unleashed the totalitarian impulse across history.
We saw the violence of instantaneous transformation movements in the 100 million deaths that stemmed from Marxist urgency to coercively purge the world of the purported threat from “destructive capitalism”. Marxism advocated for “coercive transformation of societies”, to immediately install its vision of communal utopia. We also saw apocalyptic urgency and totalitarianism in the 50-60 million deaths from Nazi alarmism and consequent action to violently purge Germany of the imagined threat from “destructive Jewish Bolshevism”. Nazis then coercively pushed to establish the millennial paradise of the Third Reich. And we are seeing “coercive purification” again today in the environmental alarmist push to save the world from “destructive humanity in industrial civilization” and to restore the lost paradise of a more wilderness world (Arthur Mendel in “Vision and Violence”, and Arthur Herman in “The Idea of Decline”).
New story alternative: There is no “end of days” just over the horizon. Rather, life is improving gradually as creative humanity solves problems. The escapist desire for an coercive and immediately installed utopia misses the point of the human story as the struggle with imperfection throughout the world, a struggle that is gradually succeeding. Such struggle is essential to human development, learning, and growth. Mendel in “Vision and Violence” is good on this issue of “gradualism” versus the violence of “instantaneous transformation” movements. Humanity is learning to patiently improve life through democratic approaches that do not coercively overwhelm the freedom of differing others.
The search for instantaneous salvation resonates with the irresponsible escapist mindset of apocalyptic types who cannot endure the struggle to gradually and democratically improve an imperfect world. Such people irresponsibly seek to escape the boredom of gradual improvement of life through projects that promise instant transformation into some quickly installed utopia, even if coercively and violently established. Imminence, and its related policy of instantaneous coercive purification, responds to the totalitarian’s impatience and lust to control others and all of life, right now.
10. Old story theme: The demand for a salvation plan- a required sacrifice or atonement (debt payment, punishment) as necessary to appease a threatening reality, whether a religious God or vengeful Gaia, angry planet, upset Mother Earth, punitive Universe, or payback karma.
New story alternative: In a stunning rejection of atonement mythology, Jesus rejected the payment of debt or punishment of wrong as the prerequisite demand of God before God would forgive. Jesus stated that the highest form of love, or goodness, would give freely to everyone, love freely, without expecting any payment in return. He stated in Luke 6:30-36:
“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) 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 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.)
Jesus’ argument was that loving in this manner- i.e. exhibiting ‘no conditions love’ (not expecting payment) would enable people to be like God who was similarly no conditions love. The argument of Luke 6 is that if we do this- if we give without expecting payment in return- then we will be like God who similarly does not expect payment (again, the “behavior based on the same theological belief” shapes the context of Jesus’ arguments).
The God of Jesus loves, gives, and does not expect anything in return. This statement of Jesus overthrows the age-old religious belief that God demands payment or punishment for wrongs, that God demands atonement or sacrifice in order for God to forgive and love. Read it again and again till the point that Jesus makes is clear. It is a time-bomb waiting to explode the shackles of distorting atonement mythology that has long enslaved human consciousness.
The fundamental nature of God as unconditional love means absolutely no conditions. None. To affirm as pointedly as possible- there is no divine demand for ultimate payment, sacrifice, no conditions to fulfil in order to be forgiven, accepted, “saved”, loved by God. With ultimate safety secured, the only “salvation” that we need to engage in this life is the ongoing and gradual struggle to make life better in this world.
The reality of God as “no conditions Love” obligates us to make all the other logical conclusions that arise from such a stunning new theology. Again, the critically important one is that an authentically unconditional God will not demand any conditions of payment or sacrifice before forgiving, accepting fully, and generously loving. God does not demand a balancing response to goodness or love that has been initially shown. God just loves freely without any expectation of similar response. Jesus clearly argued this in his Matthew 5 and Luke 6 statements where he taught that an authentic universal love will not just love those who love in return (i.e. family, friends, or fellow tribe members).
Unconditional love will also love those who do not love in return. Unconditional love will freely give to all and not demand any return payment. Payment of debt is not required to earn forgiveness and love.
This argument is overturning the age-old mythology of necessary cosmic rebalancing of justice. That for truth, right, and justice to exist and flourish there must be a punishment of all wrong. There can be no such thing as unconditionally free forgiveness and love. Wrong has to be punished somewhere, if not in this life, then in the next at some great final judgment and day of reckoning. Justice fully rebalanced in somewhere in the cosmos.
But in these Matthew 5 and Luke 6 passages Jesus is arguing the opposite- that unconditional love does good to everyone without expecting a similar response, without expecting similar payback as in equal love returned for love shown. Get the point that this overturns the historical principle that atoning sacrifice is required to appease offended, holy deities who are responsible for upholding justice in life.
The rejection of the principle of rebalancing justice is how Jesus further defined a God that “loved enemies” and freely showered sun and rain on good and bad alike.
In the above statements, Jesus rejected outright the principle of debt payment as a fundamental requirement for divine love. Again, the overturning of the principle of “rebalanced cosmic justice” is clearly expressed in the statement to “give/love expecting nothing in return”. Keep in mind the “behavior based on similar belief” relationship that structures these passages (Matt.5 and Luke 6). Jesus urged people to love in a new unconditional manner because that was how God loved. He was arguing for a new standard of unconditional love among people that would show what God was like, that would enable people to do just what God did, to be just like God (i.e. “Love your enemy unconditionally because God does” summarizes the entirety of these passages).
Debt payment, or more generally the righting of wrongs, has always been the fundamental human understanding of justice- i.e. payment/punishment of some kind as the foundational requirement for forgiveness. Payment or punishment of wrong had been the basis of atonement thinking from the beginning. That was based on the archaic belief that God, as holy, must punish all wrongs properly and fully, and must rectify all wrongs by demanding payment or retribution of some sort. God must right all wrong, and thereby rebalance the scales of justice in the cosmos. Wrong done had to be rebalanced by right done. God could not just forgive, accept, and love without somewhere, somehow making all wrongs right. That was necessary to restore divine honor. The God of that old atonement/sacrifice mythology could not just “freely” forgive and love.
To modern sensibilities that old theology no longer makes sense because it argued that the love of God, based on prerequisite payment/punishment/atonement, was something less than the best of human love. We are expected to just forgive in an unlimited manner (“seventy times seven”), to accept all people universally, and to love without demanding prerequisite conditions or similar response. Again, that statement- “give without expecting payment in return, love without expecting love in return”. Parents, spouses, and friends have all learned that no conditions love for imperfect, failing others is the best and highest form of love for daily relationships. Surely God as Ultimate Goodness and Love would, at the least, love as well as we are expected to love- that is, unconditionally.
In his parables, Jesus further challenged and corrected the traditional religious belief that divine love was conditional and demanded full payment or punishment. His short stories illustrated the ‘no conditions’ love that defined his new theology. In his stories he stressed the point that divine love did not require the payment of debt, or more generally the righting of wrongs, before forgiving, accepting, and loving an offender. Note this element in his Prodigal Son story where the father does not demand a sacrifice, restitution, or repayment before forgiving and fully accepting/loving the wayward son. All such conditions were brushed aside by the father. No conditions love meant no conditions at all. This teaching is a stunning rejection of the long history of sacrifice/payment as required to appease demanding deity that is responsible to uphold justice in the cosmos.
I reject, as Jesus did, the old theology that God as ultimate Goodness and Love is held to a lesser standard of love than we are held to. I reject the belief that God remembers all wrongs and can demand conditions before forgiving, while we are told that authentic love, for us, means “keeping no record of wrongs” for some future making-of-things-right. Our love is to be without condition because that is actually how God loves. And it is the unconditional nature of forgiveness and love that constitute the greatness and glory of these principles, not the conditions of religious holiness or honor mythology with its prerequisite demands that offenders make things right somehow as part of the forgiveness, acceptance, and love package.
And then unfortunately, Paul refused the new theology of Jesus and retreated back to the traditional conditional theology of a punitive God that demanded full payment for sin as a basic requirement for offering forgiveness anyone. We inherited Paul’s version of Christianity with its orientation to punitive and conditional justice. Note the clear New Testament statements that requisite payment is essential to the Christian gospel. The book of Hebrews (chapter 9), for example, states that “without the shedding of blood (sacrifice) there is no forgiveness”. The book of Romans (chapters 3-5) states that salvation (“saved from wrath”) is based the condition of a blood payment/sacrifice that has been fulfilled.
And of course, in this life people should learn to be responsible for their behavior, to make amends for wrongs done, and to pay their debts. That is all part of normal human development and growth. This is never in question, but it has no part in the new unconditional theology of Jesus. It has no place in authentic divine love. Our love, just like God’s love, is not to be conditional on anything done, or not done, by others.
Note: The theology of Jesus is not a prescriptive model for economic/commercial relationships in this world. Jesus was speaking to ultimate realities and the atonement mythology of his era. Further, my reference to “Historical Jesus” is not an appeal to him as some special religious authority on these issues. I refer to him simply because he continues to be revered as a notable religious icon. The unconditional love being argued here is a “self-validating” reality. It is good in and of itself.
And I would emphasize the larger religious context to these themes- for example, the profound contradiction that exists between the core message of Historical Jesus in the “Q Wisdom Sayings gospel”, and Paul’s Christ myth (the oxymoronic Christian “Jesus Christ”). These two contrary gospels illustrate the profound contradiction between the themes of unconditional and conditional, non-retaliation and retaliation, non-punitive/non-destructive and punitive/destructive, among other contrasting features. See “The Christian Contradiction” in sections below.
Bob Brinsmead has posted some excellent research on the anti-sacrifice message and ministry of Historical Jesus…
https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/
11. Old story theme (related to the above point): The belief that retribution or payback is true justice (i.e. eye for eye), based on the myth that God is a retributive reality that demands the reward of the good and the punishment of the bad. The myth that a retributive God demands full punishment of sin. This hurt for hurt theology, or pain returned for pain caused, still under-girds much thinking on justice today. It is often framed as the practical need to present the punishment of offenders as a warning to others, to serve as a deterrence example for the general public. Psychology now recognizes that such punitive approaches do not work with criminal offenders or children. Punitive response to human imperfection and failure “does not teach alternative humane behaviors”. Instead, punitive justice re-enforces retaliatory cycles.
New story alternative: Again, unconditional love keeps no record of wrongs, it does not obsess over imperfection, and it forgives all freely and without limit (“seventy times seven” which is to say- unlimited). But yes, there are natural and social consequences to bad behavior in this world. All of us are to be accountable and responsible for our choices and actions. This is essential to human development in this life. But all justice in response to human failure should be restorative or rehabilitative.
As Leo Tolstoy wrote regarding the criminal justice system, “The whole trouble is that people think there are circumstances when one may deal with human beings without love, but no such circumstances ever exist. Human beings cannot be handled without love. It cannot be otherwise, because mutual love is the fundamental law of human life.”
Added note: Yes, there is value in remembering past bad behavior, and the outcomes of such behavior, as a warning to others. The Holocaust is a signature example of this value. But we remember the bad behavior of others in a larger context of consciously forgiving, with an orientation to restorative justice that is victim-centered (i.e. fully deals with restitution issues). Simon Wiesenthal’s “Justice, Not Vengeance” illustrates the struggle for balance regarding these concerns.
12. Old story theme: The myth of future or “after-life” judgment, tribal exclusion, punishment, and destruction (Hell). The fear of after-life harm is the “primal human fear” (Michael Grosso). Myths of after-life harm have added a magnitude-of-order intensification of fear to the already burdensome fear of death that many people suffer under.
(Insert: Why bother with speculation about such unknowable realities as after-life reality? Why not just dismiss or ignore these unprovable metaphysical issues? Well, because the speculation has already been done by major belief systems and religions across history and across all the cultures of the world. Psycho-pathology- i.e. bad mythology such as the horrific myth of hell- already exists in human consciousness and ignoring it does nothing to solve the problems that the pathology contributes to- i.e. unnecessary fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, despair, etc. While after-life theorizing may be considered speculative, we can at least offer more humane alternatives with healthier insights that eliminate unnecessary worry regarding death, while at the same time focusing human orientation toward full involvement with here-and-now reality.)
New story alternative: Again, keep in mind the baseline ideal- that authentic love is unconditional and does not demand the fulfilment of conditions. Meaning- Unconditional love does not threaten ultimate exclusion or punishment. It embraces everyone with the same scandalous mercy and unlimited generosity. It gives sun and rain to all, to both good and bad. All- both good and evil- are ultimately safe and included in the love of an unconditional God. Such love scandalizes, offends, and even outrages minds that are oriented to ultimate (or after-life) conditional payback justice, or “deserved” punishment.
Illustration: Note again the stories that Jesus told of good, moral people who were offended by the unconditional generosity and love that was shown by, for example, the vineyard owner (Matthew 20: 8-15) and the father of the prodigal son (Luke 15: 11-32). The all-day vineyard workers and the older brother in the prodigal story were pissed because, in their view, such unconditional mercy and generosity was not “fair or moral”. It was not proper justice, in their eyes. Other “righteous” people were also offended and scandalized by Jesus when he invited local outcasts and scoundrels to meals with them. He did not respect the proper tribal boundaries between good and bad people, between true believers and unbelievers. He was too scandalously universal and unconditional and that enraged good, moral people.
Jesus’ illustrating stories affirm the conclusion that God is unconditional love and hence there will be no after-life harm. We all die as a transition and return back into the stunning “no conditions Love” that is our origin and final home. We are all safe in that Love (i.e. again, sun and rain are indiscriminately and generously given to all alike, to both good and bad people). We are never separated from that Love, no matter what we experience or suffer in this life.
Insert: It may help some to maintain the important distinction between Ultimate Reality and life in this imperfect world. We can recognize the ultimate reality of God as absolutely no conditions Love but at the same time not deny the reality of natural and social consequences in this life. The need to take personal responsibility for behavior is critical to human learning and development. Love here and now is responsible to restrain violence and to protect the innocent, even with force. But our embrace of the ideal of ultimate unconditional love will orient our treatment of human failure and offense away from punitive approaches and toward restorative approaches. An unconditional attitude will recognize that, no matter how unconditional reality offends and scandalizes common views of required payback justice, all of us return safely to the same no conditions Love that birthed us and is our final home. We are all one family, and return safely to that Oneness, despite our diverse failures to live as fully human in this world.
Add here the insight that self-judgment and self-punishment are the most devastating experiences that human persons can embrace and endure (Note: We recognize exceptions to this such as psychopathy which may also result from genetic deformity, as well as early life trauma). Most people recognize their failures to live as human and take corrective steps to improve themselves, including apologies and restitution to offended others, and do not need further threat of ultimate judgment and punishment from some greater reality.
13. Old story theme: The myth of a hero messiah that will, in a totalitarian manner, use superior force (“coercive purification”) to overthrow enemies, to purge the world of evil, and to bring in a promised utopia/salvation. This myth contributes to the incitement and validation to abandon the historical process of gradual improvement (via creative human freedom and endeavor) and to opt for coercive totalitarian approaches. Hero messiah mythology affirms the demand for overwhelming revolutionary violence that seeks to instantly purge some “corrupt” entity that is viewed as the threat to others or to life, and then instantaneously re-install some lost paradise.
This insert of quotes by Zenon Lotufo and Harold Ellens on how images of deity influence human behavior, again an affirmation of the potency of the “behavior based on similar belief” principle that has governed human life and societies since the beginning:
“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)….
“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child 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…”.
As Harold Ellens says, “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”(“Cruel God, Kind God).
We saw the resort to “violent force against an enemy”, backed by appeal to an all-powerful warrior deity, recently with ISIS in Syria (i.e. the struggle to bring on the final annihilation/Armageddon battle and then in the name of God coercively spread the caliphate across the world- 2014 in Syria). We have also seen the same violence in the name of a crusading hero God throughout Jewish history (Old Testament) and Christian history (Crusades, Inquisitions, persecution of heretics, all appealed to forceful, violent deity for affirmation). Richard Landes (Heaven On Earth) presents evidence that the same religious ideas have also shaped the totalitarian violence in the so-called “secular” movements of Marxism, Nazism, and environmentalism.
Again, the ideals that we embrace, notably those projected onto deity, will potently shape our thinking, influence our feelings, and our responses/behavior. We become just like the God that we believe in. Bad myths like coercive, destroying deity have repeatedly incited people to violent, destructive action, to act as the agents of their violent, destructive God to destroy some enemy and save something that was believed to be under dire and imminent threat from that enemy. Far too often across history the belief in the divine use of violent force has been misappropriated to validate similar brutality and cruelty toward fellow human beings.
The myth of an intervening, over-powering deity is hard to dislodge from people’s minds. Even notable atheists fall back on this idea, as Larry King said to Norm MacDonald years ago, “I can no longer believe in God because of the horrible things that happen to innocent children and God is omnipotent, isn’t he?”. Meaning that King believed that God should have intervened with power to prevent such things.
New story alternative (see also “16th bad idea” below): A God of authentic love does not intervene with overwhelming force that overrides human freedom and choice. Further, a non-intervening deity helps to understand the gradualism necessary for improving life. It is entirely up to humanity to make the world a better place, in all ways, and to do so while respecting the freedom of others to differ.
This is to say that there is no hero messiah, no tribal deity that will intervene with superior force to conquer some enemy of ours and grant us our vision of a paradise with our enemies excluded as per the vision of Revelation where unbelievers are violently cast out to suffer eternal rejection and punishment.
Note: This point on non-intervention in the freedom of differing others, recognizes the valid need at times for police/military to use legal force to restrain irrational violence. The legitimate use of force is to be distinguished from illegitimate uses of force based on inhumane mythology, notably the use of force by religious extremists. Examples include ISIS and the sorry history of Christian violence against fellow Christians that disagreed over theological issues, often very minor disagreements.
Add here the point that freedom is inseparable from authentic love. Where there is no freedom there is no love. Authentic love will not interfere and override the freedom of others. Hence, the wisdom encapsulated in the Classic Liberal/Libertarian maxim- “Live and let live”.
14. Old story theme: The fallacy of Biblicism, the myth that religious holy books are more special and authoritative than ordinary human literature, and that people are obligated to live according to the holy book as the will, law, or word of God. This myth argues that people must submit to divine conditions, or some heavenly model, as outlined by their holy book.
New story alternative: We evaluate all human thought and writing according to basic criteria of right and wrong, good and bad, or humane and inhumane, as agreed upon in common human rights codes, constitutions, or moral codes. Holy books are not exempted from this process of discernment between good and bad.
Further, our highest authority is our own personal consciousness of right and wrong as tuned by, again, common understanding of such things in widely adopted human rights codes and constitutions that are embraced by the entire human family. For example, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”,
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
15. Old story theme: The myth of God as King, Ruler, Lord, or Judge. The idea that God relates vertically to humanity in domination/submission forms of relating.
New story alternative: There is no domination/subservience relationship of humanity to God. Jesus expressed the divine ideal when he said, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant”. True greatness is to serve the other and not to dominate or control others. The greatness of God is exhibited in serving, not in standing above to rule or dominate.
Further, God is not “above” humanity but has incarnated in all people as equals. God relates horizontally to humanity. God is not a sky God existing in heaven above. God is a street-level deity present in all common humanity and “working” through mundane daily human activity. The God of boring daily details, evident/revealed in the hidden, forgotten acts of human goodness.
This is another stunning correction to traditional God theories.
We see the presence of this street-level God in all daily, mundane human goodness and love expressed toward others, especially toward enemies, which is the highest expression of authentic love or goodness. When we love unconditionally, we tower in stature as maturely human. We become the hero of our story and conquer our real monster and enemy, the animal inheritance that is within each of us. See the story outline of Joseph Campbell in sections below.
This portrayal of God as an egalitarian or equality advocate, and not a superior controlling entity, is more of the stunning new theology of Jesus. Jesus is saying in effect, if you think that I am an incarnation of God, a son of God, then I will tell you just what God is like. God does not dominate people like a lord, king, or ruler. God relates to all as equals, serving others, and not lording over them. That is the true greatness of God, or anyone else- to serve. As an equal.
This comment of Jesus overturns the entire history of human perspective on gods as dominating realities, lords, kings, rulers. One of the earliest and most primitive of all myths was that “humans were created to serve the gods”, to do their will and work, to provide food for them. Jesus overturned that primitive outlook that divine/human relationships were domination/subservience relationships. He said that type of thinking belonged to primitive people (“the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them”). But if you want to be a great human being, heroically great, then you should not dominate or control others. Service to others is the secret to true greatness. To honor the freedom and self-determination of all others as true equals.
16. Old story theme: The idea that humanity is obligated to know, serve, and have some relationship with an invisible reality (deity), to give primary loyalty to something outside of and above people (i.e. the law, will, or word of God). The loyalty to something other than real people has often led to neglect, abuse, and serious harm of people.
New story alternative: Our primary loyalty is to love and serve people around us. Their needs, here and now, take highest priority in life.
(17) A 17th Old Story theme: Absent deity (related to the earlier theme, in the list above, of a hero-messiah who will coercively intervene to save)
One of humanity’s greatest frustrations has been the apparent “the silence of God” across history. The Holocaust is the iconic example of this traumatizing silence of God.
Where was God when natural disasters took hundreds of thousands of lives? Where was God when human cruelty went unhindered during mass-death movements? That apparent absence should put to rest the common religious myth of a miraculously intervening God. The evidence has long been final that there never was any such thing as a supernaturally intervening deity that would, for example, violate natural law or overrule human choice and action, in order to protect or rescue people.
What then should we conclude? God is good but powerless to help humanity? Or the atheists are right that there is no God? No. I would offer that the evidence simply urges us to rethink the great question of how God relates to this world. Theologies like “Panentheism” (not Pantheism) are wrestling with this issue (i.e. God “works” through the natural laws of reality).
And some versions of the Deist’s alternative are not much better than atheism. God is not the absent Creator who starts the whole thing running and then disappears off to some far away heaven to wait and watch as natural law works throughout life.
A new theory or theology is emerging that argues that God has incarnated in all humanity. God did not incarnate only in special ‘holy’ persons like the Christian Jesus. Rather, God has incarnated in all humanity in an inseparable oneness with the common human spirit or human consciousness. The human spirit has gradually emerged and developed toward something more humane across history. This maturing of humanity is evident in the long-term trends to decreasing violence, more democratic societies, and generally improved human well-being (the improvement of all areas of life).
And as Bob Brinsmead notes, the improvement in life has been a long, slow process of gradually developing understanding, growing problem-solving ability, and gradual implementation of practical solutions. It has, for instance, taken millennia for us to understand disease and come up with medical cures. See the gradualism arguments in Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence”.
We see the common human spirit, or God spirit, emerging and developing in all human goodness, whether expressed in commerce, art, sports, medicine, agriculture, entertainment, and all areas where people contribute to making life better and just having fun while doing so.
As some have stated, we are the voice, hands, and feet of the invisible God in this world.
Conclusion? God has never been silent or absent. There has never been a ‘Sky God’ up above the world in some heaven, above and outside of humanity, doing things to the world and to people from outside (the “yoyo God”, coming down to intervene in some way and then returning to heaven). To the contrary, God has always been within all things as the Creator and Sustainer of all reality, and especially this God is most prominently within the human family. Meaning that God is evident in all human misery and raging against suffering and evil. God is present in all human action to prevent evil, to solve problems, and to improve life. God has always been present in humanity and expressed in all good and useful human endeavor across history. The corollary to this is that it has always been our responsibility to prevent wrong and to promote good/right in our world. Yes, it is up to us. We must stop looking to the heavens for what is right here and now, in us.
Add this insight to your theology- God is at our very core, present as the human impulse to love, to be something better. God is inseparably united with the love that defines us at our best. God is at the core of the true or authentic human self and is evident in the human impulse to be more humane as expressed in all diverse human goodness.
Conclusion? God has always been closer to us than our own breath or atoms. God has never been absent or silent when people have suffered from natural disaster or human cruelty. Religious mythology has never framed this immanent feature properly. The immanence of deity speaks to the fundamental “oneness” behind all things. Even quantum mechanics points to this foundational oneness feature of reality.
The confusion over purportedly silent deity also has to do with the element of freedom or the inseparable relationship of love and freedom. God, as love, does not coercively overwhelm the independence, self-determination, and freedom of others. Better, God respects human freedom profoundly and influences with gentle, quiet impulses to do the right thing, what we feel is right (i.e. divine “persuasion”, not coercion).
Part of the confusion over how God relates to this world has to do with our inability to grasp that authentic divine Love prizes freedom highly and will not overwhelm or violate it. This is because true moral goodness emerges only from genuine freedom of choice. Such love entails great risk as authentically free people may choose wrongly. The upside is that nothing in life is pre-planned or predestined. We are free to create our own unique stories, to become the heroes of our own life adventures. And there is nothing more heroic than choosing no conditions love, even love of the enemy, as the supreme height of human achievement. Then we tower in stature like a Nelson Mandela.
Note: The above comments relate to one of the options offered in Jewish “Protest Theology” that emerged after the Holocaust (i.e. the idea of God willing/choosing to not intervene in human freedom). Others have suggested that, as spirit, God cannot intervene in material reality, aside from gentle suasion on the human spirit and consciousness.
And of course, balancing the above points, there are still the myriad unexplainable and fascinating “coincidences” scattered through personal human stories that we may either view as just random, or the work of Providence. Interesting that people tend to explain good coincidences as Providence, but not so much the bad ones.
Added discussion group post from Bob Brinsmead: “____, many thanks for sending the link to this great Wikipedia article on Process Theology. I would have to say that I agree with the main thrust of the thesis.
“To say that God could have stopped the Holocaust but refrained from stopping it is very unsatisfactory to me. I agree with the argument of the PROCESS theologians here. If God is committed to love, then God is committed to human freedom. God can use persuasion but not coercion of the human will. Love would not allow God to do something that was inhuman (interfere, coerce, etc.). If you look at history and daily experience, there is no other conclusion that seems to be either logically or ethically possible. It is also hard to see God acting contrary to the laws of nature or the laws of physics.” This is similar to the insights of “panentheism”.
18. One more Old Story Theme, New Story Alternative to add to the list
While human selfishness and greed are present in any approach to life, both left and right, these base features do not most essentially define the Classic Liberal industrial civilization and its outcomes. Collectivists have argued that the “free individuals” model that was developed over past centuries in England (i.e. the “Classic Liberalism” that protects the individual rights and freedom of all citizens, equally), this approach to organizing societies orients populations to destructive selfishness, greed, disconnect from nature, and violence, among other pathologies. But that is not generally true. More importantly, with the fundamental protection of private property rights, the free individual model has unleashed human creativity as never before to achieve unimaginable new heights in the improvement of all aspects of our lives, and improvement of the world in general (i.e. increased environmental improvement).
Now the Old story theme related to this: The myth of the moral and spiritual superiority of the simple, low-consumption lifestyle (i.e. self-produced, using only local resources- bioregionalism). This revering of low-consumption lifestyles relates to “noble savage” mythology, the belief that primitive hunter/gatherers were more pure and environmentally conservative before humanity “fell” and became corrupted in developing civilization, falling even further in the last few centuries of industrial civilization with its ever-growing abundance. This myth fosters endless guilt and shame over resource consumption and the enjoyment of the good life. “Small is Beautiful” by Schumacher was an affirmation of this mythology. Note that it is most often wealthy Western elites that advocate this “morally superior primitivism” lifestyle for poorer people in developing areas (more “Rules for thee but not for me”). That is due in part to the “zero-sum” or “limited-good, limited resources” ideologies of elites.
New story alternative: The search for a better life is the fundamental urge of love- to responsibly improve one’s life and the conditions of one’s family. And it is essential to freedom that people have the free choice to enjoy what they wish to use and enjoy. The abundance that most people enjoy today, with an ever-increasing proportion of humanity moving into middle class status, is part of the larger trajectory of developing technological, industrial civilization that is also lessening environmental impacts while it endlessly improves human well-being.
For example, the trend of continuing world urbanization is concentrating more people in smaller spaces (smaller environmental footprint) that can then better employ economies of scale that lessen pressure on natural areas (see population expert Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource” for detail). Industrial society further decreases per capita consumption of varied resources with ongoing technological development in the process of “de-materialization”. Thus, the general creation of wealth has also enabled more developed areas to better care for and improve their environments. This overturns the environmental alarmist argument that industrial society is “destroying the world”. See “Environmental transition” research, for example, by Indur Goklany. Also, Desrocher and Szurmak’s “Population Bombed”. Humanprogress.org is another good source of information on these issues.
Added note: There is no finalized consensus on how much of the natural world humans can engage, use, and change. We are a legitimate species and not an intruding “virus or cancer” as per the view of those who demand a mostly untouched wilderness world. And from today’s progressing industrial civilization note the emerging trends like ‘peak agriculture’ and the return of agricultural lands to nature because, with safe GM crop inputs, we produce more crops on the same or less land. Note also the improving status of world forests over the past seven decades (FAO reports on increasing world forest cover), and the strengthening of conservation and restoration trends in world fisheries (Ray Hilborn research, University of Washington). Further, there is no species holocaust occurring. It appears the “responsible stewardship” approach of the early 20th Century conservationists is working well (see Alston Chase’s “In A Dark Wood”).
As Julian Simon said, “Evidence on the big picture and long-term trends of life shows that we are more creators than destroyers”.
Added notes: There is a long history of belief in the moral/spiritual superiority of the monkish ascetic lifestyle and engendering guilt over enjoying the good life too much (the good life condemned as selfishness, greed, the “base” obsession with materialism). Note past history’s cloistered mystics inflicting themselves with varied forms of denial and self-abuse in order to squelch worldly desires, enduring fasting, withdrawing from societies, also the naked or loin-clothed wandering holy men, and sages/monks begging for their daily needs. Those “holiness exhibited in simple living” cults are found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and other movements.
Varied other beliefs play into the fear of consumption such as the fallacy of “limited good” that anthropology notes in hunter/gatherer societies where people believe that if some people in the group get more goods, then others must be getting less, as there are limited resources to go around (zero sum). But the evidence, while at first seeming counter-intuitive, comes down on the side of ever-expanding human resources across history. “Cornucopians” like Julian Simon were right.
Simon (Ultimate Resource) has outlined the steps in the process that results in the expansion or increase in resource stocks: Within traditional production there may emerge an apparent scarcity of some resource. This leads to increasing prices for that resource. That prompts the search for more reserves of the resource, the innovative creation of new technology that leads to discovery of more of a resource and more efficient production and use of the resource, or a search for alternatives to the resource (i.e. the shift from whale oil to fossil fuels). And ultimately there is a return to the trajectory of lowering the price of the resource. We saw the process above operating with the discovery of fracking technology and the opening of vast new sources of fossil fuels in the US.
Added note to Old Story themes: Another critical old story theme- Holiness mythology
One of the most common responses from religious people to the idea of God as no conditions love is the claim that God is also holy and just and therefore must punish all wrong. God’s honor is tarnished by the wrongdoing of people so he must be just (exhibit strict eye for eye retaliation/retribution) and punish all sin. God cannot just freely forgive and love. This divine holiness myth is primitivism at its worst. How so? It is the very same reasoning that is behind practices like “honor killing”.
People in varied cultures today still reason that, for example, a daughter embracing modern habits has dishonored her family and their traditional culture. So the males of the family, feeling dishonored and shamed, are required to punish the “evil” daughter in order to restore their tarnished honor. Holiness theology is embracing this very same primitive reasoning that wrongs must be punished thoroughly and severely or justice and honor are not restored properly. Just another version of “eye for eye” retaliation.
I would counter that, contrary to holiness with its demand for punishment, unconditional forgiveness and love constitute the true glory of God, the highest goodness and love. Authentic goodness and love will just freely forgive without demanding payment or righting of wrongs first.
The holiness feature in theology affirms the myth of a God obsessed with perfection and punishing imperfection, hence the creation of a supporting complex of myths- i.e. original paradise/Eden (perfect creation), Fall of humanity and ruin of paradise (loss of perfection), and the subsequent need for an atonement (sacrifice/payment/punishment for ruining perfection) in order for God to restore the lost perfection.