More is coming– I have slowed a bit in posting material here due to daily radiotherapy for aggressive metastatic prostate cancer. Appointments are in another city, usually in the middle of the day, so travel takes up lot of time.
I’ve been surprised at the normal tone of the waiting room conversations with patients expressing good humor, even joking, as we wait our turns to go in for radiation. One elderly man entered the waiting room the other day with a broad smile, stating, “Well, our fun place, eh”.
We hope our bladders are full enough and that we have no gas, both micro-offenses that get you sent out to either walk off the gas or drink more water and thereby rachet up the pee pot into the “dancing on the spot” pain of a full bladder. Walking off gas demands holding the full bladder till some rumble emits from the nether regions.
Another fellow traveller on this quest said with a smile the other day, “Look, if I gotta fart I’m just letting it go right here (in the waiting room)”. We smiled back with understanding affirmation- gotcha.
After an initial CAT scan to see how inner organs are lining up, the scan machine pulls back, and you lay still, waiting tensely for a minute or so as technicians in their outer room examine the results to see if they can go ahead with the radiation machine or need to come back in with the bad news that its walking time. They reassure us that we will thank them for being strict about full bladders and no gas. If not, the side effects are nasty diarrhea, painful peeing, rectal bleeding, and so on. A full bladder, for example, pushes the little intestines up and out of the way of inflaming radiation so as to avoid creating the diarrhea problem.
The radiation destroys healthy organ cells along with cancer cells. The healthy organ cells will recover but the cancer cells will not.
I joke with one fellow patient about his good fashion sense and taste in pants as we all wear the same brown pajama-like bottoms for our treatments. There is no other alternative. His wife hoots at the back and forth between us over our “haute couture”.
Also, some sad stories that express and highlight the mess that the Canadian health care system is, though the people working in the system are beyond wonderful for all they do, the help they provide given what they have to work with.
Trudeau, you gave tens of billions in subsidies to foreign companies for battery plants to chase your Net Zero fantasy that even the eco-zealots of Europe are abandoning because it doesn’t work (i.e. physics limits on renewable input due to natural factors, massive state subsidies to produce renewables, and consequent higher energy costs, destabilized grids, declining economies, etc.). That subsidies funding, adds unnecessarily to taxpayer’s already too heavy tax burdens, and it could have gone to medical equipment located nearer sick folk like the man who has to travel from Kamloops, a 3-hours journey, to get radiation treatment in Kelowna as he suffers bone cancer that is creeping painfully up his spine. Have some mercy, Justin. Get your priorities right.
Re your eco-zealotry- Listen to the best of atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen and William Happer (co2coalition.org) who are telling us that the warming influence of CO2 is now “saturated” (a physics term re its limited operating range on the infrared spectrum) and any further warming, as with the recent past mild warming, will be caused mainly by natural factors. Further, there is no threat of a “climate emergency”. Point? There is no need to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies, a ruinous “salvation” scheme that is destroying our societies. Stop it already, eh.
Even the Greens of Germany have recognized that their decarbonization policies are ruining German industry and have backed off somewhat. Wendell Krossa
Anyway… more coming soon…
I have spent much of a lifetime fascinated by love, this highest of human ideals, the singular feature that identifies us as authentically human. I eventually discovered, and concluded to my own satisfaction, that the true nature of love was stunningly, inexpressible unconditional. That takes love a magnitude of reach higher than so much common understanding of love that is limited to tribal versions of love (i.e. favors family, friends, but not outsiders/enemies so much).
Unconditional was the final piece in the meaning puzzle to satisfy my impulse to understand- What is the true nature of ultimate reality/deity and, hence, what is conscious human life to be about? What is the true nature our highest ideal and, consequently, what does successful human life and experience involve, among the many other things that occupy successful human stories?
Again, that brilliant summary statement of the wisdom sage- “Love your enemy unconditionally because God does”. The most profound statement ever uttered on theology and human ethics. And as this site repeatedly qualifies- This is not an advocacy for pacifism in the face of evil. Violent people must be restrained to protect others. They must take full responsibility for their behavior and consequences as essential to proper human development. Unconditional has more to do with the nature of ultimate reality and hence, with ultimate human ideals. What we never attain perfectly, but constantly reach for in our quest to tower in stature as maturely human, as heroes of our personal stories.
Note: Why are so many of the 18 themes, in the section below, related to metaphysical realities? Because the themes they express have to do with the fundamental themes/realities that are behind all else in human narratives. These themes still frame the core of the human search for meaning. Consider, for example, the persistent search for the fundamental nature of reality as per cosmological theories, or physics theories and research- i.e. the Hadron collider and the search for the ultimate foundational nature of physical reality, as in the fundamental nature of mass or the atom (e.g. “Mass: The Quest to Understand Matter from Greek Atoms to Quantum Fields”, James Baggott).
So with spiritual traditions and the millennia-long quest to understand the nature of deity as the fundamental or ultimate reality (i.e. creating, sustaining Source). This explains the overall search for a version of TOE, whether in material or “spiritual” terms. In religious or spiritual terms- Who or what created material reality and for what purpose?
Physical science will never cease this quest for fuller understanding, though, limited by its mandate and methodology, it will never provide the full answer. And just like religious/spiritual folks have always crossed the science/religion boundary, so scientists will keep crossing the science/philosophy boundary in their quest for ultimate meaning, for ultimate explanation (Sabine Hossenfelder- “Lost in Math”).
Also, because bad metaphysical ideas have existed and dominated human narratives from the beginning and will persist due to our primal impulse to meaning, so this site recognizes that we should unapologetically engage such reality and provide better (as in more humane) alternatives for consideration. Human curiosity and quest for fullest understanding and explanation will not and should not be squelched. The freedom thing, even in relation to speculation. Hence, my disagreement with the pissed atheist- “Lets get rid of all this metaphysical bullshit”. Even most materialist scientists disagree with that (by their actions, not their proclamations).
Some examples of materialist (“scientific”) speculation on metaphysical realities- i.e. Multi-verse theory, Self-Organizing Principle, String theory (Lee Smolin, “The Trouble With Physics: the Rise of String Theory, the Fall of Science, and What Comes Next”), etc. Point? We all engage speculation in response to our primal impulse to meaning. Wendell Krossa
Some free advice:
You want a career in politics? The two most critical areas of experience/knowledge if you are ever elected to run a major economy, or any economy. (1) Business experience (actually running a successful business). And (2) an understanding of Classic Liberal principles and practises, as per “Inventing Freedom”- Daniel Hannan, “The Birth of Plenty”- William Bernstein, “Ultimate Resource”- Julian Simon, and similar research.
Site project: “That’s alright now, momma”, Elvis Presley
This site maintains one central purpose or project, to tell people- “Don’t be afraid. Its going to be alright”. Whether in this world with the good evidence that life is improving over the long term, as per all the main indicators on the true state of the world (i.e. forests, land species, ocean fisheries, agricultural land, etc.). And further, ultimately alright in terms of the big background reality of the metaphysical Source of this material world- the Creator and Sustainer of all reality.
The nature of ultimate reality, as stunningly no conditions love, takes the sting out of the fear of death, a millennia-long and deeply embedded primal anxiety that has been intensified over millennia by bad mythology and religious belief that promotes the primitive themes of ultimate harsh judgment, ultimate separation and exclusion of unbelievers, ultimate punishment for wrongs done in this life, and ultimate destruction myths (i.e. Hell myths). A nasty psychic load to carry through life and spoil the fun.
Add the burdensome mythical theme that humans are punished through the bad things that happen randomly throughout our world (i.e. natural disaster, disease, accident, cruelty from others). The threat of punitive divinity behind such things adds the unnecessary additional burden of psychic suffering to our already unbearable physical suffering. Remember that Japanese lady after the 2011 tsunami, “Are we being punished for enjoying the good life too much?”
Further weighting the unnecessary psychic load, there is the central curse of religion with its endless conditions, conditions, and more damn conditions- conditions for salvation, sacrifice, endless guilt payments, prescribed rituals and detailed religious lifestyle as identity markers of being a true believer in a chosen tradition. And don’t forget the oppressive domination by priesthoods and religious authorities with all their fun-killing constraints on life. Sheesh, eh.
The Daddy re-assuring thing (there are no monsters):
You are all safe, ultimately, because God is no conditions love as per the central message of Historical Jesus, a message that has been re-affirmed by the central discovery of the Near-Death Experience movement- i.e. that the Light or God is a stunningly inexpressible transcendent unconditional Love.
With that breeze in your sails, liberated from the metaphysical terrors of threat theology, go out into life and engage it fully. Create a unique life story. Suffer whatever your life throws at you as something to struggle with and thereby learn lessons that will make you more empathic toward suffering others. Learn the lessons and gain the insights to help others.
Serving others is critical to countering and alleviating our own often unhealthy pre-occupation with our personal problems and feelings. Serving others is essential to our “towering in stature of heroically and maturely human”.
Make some contribution to improving life for others. Create some service or product to make life better for others and most of all- bring some silly fun and humor into life, to lighten the mood in others around you. You got your mandate, comedians. And oh, have you seen the Tom Brady roast on Netflix? Good one. Raw, raunchy, but another illustration of good comedy. Wendell Krossa
Here’s a good one- Piers Morgan interviewing Stephen Meyer, author of “The Return of the God Hypothesis”, Wendell Krossa
I don’t fully affirm Meyers’ conclusions (i.e. a Christian deity behind reality or life) but he is one of the best arguing for “Intelligence” as the most logical and reasonable conclusion to explain the great mysteries of (1) the creation of this material cosmos, (2) the origin of life on this planet, and (3) the subsequent long-term development of life till it arrived at the greatest mystery of all- i.e. human consciousness, the conscious human self or person.
Later in the interview they shift to the question of evil in life. Meyers is right that the existence of evil has to be understood as the outcome of a God who granted humans authentic freedom, authentic freedom of choice. I would have honed that more to the issue of “the inseparable nature of love and freedom”.
This question of evil is often framed by theologians and philosophers in terms of- Why does evil exist if God is all powerful and good? But that misunderstands what “God is love” means. A God of love will not coercively override human freedom and self-determination. God will not overwhelm and violate freedom because that would be a violation of love. A God of authentic love cannot do that.
Meyers missed a chance to make Bob Brinsmead’s point that love and freedom are inseparable. As Brinsmead says, where there is no authentic freedom, there is no authentic love.
Others make a related point- that you cannot know and experience good aside from a contrast with the opposite of good. Authentic moral good only exists as the outcome from authentical free choice against the opposite. Hence, good cannot be known and experienced aside from this realm of dualism where both good and evil are possible outcomes.
Fortunately, we are told by witnesses in the Near-Death Experience movement that the dualism of good and evil only exists in this material realm. It is not some eternal reality. Joseph Campbell also noted this, as do the NDE accounts, that in ultimate eternal reality there is only the oneness of a stunningly inexpressible love. Unconditional love dominates ultimate eternal reality because the Creator, Source, and Sustainer of all things is that love. That provokes a reconsideration of theology, speculation on ultimate realities, a new understanding of why this material realm exists (as an experience and learning arena), and more.
Some of the NDE accounts note that the very atoms, the very “substance of God” is unconditional love. Meaning that the foundational core of all is love. Hence, God is not just some ultimate Consciousness or Intelligence/Mind, but more fundamentally- deity is composed of love. Love then is more than just one of the attributes or features of God but is the most fundamental reality in itself. Love is the fundamental, foundational reality. Meaning that the materialist search for subatomic particles and TOE misses this. At the root of all reality, whether material or metaphysical, is love. Marinate your mind on this. Its among the biggest of “Wows” ever. The Oneness that is the ultimate metaphysical reality, the Source of all, is pure love in essence. Love is its substance and reality.
And yes, this is theological speculation. But among the best of alternatives available to counter the long history of mythical and religious threat theology that has deformed human consciousness and life for millennia.
And it’s a critical part of my project to affirm that “Its going to be alright”.
Taibbi and Kirn discuss their “torn on this issue” re Palestine and Israel…
Transcript – America This Week, May 3, 2024: Gaza, Columbia, and More, in “I&P”, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn
Some quotes from their discussion….
“Hate speech laws can indeed, through mission creep, become chilling to discourse in general”…
“Walter Kirn: And also, sensibilities evolve. Three quarters of what these kids are offended by or made to feel unsafe by or triggered by is stuff that just passes right by me. In other words, it seems that every year that passes makes these nervous systems more sensitive. And what’s hate speech today was just people talking in my youth. So it’s not just that the laws tend to become more general, it’s that people for a while now have become more and more sensitive. And between those two trends, the range of permissible speech would become narrower and narrower mathematically every year….
“I mean, I think my tendencies in terms of how I feel about the war (Gaza), I’ve kind of always believed that occupation and peace are irreconcilable, that it doesn’t work no matter what you do. It almost always results in something that’s oppressive and monstrous, and it ends up being a cancer in every society that tries it. The British will tell you that about Northern Ireland. To a lesser extent, we learned it Vietnam and Iraq.
“But at the same time, I just can’t get behind any kind of terrorist act that involves civilians, kids, even if… I’ve seen dialogues between people talking about, “Well, it was only 36 on this side and it was a thousand over here, or 8,000.” It’s almost like sometimes, the debate about this has turned into competing dehumanization campaigns, “The Zionists are evil,” and then over there it’s, “You’re a Hamas supporter, you’re a terrorist.” So it’s terrorists versus genocide apologists, and this is going to be kind of a trend in American political life, is that we create these monikers that are indefensible political categories, the anti-vaxxer, the conspiracy theorist, the insurrectionist, the white supremacist.
“And we don’t have discussions about things, we just kind of proceed straight to trying to herd people into this other camp. And the act of just being uncertain starts to look criminal to some people when you’re in this kind of fight. I mean this is what’s happened in the Trump era just generally, is if you’re not loudly declaring that you’re for one side or the other, each side puts you in the other camp. And I don’t know, I really dislike that too….
“I like seeing the worm turn a little bit. What I don’t like is that the Republican faction has just decided to abandon what was their outrage over the suppression of their own speech to embrace the suppression of the other sides. We can’t get a sensible coalition on this because one of the problems with free speech in general is that it allows the speech of zealots. Zealots tend to want to take advantage of free speech most. Its protections are particularly welcome if you have a strong unpopular cause to support….
“But zealots also tend to be people who want their enemies not to be able to speak. So, free speech always generates the zealotry that then becomes an enemy of speech. And that’s just part of the paradox of this thing. And one of the reasons why I think we have to be incredibly principled about it, because the groups that benefit from speech are often ones that don’t want others to speak….
“The underlying issue here, the war in Israel, the incursion into Gaza is one which I am genuinely ambivalent about still. And one of my problems is that the reporting of the war, like everything else these days, is so partisan, so impossible to parse at times. The claims are extreme on both sides. And this has been true of Ukraine too for me, I just don’t feel that I as a citizen get the information necessary to have a reasoned and reasonable position. I don’t. I don’t know quite how to get it.”
A note on the Climate Files:
These are one potential contributing factor to global warming. This relates to Henrik Svensmark’s “The Chilling Stars”, his theory affirmed by Hadron collider experiments. These flares are part of the activity of the Sun’s magnetic field that spreads across our solar system and helps block incoming cosmic rays. Due to that field strengthening, there is less cloud formation, clouds that reflect solar energy coming in. Less cloud cover means more warming of Earth. This is all due to natural factors, not CO2.
“NOAA Forecasts Severe Solar Storm: Five CMEs Are Heading For Earth”, Wattsupwiththat.com post on NASA report, May 10, 2024
“NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) — a division of the National Weather Service — is monitoring the sun following a series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that began on May 8.….
“CMEs are explosions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun’s corona. They cause geomagnetic storms when they are directed at Earth.”
The stunning contradiction at the heart of Christianity– This is essential to the project here to go to root contributing factors as in the core themes of narratives that incite and validate bad behavior, and also to offer alternatives themes to shape narratives… Wendell Krossa
Historical Jesus (not the Christian “Jesus Christ” but the historical opposite, someone entirely opposite to the Christian version) offers the most potent way to conquer the real enemy, the real evil in life. Historical Jesus offers his simple summary (my paraphrase of the Luke 6:27-36 or Matthew 5:38-48 messages posted below) that presents the most potent way to slay the inner evil of our animal impulses, meaning the “evil triad” of impulses.
Summary of Jesus’ core message:
On how to end cycles of retaliatory violence and achieve peace in societies…. By going to the root causal factors in the greatest battle of all, the battle of good against evil that takes place inside each human heart- the battle of our human spirit against our “evil triad” of inherited animal impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others. That is the real enemy and monster we face in life and must heroically conquer and subdue. Then we become the heroes of our personal quest, towering in stature as maturely human.
The ideas/beliefs that we embrace inspire, guide, and help us conquer our inner monster. Our beliefs powerfully influence our thinking, worldview, emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior.
Here is the summary of the core of Jesus’ message that is the single most profound statement ever offered to liberate us from enslavement to the inner animal, to point us in the direction of true human achievement and success.
“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”.
In the above statements he exposes tit for tat thinking and relating as not praiseworthy. It is average human behavior, even petty and subhuman. It is tribal tit for tat love. What family and friends show to one another. Anyone can exhibit such love if they know they will receive the same treatment in return. I will do this, only if you respond the same way, treat me the same. And I will be on edge with the trigger of reaction and retreat to eye for eye if you don’t give me a similar response. Then its back to petty eye for eye retaliatory pathology.
He sets the stage with this average behavior as a contrast with what real love is about and will do. He wants to set the contrast with what real authentic love is and does, which is his main point below.
“But if you want something better, something higher, a real experience of being truly human, maturely human, something transformative and liberating, authentically spiritual, then here is what love really is. It is not just tribal, limited by conditions, with no love for the outsider, the opponent or enemy. To the contrary, this is what real spirituality is about, the love that is being like God. This is how we tower in stature as maturely human, as heroes of our story, having conquered our inner monster and enemy- the impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive treatment of differing others.
“So do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God indiscriminately, inclusively 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 Matthew 5:38-48 or Luke’s better version in Luke 6:27-36.)
This can be summarized in this single statement: “Don’t just tribally love your family, friends, and neighbors, but Love your enemy also because God does”.
Do you really want to be something better than average? To reach some higher plane of experience, something divine? To have a real spiritual experience, that is not about a rush of inner enlightenment that is ego-oriented, self-satisfying, self indulgent, but oriented to helping others, to serving others, especially love for those who we find unloving, most repulsive, yet still our family (the no enemies oneness that he is referring to).
Example of non-retaliatory, unconditional love: The Prodigal Father story in Luke 15:11-31.
The Father (representing God) did not demand a sacrifice, restitution, payment, apology, or anything else before forgiving, fully accepting, and loving the wasteful son.
Again, that is what God is like as the ultimate human ideal. And that orients us to the attitudes and responses that we should strive toward. It is not a proscription for running a business or shaping criminal justice as in de-carceration and no cash bail policies, etc. It is not an advocacy for pacifism as in “turn the other cheek”.
But yes, treating all offenders humanely as they are held fully responsible for their crimes (incarcerated until safe to return to the public and if not, then kept separated from innocent people). The statement of Jesus is very much oriented to how we view and treat even the worst among us and thereby maintain our own humanity in the face of evil.
Add the vineyard owner choosing freely to give everyone the same treatment. Not a proscription on how to run a business but the freedom of the owner of resources to do what they want with their personal property, to offer scandalous generosity to others if they so choose. Another example, Jesus inviting the outcasts of society to meals, treating them with inclusive and equal love.
Leo Tolstoy: “The whole trouble lies in that people think there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love… but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care.” Leo Tolstoy in “Resurrection”
The above statement and illustrations by Jesus overturn the highly conditional Christian religion and Paul’s Christ mythology. Paul, along with the rest of the New Testament, preached a retaliatory God who demanded full payment and punishment of all sin in a substitutionary blood sacrifice of atonement before he would forgive, accept, and ultimately love anyone. That is a denial of the message of Historical Jesus. No wonder, as scholars point out, that Paul does not quote the actual message of Jesus but focuses on “his Christ myth about the man”, a myth that denies the “very message of the man” (another Brinsmeadism).
Another example of unconditional love (the Good Samaritan story):
Bob Brinsmead:
“Jesus’ teaching in parables was not as allusive and as mystical as you might make it sound. It was all too plain and practical for some people to stomach. All too many preferred to worship him rather than do what he said. That could be summarized while one stood on one leg- love of neighbour as expressed in the Golden Rule. This, Jesus said, is the whole of the Law and Prophets, the whole duty of man. The rest is only commentary.
“He was not the first to teach this, but he taught it in the light of a new and stunning teaching about God. Micah the prophet expressed it well when he said, “The Lord has shown you, O man, what is good: It is to act justly, to practice lovingkindness, and to walk in the humble service of others just like God does.” The parables of Jesus mirrored both divine and human behaviour, without using words that hostile hearers could use against him.
“Why keep staring at this “love your enemies” like a cow stares at a new barn door? Just think through that parable of the good Samaritan again. What an amazing parable Jesus used to illustrate to a Jewish Rabbi the meaning of the Second Commandment. Consider the lengths this despised Samaritan went to show compassion to his traditional Jewish enemy! That, said Jesus, is an example of what it means to love your neighbour. Yes, we would all find it easier to worship Jesus than to do what he says.”
Here Bob Brinsmead makes the similar point of how Jesus’ message was turned into something contrary to what he had actually taught…
Brinsmead post to a member of a discussion group:
“___, what about that sect which still exists in Iraq which worships in the name of John the Baptist and even believes in the efficacy of “the blood of John the Baptist”?
“So the followers of John the Baptist still exist, and they are not followers of Jesus.
“In trying to follow the reasons why Jesus became the new god of the Greco-Roman world, we cannot discount how well he was packaged and “marketed” to that Greco-Roman world with lots of miracles and myths that fitted with the long history of Greco-Roman culture. In order to appeal to that culture, his story-tellers had to remove some Jewish barnacles from the man and things that would be off-putting to the Gentile audience.
“Justin Martyr openly admitted in his polemics (to Cellus) how very similar their claims for Jesus were to the old pagan myths- like the gods impregnating women, of worshippers eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their god, and the same kind of miracles claimed. When the writers of the NT Gospels told the story of Jesus, it was for the purpose of convincing their audience that he was the Messiah from heaven, which meant that it was inevitable that the story got embellished in their literary process of retrojection.
“As the story was repeated, the wonders kept getting embellished. Mark tells a story of Jesus doing some modest healings in a village, but by the time Matthew writes up the incident, it becomes a spectacular healing event of all that were sick in the entire village.
“And in the same way, each story of the resurrection becomes longer and more spectacular in relation to the order in which they were written. Jesus was not God to start with and was not even pre-existent, but by the time John is written, he is a full blown divinity and well on the way to be “God of very God” according to the Athanasian Creed.
“So I ask the simple question, when and in what sense was it seen that divinity was flashing through humanity. I can see it flashing through his humanity when he prayed for his killers, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Or when he declined any titles of authority by calling himself “the son of man.” Not “no man’s son.” Or when he was prodigious in forgiveness because “to forgive is divine.”
“I can’t see the divinity flashing through his humanity in any spectacular nature miracles like stilling a storm, remembering how Elijah didn’t see the God of Israel in great fire and storm, but only in a quiet human voice. No, No. Jesus was no super-human figure striding like a colossus through the earth, stilling storms and raising the dead, as one destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron. Such a story only re-works ancient myths.
“Maybe that smart set in Athens who waited to hear if Paul preached some new thing, started to mock when his story got to proclaiming another divinity rising from the dead. “Ah Paul, we thought you were going to tell us about some new divinity, but it is only another same old, same old story of a dying and rising divinity that has been going the rounds for centuries…”
The inseparable union between God and the common human spirit of all humanity. Rethinking traditional theology (immanence, oneness, etc.), Wendell Krossa
There is no, and never has been, any such thing, as an absent “sky God”. And there is no incarnation of God only in special “holy people” (see Bob’s comment below). God is commonly and equally present in every human being, inseparable from the common human spirit. We do not only access God in special holy places (i.e. temples, churches), in specially favored religious groups (i.e. among true believers). God is not mediated to the masses via special mediators (priesthoods, pastors, gurus).
Note the long ago priest who climbed a tower in his search for God somewhere above in the heavens, pleading, “God, where are you?”. God answered him, “I am down here among my people”.
God is the most common street level reality (the creating, sustaining Source of all reality), equally present to everyone and loving every human being equally. Hence, the statement of Jesus- “Don’t just tribally love your family, friends, and neighbors, but Love your enemy also because God does”.
Bob Brinsmead’s response to another participant in a discussion group:
“Yes. It is important that we recognize that God was manifested in the life and teachings of Jesus. It is also important to recognize that God is constantly being manifested in the arena of human existence. As Thomas Sheehan says, “God has disappeared into humanity and can be found nowhere else.” Jesus does not have a monopoly or exclusive rights in the manifestation of God.
“Am I wrong to be stunned at the surprising manifestation of people being kind, generous, forgiving and helpful to me? – in so many ways stopping to give me a cup of cold water when it is not expected. There is of course a well of evil in everyone who is human, but more significantly, there is a well of goodness and generosity there too indicating the manifestation of the Spirit of God at work.
“And I refuse to think that this world of human history is getting worse and worse like that declining Image from gold to clay (i.e. the Old Testament book of Daniel). That is pure Zoroastrian apocalyptic. The human race is on a destined journey of gaining ground because it is “in Him we live and move and have our being.”
“So, as 1 John says, “the one who loves lives in God and God lives in him.” The manifestation of God might be the loving kindness of a Hindu woman who ministers to my need. I do not, therefore, believe in one exclusive incarnation, or one Avatar of God (a wonderful Hindu term), but everyone can be an Avatar of God. That is what Jesus teaches in the Sermon: “You are the light of the world… let me see your good works, and glorify your Father etc.” “Be compassionate [OT word here is “hesed”] just like the Most High is mercifully forgiving…” (Luke 6).”
Now the Climate Files again…
This from Sterling Burnett’s ‘Climate Change Weekly’, edition 505, “The High Price of Climate Alarm”, May 5, 2024
“Experimental Evidence Indicates CO2 is Saturated, Can’t Drive Temperatures”
Quotes:
“A recent series of papers suggests that the world has already surpassed the level at which adding additional carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere can have no additional warming effect, “due to saturation, higher and higher concentrations do not lead to any further absorption of radiation.”
“In a series of peer reviewed papers from 2020, 2022, and 2024 published in the journal Applications in Engineering Science, a team of Polish physicists examined the extent to which CO2 saturation occurs in the atmosphere, limiting its warming impact. The authors concluded that, “as a result of saturation processes, emitted CO2 does not directly cause an increase in global temperature.”
“Saturation is a well-known process that occurs when no more of something (a chemical, molecule, or mixture, for example) can be absorbed, combined with, or added, or when added, has any additional effect….
“Atmospheric CO2 absorbs radiation in a particular band of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum…. At a certain point, the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases absorbs the entire band of radiation, producing no more warming as additional units of CO2 or other gases that absorb the band are added.
“The research paper published in 2024, based on a series of experiments and measurements, suggests that CO2 is already saturated at current levels, possibly reaching the saturation point way back at 300 ppm.
“[A]s a result of saturation processes, emitted CO2 does not directly cause an increase in global temperature,” the researchers conclude….
“This research adds another layer to more than 50 years of research on the CO2 saturation principle.
“[For example,] Schack (1972)…demonstrated that for a concentration of 0.03% of carbon dioxide in the air, the absorption process in the troposphere is saturated.”
“Recently, other scientists (Chen et al., 2023) also reported that CO2 has a severely reduced effect on atmospheric transmissivity due to (a) absorption saturation (CO2 can have no effect beyond a pre-industrial concentration), and because (b) water vapor and cloud forcing overlap and thus dominate absorption in CO2’s band.
“[Transmissivity] in the CO2 band center is unchanged by increased CO2 as the absorption is already saturated…”
“[T]he water vapor and CO2 overlapping at an absorbing band prevents absorption by additional CO2.”
“If this research is correct, then worries about the climate impact of adding more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are misguided. Meaning there is no climate need to end the use of fossil fuels or for governments to impose expensive carbon rationing policies that increase poverty, energy and food costs, and premature death.”
Who is your mass-death promoter now??
“Radical leftists say oil companies are committing climate murder”, Paul Driessen, May 4, 2024
Quote from the article “My book, Eco-Imperialism: Green power · Black death”, forcefully demonstrates that it is these self-righteous climate and environmental activists, and those who fund them, that are callously causing the eco-murder deaths of millions every year – and setting the stage for dramatically more in the future.
Quotes (see the many links to sources in original article at link above):
“They’re gaslighting voters and consumers – when the real mass killers are environmentalists…
“We’re constantly told fossil fuel use is causing an existential climate crisis, extreme weather, worsening wildfires, and more frequent and intense hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts.
“Actual temperature, storm and other records provide no support for these claims….
“The claims are based primarily on computer models that erroneously assume carbon dioxide and a few other “greenhouse gases” (0.05% of Earth’s atmosphere, in total) control the climate, while the sun plays virtually no role, urban heat islands are inconsequential, and incompetent forest management is irrelevant.
“It’s gaslighting: perversions of truth designed to make us guilt-ridden, willing to slash our living standards, and happy to keep poor countries energy-deprived and impoverished.
“In the USA and worldwide, fossil fuels still provide 80% of total energy. They’re also the foundation for our economy, living standards, health and longevity – and over 6,000 vital products, including plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, cell phones, eyeglasses, fertilizers and wind turbine blades….
“Others file endless lawsuits to bankrupt fossil fuel projects and promote their twisted views about “climate justice.” Their latest scheme could be viewed as the culmination of their self-indoctrination.
“A recent Harvard Environmental Law Review article proposes prosecuting major oil companies for “climate homicide” and “mass murder” – for supposedly killing people, by raising global temperatures and sea levels, and causing deadlier hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, heatwaves, blizzards and wildfires.
“Media outlets eagerly promoted the claims – and Soros-funded prosecutors will undoubtedly be thrilled to indict ExxonMobil and other companies, once they’ve put more flash-mob thieves back on our streets.
“But not even these prosecutors – or any judge, jury or “expert witness” – can separate natural from human causes of modern climate change….
“What they really don’t want addressed in this “climate homicide” discussion, however, is who is actually committing mass murder, especially of women and children, people with disabilities, people of color and other “particularly threatened” groups so supposedly beloved by climate justice warriors.
“My book, Eco-Imperialism: Green power · Black death, forcefully demonstrates that it is these self-righteous climate and environmental activists, and those who fund them, that are callously causing the eco-murder deaths of millions every year – and setting the stage for dramatically more in the future….
“More than 750 million people still have no access to electricity; nearly 2 billion have only sporadic access to barely enough electricity to charge cell phones and power a lightbulb or 1-cubic-foot refrigerator – and no juice for modern homes, schools and hospitals, water purification, or factories and other job-creating businesses.
“These people are forced to heat and cook with wood, charcoal or animal dung, inhaling noxious fumes that cause millions of deaths annually from respiratory diseases. Millions more die annually from intestinal diseases due to contaminated water and spoiled food, due to energy deprivation.
“Green fanatics perpetuate the death tolls, by battling anything except grossly insufficient, weather-dependent wind and solar power. (In European and other modern countries, people die of heatstroke when they cannot get or afford air conditioning; nine times more die from cold – from hypothermia and illnesses they’d normally survive if they could afford to heat their homes properly.)
“The fanatics also wage campaigns to deny Third World people access to insecticides and spatial insect repellants that would control disease-carrying flies and mosquitoes and even modern farming practices and technologies. Millions more thus die every year from diseases that are readily preventable or could be cured in modern hospitals (that don’t exist)….
“Radical food groups despise genetically engineered crops that multiply crop yields, survive droughts and slash pesticide spraying by 75% or more. They vilify Golden Rice, which enables malnourished children to avoid Vitamin A Deficiency, blindness and death….
“Even more bizarre and frightening, major philanthropies like the Rockefeller Foundation and Walton Family Foundation support this craziness! So do the World Bank and many UN agencies….
“It’s increasingly obvious that climate fear-mongering and GIGO computer models have replaced evidence-based science, history, human nutrition needs and traditional ethical principles. More and more, it is regulating and academic elites versus the rest of us, in rich and poor countries alike.
“But on a more positive note, climate cultists chomping at the bit to see oil companies prosecuted for climate murder should be careful what they wish for. Such a precedent could put eco-imperialists and their financiers on trial for manslaughter on a truly horrific scale.”
“Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), and author of articles and books on environmental, climate and human rights issues.”
Menton gets ever more blunt in his assessments of the lunacy of all this….
“The Biden Administration Ever More Delusional on Energy”, Francis Menton of Manhattan Contrarian, May 4, 2024
“We are now well into the world of fantasy and delusion…. In the meantime we have completely ignorant and tyrannical regulators ordering up an energy system that can’t possibly work and heedless of the enormous destruction that they will likely cause if not stopped…. These people become more and more detached from reality with each passing day. They seem to have no idea how much damage they are doing, and they don’t care a bit. Somehow they have convinced themselves that they are “saving the planet,” when if they could do even a little arithmetic they would know that their efforts cannot possibly move the needle on that effort. It’s just another week in the Biden Administration energy clown show.”…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/04/the-biden-administration-ever-more-delusional-on-energy/
“Even as the energy producers and consumers have figured out endless workarounds to avoid the fossil fuel suppression that the Bidenauts attempt to impose, the little regulatory tyrants have been busy preparing new bouts of punitive restrictions….
“In the new round, the regulators have gotten farther and farther away from anything realistic, anything consistent with the laws of physics or thermodynamics, anything that might actually work. We are now well into the world of fantasy and delusion….
“In the meantime we have completely ignorant and tyrannical regulators ordering up an energy system that can’t possibly work and heedless of the enormous destruction that they will likely cause if not stopped….
“These people become more and more detached from reality with each passing day. They seem to have no idea how much damage they are doing, and they don’t care a bit. Somehow they have convinced themselves that they are “saving the planet,” when if they could do even a little arithmetic they would know that their efforts cannot possibly move the needle on that effort. It’s just another week in the Biden Administration energy clown show.”
This excellent piece from Free Press on advocating for free speech– these agencies and episodes all illustrate the greater totalitarian threat to liberal democracies today as Woke Progressivism continues its crusade to dominate all areas of society.
https://www.thefp.com/p/lionel-shriver-pen-america-rewards
“PEN America Rewards Cowardice: We live in a world where an organization established for the defense of free speech is expected to openly advocate for Hamas”, Lionel Shriver, May 1, 2024
Quotes:
“Another day, another opportunity for huffy, hypocritical “progressive” posturing. PEN America has now been forced to cancel its World Voices literary festival in New York and L.A., on the heels of also canceling its 2024 awards ceremony. Too many authors had withdrawn from both events to make going ahead with staging either practicable. The reason for so many writers flouncing from these programs? PEN’s failure to publicly denounce Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza….
“To clarify: the purpose of PEN is to defend freedom of speech and to protect writers from political oppression and persecution. It makes perfect sense, therefore, that a significant cadre of its membership would seek to stifle freedom of speech and engage in political oppression and persecution. Or: we’re all for free speech so long as you say what we tell you….
“PEN is, by its nature, a big tent. It represents not only Muslim writers but Jewish ones too, some of whom might just support the existence of Israel, might just regard Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza as justified, and might just find alliance with genuinely genocidal terrorists whose unembarrassed aim is to wipe Israel and the Jewish people off the map as a teeny tiny bit obnoxious. While one PEN member decries the nonprofit’s “both-sidesing,” the truth is that PEN has no business taking a position on this issue whatsoever.
“Unfortunately, the left has successfully installed the expectation that, regardless of their established purpose, all institutions—companies, museums, theaters, universities, charities, you name it—must proclaim their fealty to the “right” (which is to say left) position on a host of inflammatory issues of the day. This hyper-politicization of entities that ought sensibly to remain politically neutral has been systematically debauching everything from the UK’s National Trust to its NHS, from Anheuser-Busch to the Chicago Art Museum….
“Thus, an organization established for the defense of free speech of every sort—including the overtly Zionist kind—is necessarily obliged to openly advocate for Hamas, a murderous, cheerfully antisemitic cult whose interest in free speech on its home turf would fit in a thimble….
“Moreover, for American writers to express increasingly shrill and little-disguised hostility to Jews is to disavow a substantial chunk of the country’s distinguished literary canon: Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, and Elie Wiesel just for starters.
“We’re all too capable of perversely embracing suppressive viewpoints that violate our own interest. We’re paid not only to write but to think, yet we don’t think; we listen keenly for whatever tune is playing in our fellow travelers’ AirPods and whistle along. Apparently, we’re no more creative than the average bear, and as soon as the memo goes out, we’ll chant along with the kiddies camped at Columbia University, “from the river to the sea!” whatever that means. We’ll obediently switch out one cause for another whenever we’re told…
“We’re cowards, conformists, and copycats. Real freedom of expression is too scary; we’d rather hide in a crowd whose keffiyeh-masked members all shout the same thing…. But too many of its members would have the nonprofit corrupt its global mission to protect free speech across the board so long as they can bully its leadership into pointless partisan posturing for progressives’ acrid flavor of the month.”
This on hate speech, free speech, and legitimate lines to be drawn. Good discussion of these issues.
https://www.thefp.com/p/where-free-speech-ends-and-lawbreaking-begins
“Where Free Speech Ends and Lawbreaking Begins: The First Amendment does not give carte blanche to intimidation and harassment” Ilya Shapiro, November 27, 2023
“Even antisemites have the right to free speech, as Nadine Strossen and Pamela Paresky correctly wrote in The Free Press. Since the Hamas massacre of October 7, they have been taking full advantage of that right. Especially on college campuses.
“Pro-Palestinian groups have harassed and even assaulted Jewish students; protesters have interrupted courses and taken over buildings; Ivy League professors have called Hamas’s attack “exhilarating” and “awesome”; students have torn down posters of missing Israeli children; others have chanted—and even projected onto university buildings—slogans, like “from the river to the sea,” “globalize the intifada,” and “glory to our martyrs.”
“In response to such activities, universities have suspended or banned student groups like Students for Justice in Palestine…. Republican lawmakers have suggested revoking the student visas of those participating in anti-Israel protests.
“Those who care deeply about free speech are asking themselves many questions at this urgent moment: What should we make of the calls to punish Hamas apologists on campus? After all, this is America, where you have the right to say even the vilest things. Yes, many of the same students who on October 6 called for harsh punishment for “microaggressions” are now chanting for the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state. But Americans are entitled to be hypocrites.
“Don’t these students have the same right to chant Hamas slogans as the neo-Nazis did to march in 1977 in Skokie, Illinois—a town then inhabited by many Holocaust survivors?…
“Much of what we’ve witnessed on campuses over the past few weeks is not, in fact, speech, but conduct designed specifically to harass, intimidate, and terrorize Jews. Other examples involve disruptive speech that can properly be regulated by school rules. Opposing or taking action against such behavior in no way violates the core constitutional principle that the government can’t punish you for expressing your beliefs.
“The question, as always, is where to draw the line, and who’s doing the line-drawing.
“Here are some of the most pressing questions those who care about civil liberties and protecting the rights of Jewish students are asking.
“What are some examples of protest activities that are rightly considered conduct rather than speech?
“In drawing the line between speech and conduct, some cases are easy.
“Beating someone up, as has happened at Columbia and Tulane, is assault. Crowding around someone in a threatening manner, like a group of Harvard students—including an editor of the Harvard Law Review—did to an Israeli student who filmed their protest, is commonly known as the crime of “menacing.” A pattern of actions designed to frighten and harass someone, like forcing Jewish students into the Cooper Union library while pounding on the doors and windows, is stalking.
“Defacing someone’s property by spray-painting swastikas and slogans, as happened at American University, is vandalism. So is tearing down posters—at least on private property and in most campus settings. And masking at a protest, also a hallmark of events sponsored by the Students for Justice in Palestine organization, is illegal in many states—a remnant of the battle against KKK intimidation.
“The proper response to such behavior, regardless of how “expressive” someone may claim it to be, is the same response we’d have to instances of assault, stalking, intimidation, and other crimes in any other context: identify, arrest, and prosecute the perpetrators. And in the campus setting, expel them.
“Are genocidal slogans like “globalize the intifada” or “from the river to the sea” protected by the First Amendment?
“It depends on the context.
“First, a clear-cut case: the Cornell student who posted death threats online to Jewish students was rightly arrested, because, as the Supreme Court held, the Constitution doesn’t protect “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”
“In addition to such “true threats” (and not simply political hyperbole), the First Amendment does not protect the incitement of violence, which the Supreme Court has defined as speech that is “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” The courts have set a high bar on meeting this standard—but it’s surely been reached in some recent cases both on and off-campus….
“Wait, but isn’t shouting antisemitic epithets hate speech?
“Offensive or “hate” speech is constitutionally protected—including burning a flag or giving a racially charged speech to a restless crowd….
“What about the interruption of classes and speakers by protesters? Isn’t this just more speech that’s protected by the First Amendment?…
“There’s a difference between protest and disruption…. But students aren’t allowed to shut down events, disrupt classes, or otherwise interfere with university programs….
“As Yascha Mounk, a liberal fed up with campus illiberalism, explained in a pithy X thread, “part of protecting free speech is to punish students who violate the rules that make free speech possible for everyone else….
“Many of the students who participated in the protests at MIT and elsewhere are foreign nationals. What are their free speech rights as noncitizens?…
“But MIT declined to take action against demonstrators who prevented Jewish students from attending class, despite warnings that they were violating university policies, precisely because officials knew that many of the harassers were foreign students subject to deportation. The school’s refusal to do so effectively gives foreigners—but not Americans—the right to harass, intimidate, and vandalize….
“Ilya Shapiro is the director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and author of Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court and the forthcoming Canceling Justice: The Illiberal Takeover of Legal Education (HarperCollins). He also writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack.”
“For another view, read Choose Counterspeech Over Cancel Culture by Nadine Strossen and Pamela Paresky in Time. And let us know what you think in the comments.”
More on protecting free speech
https://public.substack.com/p/youre-only-for-free-speech-if-you
“You’re Only For Free Speech If You Defend It For People You Hate: We should protect people physically, not emotionally”, Alex Gutentag, Michael Shellenberger, May 1, 2024
Quotes:
“Pro-Palestine protests on college campuses around the country have inflamed debates about free speech and antisemitism. Some Republicans and Democrats claim that government oversight and censorship of hate speech is needed to address these protests….
“Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who in 2019 signed a bill to guarantee freedom of speech in Texas universities, suggested that protesters should be arrested for their views….
“And most recently, the House Rules Committee advanced the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023, a bipartisan bill to expand the definition of antisemitism in Title VI federal anti-discrimination law….
“All of these efforts are violations of freedom of speech and we condemn them unreservedly. It’s once again time to remind ourselves and our fellow citizens that the test of our commitment to free speech is when we demand its protection for our enemies and for speech we hate, not for our friends and for speech we like….
“Columbia students also pushed pro-Israel Jewish students out of their Gaza solidarity encampment on the campus lawn. In a similar incident, pro-Palestine protesters prevented a pro-Israel Jewish student at UCLA from accessing his route to class.
“In these instances, and others, protesters infringed on the rights of fellow tuition-paying students. University rules place limits on the time, place, and manner of protests. Constructing encampments, blocking parts of campus, and occupying buildings are clear violations of these rules and are not forms of protected speech….
“We reject the far left’s ideological extremism and its endorsement of Hamas’ actions on October 7. At the same time, we share the left’s concerns about civilian deaths in Gaza, violations of the Geneva Conventions, Israel’s political leadership, and potential escalation to a wider conflict.
“We believe there is currently a great deal of confusion and hypocrisy around free speech on both sides of this debate. Some on the right who once claimed to believe in absolute free speech are now calling for a crackdown on “hate speech.” Meanwhile, many on the left, who have endorsed “cancel culture” and basically all censorship of their opponents since 2016, are now crying “Free speech!” without recognizing or admitting to how their own activities have set a terrible precedent.
“Yet the line between speech and unlawful conduct is quite clear. Blocking traffic, taking over buildings, and constructing encampments are acts of force, and are not protected by the First Amendment….
“Supporting free speech requires supporting the speech rights of those you disagree with. We increasingly appear to be in a free speech crisis, in which few are willing to defend free speech for all. That needs to change, and well-meaning people on all sides need to speak out once again for freedom of speech.”
I would argue that the physics of CO2 is the real “elephant in the room”, but the 97% consensus claim is, with other issues, a close second.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/01/the-in-depth-story-behind-the-97-of-scientists-climate-fraud/
“The In-depth Story Behind the 97% of Scientists Climate Myth”, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 1, 2024
Some quotes from the above link:
“This four-year old presentation by Dr. John Robson investigates the unsound origins and fundamental inaccuracy, even dishonesty, of the claim that 97% of scientists, or “the world’s scientists”, or something agree that climate change is man-made, urgent and dangerous.
“There are so many empty slogans out there I wish we could tackle all of them at once. But the “97% of scientists agree” is surely the elephant in the room. Lots of people have tried to rebut it by dismissing the notion of consensus itself, or by praising the historical examples of renegade scientists who went against a prevailing consensus and turned out to be right. But that unnecessarily concedes the major claim itself, which the evidence shows is simply not true….
“The claim that 97% of the world’s scientists agree is pretty much the ace of trumps in the whole climate debate….
“At first glance it seems straightforward enough. In 2013 President Barack Obama famously tweeted that “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.”
“In 2014, his Secretary of State John Kerry said 97% of “the world’s scientists tell us this is urgent.” And that same year, CNN said “97% of scientists agree that climate change is happening now, that it’s damaging the planet and that it’s manmade.”…
“Also, there are lots of indications that the world is somewhat warmer now than it was in the mid-1800s, the end of a natural cooling period called the Little Ice Age.
“Finally, virtually nobody disputes that humans have changed the environment of our planet, by releasing emissions into the air, changing the land surface, putting things in the water, and so forth.
“These aren’t controversial ideas, and they’re accepted even by most climate skeptics. What we don’t accept is that any of them prove that humans are the only cause of global warming, or that climate change is a dangerous threat….
“In 2009, a pair of researchers at the University of Illinois sent an online survey to over 10,000 Earth scientists asking two simple questions: Do you agree that global temperatures have generally risen since the pre-1800s? and Do you think that human activity is a significant contributing factor?…
“They found a 97 percent consensus among 2 percent of the survey respondents. And even so it was only that there’d been some warming since the 1800s, which virtually nobody denies, and that humans are partly responsible. These experts didn’t say it was dangerous or urgent, because they weren’t asked….
“The survey authors didn’t ask if climate change was dangerous or “manmade”….
“How many of the studies claimed that humans have caused most of the observed global warming?… A mere 64 out of nearly 12,000 papers! That’s not 97%, it’s one half of one percent. It’s one in 200.
“And it gets worse. In a follow-up study, climatologist David Legates read those 64 papers and found that a third of them didn’t even say what Cook and his team claimed. Only 41 actually endorsed the view that global warming is mostly manmade. And we still haven’t got to it being “dangerous”. That part of the survey results was simply invented, by politicians and activists….
“A social psychologist named Jose Duarte, who specializes in survey design, published an analysis of that one, pointing out that they diluted the sample by including large numbers of psychologists, philosophers, political scientists, and other non-experts, making their results meaningless as a measure of what scientists think. Just as you’ll find that the people who cite that 97% number are overwhelmingly not trained scientists, certainly not trained statisticians….
“The problem is, not a single one of those societies took a survey of their members before issuing their statements in the name of their members. The statements were put out by a small number of activists using their committee positions to make it look as though their views are shared by all the world’s experts….
“And then they’re spun wildly by non-scientists to tell us things they don’t begin to say, often about questions they didn’t even attempt to investigate…
“All this talk of a 97% consensus amounts to a dishonest bullying campaign to stifle scientific debate just when we need it most because the question looms so large in public policy….
“A scientist who contests the prevailing narrative on human-caused warming, or merely produces smaller estimates, will likely end up on a McCarthyite blacklist of ‘deniers’. Self-described mainstream climate scientists refer the public to such lists, implicitly endorsing the smearing of their colleagues. This is disturbing, and unheard of in other sciences.” (See full detail on the history of the 97% consensus claim at the link above)
This site will continue to affirm that its going to be alright, whether through the detailed research of people like Julian Simon on the main features of life that show the true state of life and the real trajectory of life as improving over long term. Or whether in terms of ultimate realities, for example, all the research on the central message of Historical Jesus that God is a stunningly unconditional, nonretaliatory reality that includes all both good and bad, and demands no conditions for salvation (no sacrifice or payment), makes no threat of ultimate judgment, no threat of exclusion, no separation, and no punishment or destruction… entirely contrary to the multitudinous conditions of religious traditions, the endless threat theology.
Affirming that its going to be alright, involves accessing the best sources on the basic facts of our world, and also considering the best insights from spiritual/philosophical traditions. This is all part of the project or quest to understand what this thing of life on Earth is all about, to answer our primal impulse for meaning.
The “elephant in the room” issue to engage in affirming that “its going to be alright” is to confront the great fraud and lie that is primitive apocalyptic mythology. This primitive psychopathology still dominates world religions today and has been embraced in varied “secular/ideological” versions like climate alarmism. If you doubt this “domination” of apocalyptic mythology today, see Arthur Herman’s “The Idea of Decline in Western History” (“most dominant and influential theme today”), the surveys noted in “Ten Global Trends” (majorities of populations believing “the world is getting worse”), the daily obsession of news media with climate alarm reports (“worst on record”), and Hollywood’s growing obsession with apocalyptic-themed movies over past decades ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films ), and so on.
Nothing is more devastating to hope than this antihuman nihilism of apocalyptic that deforms human spirits and even, in some, incites longing for the destruction of life and the world. The worst consequence of endlessly beating apocalyptic mythology into populations is that it leads people to mindlessly embrace irrational schemes to “save the world by destroying the world” (e.g. decarbonization). This site brings diverse sources of evidence and insights to counter this primitive lie, whether in good religious research that counters apocalyptic myths, or the material facts on the true state of the world. All to counter this consciousness-deforming myth that has a record of ruining life for many.
As Arthur Mendel said, apocalyptic is the most violent and destructive myth because, based on this falsehood, alarmists have terrorized populations with end of days scenarios that have aroused the survival impulse in people. Alarmists have then proposed salvation schemes to the frightened and susceptible populations, salvation schemes that have ruined life and societies (e.g. Richard Landes on the Xhosa cattle slaughter in South Africa). Look at what “save the world” decarbonization is doing right now to our societies. And remember what apocalyptic did through Marxism (100 million deaths) and Nazism (50-60 million deaths). So climate apocalyptic is shaping up to generate potentially even worse mass-death outcomes ( https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/04/radical-leftists-say-oil-companies-are-committing-climate-murder/ ).
Apocalyptic mythology has shaped the climate alarm as a “profoundly religious crusade”. Note the main themes/features of the apocalyptic complex of ideas, whether in religious or secular versions- i.e. (1) a lost or better past, (2) life now declining toward catastrophic “existential crisis” and the end of life, (3) the demand for sacrifice (suffering as redemptive) and (4) the purging of some evil threat (CO2, the food of all life, demonized as the great threat to life today), and (5) the promise of the restoration of the lost paradise in collectivist utopian society.
Many of us have observed the unsettling retreat into tribalism in our societies today. The intensifying divisiveness that exhibits in excessive demonization of differing others. That then festers and erupts in projects to dehumanize the other. Note these particular smears, common in public media tribalism (media, coming out as highly partisan propagandists, and no longer keeping up any pretense to fair balance or objectivity): These, in particular, are the common go-to smears of today’s partisan demonization crusades… “Nazi, fascist, racist, communist, foreign/Russian agent, right-wing (dog whistle for white supremacist extremist), domestic terrorist, disinformation hate speech proponent, etc.”.
As with all past similar excesses of demonization of differing others (e.g. Rwanda, Germany under Hitler), initial dehumanization then validates outraged hatred of the other as intolerably and dangerously evil, a threat to all that is good, to democracy, to civilization, even to life itself (i.e. as in the climate alarmism demonization of all humanity for enjoying the good life).
The demonization/dehumanization phase then validates the demand for required purging of the threat, for “coercive purification” as necessary to save something (“save the world… save democracy”). And hence, the totalitarian impulse is unleashed, though framed in terms of a heroically righteous crusade to conquer and eliminate evil as critical to the salvation of whatever is purported to be under existential threat.
These purging crusades have infected liberal democracies across the Western world- notable in laws now being pushed by governments (i.e. “Online Harms” bills- Canada), with ill-defined boundaries that do not distinguish true hate speech from differing opinion. Such laws arm powerholders with the tools to discredit and outlaw the “dangerous menace” that they feel is posed by differing others, by political opponents. Others have noted the danger here of “Concept creep” that expands “hate speech” to include opinions and speech that makes someone feel “uncomfortable.. threatened… upset… etc.”.
The exaggerated demonization of opponents has validated diverse public agencies (i.e. intelligence agencies, state bureaucracies, political parties) to create programs and projects to investigate and censor political opponents as guilty of “hate speech, disinformation, foreign interference, etc.”. Political opponents are now being censored, silenced, banned from public forums and arenas, cancelled, even criminalized.
Comedians are included in the authoritarian lockdowns of dissent today. Authoritarians do not tolerate being laughed at as public mockery undermines unquestioning belief in their heroic status as society saviors. Laughter weakens the potency of their authority.
Richard Landes warns of the potential extreme reach of this tribal authoritarianism, notably when alarmist movements shift dangerously toward “exterminate or be exterminated” phases. That is the real peril on the horizon of this tribal divisiveness, excessive demonization of differing others, dehumanization, intensifying hatred and calls for purging or coercive purification. Add the self-delusional framing that members of each side present, claiming that to save something under “existential threat” they must engage a heroic righteous battle against the intolerable evil on the other side, and that demands state policies and coercion to have others censored, silenced, banned, and criminalized.
On the Canadian “Online Harms” law and those who pooh-pooh its potential outcomes… “And for people who don’t think that this is going to happen or that people won’t turn each other in. From what I understand, when Scotland passed a law recently, they had 7,000 complaints in the first week where people were diming each other out.”
“America This Week, May 10, 2024: Canada Uber Alles! On Justin Trudeau’s Terrifying New Speech Law”, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn.
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-may-bf9
My intro comments recommending this Taibbi/Kirn podcast to a discussion group:
“This is an important one to read fully. It’s about such fundamental things as liberal democracy, freedom, and so much more… Wendell Krossa
“First- Note their comments on media corruption (news media functioning as state propagandists). This has become so widespread, so common in news media that it has become “normalized”. It is a stunning abandonment of liberalism, of liberal democracy, by those formerly identifying as “liberals, Democrats” but now embracing “highly illiberal” authoritarianism, or “totalitarianism”, as Shellenberger says. Unbelievable rejection of former liberalism and yet the proponents just don’t realize it, or more correctly, they have framed themselves a narrative that tells them that they are heroes in a righteous battle against intolerable evil in the monster that they have created- a “Nazi, Hitler, racist, fascist, dictator, threat to democracy… etc.”. So, to save democracy, save the world, they are obligated to engage a righteous battle against this monster, democracy be damned.
“Blinded by their validating narrative, they engage censorship, criminalizing opponents, silencing opposition/dissent… One defender of the Democratic party actually stated that their liberal/leftist violence against conservatives was legitimate force. He compared liberal assaults on conservatives during the Trump administration to the Allies in WW2 fighting against Hitler. Their force (conservatives) was evil violence, he explained, and ours was good force. It was necessary to save the world. He said that on a Fox News interview during Trump’s presidency in a defensive response to the complaints of violence against Trump supporters.
“Note just some of the highlighted statements below for a taste of the fuller discussion further below. Taibbi and Kirn go over the surprising anger of executive editor Joe Khan (New York Times) over the White House pressure on the Times to “do its job” of propagandizing for the Democratic Party and his refusal, his desire to return the Times to actual journalism as part of the Fourth Estate in democracy.
“Kahn answers an interviewer, “Good media is the fourth estate. It’s another pillar of democracy. One of the absolute necessities of democracy is having a free and fair open election where people can compete for votes. And the role of the news media is not to skew your coverage towards one candidate or another, but just to provide very good, hard-hitting, well-rounded coverage of both candidates and informing voters. If you believe in democracy, I don’t see how we get past the essential role of quality media in informing people about their choice in a presidential election.”
“Kirn says this, “We live in this postmodern world where it’s not the facts, it’s the information, and it’s not the story, it’s how it’s reported and who it favors. And we’ve been in that mindset for so long now that the return of some kind of realism (as in Kahn’s statements) feels revolutionary”.
“And then they go into Trudeau’s own version of totalitarianism with his Online Harms bill and the danger that poses. As they say, this is something like N. Korean or Stalinist encouragement of snitching.” (end of my post to group)
Some quotes from Taibbi/Kirn discussion:
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: We’ve spent years working with different community groups, with advocates, with minority communities, with experts, with people in all sorts of different backgrounds to make sure that what we’re doing is actually protecting kids, and I look forward to putting forward that online harms bill, which people will see is very, very specifically focused on protecting kids and not on censoring the internet as misinformation and as the right wing tends to try and characterize it as. I think everyone, wherever they are on the political spectrum, can agree that protecting kids is something governments should be focused on doing.
“Matt Taibbi: Okay, so we have a bit of a confession to make. We had this entire podcast cut already, and then some more phone calls happened and we realized that, or at least I realized that I think we sort of undersold this story maybe a little bit the first time we discussed it. So we’re going to start with some information that’s really shocking. And for journalists, this is why you always make more phone calls because you never know what’s going to happen to a story. “This story about the online harms, bill, Walter, you reached out to me earlier this week about it, and some people here in the States have heard about it. When was the first time you heard about it, Walter?
“Walter Kirn: I heard it from a Twitter account who goes by the name Camus, as in Albert Camus, who retweeted some alarmist summary of the thing, which I thought couldn’t be true, so I passed it over to you, the human fact checking machine, to see if this crazy law that may be the last law that Canada ever needs to pass because it will-
“Matt Taibbi: Exactly.
Walter Kirn: It absolutely consolidate control over their society in a way that East Germany could only have dreamed of. Somebody in Canada went, “What if we try East Germany again with way better tech?” And they came up with this thing.
“Matt Taibbi: Yeah, that’s exactly right. When you first pass this to me, essentially the headline revelations in most American coverage of this, to the extent that there has been any, is that this is a bill that is going to aggressively punish hate speech, and it has unusual features like it will allow the government to prosecute crimes that, past statements, things that you said in the past, it will allow them to punish you for things you haven’t said yet, and it will carry extraordinary penalties, like for instance, life sentences for things like advocating genocide.
“Now, they already had laws against advocating genocide, but the maximum penalty was five years. So I thought that was crazy enough, and we discussed that a little bit, and then talked to some more lawyers. This bill is actually way worse than advertised. I don’t know how else to describe it except this is the blueprint for a modern dystopian state, basically.
“They’ve outlined the architecture for a state that basically enrolls all of society in the process of tattling on one another, similar to the way people do on the internet. Except here, there will be criminal penalties behind it and huge fines. And there’s even a funding mechanism whereby you can tell on other people for alleged hate crimes. And if that leads to a ruling…
“Walter Kirn: Not in every case, but we need to move now to the worst case scenarios and work backwards. And the truth of this is that once adopted, there will be almost no route to correcting it because it’s going to so fear and mutual suspicion to a point that I don’t think any society has had to deal with in the modern era.
“Matt Taibbi: It’s really amazing. I probably talked to a half dozen lawyers this week, Canadian lawyers, and one of the things they said is, “Thank God you’re calling because nothing ever happens in Canada until the Americans complain about it.” So if you’re listening to this podcast, there are people in Canada who are desperate for us to make us think about this because Canadians aren’t doing it on their own. There’s a very limited lobby for these kinds of problems.
“And as you say, there’s already a chilling effect on the speech climate there, a very serious one, as a matter of fact. So people aren’t talking very much, but let’s just go through the mathematics of how this works. And this is what’s so sinister. So as you say, the person who informs on you for a hate speech offense can do so in a manner that protects their identity, and they can receive $20,000 if it ends up being a penalty. And here’s the math of this.
“Walter Kirn: How publicly would you announce that you are one of the administrators of this program? These people are going to be the most secret star chamber FISA judge cloaked in mystery people because the first one will probably be assassinated. Okay? The first one to go public will need the greatest security available in Canada. All the next ones will be kept in an ice castle above the Arctic Circle.
“Here’s the problem, Matt. Every once in a while, there’s a certain pace to these chilling laws and these surveillance and censorship endeavors. You expect them to mount sort of like a staircase. But every once in a while, they launch a rocket with plasma energy that breaks the speed of light, and you think, wow, are they doing that because they expect it to work, or are they doing that to just show us how truly evil, evil can be? Because it almost doesn’t matter.
“Walter Kirn: We just saw Trudeau frame it as the salvation of children, as the only line standing between them and exploitation and abuse or whatever it is, the harm that they’ve imagined this addresses, but everything we see about the details of the law doesn’t seem to have much to do with children at all.
“Matt Taibbi: Right. Right. There are sections that have to do with abuses against children, child pornography, but there are almost all things that are already against the law in Canada.
“So, everyone is going to be cast in the role of a self-watcher at the most extreme and important levels because not to watch yourself carefully enough is to fall into the hands of these snitches, or these vague regulations or whatever.
“Matt Taibbi: And for people who don’t think that this is going to happen or that people won’t turn each other in. From what I understand, when Scotland passed a law recently, they had 7,000 complaints in the first week where people were diming each other out.
“Matt Taibbi: Yeah. And this thing is much more beneficial to the tipster, to the informant. They used the word informant in the law, which I think is creepy. And there’s no downside. There’s no cost to file. You don’t need to hire a lawyer, and it’s just all upside. You don’t pay anything if they find against you, but you do receive money if they find for you. And it’s just an extraordinary thing. And so, what kinds of things would this be?
“Well, they have hate speech laws, and it involves what they call detestation of an identifiable group. And that can be any section of the public distinguished by color, race, religion, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability. Now, they added gender identity or expression, I think in 2017 or 2018. So what does this mean? This means if you get up and say, “I don’t think a biological male should be competing in a swim event,” that could end up being a case really easily.
“Walter Kirn: And Matt, I hesitate to ever use a specific example when we’re talking about something so amorphous as “hate speech”, because 20 years ago there were non-offenses that are offenses now. And five years from now at the rate things are going because this has gone parabolic, this process, there will be attitudes, statements, sentiments, which we don’t even consider a problem now, that will be of grave importance to the hate monitors.
“It is some kind of Peter’s principles of law enforcement that if not enough arrests are being made, they just lower the standards until they get them, or they raise the bounty. And they will get to whatever their goals are in terms of enforcement. But more importantly, they will instantly be at their goal in terms of fear.
“So politically, you’re going to see the elimination of almost any kind of dissenting, edgy material. There’s going to be all kinds of stuff that will just automatically disappear. Also, people will self-censor, absolutely.
“And then this is the last thing I want to say about this is just I think, Walter, you’re on the money when you talk about how we are just going to have to adopt, or at least Canadians will, they’re going to have to relearn how to think.
“Walter Kirn: Well, I’d go even further. And since the mind of Philip K. Dick, the amphetamine-soaked, LSD-enhanced mind of Philip K. Dick, paranoid cat fancier, anticipated this kind of thing, I think it behooves us to think like a paranoid, amphetamine-fueled cat fancier. Once it reaches this stage, I think it’s the end of rationality. The quality of a thought will no longer be measured by whether it flows from the premises on which it’s based, it will flow from its possible effect on the potential audience which might feel triggered or hated or sensitive to it.
“So, we’re no longer going to use a syllogistic or data-based or inductive or observational set of rules when we make a statement. We will work backwards from the potential effects and the potential offenses in any statement whatsoever.
“And that is, like you used the word metaphysical, that is a metaphysical revolution in what it means to be a thinking being. Because if you should see something, or come to a conclusion logically which has a hate element or could be construed to have it, you must not utter and hopefully even experience that thought or statement.
“Listen, it’s the end of anybody ever breaking up with their boyfriend or girlfriend too. The fear of creating enmity in your normal social life, no one will divorce, and anyone who isn’t married will not take the risk of getting married. This really makes personal relationships an intolerable risk. It simply does. Unless you know that you’re with someone of exactly the same profile.
“Matt Taibbi: And even then you’re not safe. I mean, it’s like the old Soviet Union, but it’s so much worse because of the technology. Your thoughts, your utterances, they’re captured by whatever devices you have at your home, things that you type. You’re going to be spending all of your mental energy thinking about these things.
“And yes, maybe it won’t go through exactly like this. Maybe some watered down version of this is coming, but it’s sort of like when we talked about the DIA app in Ukraine, we just have abundant evidence that all around the world, they’re passing laws like this and they keep upping the ante every time they introduce them.
“We already have the Digital Services Act, and in Europe they’ve passed, They have a law in Australia, the SMA, which is about to be updated, there’s one in Scotland, the Irish have a new online censorship bill. But this is different. This is transformational. At a societal level, it will change the whole nature of how people get along with one another and I think that’s something new. And we’ve been talking about the censorship topic, but this is beyond that. This is a new kind of governance that they’re talking about. Even it has less to do with censorship than it does with rewiring society completely. And I don’t know, I think it’s really scary and it’s going to warrant some more investigation, obviously too.
“Walter Kirn: They are the one country in the world that probably doesn’t need these laws for the next million years. They are the meekest, mildest, most neighborly people on earth. And as a reward for that, they’re going to get the biggest crackdown in planetary history because they’re not fearful and thoughtful enough. Talk about be careful what you wish for. Canada’s going to wish they had never said good day in their history because now the good day Borg is going to crush their minds. I find it amazing that a country where there is no thought crime is going to be the one that enforces it most vigorously.
“We grew up in a Western society where the idea that we wouldn’t be able to face our accuser, that’s just not possible or comprehensible to a person born in the United States. The idea that you could be punished pretty seriously without being judged by your peers, for instance, or going through a real process with real rules of evidence, or that you can be convicted on really, really bogus kinds of evidence, like hearsay evidence. Ex post facto laws, pre-crime, this is all stuff that nobody who grew up in a society, rights-based society could even conceive of. And so I think a lot of this is sort of aimed at that. It’s just aimed at reiterating our expectations of individual rights.”
(See full discussion at link above)