Sitesplainin (more on going to root contributing factors in human narratives and the outcomes in human lives): Wendell Krossa
I have no “scientific” reputation to protect or maintain. That does not weaken my respect for good science. But I am an “independent and generalist”, taking helpful insights from anywhere and everywhere, using personal criteria to evaluate the usefulness (or “truthiness”) of any given insight or bit of information. Sources are always provided here for readers to evaluate.
This site unapologetically engages “spiritual” issues and deity theories. These have always been central to human curiosity and the primal human impulse to meaning- i.e. to understand and explain existence, reality, and the why and purpose of it all. As curious beings, we “have to” explore the nature of ultimate reality, ultimate ideals, and ultimate purpose. So, speculate away. Just recognize what you are doing- i.e. what is fairly settled evidence and what is speculation.
Moving back to the point here on engaging the metaphysical/spiritual…
Note for example (our irresistible urge to probe the metaphysical), in Manjit Kumar’s “Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, And The Great Debate About The Nature Of Reality”, how repeatedly Einstein offered religious explanations in his responses to Neils Bohr. “God doesn’t play dice… God doesn’t use telepathy (quantum entanglement)…”, etc.
Einstein held traditional theories of God as some great intervenor and controller of all things, hence his “doesn’t play dice” comment. That misunderstands the essential and inseparable relationship of love to freedom. The “indeterminacy” of quantum mechanics points to this element of freedom.
Einstein resisted what quantum mechanics was uncovering because he held very traditional, very primitive views of deity which did not fit with his dated views of what reality should be. He could not let go of his “Old Man” deity and that is part of why, later in his life, he was sidelined by the physics community.
Einstein stated that one fundamental thing drove his curiosity- i.e. to know what “the Old One thinks”. He said, “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are just details”. Interesting also that he wanted to spend the rest of his life probing light, much like NDEs are centrally about Light.
But a critical qualifier to this point on “spiritual” or deity ideas: I part ways with the long history of religious theories of God. This site embraces “stunningly inexpressible no conditions love” as the singularly defining feature of God. The single most profound insight that humanity has discovered.
“Single most profound”? Unconditional takes us to the highest reach of love. In addition to presenting a stunning new understanding of God, it takes our defining feature as humans i.e. love- to its absolute height. Unconditional is the singular feature that orients us toward what is truly human or fully humane. To how “we tower in stature as maturely human” and become the heroes of our stories.
Unconditional as an ultimate ideal for humanity is best summed in that central theme of Jesus- “Love your enemies unconditionally because God loves God’s enemies unconditionally”. That summarizes a core feature to shape human narratives and life, giving fundamental direction to a central reason or purpose of conscious human existence and story.
No religion has ever communicated the unconditional nature of God to humanity. Religious traditions, created to essentially communicate divine conditions for people, cannot communicate the reality of a truly unconditional God.
Historical Jesus tried to communicate God as unconditional but “his greatest contribution to the history of ideas” (James Robinson) was quickly buried by Paul’s retreat to highly conditional deity and his supremely conditional Christ myth. Paul buried the stunning new theological insight of Jesus. He rejected the essential theme of “Jesus-ianity” and replaced it with his entirely contrary “Christ-ianity”. That is history’s greatest religious contradiction and scandal.
Paul’s Christology is a rejection of the message of Historical Jesus, and an egregious dishonoring of the man. As my friend Bob Brinsmead says, Paul rejected “the message of the man” and replaced that with “a message about the man”.
The egregious thing here is that Paul’s Christ myth short-circuited the greatest possible liberation movement in history- i.e. freedom from the “threat theology” that has dominated all religions across history and has been a horrifically damaging influence on human consciousness and life. For example- note the psychic misery added to human physical suffering from the belief that an angry, punitive God is behind the harmful elements of the natural world- i.e. angry God punishing human sin through natural disaster, disease, accidents, and predatory cruelty. Add here the harmful impact of “threat of after-life harm” as in future judgment, exclusion, and punishment myths. (And before denial kicks in, note how Paul told the Corinthians that their sickness and dying was punishment from God for their sins- 1 Corinthians 10 and 11.)
Psychologists/psychotherapists Zenon Lotufo and Harold Ellens have detailed how the cruel God theology above has deformed human personality with unnecessary fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, depression, nihilism, and violence (“Cruel God, Kind God”).
Threat theology, or Cruel God theology, has dominated human minds from the very beginning and has re-enforced enslavement to our inherited animal impulses that have deformed consciousness and lives across history, resulting in endless misery.
Threat theology or “Cruel God” theology includes the features of God that incite and validate the worst of our inherited animal impulses:
(1) Tribal deity (Zoroastrian dualism that validates human tribalism- as in favoring/including true believers, excluding unbelievers).
(2) God as dominating lord, king, ruler (validating human forms of domination/submission, i.e. the divine right of kings, submission to government authorities- see Romans 13).
(3) God as punitive destroyer who validates punitive justice responses to human failure and to “enemies”, contrary to the “love your enemies” that Jesus taught, expressed in restorative justice approaches. Also, Harold Ellens’ point that if God uses violent force to solve problems, then so may we also solve problems with violent force. This relates to the long-term human impulse to base behavior on similar beliefs, ethics based on similar theology.
Jesus had offered freedom in the depths of human mind, subconscious, and spirit by going to the foundational and central idea in narratives (deity) and rejecting the old threatening deity. He offered the stunning new alternative of a no conditions or unconditionally loving God. Liberation from threat theology.
With his stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory, unconditional God, he offered a new ultimate ideal to inspire human thought, emotion, motivation, and response/behavior.
My point:
The above issues drive my Daddy thing- To tell kids that it’s going to be alright, here and now, and in the future (i.e. after-life). There is no monster threatening us from behind life or from beyond life.
So kids, enjoy life, engage life fully, contribute something to making life and the world better. Knowing that we are all safe in the end. There is no ultimate monster out there.
And be fully woke about Classic Liberalism as the best that we have found for protecting and promoting our highest ideals of love, freedom, and equality. And to the contrary, be aware of how collectivism deforms, undermines, and destroys love, freedom, and equality with deformed compassion and salvation schemes that destroy democracy and life to “save democracy and life”.
A further note in this “sitesplainin”- I cringe at scientific rationalism that endlessly kowtows to dogmatic philosophical materialism as offering the only true conclusions from rational science- i.e. that rational scientific explanations must unquestioningly be materialist explanations with their orientation to meaningless randomness that points to ultimate nihilism. Nonsense.
We appreciate science for its immense benefits but recognize that it is a limited project, with a limited mandate that will not produce an ultimate TOE (Theory Of Everything). Science has a limiting methodology that is great in discovering and explaining how natural law operates in material reality. But it will never tell us who the invisible Reality is at the core of our illusory material realm, the great Source that created and sustains all things. Science will not tell us for what purpose this material realm exists. In fact, materialist science denies and discredits the idea of purpose/teleology.
To know more about such things, we have to engage discovery for ourselves, taking insights from all sorts of sources, both material and spiritual.
Just for interest sake- Note Joe Rogan and guest discussing the term “God” (starting around the 11 or 12 min mark). Yes, take the word back, but reframe it away from religious distortions. Do something like what Historical Jesus did, reject the old religious theological framing for entirely new alternatives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcdItgUjZnY
Notes on protests or qualifiers re theology:
A repeat from a section I posted below on this site- I have never felt at ease with the adjective/noun “unconditional” because it tends to orient people to mushy, pacifist understandings of love as in “turn the other cheek”. As one discussion group participant responded, “Unconditional? Oh, you mean let all the psychopaths go free”. No. Unconditional does not point to such conclusions.
But lacking a better alternative term, I add qualifiers such as- Any common-sense understanding of love will hold all responsible for the consequences of their behavior.
Meaning, for example, that people who cannot or will not control their impulses to violence must be locked up because the primary concern of criminal justice systems must be to protect innocent people. And if psychopathy is found in the mix of criminal behavior, then sometimes the key must be thrown away.
Again, don’t instinctively assume that unconditional love is about mushy, pacifist meanings of “unconditional” (i.e. false compassion) that do not hold people responsible for their behavior (i.e. “de-carceration of violent people, no cash bail, etc.).
As I said previously in a section below:
“In commenting on this, I face again my personal quibbles with the term “unconditional” that is central to this issue of deity and the spiritual. Unconditional tends to orient people toward mushy pacifist conceptions of love (i.e. “turn the other cheek”) and that is not what unconditional is about. Any truly humane version of love will hold people responsible for the consequences of their behavior. Meaning, love will unhesitatingly embrace the incarceration of violent people in order to protect others.
“Where unconditional is useful is in pointing to the absolutely “no conditions” reality that is God. Unconditional in deity presents us with the most humane ideal to inspire us to maintain our humanity as we face evil throughout life. “Maintaining our humanity”? Yes, shaping our narratives with the supremely humane ideal of unconditional God then influences our consciousness, our emotions and motivations, and then subsequently our responses and treatment of others, thereby enabling us to maintain our humanity throughout the worst that life throws at us.”
The distinction above may make more sense if we accept that God is absolute unconditional love in an eternal realm that has no dualism between good and evil. But in this temporal realm of dualism we experience good and evil, and hence, the practical need for people to be held responsible for the consequences of their bad choices. This should be framed within speculations on the reason for this material realm- i.e. as a learning arena, a realm for human experience of dangerous freedom, exploration of life, growth, and development.
Relatedly, I also register a protest with the term “God” because it automatically orients people to religious conceptions of deity. And I outright reject religious definitions of that term and reality, preferring more “secularly” oriented conceptions such as “Consciousness, Mind, Intelligence, Spirit, Self, Source” etc., to orient consciousness to alternative conceptions of deity. “Universe” is another common alternative to God today, though it lacks the feature of full personhood.
And I would affirm Roy Varghese’s point (“The Wonder of the World”) that you don’t have Consciousness, Intelligence, or Mind without personhood or personality. God as “Person”, though infinitely beyond what we know as person.
I like Joseph Campbell’s point that the term “God” points to a reality that is “infinitely beyond the term God” which is what “transcendence” means in relation to deity, as in transcendent Mystery. A reality infinitely beyond human words, definitions, terms, or categories.
But, having acknowledged transcendent Mystery, I hold one “beyond question” baseline feature to define God- i.e. “stunningly inexpressible unconditional Love”. This self-validating feature alone defines ultimate Love, ultimate Good, and hence is most true of Ultimate Reality. That is the core of my “theodicy” and it defines my ultimate ideal that should shape narratives, ethics and relationships, justice systems… everything.
Another ‘sitesplainin’ qualifier– I am a strong advocate for the separation of state and religion, and the separation of science and philosophy/religion. Both seem impossible ideals in practice but they embody important protections as in equality, inclusion, freedom for all.
Warlike confrontation and bullying has soured the public. Extinction Rebellion, pro-Palestinian activism, and yes- climate hysteria- all activists need to learn from this.
Note again in this article the ‘oh-so-incessant’ blame smear (“far right, right wing”), used today to discredit and dehumanize worldwide “populism” revolts- “progressive voices simplistically blamed the “far right” — an amorphous enemy which they failed to define, and which provided a convenient explanation for seemingly all of society’s ills.”
People in general are mostly tolerant on most issues but you cannot keep poking and antagonizing them by pushing them to embrace extremist positions on issues. I put this in the context of Stephen Pinker’s comments (“Better Angels of Our Nature”) that after reflection on their past history, Christians over the last few centuries felt revulsion at that violent history and so moderated themselves in general. So with the Woke push to dominate all areas of our societies over past years, now producing revulsion in the general population, and along with revulsion a growing pushback, and hopefully a return to more general moderation.
“Militant LGBTQ activists ill-equipped to handle growing backlash”, Adam Zivo, June 19, 2024
Quotes:
“New polling data shows that support for LGBTQ rights is dropping precipitously in Canada — and while many queer activists will inevitably blame the far right for this development, the fact is that they themselves helped sabotage their own public support. Their abrasiveness and militancy has alienated the public…
“Radical activism, which tends to be warlike, was useful at the advent of the modern LGBTQ movement…. Though riots are often romanticized, you cannot build enduring social support by throwing bricks….
(Militant activists became resentful and) they ‘radicalized institutions’ and supplanted the rhetoric of “love is love” with the more antagonistic “ ‘Queer as in fuck you’ .”…
“To make a religious comparison, they stopped behaving like humble evangelists preaching in the town square, and instead became high priests who jealously guarded access to the scripture.
“While their bullying behaviour suppressed public criticism of progressive causes, it did nothing to address people’s underlying beliefs. Denied outlets to ask questions or discuss concerns, public discontent grew more pressurized, like a cyst filling with pus. Even moderate progressives, queer or not, silently bottled themselves….
“By 2020, the anti-LGBTQ backlash was finally noticed by the mainstream. Faced with a complex problem, progressive voices simplistically blamed the “far right” — an amorphous enemy which they failed to define, and which provided a convenient explanation for seemingly all of society’s ills….
“If the queer community could return to the diplomatic and image-conscious activism of previous generations, it would starve anti-LGBTQ activists of the outrage they feed upon.
“But instead, queer activists only urge more militancy . Their revolutionary theatre is too emotionally satisfying. Their echo chambers, unassailable. Their grandiose pretensions conceal a certain fecklessness — for they claim that they want to secure their rights by any means necessary, but consider conversations with outsiders too exhausting….
“Critics of radical activism are locked out of queer institutions and largely ignored by the mainstream media….
“It confounded us that our community leaders would antagonize the public so thoughtlessly, like poking a sleeping tiger. We were afraid then, and our fears were justified.”
National Post