I will soon post a full summary of Kristian Niemietz’s great analysis of the 24 Socialist experiments over the past century, their inevitable failure, and the defensive excuse-making of socialists after every failure. This sample quote from Niemietz…
“Socialism in the sense which self-identified democratic socialists define it… a democratized economic planned collectively by ‘the people’, has never been achieved anywhere and could not be achieved. Economic planning can only ever be done in a technocratic, elitist fashion, and it requires an extreme concentration of power in the hands of the state. It cannot ‘empower’ ordinary workers. It can only ever empower bureaucratic elites.”
Note revisions below, such as this….
“Kristian Niemietz brilliantly explains the psychopathology of why people continue to embrace and affirm this failed ideology (“Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”), how emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs. Think “confirmation bias”. He bases his arguments on the research of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Add here the research on how deformed (i.e. narcissistic) versions of compassion for the oppressed can result in people supporting approaches that harm the very people they claim to have compassion for.”
If you want to “run as you read”, then skip this opening part just below and go to the main comment below on “The Jesus/Paul contradiction” (Historical Jesus versus Paul’s Christ myth) and how the Christ element in this contradiction has profoundly shaped everything in Western consciousness and society today. Notably, the feature of apocalyptic in Paul’s Christ myth has been most responsible for embedding and affirming the fallacy of apocalyptic in subsequent Western narratives and consciousness, in narratives religious, “secular/ideological”, and even “scientific”. Apocalyptic has been “the most violent and destructive idea in history” (Arthur Mendel in “Vision and Violence”) and central to inciting alarmism in populations that are then rendered susceptible (due to incited survival impulse) to irrational salvation schemes that destroy society to “save the world”. Note Net Zero decarbonization here.
The Jesus element in this contradiction is critical for overturning the fallacy of apocalyptic. His “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God (hence, non-apocalyptic)” guts entirely the old primitive deity of past mythical and religious narratives. His “greatest contribution to the history of human ideas” (James Robinson) transforms the cohering center of the “lost paradise, decline of life toward apocalypse, demand for atonement/salvation” complex of myths. Unfortunately, the stunning new theological insight of Historical Jesus has been buried for two millennia by the Christ myth of Paul (conclusion of Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy).
There, in that “sermon in a second” I’ve given you the most egregious contradiction and scandal in history. Because its about the profound distortion and burial of the single most profound insight ever offered to humanity. An insight that could have liberated people as nothing ever before, liberation of mind, subconscious, spirit, and life. There is still time to properly honor the man- Historical Jesus- to take him and his central theme/message seriously.
Rogan and Peterson, and my “Go Jordan, go” affirmation of Peterson’s latest project, Wendell Krossa
This is the latest “Joe Rogan Experience” with guest Jordan Peterson, a Spotify episode of JRE, number 2180, also available on YouTube as per the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_3yOQl9E4I&t=329s
Peterson tells Rogan that he just opened his new online university- the “Peterson Academy”. Go Jordan and may the divine blow wind in your sails.
I would add the following as critical for students to get a good education, as vital to understanding the true state of the world and life…
To get to “the true state of life“, to see that it is on an ever-improving trajectory toward an ever-better future for humanity and all life- Include Julian Simon’s brilliant “Ultimate Resource” along with the many follow-up studies of evidence that affirmed Simon’s original volume of evidence- i.e. Greg Easterbrook’s “A Moment On The Earth”, Bjorn Lomborg’s “Skeptical Environmentalist”, Ronald Bailey’s “The End of Doom”, Indur Goklany’s “The Improving State of the World”, Desrocher and Szurmak’s “Population Bombed” (among the best affirmations of Simon’s arguments), Matt Ridley’s “Rational Optimist”, “Humanprogress.org”, and much more.
And particularly, on the never-ending improvement of humanity- see James Payne’s “History of Force”, and the follow-up to this by Stephen Pinker- “The Better Angels of Our Nature”.
These sources set forth the good scientific approach that (1) includes all the data on any element of life. We include all the evidence on any issue that we want to look at in order to counter any personal “confirmation bias” as in the tendency to only include evidence that affirms our beliefs and to ignore or dismiss counter evidence. And we (2) include all the evidence on the longest-term trends that are associated with the thing that we want to look at in order to give the full and proper context of that thing we are looking at and trying to understand. This is how we get to understanding the “true state of life”.
And then how do we understand the great movements that distort the true state of life? These movements and their ideologically-deformed “science” dominate public narratives today.
I suggest that critical to understanding the prominence of nihilist pessimism in today’s world, have students read Arthur Herman’s “The Idea of Decline in Western History” and note his statement that the idea of “Decline” is the most dominant and influential idea in the world today. Surveys of world populations affirm this dominant and entirely wrong belief that “the world is getting worse”.
And then have students understand how the ideologies that distort the true state of life produce such consequent horrific destruction in human societies. In particular, help students understand how the inherited themes/ideas from past human meta-narratives have repeatedly incited and validated the mass-death movements of our modern world- i.e. Marxism, Nazism, and now environmental alarmism. These fallacies have influenced our modern world to devastating outcomes, just as the “profoundly religious crusade” of climate alarmism is doing today with its destructive “salvation” scheme of Net Zero decarbonization (to “save the world”).
And then help students understand how we structure humanity-affirming societies. Here we have the research to help us understand the historical development of the Classic Liberal principles of protecting and promoting free and equal individuals, promoting the growth and development of self-determining, responsible citizens who respect the freedom and equality of all others, as detailed in Daniel Hannan’s “Inventing Freedom”, William Bernstein’s “Birth of Plenty”, and David Boaz’s “Libertarianism: A Primer”, among other good sources.
These sources affirm that the approach that protects individual freedoms and rights has been most successful in achieving, not just personal success and progress, but has also worked much better to achieve the “common or greater good” of all, to achieve “the most good for the most people” in lifting billions out of poverty over the past few centuries.
And then assist students to understand the great counter approach to Classic Liberalism, the deformity and destructiveness of “collectivism”. Collectivism encompasses Robert Owen’s “communalism”, the varieties of Marxist communism, the varieties of Socialism, and Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism. All collectivist approaches have tried to coerce populations into a system whose primary focus is to eliminate the “evil” of private property (Marx’s number one evil). Collectivist elites try to create the new communalist person who “will own nothing and be happy eating bugs”. This approach has repeatedly and inevitably resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people and impoverishment and suffering for billions of others as its crusade against modern industrial civilization forces populations to return to low-consumption primitivism.
Have students read Arthur Herman’s history of the two main approaches to organizing human societies- i.e. the approach that is oriented to protecting individual freedoms and rights as contrasted with collectivist approaches that subject individuals to enlightened elites who run the collectives and claim to know what is best for all others (claim- in a self-deceiving lie- to operate collectives “for the people”). See Herman’s great history of these two approaches to organizing societies in “The Cave and The Light” for the line of descent of the two approaches over the past two and a half millennia (since the time of the Greeks- collectivism descending from Plato and the orientation to the individual descending from empiricist Aristotle). Also, former socialist Joshua Muravchik’s “Heaven on Earth” for another good history of socialism, and then Kristian Niemietz’s “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies” for a good analysis of the some 20 main experiments over the past century or so to organize societies according to socialist principles.
Niemietz brilliantly explains the psychopathology of why people continue to embrace and affirm this failed ideology, how emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs. He bases his arguments on the research of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Add here the research on how deformed (i.e. narcissistic) versions of compassion for the oppressed can result in people supporting approaches that harm the very people they claim to have compassion for.
Richard Landes adds good comment on the history of how people have structured human societies in “Heaven on Earth”, i.e. the never-dying impulse of elites to seek power and control over commoners.
These sources, among others, will help students understand where people have gone so wrong, despite being well-intentioned with self-proclaimed compassion for the oppressed (i.e. “the psychopathology of Left-wing compassion and authoritarianism”- Christine Brophy, Michael Shellenberger, and others).
And for the history of how humanity has understood and explained reality and life across the millennia of our existence- have students read Joseph Campbell’s series on “The Masks of God” (among his many good single volumes on mythology), Mircea Eliade’s series on “The History of Religious Ideas”, and the varied single volumes on historical mythology/religion. This is about understanding where our main ideas of today have come from and how they have descended across history, how our ideas have become embedded in human subconscious as “archetypes”, and the outcomes of varied ideas in human lives and societies. It is about understanding Campbell’s point that “People have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of our world”. And the basic project of the human meaning impulse to discern good from bad.
And this is about understanding the persistence of the basic complex of myths that have always dominated human narratives/human consciousness, thereby shaping our emotions, motivations, and subsequent responses/behavior. We see this basic complex of themes in today’s religious traditions and even in contemporary “secular/ideological” versions like climate alarmism.
For an excellent presentation of how bad religious ideas deform human personality (and out from there to societies) have students read psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo’s “Cruel God, Kind God”. Note the critical point of psychologist Harold Ellens re our highest ideals, that if your God uses violence to solve problems then so may you. This is the outcome of the primal human impulse to meaning and purpose- i.e. to base our behavior on similar belief, notably belief in Ultimate Reality or deity. From the beginning, people have naturally wanted to be like their Daddy creator.
The complex: See reposting just below…
And then help students inform themselves re the climate alarm and the good scientific responses to that “profoundly religious crusade”- i.e. the good reports at “co2coalition.org”, “Wattsupwiththat.com”, and “Net Zero Watch”, among other sources… “co2science.org”, etc.
Most notable in the mix, help students to understand “the physics of CO2” as per the research of atmospheric physicists Richard Lindzen and William Happer, among others. They are telling us that the CO2 warming effect has now reached “saturation” in terms of its influence on the infrared spectrum where it operates. Consequently, more atmospheric CO2 will not contribute any more to any “possible” further warming. Conclusion? Natural factors have been and will continue to be mainly responsible for climate change and there is no “climate crisis”. Meaning that there is no good scientific reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies.
And then include Patrick Moore’s good reports on “celebrating CO2” as the basic food of all life that has added 15% more green vegetation to the Earth just since 1980 with the small increase in atmospheric levels since then.
Ah, so much to include in a good education, eh.
More on a well-rounded education (suggestions for “The Peterson Academy”)– Wendell Krossa
A notable anti-human emphasis has infected dominant belief systems across history and the ideologies of today. We see this both in religious traditions with the myth of humanity as “inherently sinful” and deserving divine wrath and punishment. So also in secular versions that view humanity as a “virus, cancer” on Earth, an unwelcome intruder and destroyer of nature.
See neuroscientist and Nobel laureate John Eccles’ good books for a counter view to today’s anti-humanism- i.e. “The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind”, “The Self and Its Brain”, “Mind and Brain”, among others.
And for some good information on the Christian tradition, engage “The Search For Historical Jesus” as per the Jesus Seminar books. Focus particularly on the “Q Wisdom Sayings” research by James Robinson, John Kloppenborg, Stephen Patterson, and others. That research gets us closest to what the Historical Jesus actually taught. It is not what the New Testament gospel writers claim he taught.
Be fully aware of the conclusion about Historical Jesus- i.e. that there is a profound difference between the original person (and his message) and the later Christian Christ of Paul. This is a largely ignored and unresolved issue that Peterson does not appear to be fully aware of. He does not engage this issue in his presentation of Christianity, and it is a major one.
And soak or marinate your mind in the latest phase of human spirituality- the “Near-Death Experience” movement. Many of these experiences affirm the central theme of Historical Jesus- i.e. his stunning new theology that God is a non-retaliatory, unconditionally loving deity. A good place to start is with Pim Van Lommel’s general overview of the NDE experience- “Consciousness Beyond Life”.
Imagine this: No religion across the millennia has ever represented the true nature of deity to humanity- i.e. that God is a non-retaliatory, unconditionally loving reality. And now at this latest stage in human history, average people in large numbers are having an experience that discovers, often to the surprise of the recipients, that God is indeed a stunningly inexpressible unconditional Love.
So finally, we are given a widespread affirmation of the central theme of Historical Jesus. And it comes from an entirely non-religious source- i.e. not from theologians, religious experts, authorities or gurus, but from ordinary people, often uncredentialled commoners. Hmmm.
The NDE does not affirm any religion or any religious belief. If God is indeed unconditional, then that spells the end of conditional religion. This is possibly why, according to Mark Fox in “Religion, Spirituality, and the Near-Death Experience”, theologians are ignoring or dismissing the NDE movement. If that discovery or view of an unconditional God is true, and if Historical Jesus was right, then who needs religion? Yikes, eh.
And as always, for a fully informed education, engage the issue of human systems of justice. Engaging the feature of “unconditional” is not an automatic affirmation of some “pacifist” take on love (false compassion) that ignores, downplays, or distorts the obligation to hold everyone responsible for the natural and social consequences of their behavior. Such responsibility for personal choices and outcomes is fundamental to human learning, development, and maturing.
Grasping unconditional as an ultimate ideal is more a push to understand the issues around restorative justice approaches as contrasted with traditional punitive justice systems (i.e. issues such as what better lowers recidivism rates in order to better protect the public, as discussed, for example, in the Netflix documentary on the Danish restorative justice approach). Another interesting presentation of justice issues- Karl Menninger’s “The Crime of Punishment”.
Anyway, just some sticking of my nose into Peterson’s new project which, overall, I heartily affirm. Again, Go Jordan, go.
Note: Psychology studies have questioned if punitive approaches really work better to rehabilitate bad behavior, as with children or criminal offenders.
Samples of research on this issue:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1068316X.2024.2338200#d1e138
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00050069608260201?needAccess=true
https://haqcrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/restorative-justice-in-australia.pdf
Additional note:
This issue of restorative vs punitive justice illustrates what Peterson discussed with Rogan (JRE episode 2180), talking about the balance of walking the fine line between chaos and order. The issue of love is one area where we have to sort this out.
The highest human ideal of love presents the potential to unleash the highest danger and evil as well as presents the opportunity to achieve the highest good. It unleashes (validates) evil notably when the claim to compassion is used to selfishly indulge the tendency to narcissism, as when it is used as a virtue signal for activity that produces evil outcomes on others (i.e. the “psychopathology of left-wing compassion and authoritarianism”- Christine Brophy and others). https://www.public.news/p/christine-brophy-narcissism-and-agreeableness
Peterson illustrates this problem with the “trans activist” movement where doctors claim that they are being compassionate in helping children transition to the opposite sex, giving puberty blockers, and pushing for surgeries that mutilate children’s bodies to change their sex. The outcome has been permanently destroyed lives. And all the while the trans activists claim righteously that they are being compassionate in helping young children, and preventing suicides though this claim has not affirmed by evidence.
(Insert: There is an element in the human population where transition to the opposite sex is a legitimate issue. We affirm that as authentic. The larger issue here concerns the activist fringe that pushes, in a too general manner, the many children that are undergoing normal confusion about their identity, into choices most of them later regret. Add the secrecy and bullying around this activism.)
Hence, as Peterson argues, this illustrates the abuse of love as something that becomes evil and destructive. It is falling off the line into the chaos of false compassion, where love is used to signal virtue. It is perversely narcissistic and as Peterson states- now one of the worst forms of evil in our societies. He compares this mutilation of children with the Nazis of last century who at least knew they were doing evil (i.e. Mengele). To the contrary, these modern trans activists believe that they are actually doing good and publicly parading what they do as compassion when it obviously destroys bodies and lives. And to add evil to evil, California has recently passed a law to hide this trans activist crusade from parents, or to lie to parents about the proclaimed good that it does.
Yet we continue to wrestle with the ideal of love/compassion because it can serve as the critical ideal that draws us toward true good and help for others as long as we remain open to evidence of the actual outcomes of our policies, approaches, and programs and willing to pull back if our approaches are evidently harmful, willing to rethink and change course to find more helpful approaches and outcomes.
So restorative vs punitive justice is another area where we are trying to sort out the line between chaos and order. This applies also to the failed policies in “liberal” cities where “de-carceration”, “defunding”, and “decriminalization” policies have produced rises in violent crimes. Again, compassion falling off the finely balanced line between order and chaos.
Peterson adds good comment on the common identity confusion of young children (body dysmorphia) as a normal and temporary phase that many pass through on the way to maturity as adults.
Added insert: Further comment on “deformed/narcissistic compassion”- Here, a few minutes in, Dave Rubin plays a video clip of Jordan Peterson’s emphatic comments to Joe Rogan as to how “dark and evil” the trans activist movement has become in claiming compassion, doing good, as they mutilate children’s bodies, children just going through normal and temporary childhood confusion over identity and bodies…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EmRyReCypU
Other sources:
https://www.public.news/p/biden-administration-ends-support
https://www.public.news/p/gavin-newsom-just-put-californias
Critical point in the material below on Jesus versus Christ– Wendell Krossa
What is your ultimate ideal? That which centers your narrative and shapes all else in your worldview? Take a close look at your personal worldview and the overarching goal of your life, that which motivates and draws you forward into the future, perhaps more than any other feature.
“What drives people’s desires and expectations for life”, Catherine Pakaluk.
I offer that Historical Jesus took this concept of ultimate ideal to the absolute height of humaneness in his theology of a non-retaliatory, unconditionally loving God. There is nothing more purely humane, nothing that is a higher understanding of good, a higher understanding of love than his breakthrough insight (love in general being our primary ideal, that which identifies us as authentically and maturely human).
Historical Jesus nailed the truth that authentic love is non-retaliatory, unconditional.
In the realm of ideals, he pointed to the mother of all ideals, the ultimate ideal for humanity, a supremely humane focus for thought, emotion, motivation, and response/behavior. The Jesus framing of love focused human purpose as nothing else ever had.
Joseph Campbell had similarly tried to focus the meaning and purpose of human story (the “Hero’s journey or quest”) in stating that we attain human maturity, we tower in stature, we become the heroes of our quest, when we orient our lives to universal love. Unconditional is an adjective that encompasses universal and more.
This summary of the Jesus message says it all- “Love your enemy because God does”. How practical is this in the world we live in? Well, spend a lifetime trying to figure this out. Paraphrasing Jordan Peterson’s general arguments on aiming for “good” (re his recent Joe Rogan interview, episode 2180), this unconditional ideal will judge you for failure, but then again it will entice you forward to being the best that you can be, the struggle toward something better than what you are now. It also offers a guide to the safest way through life- doing the least harm and the most good to others.
It’s not an issue of- Is this even attainable? It is about trying to be something better than where we are in the present. It is about embracing the best and highest of ideals to pull us forward, to shape our thinking in the most humane way possible, to stir our emotions toward the highest good, to shape our motivations in the best way possible, and to caution and guide our responses toward mature and heroic human behavior as nothing else can do.
The point in my comment below is that Historical Jesus got this ideal right but then Paul with his Christ myth reverted back to a mythical primitivism that undermined, distorted the message and this central theme of Jesus, and ultimately buried that message in Christology. Paul turned that common wisdom sage into a religious God-man, thereby overturning all that he stood for, just as Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy have argued. Until this is understood, the actual message of the man will not be fully clarified to serve its intended purpose of liberating human minds, spirits, and lives to the best existence possible in working toward the ideal of unconditional.
This would be my response to Jordan Peterson about a “uniting meta-narrative” as he discussed with Joe Rogan. It’s not about a return to a Christian or religious tradition in some general sense but unravelling what are the “diamonds/pearls” in the larger context of Christianity. And this central theme of Jesus is not a religiously-oriented obligation (meaning it does not have to be interpreted or understood in a religious sense). Any materialist/atheist, or general secularist, can embrace this message of love your neighbor, love your enemy in a uniquely individual and creative “secular humanist” manner. It is simply about what it means to be human and that does not have to be religiously framed and understood.
Here is a reposting of the basic themes/ideas that have dominantly shaped human narratives and consciousness across history and the outcomes of these inciting/validating ideas in human lives and societies…
Summary of the basic themes- the baddies, framed in terms of contemporary “secular/ideological” versions like environmental alarmism:
(1) There was a better past (i.e. the wilderness world before humanity and human civilization).
(2) Essentially “corrupt, greedy” people (“virus, cancer on the planet”) are consuming too much of Earth’s resources and are ruining the originally paradise world (this expresses an essential anti-humanism, hatred of humanity).
(3) Life is now declining toward a worsening state, even toward an apocalyptic ending.
(4) Humanity must make a sacrifice/payment and endure punishment for human sin- i.e. such as give up the good life in modern society and return to the “morally superior low consumption lifestyle”. Meaning- Embrace a retreat to primitivism framed as “de-growth, de-development”.
(5) Humanity must also purge life of some great “evil” threat (CO2 has been lasered in on as the chief marker of human sin today- i.e. human greed in using too much of Earth’s resources like energy. Try to comprehend the insane irrationality of demonizing the basic food of all carbon-based life as a “pollutant/poison”. Yes, Bill Maher, who did not attend Grade 1 science class, called CO2 a “poisonous gas”.).
(6) Only after embracing and fulfilling this salvation scheme can we then restore the lost paradise or achieve some new utopia (i.e. as in the Marxist restoration of original communalism with people re-engineered to become once again “Noble savage collectivist humans” liberated from the great evil of private property, “owning nothing and happy eating bugs”).
Added note on feature 3 above: “Life declining toward a worsening state” is the central feature of the primitive psychopathology of apocalyptic- “the most violent and destructive idea in history” (Arthur Mendel).
Historian Arthur Herman (“The Idea of Decline in Western History”) rightly states that the idea of “decline” is the most dominant and influential theme in today’s world. “Ten Global Trends” (Tupy and Bailey) affirms this dominance with world survey data.
Declinism dominates public consciousness worldwide despite the best evidence that reveals life is improving over the long-term and today we are living in “the best time ever to be alive on Earth” (Humanprogress.org, and of course- Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource”). Most notably, the life-distorting myth of Declinism dominates the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade.
Other historians have detailed the evidence that the primitive themes outlined above shaped and fueled Marxism, Nazism, and are now shaping environmental alarmism and driving its “salvation” scheme of Net Zero decarbonization. The salvation schemes (“save the world”) of apocalyptic movements have consistently “destroyed the world to save the world”.
Conclusion: We are not as advanced, or “secular/ideological”, as we like to imagine ourselves. Many of us would find ourselves clapping and cheering if we teleported back some 5000 years ago into a Sumerian temple where the priests droned on about Enlil, the waterworks god, who threatened to send a Great Flood to punish “too many people” (early “overpopulation bomb” nonsense) making “too much noise” (enjoying the good life too much). Too many of us still embrace those most primitive myths of an ancient past, even many with PhDs.
Now some new comment for this new section….
Intro comments on the Jesus/Paul contradiction that has shaped more of what we think, feel, and do today than any other influence. Wendell Krossa
Prep points:
Patting Christianity on the back- Giving props before possibly inflaming Christian visitors, Wendell Krossa
Let me affirm something important in the Christian tradition. In the Christian “canon”, meaning the Christian New Testament, we find that those assembling the books of the New Testament chose gospels that preserved pretty good versions of the teaching of Jesus (i.e. Matthew 5-7, Luke 6). Notably, an early church “father” named Irenaeus was largely responsible for assembling the books of the New Testament. This source:
And this summary from the above link:
“Irenaeus as the mastermind of the canonical collection, later known as the New Testament, creates the foundation for the later picture of a chronological development from Jesus and his disciples through the first bishops and the institutionalization of the Church. However, he himself hardly relates to these writings as historical evidence, but rather engages in an anti-heretical use of some of them to endorse church orthodoxy. It is this apostolic foundation that provides the rule of truth against which he sees the heretics struggling, driven by evil forces in an apocalyptic scenario.”
Did you get that final point in this quote that Irenaeus chose books that affirmed his apocalyptic worldview? That will make more sense throughout the comments below on the great contradiction between non-apocalyptic Jesus and Paul’s highly apocalyptic Christ. Also note that Irenaeus ignored many other available gospels during his time (i.e. gospels of James, Thomas, Mary, Philip, etc.) to choose only the four that we have in the NT.
I suggest that the Christian writers of the gospels, and the NT assemblers like Irenaeus, included the original teaching of Jesus as it was too well known to ignore. If you write a biography, then you have to at least acknowledge the main teaching of the person that you portray. But then you can play with that teaching, giving your take on it as Matthew does with his ending of 5:38-48 that distorts completely the teaching of Jesus that he has just recorded in his biography.
In looking at the teaching of Jesus that has been preserved in the Christian NT we find that it gives us a fairly good sense of his original message. To get a grasp of his main message or main theme we have to decipher and delineate out the central cohering theme in the material. And it becomes clear that Jesus is emphasizing the highest human ideal of love and what love really means. And he does something unique in history. He takes love to transcendent or divine heights, to its furthest reach as non-retaliatory, unconditional love. That then is the cohering central theme in his teaching. He affirms this in parables like the Prodigal Father who represents God and exhibits non-retaliatory, unconditional love for the prodigal son.
Once that central theme is clear, then you have the basic criterion to evaluate all the other material the NT that the gospel writers claim Jesus taught or said. It is material that has been attributed to him, put in his mouth. We use the central theme in the material to evaluate the other material as to its truthfulness or not, to discern if it was actually original with Jesus. If it contradicts his central theme of non-retaliatory, unconditional love then it can be rejected as not authentic to him. That is just what Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy did in pointing to the “diamonds/pearls” of Jesus as contrasted with the rest of the material that contradicted his core theme. And you know the blunt terms that they used to dismiss the rest of the NT.
Conclusion: We have the baseline theme for evaluating all the rest of the gospel material and for evaluating the rest of the New Testament. An illustration of how to use his baseline theme to evaluate other gospel material? The Jesus Seminar book- “The Five Gospels”- notes that Jesus said “love you enemy” in chapter 5 of Matthew but then later in chapter 11 Matthew claims that Jesus utters the ultimate statement of “hate your enemy” by claiming that unbelievers should be cast into hell for not receiving the messenger/message. That contradictory statement cannot come from the same person who urged “love your enemy” just a bit earlier. We can conclude that it is not authentic to Jesus.
And so we use the baseline theme to evaluate the truthiness of other material in the NT. Hold onto the main theme and you can see the contradictions in rest of NT, especially the contradictions with the Christ myth and message of Paul that presents a highly retaliatory and highly conditional reality that contrasts entirely with the non-retaliatory, unconditional theme of Jesus.
Paul’s Christ is the ultimate embodiment of a supreme condition, the ultimate condition ever imagined that is the demanded sacrifice of God-man to become the universal savior of all humanity. Developing Christianity then added myriad more conditions to support the central cohering condition of the sacrifice of Christ. It developed as a religion of conditions- i.e. conditions of right beliefs, demanded sacrifice/payment of all wrongs, correct rituals to celebrate the myth, lifestyle requirements and membership in a Christian church as identity markers of true believer, etc.
Moving along with more intro stuff…
“As we think, so we are and so we act/do” (my paraphrase of this maxim). Meaning- pay attention to the ideas, themes, beliefs in your personal narrative and in the larger public narratives that you embrace. They have influences, for good and bad. This is very much about the ideals/ideas/beliefs that we embrace and how they influence us and the consequent impacts on others.
The issue here is that apocalyptic-scale alarms are repeatedly set off in public and amplified by hysteria-oriented media (“Creating Fear: News and the construction of crisis”, David Altheide). Apocalyptic prophets repeatedly distress themselves, eventually simmering to hysterical levels of panic over some potential threat, such as the naturally cyclical patterns in climate change, and then go out to terrorize the public with “end of days” scenarios affirmed with setting actual dates for an apocalyptic ending. They thereby incite people’s natural survival impulse and render frightened populations susceptible to the apocalyptic alarmist’s salvation schemes to “save the world”. The salvation schemes have repeatedly “destroyed life to save the world”.
This is the problem being framed here. It’s a serious one.
The salvation schemes like “Net Zero decarbonization” have caused immense economic harm to the lives of millions of average citizens with inflated energy costs from blocked fossil fuel development and availability. Add here the extra burden loaded onto average people from the subsidies necessary to keep the intermittent renewables industry going because renewables do not work to sustain electrical grids without conventional fossil fuel backup. Those extra costs are put on average citizens (through increased taxation) with all sorts of other damage as reports now show (see sample links below).
And when good follow-up science reveals the alarms to be exaggerated or untrue, the alarmists and their amplifying media voices may back off from whatever alarm they had been obsessed with and then ignoring the mess that they have created they walk away with no accountability, responsibility, or apology for having again exaggerated and lied to the public. We saw this recently with the unnecessary Covid lockdowns and consequent damage, where even as that alarm was just beginning, some of the best scientific minds on pandemics were warning that the danger was exaggerated and the reactions were excessive and would be harmful.
In response to dissenting expert voices, hysterical alarmists screamed “dangerous disinformation” and censored the dissenting voices, even calling for the criminalization of the contrary information that was true.
After creating another episode an ongoing series of exaggerated alarms, with consequent immense damage to the public, the alarmists unapologetically move on to the next big alarm to once again traumatize the public and push the next big salvation scheme.
Currently we are still suffering ongoing panic-mongering over climate, along with claims by far left Woke Progressives that we face the “end of American democracy” if opponents gain governing power. As a protective response we are told that we must support the censorship and criminalization of political opponents. Add that we have again been alarmed that world democracy is once again under threat so we have to support another war “to save democracy” even after it has been revealed that Western democratic powers (US) were involved in overthrowing the democratically elected government in Ukraine and that was part of what incited that war. Others are trying to stir the fear that AI will end humanity. Just a few years back Stephen Hawking claimed that talking to the little green aliens that would eventually land on the planet would be the end of humanity. He even gave dates.
The apocalyptic prophets come in all shapes and sizes. From religious fringe cases walking around with sandwich boards, to the most credentialed scientists. Chicken Little is not fussy about her company.
It appears that Richard Landes, among others, is right that we don’t learn anything from the repeated eruptions of this age-old tendency to raise and exaggerate things to apocalyptic-scale and thereby cause serious damage to human society and progress. We don’t confront the apocalyptic mythology that continues to shape our narratives and functions to validate alarmists to incite ever new alarms that ruin societies in order to “save the world”.
Another affirmation of the fact that we don’t learn from history- i.e. Joseph Campbell’s point that people have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of our world. We have repeatedly embraced the ideas that incite and validate apocalyptic hysteria and destruction, both in religious and secular/ideological versions, the same old primitive mythical themes. Look at Hollywood obsessed with apocalyptic, and climate alarmists taking up the same alarmist hysteria that distorts entirely the true state of life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films
The project of this site is to probe the ultimate root of apocalyptic madness which in Western consciousness and narratives is traced right back to Paul’s apocalyptic Christ myth. The apocalyptic obsession of Paul, which he embodied in his apocalyptic Christ myth, has been mainly responsible for promoting the endlessly destructive idea of apocalyptic in Western narratives, both religious and “secular/ideological”.
Let your outrage at my pointing to and challenging the highly revered Christ, let this trigger and offend you deeply if you are a true believer in the Christ of Paul. But then see if you can follow the line of evidence set forth below that affirms my case that Paul rejected the actual non-retaliatory, non-apocalyptic message of Jesus and buried Jesus’ stunning new theology with the entirely opposite theology that he presented in his Christ myth. If you believe in the Christ, then you must have some level of respect also for Jesus. Don’t you want to honor that man, as he should be honored, for presenting us with the single most profound theological insight in history?
The core issue here has to do with the following ideals that are projected onto and embodied in deity theories, ideals to shape human ethics and life- i.e. “non-retaliation versus retaliation, unconditional love versus highly conditional love, supremely conditional love, and restorative treatment of others versus punitive destruction of differing others, etc.”.
I will argue that the authentic Jesus of history would have rejected outright the Christology of Paul that embraces divine retaliation, conditional salvationism, and punitive destruction in apocalypse and hell. Jesus’ core themes in his actual message affirm that he would have been very much “anti-Christ”, as in dead set against the project to transform him into the Christian Christ with its dominant themes that contradicted his own gospel.
This “theological” stuff relates intensely to what we think, how we feel, and how we respond and treat others today. James Tabor affirms my points on this. I have reposted his statements on the influence of Paul and his apocalyptic Christ on Western thinking, ethics, justice, on our entire lives and societies.
Another example: Even Mennonite theologians once stated that the punitive God of Christianity, their own religion, had been used to shape Western justice as harshly punitive. They saw that as a harmful error. Hmmm.
Yes, Jordan, “we wrestle with God”. Include among your points on “wrestling with God” the struggle with the “truth” that Jesus taught and Paul’s rejection of that new truth, his retreat to the darkness and chaos of the retaliatory deities that had dominated the history of previous theology. There is no more critical wrestling with God than right here on this contradiction between these two religious icons. One message points clearly to the order of goodness and the other points back to what has promoted too much darkness and chaos in validating the darkest impulses of human minds and spirits to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction.
From the beginning of this episode, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson begin discussing “wrestling with God”, what the “word” means… and more. Enjoy on YouTube… a dense discussion of wrestling with the human understanding of God and what that means in human life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_3yOQl9E4I&t=329s
The commentary below on Jesus as someone entirely opposite to the Christian Christ includes the recognition of varied features in the Christ that have been highly valued by many across history- i.e. divine love, forgiveness, sacrifice for greater good, salvation, hope. However, my critical point is that these good features have been deformed and distorted by darker elements that dominate that same icon.
That exposes the same problem with the larger New Testament context. There are the “diamonds/pearls of Jesus” but they have been distorted and buried in the larger context by other features- i.e. tribalism, domination, punitive destruction- that eviscerate the “stunning new theology and ethic of Historical Jesus”. Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy have both made this critical point in very blunt terms. Meaning, for example, that love in Paul’s Christ is tribal love (i.e. ultimately reserved only for true believers, unbelievers not included). That is not the universal, unconditional love that was taught by Jesus.
The person and message of Jesus was, two decades later, absorbed into the religious icon known as Paul’s Christ. Jesus’ “stunning new theology” was then deformed and buried in the process of his being divinized as the Christ. The very Christ features that turned him from a man into “very God of very God” (Nicene Creed) utterly deformed his actual message. Paul’s Christology ruined Jesus and his actual gospel.
But scholars have deciphered out the basic outline of the original teaching of Jesus, notably in “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research. And the varied elements in his original teaching affirm that he would have rejected outright the Christology of Paul that transformed him from an ordinary man into the God-man that was preached by Paul, a cosmic Savior who came to offer himself as a blood sacrifice for the sins of all humanity. Paul’s teaching and movement became the Christ-ianity that has shaped so much of our world today.
See also further below my little “brush” with physicist Freeman Dyson on CCNet (Cambridge Conference Network- Benny Peiser’s former newsletter for scientists, politicians, etc.).
Going to the root of the curse of apocalyptic mythology (the most violent and destructive idea in history) and overturning the foundational ideas that fuel that horrific fallacy (i.e. transforming narratives). “Most violent and destructive”? Just watch the outcomes of the climate apocalypse salvation scheme of decarbonization as it ruins societies today (see links below on the outcomes of Net Zero decarbonization).
The main argument, the main presentation of the Jesus/Paul contrast is further below.
Setting the context– Wendell Krossa
The primal human impulse to “base human behavior on similar belief” has governed all human story and experience across history. People from the beginning have lived by this relationship of “I do this because I believe this”. This is a critical point to the “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God” that is the core theme of Historical Jesus (“his greatest contribution to the history of human ideas”). The theology of Jesus contrasts entirely with Paul’s retaliatory apocalyptic Christ myth. Both use the behavior based on similar belief (ethic based on similar theology) framing to present their entirely opposite statements of ethics and theology.
Illustrations that this “has governed all human story over history”:
We see this framing of “behavior validated by similar belief” with Plato’s invisible “Forms/Ideas/Ideals” that should shape the ideal human person and ideal society. We see it in the Old Testament Hebrews modelling and validating everything in their lives and society according to what they believed was the word/law/will of their God, as revealed by their priests. And this relationship is illustrated most profoundly by Historical Jesus in his central theme and message- “Love your enemy because God does”.
Add here a contemporary example- i.e. anthropologist Clifford Geertz reported that the modern Balinese exhibited this in patterning their villages and houses according to what they believed was the divine model. Human behavior and life seeking divine validation. Children, driven by their impulse for meaning, trying to be like Daddy.
I have commented elsewhere that I suspect this behavior based on belief impulse arises from early human understanding that the visible material world they inhabited was part of some larger invisible reality that created the material world. Hence, that greater reality explained why this physical realm existed and what its purpose was. Therefore, it only made sense to early people to speculate and try to explain what that greater metaphysical reality was, in order to more clearly define what this life should be about. People did that to reassure themselves that they were fulfilling the purpose for their existence. The logic? If we were created by something greater, what then was the purpose for our creation? Again, children wanting to be like their Daddy.
This emerges from the primal impulse of human consciousness for meaning- to understand and explain reality and life, and to fulfill the purpose of our existence as unique human persons in an imperfect world of suffering and struggle.
Where our ancestors went wrong in their endeavors to speculate and explain, was in projecting out the more barbaric features of their primitive existence to explain and define the greater creating spirit/spirits behind it all. They projected the animal-like features of tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction onto the metaphysical, or deity. But that is where their thinking was at that time. Primitive existence. The result was monster gods that validated the monstrous impulses and behavior of early primitive life, more animal than human with the features of violent tribalism (see for example, “Constant Battles: The Myth Of The Peaceful, Noble Savage” by Stephen LeBlanc, Katherine Register), with alpha domination, and with the small-band animal destruction of competing others.
Further intro notes:
This site is a project to probe the root of notable problems in our societies in order to solve them properly and for the long-term future, to probe and understand the fundamental contributing factors behind “madness of crowd” eruptions like climate alarmism, or behind the general panic-mongering over differing others/enemies who are framed as “end of democracy or end of life” threats to one’s existence and one’s views. A major project here is to set forth the bad ideas in human narratives that have incited bad behavior across history.
I have framed, in particular, this Jesus/Paul contradiction with terms like “greatest… most profound… most critical… worst… most egregious short-circuiting of liberation, etc.” because I agree with the evaluation of historian of Christianity, James Tabor, on Paul’s enormous influence on Western consciousness, narratives, and society. And I see the persisting influence and related horrific outcomes of Paul’s apocalyptic Christ in the persistence of the damaging outcomes of apocalyptic mythology, notably as we are seeing today in the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade and its destructive salvation scheme of decarbonization (i.e. “to save the world”). The horrific outcomes today legitimize the probing of the main contributing factors.
Paul’s influence is positioned in contrast with “what could have been” if the profoundly new theological insight of Jesus had been more widely embraced and his related ethic followed- i.e. “do not retaliate with eye for eye responses but instead love your enemy because God does”. Jesus based his non-retaliatory ethic on “a stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God, an unconditionally loving God”. That would have revolutionized human narratives and sparked a liberation movement like nothing ever before imagined. Liberation at the depths of human consciousness/subconscious, spirit, and life. His new theology of a non-retaliatory God means, foremost, that God was non-apocalyptic because apocalypse is the ultimate expression of retaliation (i.e. ultimate divine retaliatory punishment for sin in destroying a defiled world as per Revelation and other New Testament passages).
That missed potential to transform human consciousness and life, to fully liberate humanity, renders Paul’s retreat to “Monster God” theology all the more egregious and it amplifies the scandal of Paul’s Christianity for burying the message of Jesus to focus on Paul’s entirely opposite message of the apocalyptic Christ.
The nature of this Jesus/Paul contradiction, and the horrific outcomes in human society, makes it deserving of the superlatives, negative and positive, that are used here to describe and present it.
The rejection of the profoundly humane theological insight of Historical Jesus, and the burial of insight by Paul’s Christ myth, is the single most critical violation of truth, and subsequent coverup in theology/religion ever.
The actual message of Historical Jesus- his “stunning new theology”- is still very much a time bomb lodged in the gospels with a burning fuse that is threatening to blow Christianity apart if people ever take it seriously. If God is, as Jesus stated, a non-retaliatory, unconditional reality then that spells the end of all threat theology and the end of the related complex of religious conditions that were created to appease “the wrath of God” (Paul’s repeated theme in his Magna Carta gospel of Romans). And it spells, notably, the end of the entire atonement religion that is built around Paul’s gospel of the supreme condition of the sacrifice of the Christ to pay for all sin.
Why is this so hard to get through thick religious skulls? If God is unconditional love, then no conditions are demanded by God. None. Absolutely none.
An aside: But then I get that many people place their identity in “objects” like religion (Louis Zurcher’s point in “The Mutable Self” that we should be ever-changing selves in open process versus the immutable or unchanging self that is fixated immovably on some “object”). So also, people locate their identity in things like race, nationality, some ideology, occupation, etc. Those objects then become inseparable from them, from their personal self and identity. Hence, if something in their object is challenged as wrong, such challenge is viewed as a threat to their personal self and existence, a survival threat. And many people therefore view any challenge to their belief systems as similar to a death threat. Hence, changing their threatened religion, or other objects of identity, is viewed as involving a death to self. Hence, the outraged reactions of true believers to any who question or disprove their “objects of identity”.
Though, I would point out that the death of the object that we locate our identity in presents the potential for resurrection or rebirth into something entirely new, a new narrative and new life, as in the shamanic experience of fundamental transformation.
Moving along back on topic- unconditional versus conditional…
Who needs the complex conditions of religious traditions if there is no demanding conditional God behind them? Religious conditions like atoning sacrifice are rendered meaningless, created and existing only to validate the burdensome power and control of religious priesthoods, church bureaucracies, and the rest that structures conditional religions.
What does the core theme of Jesus- i.e. “God as non-retaliatory, unconditional reality”- mean in response to the long history of threatening gods demanding all sorts of conditions for appeasement of divine anger, submission to divine authority, and fulfillment of divine law? How does Jesus overturn all conditional religion, rendering it pointless, an unnecessary burden on life?
(Insert: Yes, I acknowledge that religion serves other positive functions in people’s lives- a source of community, an institution or movement to promote the humanizing ideals of forgiveness, love, and to offer opportunities for service to others, etc. No one denies this good in religious traditions.)
The stunning new theology of Jesus most obviously overturns the entire complex of primitive myths of “original paradise, corrupt early humans ruining paradise, life subsequently declining toward something worse, toward collapse and apocalyptic ending, demand for salvation scheme that involves sacrifice/payment and suffering as redemptive and additionally the demand for purging of some evil threat to life, followed by the hope or restored paradise or installation of new millennial utopia for true believers.
Contrasted with the above complex, God as non-retaliatory, unconditional love means that there never was a God obsessed with perfection who created an original perfect paradise that was subsequently ruined by some primal sin of the earliest humans. There was no “fall of man into sinfulness”. There was no God who angrily cursed humanity and life with death, disease, pain and suffering for ruining an imagined originally perfect creation. There was no consequent decline of life toward apocalyptic ending, and there is no divine demand for eye for eye justice in response to human imperfection/failure.
Further, there is no threat of temporal or ultimate divine judgment. There is no threat of the exclusion of anyone from the universal and eternal love of God (i.e. unbelievers not included in the eternal love of God, “goats” relegated to the left at the great judgment before being tossed into the big barbie down under- as per Revelation). There is no ultimate punishment or destruction in apocalypse or hell. There is no demand for sacrifice/payment or suffering as redemptive, and there is no divine demand for the freedom-denying constraints of a religious lifestyle and time-wasting religious rituals.
These are some of the more prominent reversals of primitive religious mythology and conditions, among other “no conditions” because, according to Jesus, God is an “absolutely no conditions love” reality, to stunningly inexpressibly wondrous degree. And that is my take on “transcendent glory in deity”.
(See below a further point on love being inseparable from freedom)
An Ultimate Reality that is “no conditions love” means that we are free, free indeed. Free to be fully human in any unique, diverse way that we choose. Free of the consciousness-deforming threat theology of angry, punitive deity enraged at human imperfection and demanding all sorts of conditions and control over human life and story. The Enlightenment and scientific revolution did not really and truly liberate us from the core themes, ideas, or myths of the old mythical/religious narratives that dominated previous history. Those core themes were simply transformed during the Enlightenment and given new “secular/ideological” expression for the modern era, even “scientific” expression (Arthur Herman in “The Idea of Decline In Western History”, Richard Landes in “Heaven On Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience”, Arthur Mendel in “Vision and Violence”, and David Redles in “Hitler’s Millennial Reich”).
Joseph Campbell- “People have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of the world”.
Further points in the mix–
The stunning new theology of Jesus that God is non-retaliatory, no conditions love, should have ended all the apocalyptic nonsense that still dominates modern story telling, both religious and secular- i.e. climate apocalypse. If God is non-retaliatory, as Jesus clearly stated, then God is non-apocalyptic because the myth of apocalypse is the single most graphic expression and portrayal of divine retaliation against human sin (i.e. divine punishment of human sin by destroying life and the world, and purging the world of human evil illustrated by Zoroaster’s apocalyptic vision of molten metal washing across the Earth to cleanse it of impurity, followed later by Paul’s Lord Jesus returning in blazing fire to destroy all who refused to believe in the Christ).
As repeatedly noted on this site, embracing a deity that is non-retaliatory, no conditions love, correctly defining deity as Jesus did, does not change reality in this world- i.e. that we are fully responsible for our choices and behavior in freedom, and we must answer for all natural and social consequences to our behavior. Meaning violent people must be restrained/incarcerated till able to safely function in society. Criminal justice systems should operate to primarily protect the innocent, and if some people are not able to maturely develop and control their own worst impulses, then they must remain incarcerated. Pacifism, as in “turn other cheek”, does not work in face of common evil. Though that option remains for those who choose it in varied situations that involve personal choice with only personal consequences to the person choosing to exhibit that form of pacifism.
This site repeatedly tackles this Jesus/Paul contradiction because it profoundly shapes so much in our lives. See historian of early Christianity, James Tabor, for a reposting of his quotes in a section below on the major influence of Paul and his Christ on Western civilization- i.e. his influence on our narratives and how we think, his influence on the highest ideals/authorities that define our narratives, his influence on our emotions- how we feel about so many things, on our ethics, and on our responses- how we treat differing others.
Most critical to problem-solving, the Christ myth of Paul has kept the most destructive idea in history alive and dominant in Western consciousness and society- i.e. apocalypse. Look, for example, at how the apocalyptic theme dominates public story-telling in the form of Hollywood movies promoting apocalypse as accepted and unquestioned truth. Again, note the dominance of apocalyptic in the profoundly religious climate crusade with its salvation scheme of destructive decarbonization.
Insert examples: Evidence on destructive outcomes of the climate apocalypse narrative:
“Electrification Without the Infrastructure”, Jonathan Lesser, July 25, 2024
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/07/25/electrification-without-the-infrastructure/
“Net Zero is Impoverishing the West and Enriching China”, Will Jones, July 25, 2024
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/07/25/net-zero-is-impoverishing-the-west-and-enriching-china/
“Utah’s The Independent is Right, Climate Activism Ignores or Harms the World’s Poor”, Linnea Lueken, July 25, 2024
See also reports at co2coalition.org, Wattsupwiththat.com, and Net Zero Watch (GWPF) for numerous reports on the horrifically destructive outcomes of Net Zero decarbonization in varied societies. Also, see Sterling Burnett’s “Climate Change Weekly #513: Hey, Ho. Biden/Harris Climate Policies Have to Go”.
Continuing with notes:
Apocalyptic crusades continue erupting to wreak horrific damage in our societies. We saw this last century with Marxism, Nazism, and now with resurging Islamism. We repeatedly suffer these eruptions of “madness of crowds” because we do not go to the root of the problem, to the motivating ideas like the foundational narrative theme of apocalyptic that is a causal contributing factor that incites the eruption and spread of apocalyptic crusades. Again, Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, and David Redles have shown how this theme incited and shaped Marxism, Nazism, and now shapes environmental alarmism to great destruction.
Success in long-term problem solving will involve confronting and transforming subconscious archetypes as they are expressed in the themes of our narratives. And it is repeatedly the same basic complex of themes that incite and shape these varied eruptions of mass-death madness.
It is true that we do not appear to learn much from the past.
Heed, once again, the military guy who commented on the ISIS outbreak in Syria around 2014. He stated that you can destroy such movements with military force but they will only keep erupting until you deal properly with the ideologies that incite and validate them. And pay particular attention to Richard Landes’ warning in regard to Hitler and Nazism. He says that if you conclude that Hitler was just another historical “madman” and do not understand how “apocalyptic millennial” ideas can carry a society of good people into mass-death movements, then you will only continue to suffer the repetition of such movements (Landes’ conclusion at the end of his chapter on Hitler/Nazism).
My conclusion: Go to the root issues involved, understand the ideas/themes/myths that have always dominated human narratives and still potently shape our narratives, both religious and “secular/ideological” today. This site has repeatedly set forth the basic complex of bad ideas that have dominated human narratives across history, the destructive outcomes of those themes, and this site then offers better alternatives that take us toward a better future, toward a more humane future.
Example of alternatives: My list of Alternative themes to frame/shape/construct a more humane narrative…
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=12043#more-12043
A key feature to focus on in regard to narrative revolution is the idea of Ultimate Reality, humanity’s ultimate ideal and authority, the TOE of all TOEs, the God at the center of reality and narratives that structures all the rest- the “Cohering Center” of narratives, worldviews. Deity is the embodiment of our highest ideals, our understanding of highest “Good” that shapes, incites/inspires and validates our belief systems, our ethics, justice systems, relations with others, and more.
The deities of the pre-Jesus era were prominently tribal deities, dominating lords/kings, and judges who executed punitive, destructive justice toward unbelievers. They were the embodiments of inhumane ultimate ideals that incited the impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction among their followers. Jesus overthrew that mythology, disemboweling entirely the old narratives and belief systems with his stunning new theology. He understood “do not beat around the bush” but go directly to the central issue.
Enough already with this intro stuff. Now for the main point and argument… As always, note the qualifiers sprinkled throughout this commentary that “unconditional” in deity is not advocacy for impractical pacifism in this world. We are always fully responsible for the natural and social consequences of our behavior and holding others similarly responsible for their behavior. Criminal justice systems must operate to protect all citizens from bad behavior. The point here is about Ultimate Reality that functions as the embodiment of ultimate human ideals that point us toward the better future that we all want.
Can human blunders get any worse, any more consequential than the one made by Paul, the founder of the Christ-ianity that has shaped Western consciousness and civilization? Wendell Krossa
The single greatest error ever to have influenced human thought and narrative construction was Paul’s rejection of the most profound insight ever offered to humanity to liberate human minds, consciousness, spirits and lives. My superlatives do not fully express the profundity of Paul’s mistake and the consequences of his distorting and burying the Jesus insight.
Jesus had presented history’s most fundamental possible transformation of thought as related to humanity’s highest ideal and authority- deity, the cohering central idea and ideal of narratives, that which explains all, gives meaning to all else, to existence, purpose, etc.
His theological insight was an inexpressibly profound reorientation of the concept of deity, a rejection of all the old features of threat theology- i.e. of gods as judges, as dominating lords/kings/rulers, gods threatening exclusion, punishment, and destruction. In the place of that primitive pathology Jesus offered an entirely new theology of a non-retaliatory, no conditions God. Meaning, a God of no judgment or condemnation, no exclusion of anyone, no domination, no punishment or destruction (no apocalypse and no hell).
You cannot get any more radical change in thought or belief. There is no more fundamental or profound change in mind, consciousness, emotion, motivation, and outcomes. Jesus presented the highest reach of humane reality, taking the ideal of love to its ultimate humaneness in the feature of unconditional in Ultimate Reality or deity. This is what “transcendence” means in regard to God. This is true “theodicy” as in understanding and defending ultimate “Good”.
Here is the full context of the insight of Jesus on the highest ideal and authority of humanity- deity… (As always, the qualifiers- This is not general economic advice or how to run a business. It is not advocacy for pacifism in the face of evil. It is not how to run a criminal justice system that must hold people responsible for their behavior and incarcerate violent people in order to protect innocent others.)
His central message and theme:
“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full…
“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving”. (My paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36 or Matthew 5:38-48.)
This can be summarized in this six-word summary of the “behavior based on similar divine belief” relationship or ethic based on theology- “Love your enemies because God does”.
An example of non-retaliatory, unconditional love: The Prodigal Father story in Luke 15:11-31.
The Father (representing God) did not demand a sacrifice, restitution, payment, apology, or anything else before forgiving, fully accepting, and loving the wasteful son.
The above statement and illustration by Jesus, cancels the core theology of the highly conditional Christian religion and Paul’s Christ mythology. Paul, along with the rest of the New Testament, preached a retaliatory God who demanded full payment and punishment of all sin in a blood sacrifice of atonement before he would forgive, accept, and ultimately and inclusively love anyone.
The message of Historical Jesus offered the potential for mental, emotional liberation as nothing before or since. Because ultimate divine threat has long had damaging impacts on human minds, deforming human personality with fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair and depression, nihilism, and violence (for detail see psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo’s “Cruel God, Kind God”).
Jesus rejected that primitive threat theology for a stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory, unconditionally loving God.
Note further how Jesus employed the healing power of this new theology of an inclusive and unconditionally forgiving God, telling psychosomatically ill people (i.e. the “demon possessed” of his time) that their faith/belief in an unconditional God had healed them.
Now- The greatest scandal in history? Paul used the same pairing that Jesus used of “behavior based on belief” but to completely repudiate the central insight of Jesus.
Just some 20 years later (50ish CE), Paul rejected the central insight and discovery of Jesus and reverted back to affirm the primitive mythology of divine threat, the mythology of an angry, punishing deity, the theological fallacy that had cursed and enslaved minds from the beginning of human mythmaking (see, for example, his earliest letters to the Thessalonians- “Lord Jesus will return in blazing apocalyptic fire to punish/destroy all those who do not believe my Christ myth”).
Paul then formally stated his rejection of Jesus’ theological breakthrough and his retreat to primitive threat theology in the main treatise of his Christ gospel- his letter to the Romans, particularly in Romans 12: 17-20. After repeatedly warning unbelievers of the coming wrath and destruction of God, Paul then intentionally confronted the central theme of Jesus, Jesus’ use of an ethic based on a similar belief in a non-retaliatory, unconditional God. Paul rejected that new theology and re-enforced the primitive belief in retaliatory, destroying deity:
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil…. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
His point? Don’t take immediate revenge on your enemies but wait for God to take ultimate revenge for you. The motivation for your stance of temporal kindness to enemies? Your exhibition of such kindness will ensure the ultimate punishment and destruction of your enemies by a wrathful, retaliatory God. It will “heap burning coals on their heads”.
The “behavior based on similar belief” in this statement of Paul? Treat others with apparent kindness, motivated by the hope of ultimate divine revenge, based on the belief in a vengeful God. So, while Paul’s ethic initially appears to model Jesus’ similar non-retaliatory ethic, Paul’s version is based on the motivation of vengeance, urging kindness in order to ensure that your enemies are judged and punished severely by a wrathful, destroying God. Both ethic and theology are then essentially retaliatory/vengeful in nature.
That was a direct rejection of Jesus’ core theme and message, a rejection of Jesus’ “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God”.
Paul’s re-affirmation of threat theology thereby effectively buried the “diamond/pearl ethic and theological insight of Jesus in dung” (Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy). Paul denied us the profound liberation that we could have enjoyed from the breakthrough insight of Historical Jesus.
The liberation that Jesus offered reminded me of what Bob Brinsmead told us decades ago when many of us were leaving our religions and asking- Where to next? Bob replied- You are free to just go join the human race and live out a unique human story, creating it on the go, making your unique contribution to life, blazing a diverse new story and path.
Further notes:
The way that Paul framed his rejection of Jesus with a similar pairing of “behavior based on divine belief” suggests that he knew that the ethic/theology pairing was essential to the critical breakthrough insight of Jesus. He understood the pairing was used to highlight Jesus’ new theology, to re-enforce his insight that God was non-retaliatory, unconditional love. Paul understood that was the core of everything in Jesus’ narrative or message.
Other notes:
I ran my above points by some of the Jesus Seminar scholars (contacted about 60 of them) making the point that this “behavior based on similar belief” was the central message or theme presented by Jesus. One of the Seminar scholars questioned if it was Jesus’ main theme.
I base my argument that it was the central theme of Jesus on “Q Wisdom Sayings” research (a subbranch of the “Search for Historical Jesus”). Scholars say that the “Q Wisdom Sayings gospel” is the closest that we get to what Jesus actually taught. And Jesus’ statement- “Love your enemies because God does”- is the central insight in Q Wisdom Sayings, the main point made in that cluster of sayings. It is “central” in that material because of its profound nature as a supreme ethic based on a stunning new theology that Q scholar James Robinson says is “Jesus’ greatest contribution to the history of human ideas”- i.e. his stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God. Nothing else in Q compares to the behavior based on belief pairing that presents Jesus’ central theme and insight- the core of his actual gospel.
His insight is a breakthrough into a clear expression of ultimate goodness, ultimate humaneness in unconditional love, meaning universal, all forgiving, all-inclusive love. But yes, still holding all responsible for behavior… however, in new forms of relating and justice that are restorative not punitive and destructive.
Christianity claims to represent Jesus to the world but has deformed him with the Christ myth of Paul, distorting entirely the real message or gospel of Jesus.
But a nod of thanks to early Christianity for preserving the words of Jesus in the Christian Bible with fair accuracy. It would have been too egregious to ignore his message that was widely known in oral traditions, perhaps even written versions that have been lost. Unfortunately though, the Jesus message has been distorted by the followers of Paul who wrote the gospels and made editorial changes such as Matthew’s ending “Be perfect as your Father is perfect” a summary conclusion that misses entirely the spirit of the previous statements of Jesus that God overlooks imperfection and includes all equally in his forgiveness and love anyway (“sun and rain given to both righteous and unrighteous”).
Matthew’s obsession with righteousness led him to make the other “denial of Jesus main theme of unconditional divine love” in his comment that “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees/law teachers you won’t get into heaven”. Sheesh, eh. Entirely contrary to the unconditional point Jesus had just made.
The New Testament overall buries the new theology of Jesus with Paul’s Christ mythology and that makes Paul’s distortion the most egregious error and scandal ever- to bury the single most profound statement, the most humane insight ever presented that could have liberated humanity as nothing else ever could. Paul short-circuited that liberation with his rejection of Jesus’ teaching and his retreat to primitive mental pathologies like apocalyptic.
We have now had 3 centuries of trying to understand who the man Jesus was and what he actually said in “the search for the Historical Jesus” (earliest papers published by German theologians/historians around 1738). The latest phase of this search is the Jesus Seminar which basically got it right there was a man who said something but that lot more of the claimed teaching of Jesus in gospels was material put in his mouth that contradicts his core theme. He obviously did not say much of what has been attributed to him. The “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel material gets us closest to what he actually taught, notably the material in Q Wisdom Sayings edition 1. There may have been following editions of Q (i.e. 2 and 3) that introduced contradictory themes like apocalyptic judgment.
Further on Paul’s rejection of Jesus gospel: It is agreed by scholars that Jesus was a wisdom sage and they note how Paul attacks the wisdom tradition, belittling and dismissing it in his first Corinthians letter because the wisdom sayings of Jesus contradict his Christ gospel. Stephen Patterson in one of his books outlined Paul’s attack on the wisdom tradition of Jesus.
Other scholars note that Paul, in general, ignores the actual teaching of Jesus to focus on his Christ myth. He ignores “the message of the man” to create his own “message about the man” as Christ. Paul attacks and dismisses the historical man in favor of his new message that he created about the man and that became the religion “Christianity”, which is very much anti-Historical Jesus and missed the point that Jesus was anti-Christology. As scholars, for example, conclude- There is nothing in Q Wisdom Sayings about Jesus coming as a cosmic God-man savior to offer himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world.
Another point:
Others note that all the science in the world does not change many people’s minds in regard to the “madness of crowds” apocalyptic crusades like climate alarmism. This is because most people’s views are mainly shaped by story, by narrative. It is the beliefs, themes, and primitive myths in their narratives that still shape most people’s views about reality and life. Joseph Campbell recognized this in summarizing that humans have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of the world, in both religious versions and now in “secular/ideological” versions. The myth of the decline of life toward apocalypse has been prominent among these persistent myths that dominate human narratives (Arthur Herman).
The Christ of Paul has been most responsible for the persistence of the apocalypse myth in Western consciousness and society and the horrific outcomes of that myth. So if you want to deal a death blow to the monster of apocalyptic mythology then go right to the source, to the ultimate root or foundational idea that validates this great fallacy of apocalyptic. Embrace Jesus’ rejection of an apocalyptic God as in his stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory deity. Point? A non-retaliatory God will not enact the ultimate act of retaliation against humanity that is the apocalyptic punishment of human sin in the destruction of life and the world. Kind of a huge “Duh” of logic, eh.
Apocalyptic incites the most primal of human fears, the fear of a return to chaos and the end of everything, of not just the end of your life but of all life, the end of the very world. And that primal fear of survival, that primal impulse to live renders people susceptible to the craziest of salvation schemes proposed by apocalyptic prophets. It renders populations susceptible to “madness of crowd” eruptions, and associated schemes that destroy the world, destroy societies in order to try to “save the world”, as in Net Zero decarbonization today.
This explains something of why this site goes after climate alarmism as the latest illustration of the madness produced by apocalyptic alarmism. The irrational hysteria and destructive outcomes that this myth of apocalypse incites proves that Arthur Mendel was right- i.e. that apocalyptic is the most destructive idea in history.
On the second part of salvation schemes- i.e. the demand to purge some evil threat from the world. This is framed as joining the right side of a battle against evil in order to purge an evil enemy from life, to join what Zoroaster termed “the good or true religion of the Good God (to become a true believer in order to be “saved”), or in today’s versions- to join a righteous crusade/movement/ideology and fight the enemy on the opposite side, to conquer and destroy the enemy that you believe threatens life. As stated elsewhere here, this myth deforms the hero’s quest by tribally framing differing others as irredeemable enemies, as the evil entity to be punished and eliminated.
Another
If you take Historical Jesus seriously, notably his most important contribution to the history of human ideas- i.e. that God is a non-retaliatory, unconditional deity, then that insight spells the end of Christianity as we have known it. To remake Christ-ianity into true Jesus-ianity would transform Christianity into something entirely different from what it is now and what it has been over the past two millennia.
At the origins of Christianity, in order to promote a new highly conditional religion, with a powerholding priesthood to enforce the conditions, Paul had to re-establish the central idea of a retaliatory, threatening God, a God threatening wrath and destruction as Paul does repeatedly, for example, in Romans. He had to present a God that demanded the supreme condition of atonement- i.e. with blood sacrifice, payment, punishment of all sin, and then create an accompanying complex of conditions expressed via rituals, beliefs, and lifestyle conditions that are markers of true believers (i.e. Christian baptism, regular partaking in the Lord’s Supper, joining a Christian church, etc.). Paul’s Christ embodies the conditions for a salvation religion and centers all the related conditions of the religion, affirming them all.
To establish his Christ myth as universal truth and the dogma/orthodoxy of a new movement, Paul had to reject (1) the no conditions theology of Jesus, and (2) reject the larger context of Jesus’ wisdom tradition (see First Corinthians), and then (3) ignore Jesus’ overall teaching on non-retaliatory, unconditional theology and ethics. Most prominent in the mix, Paul had to directly confront and reject the unconditional God of Jesus that rendered all religious conditions superfluous, especially the supreme condition of the sacrifice of a cosmic God-man that would be presented as a universal Savior. Paul had to bury all that.
Paul successfully replaced the non-retaliatory theology of Jesus with his retaliatory apocalyptic Christ myth. Christianity, then functioned as another highly conditional salvation religion. It has never communicated the stunning unconditional reality of the love of God as Jesus did. It has distorted and buried that truth for two millennia now.
Another take on this foundational issue of bad ideas in narratives and damaging outcomes: Wendell Krossa
Apocalyptic mythology remains one of the greatest threats to human well-being and progress today, as evident in the damaging outcomes of the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade, with its end of days hysteria that has frightened significant numbers of people and rendered them supportive of a salvation scheme that is destroying societies to “save the world”- i.e. Net Zero decarbonization. These damaging outcomes of alarmist crusades will keep erupting to damage wider societies until we go to the root of the problem, to the main contributing factor of apocalyptic that fuels “madness of crowds” responses to alarmism crusades. This very same contributing factor of apocalyptic incited/validated the destruction of Marxism with its 100 million deaths last century, along with inciting and validating Nazism and its 60 million deaths, and now incites and validates environmental alarmism.
Again- that point made by the military guy regarding the 2014 ISIS eruption of apocalyptic insanity (i.e. believing the end was nigh and God/Allah would descend to help them fight and win the great final Armageddon battle against all infidels and then bring on the caliphate utopia). As he noted, you can tamp down such eruptions with force, but if you don’t go after ideas inciting and validating such crusades then they will just keep erupting with destructive outcomes. So also Landes warned about the same in regard to Nazism. If you dismiss a leader like Hitler as just another madman and do not recognize how apocalyptic millennial ideas can lead a society into mass-death, then you will suffer repeated outbreaks of such madness.
Add here that you can go after climate alarmism with good science to the contrary and that evidence is critically necessary. But you have still not solved the root of the problem- i.e. the ideas/beliefs that fuel these repeated eruptions, beliefs that are still dominant today in human narratives. As Arthur Herman noted- Declinism is the most dominant and influential theme in the world today. So also Humanprogress.org has noted that majorities around the world believe that the “world is getting worse”.
Declinism is the foundational element of apocalyptic mythology. It emerges from the related myths that humans have ruined an original paradise and consequently life is now declining toward catastrophe and ending. Prophets of apocalyptic Declinism have repeatedly and endlessly set dates for the end of days.
Decline to worse, toward apocalypse is one of the greatest fallacies of all. It competes for history’s greatest lie because the evidence overwhelmingly disproves it. Julian Simon broke the back of that great fallacy with his “Ultimate Resource”. Many others followed with similar evidence affirming the long-term trajectory of life was improving toward an ever better future and there was no evidence to show this trend of improvement was slowing or reversing and could not continue indefinitely.
The evidence to the contrary bolsters hope. It invigorates the human spirit to continue working hard to make life better, knowing that our work will be successful and produce good results.
But as many still believe in the fallacy of decline toward disastrous ending, you get the danger of fatalism, of people yielding to resignation that can become a form of self-fulfilling prophecy where people foolishly embrace “salvation” schemes that make life worse as in decarbonization, even surrendering to hopelessness and nihilism. If you believe that the apocalypse is inevitable, unavoidable, and maybe even wish for the chaos of apocalypse, then you get the result of people refusing to have children, and of children believing that there is no future so why go to school or grow up.
More threateningly, some will even shift toward the felt need to use force to purge the imagined threats of their apocalyptic narratives. This is one of the two elements in salvation schemes- i.e. (1) the demand for a sacrifice or payment, the need to suffer for redemption. And, (2) salvation schemes demand there be a purge of some evil enemy or threat and this is where the shift to “exterminate or be exterminated” occurs. Salvation demands that you eliminate your enemies that you believe are bringing on the end of life. Landes details the shift toward totalitarian violence, as the apocalyptic millennial leaders face disillusionment when their crusades begin to fail, and in order to eliminate any pushback against their apocalyptic crusades. That is the most dangerous phase of apocalyptic eruptions.
These pathological beliefs, like apocalyptic, continue to dominate the consciousness of many people. People become emotionally attached to their beliefs, to their narratives for reasons that many cannot even explain because their beliefs and emotions are rooted in inherited archetypes that are subconscious. Hence, when the latest version of some apocalyptic scenario is presented publicly it resonates intuitively with many people as truth. It has the feel of “truthiness”.
A reposting of Tabor’s statements on Paul’s influence on Western consciousness and society…
James Tabor quotes on the contradiction between the messages of Jesus and Paul and Paul’s influence on Christianity and on Western society- “Paul and Jesus: How the apostle transformed Christianity”.
“The message of Paul, which created Christianity as we know it, and the message of the historical Jesus and his earliest followers, were not the same. In fact, they were sharply opposed to one another with little in common beyond the name Jesus itself…”
Tabor notes that his research into the origins of Christianity was about “probing into the very foundations of our civilization in an effort to assay our most basic assumptions…”
His conclusion:
“Paul is the most influential person in human history, and realize it or not, he has shaped practically all we think about everything… the West in particular, but since Christian culture has had such a global spread, I think my somewhat extravagant language about ‘human history’ can be justified….the foundations of Western civilization- from our assumptions about reality to our societal and personal ethics- rest in a singular way upon the heavenly visions and apparitions of the apostle Paul.
“We are all cultural heirs of Paul, with the well-established doctrines and traditions of mainstream Christianity deeply entrenched in our culture. In contrast, Jesus as a historical figure… has been largely lost to our culture…”
“The fundamental doctrinal tenets of Christianity, namely that Christ is God ‘born in the flesh’, that his sacrificial death atones for the sins of humankind, and that his resurrection from the dead guarantees eternal life to all who believe, can be traced back to Paul, not Jesus…”
He adds that in Paul’s message we “understand the deeper roots of our culture”….
Continuing with Tabor… “Paul operated with a strongly apocalyptic perspective that influenced all he said or did”….
Tabor notes, “Paul’s apocalyptic urgency, so dominant in the earlier letters… the day of judgment was imminent- the very thing Paul constantly proclaimed (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3)”…
He then notes that “Paul (became) terribly bitter against his fellow Jewish Christians… The radical nature of the break that took place between Paul and the original apostles is so threatening to our most basic assumptions about Christian origins that it is easy to think that it just can’t be true… the entire New Testament canon is largely a… pro-Paul production…”
“The Jesus who most influenced history was the “Jesus Christ” of Paul, not the historical figure of Jesus… Paul transformed Jesus himself, with his message of a messianic kingdom of justice and peace on earth, to the symbol of a religion of otherworldly salvation in a heavenly world… Paul’s view of Christ as the divine pre-existent Son of God who took on human form, died on the cross for the sins of the world, and was resurrected at God’s right hand becomes the Christian message…”
He says the form of Christianity that developed in the Roman Empire “was heavily based upon the ecstatic and visionary experiences of Paul. Christianity, as we came to know it, is Paul and Paul is Christianity. The bulk of the New Testament is dominated by his theological vision…”
Then Tabor notes that the early First Century AD Jewish movement was the actual religion of Historical Jesus. This is critical to recognize because other scholars have concluded that what Jesus’ brother James taught is also what Jesus believed and this is affirmed by the fact that Jesus appointed his brother James to lead the Jewish movement after his death.
Just an insert- Bob Brinsmead has done some important research on James the brother of Jesus and argues with others that understanding James is how we know who Jesus was and what he believed and taught. See https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/
Further, Tabor quotes this from the Gospel of Thomas…
“The disciples said to Jesus, “We know you will leave us. Who then is going to be our leader then?” Jesus said to them, “No matter where you go you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being”… Jesus passes to James his successor the rule of the church…”
“For James the Christian message is not the person of Jesus but the message that Jesus proclaimed. James’s letter lacks a single teaching that is characteristic of the apostle Paul and it draws nothing at all from the traditions of Mark or John”…
Then Tabor notes along with many other scholars of early Christianity that the Q Wisdom Sayings gospel is the closest that we get to what Historical Jesus actually taught, his actual message- “The Q source is the earliest collection of the teachings and sayings of Jesus… the most striking characteristic of the Q source in terms of reconstructing Christian origins is that is has nothing of Paul’s theology, particularly his Christology or view of Christ…”
(End of Tabor quotes)
Related: More on human freedom today
Many years ago, I made this point to physicist Freeman Dyson on Benny Peiser’s CCNet (Cambridge Conference Network where Dyson was a member). Benny had asked for two readers of CCNet to submit questions for Dyson to him to respond to and I was chosen as one of them.
My point to Dyson was that originally the cosmos was created and whoever the creator was obviously determined the purpose of reality and life. But with humanity maturing over the millennia, we are now in charge of the purpose of life and its trajectory. As biologists say- We determine the direction of evolution now, with, for example, our ability to manipulate the human genome, etc.
And as we have discovered the highest human ideal of love, as our defining feature, so we try to shape life and society according to this ideal. And individual freedom is then also a critical part of such love. Love cannot be separated from freedom. This buttresses my point that we do not submit to some dominating Lord. And further, Historical Jesus backs me on this point- notably in his response to his power-mongering disciples pushing and shoving for who would be “greatest”. The “lording over others” thing.
Jesus responded, and he was representing what God was like, that if you want to be great then “serve others”. Do not lord over them like the infidels do. Wow, eh. You say Jesus embodies and represents God to us? Well, there you go. He states that God does not lord over others but serves. That is the “greatness and glory of God”. To serve free others.
Just sayin.
And a bit more on my “name-dropping” re Dyson. Playing with the “6 degrees of separation” thing, I once told my kids that this means that Einstein also agrees with me. Because Dyson was at Princeton in the late 40s and early 50s when Einstein was also there in the physics department. But then one time my daughter blurted out in front of her friends- “Hey Dad, tell them that Einstein agrees with you”. I about choked and tamped that down real quick. I responded to her in front of her friends- “Kelsey that was a joke. I was kidding. The six degrees separation thing”. Please don’t tell them that or they will tell their parents, “Hey Kelsey’s Dad thinks Einstein agrees with him. Kooky, eh”.
The “archetype” thing… Wendell Krossa
This site often resorts to the term- “Archetypes”. Makes me cringe slightly just as I similarly cringe in response to terms like “ontological”. Yechhh. Still don’t have a good handle on that one. Can writers find someone to translate such words into plain English for the rest of us? Please.
Archetype synonyms: “model, ideal, original, pilot, prototype, pattern, standard, classic exemplar, classic, representative, forerunner, epitome, prime example, etc.”
Much like David Chalmers in “The Conscious Mind” using the term “supervenient”, in reference to consciousness and its relationship to a material brain. Huh? WTF? My simple alternative to supervenient, after a dictionary check, was “not dependent on something else for its existence”. Chalmers would probably have quibbles with that.
I get that he is a philosopher talking to other philosophers in a highly refined discipline. So also, scientists of all stripes, when presenting their research, have to communicate with their peers in the language of their particular disciplines- using their discipline’s definitions, terms, categories, and referring to their discipline’s paradigms and history of research and arguments, etc. That is all a given when they write research reports for other scientists.
But its also helpful when such experts know how to communicate with the rest of us as street level listeners. Commoners. As a guy I once knew said, if someone really knows their discipline, they will be able to explain its main points/issues in simple terms for any average anybody to follow. But if you don’t really know your stuff, he said, you will just meander and obfuscate around the bush, like a physicist I saw on Joe Rogan trying to explain quantum mechanics, who left Rogan wincing in confusion more than usual.
Most of us, who consider ourselves of average intelligence, like to follow debates in all areas of science, ideology, and elsewhere, but would appreciate if varied disciplines could find English translators who can express the main points of any given discipline in “street-level” language terms.
My point on this… my simplified definition of “archetypes” acknowledges two sides to the concept- i.e. basic inherited “animal” impulses that we all possess and experience inside our brains and the ideas that our ancestors created to explain and validate these impulses. This was deeply embedded in human subconscious.
And I don’t accept assumptions that these impulses and validating ideas are something “immutable” (fixed and permanent) so we are destined to just suffer with them as traditionally understood and expressed. I refer here mainly to the core “evil triad” of impulses to “tribalism, domination, punitive destruction of differing others/enemies” and the myths created to validate the expression of these. Do not yield/submit to “immutability” in regard to these.
I argue here that the “archetypes of the subconscious” constitute the most basic level to go after and change in order to properly promote human transformation, freedom, and progress. And we, humanity, have done so, sort of successfully. But too many of us keep falling back into the validated expressions of tribalism, domination of others (not respecting and protecting individual freedom and self-determination of all others) and affirming the punitive destruction of “enemy” others (legitimizing eye for eye punitive justice systems and pro-war advocacy).
This is also what I mean when I argue that too many people still respond to contemporary apocalyptic narratives like climate apocalyptic and affirm the salvation schemes of these crusades and endorse their salvation plans that “destroy societies to save the world”. Those people are responding to alarmism narratives, like climate alarmism, at an intuitive, emotional level because it just feels and seems right and true. That is how the subconscious archetypes work. They give us the intuitive sense of truthiness.
Hence, change at that level of the subconscious is critical. As a friend reminds me- More than 90% of human response and behavior operates from that level, subconsciously influenced. We don’t consciously think about a lot that we do, but we just respond emotionally and act. So we have to deal with this issue of the archetypes.
My point is- Be fully aware and conscious of what is influencing us and, especially, don’t continue to subconsciously re-enforce those dark impulses of the evil triad by embracing/affirming old narrative ideas/themes that do such. We know better today that tribalism is inhuman. It is a rejection of the oneness of the human family (“Mitochondrial Eve”, NDE discovery of oneness, quantum entanglement).
Classic Liberal insights and principles also tell us that intervention in the lives of free and equal others, trying to dominate and control other, is wrong and if we claim to be human then we must respect and protect the individual freedom and self-determination of all others, equally.
And we know the punitive destruction of imperfect others is inhumane and restorative justice approaches to human failure do better to help us to maintain our own humanity in the face of evil.
We have the mental tools today to consciously re-evaluate our narratives and behavior, to check ourselves and to counter the old archetypes and their outcomes with better alternatives. This is about reformation/revolution at the most basic level of narrative themes. It is about reshaping the conscious/subconscious with new narrative themes that help us push back against the “evil triad” of inherited impulses with more humane ideals.
Just as Historical Jesus set the pattern by rejecting the entire history of theology that preceded him and presenting a stunning new insight on the metaphysical- that the ultimate reality, ultimate ideal was stunningly non-retaliatory, unconditional love. He gave us the single most profound insight ever uttered on a new cohering center for narratives, whether religious or secular, a new ultimate ideal to liberate our minds entirely from enslavement to the old, to transform consciousness and life entirely.
So how about we show some respect and properly honor the man and his message, not like Paul who rejected Jesus’ stunning new theology and shamefully retreated to the same old monster theology of all past history, psychically damaging “threat theology”. We know better today with all the accumulating information on who Jesus really was and what happened at his time and we know the distortion of his message by following generations, notably by Paul and his disciples. We have good sources like the “Search for the Historical Jesus (1738), the latest phase in the Jesus Seminar, Q Wisdom Sayings research, and Bob Brinsmead’s good research, etc.