This good science below from sources like “co2coalition.org”, where atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and others like 2022 Nobel laureate in physics John Clauser, post their research. My point is to focus on the physics of CO2 which shows that the warming influence of CO2 is now “saturated”, meaning it will contribute very little if any to further warming, if such warming should continue to occur.
Takeaway from their research? It is natural factors that are mainly responsible for climate change, not CO2. And warming has not and is not becoming a “crisis”. It has been mild (roughly 1 degree C over the past century) and hugely beneficial to all life, just as the increase in CO2 has been hugely beneficial to all life in adding some 15% more green vegetation to the world since 1980.
Again, there is no good scientific reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies.
Climate facts:
Outgoing longwave radiation (thermal radiation) spans wavelengths from 4 to 100 micrometers (UM). CO2 absorbs that radiation at 15 micrometers on the longwave spectrum. CO2 re-emits the absorbed outgoing longwave radiation in all directions, sending about 50% back downward to contribute a minor influence to any warming.
This quote from the third link below…
“Although there is little-to-no evidence of any significant changes in the earth’s climate since the post-industrial age [2,6,7], man-made global warming proponents are concerned because measured CO2 levels have increased by about 30% over the past 100 years (0.028% to 0.041%), and CO2 has been identified as a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
“However, skeptics argue that not only are current CO2 levels in the atmosphere negligible compared to levels seen in the history of the planet, but that the infrared radiation wavelengths that are absorbed by CO2 are already saturated, so the maximum CO2 effect on the earth’s temperature has already been reached, as will be discussed further below. Thus, adding more CO2 beyond current levels is not likely to have much effect on global warming.
“In fact, warming of the earth is related to many other factors, including the natural variability of the climate. In any case, the role of CO2 itself is insignificant compared to that of water vapor, which is present in the atmosphere up to 4%, i.e., 100 times more than CO2. In addition, the H2O molecule has a higher warming potential than the CO2 molecule. Moreover, man’s contribution to global warming gases is tiny compared to that of natural processes, as will also be described below.”
New comment below: The narrative themes that are driving the climate alarmism crusade. No different from the same old myths that shaped “the profoundly religious crusades” of Marxism and Nazism, and all previous apocalyptic crusades. Note David Redles’ good historical detail (“Hitler’s Millennial Reich”) on how Hitler used apocalyptic millennial ideas to carry Germany into mass-death. As that military guy warned about ISIS- you can defeat such eruptions of violence with force, but they will only keep erupting and re-erupting until you go after the fundamental ideas that incite and validate them.
So also historian Richard Landes (“Heaven On Earth”) says that if you just dismiss Hitler as another historical madman you have learned nothing about how apocalyptic millennial ideas can carry as society toward mass-death. You will just repeat the same horrors. Apocalyptic millennial crusades, whether religious or “secular ideological”, all follow the same patterns of development, go through similar stages, and end with similar horrific outcomes, even mass-death as they descend into “exterminate or be exterminated” madness. Don’t be misled by the superficial differences in the titles of the crusades, the different terms/categories/definitions used to describe their projects. Keep an eye on the core themes behind all that surface difference.
And there is no more critical idea/ideal to go after than that of “deity”- long the cohering center of human narratives. So push past the religious “reformism” that is just tinkering at the periphery and go after the primitive projections of our ancestors that have long utterly deformed humanity’s highest ideal and authority- God. Push past any fear of being smeared as a “heretic”. Note especially the two radically different theologies of Historical Jesus and Paul, the two main influences on Western narratives and consciousness (James Tabor quotes again). To those identifying as true “believers in Jesus”- well, then honor the man for who he really was and what he actually taught. Paul buried that man and his message in his Christ myth. Bob Brinsmead says more on this below.
This on the project of this site: Wendell Krossa
To buttress my points on how we base our behavior on beliefs, note David Redles’ details below on how Hitler used apocalyptic millennial beliefs to move Germany toward mass death (to get people to behave in a certain manner). Point- It’s repeatedly the same basic set of themes that are used by these movements (the subconscious archetype thing)- i.e. apocalyptic crusades that stir fear with apocalyptic scenarios thus inciting the survival impulse in populations, and then propose salvation schemes that involve sacrifice and the violent purging of some exaggerated threat. These same themes were used by Marxism, Nazism, and now are used by environmental alarmism as in the “climate crisis” crusade. These historians (Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, David Redles) have noted this use of religious themes in all three of the past century’s “profoundly religious” crusades (“past century’s”? Marxism is resurging in the West, Neo-Nazism hangs around still, and environmental alarmism continues to dominate public narratives).
This is all about the deformity of the primal human impulse to meaning by framing that impulse with primitive mythology and thereby inciting our inherited impulses to embrace the devastating outcomes of “destroy the world to save the world” (blindly believing that we are engaging a righteous battle against evil, even that God is on our side).
Landes notes the widespread resistance among historians and social scientists to acknowledge that these movements are profoundly religious. He says about Marxism,
“Any attempt to put this totalitarian system in the category of a closed and barbarian theocracy is very often vehemently refused… Everybody who dares to take the Bolshevik world as a religious community is considered a traitor betraying the humanitarian ideals of the modernity of the French Revolution. If you see it in this sense, say the proponents of the project of modernity, the distance between the old and the new modern world would shrink too much and the debts to the Christian tradition would become too heavy. Thus, when you treat the Bolsheviks as a millennial sect you are going to betray the project of modernity and treat the Bolsheviks, despite their very modern efforts to industrialize backward Russia, as a medieval sect of obscure believers”.
“Among the historical issues of the twentieth century, nothing poses greater problems to scholars than the similarities and differences between the Soviet and Nazi totalitarian systems, both of which (by the definitions of this study) were active cataclysmic, apocalyptic millennial movements”, p. 347 in Heaven On Earth.
Notes: Wendell Krossa
The apocalyptic millennial authors have done us a great service in exposing an entirely different side to these apocalyptic millennial crusades that try to present themselves as “secular ideology”, even science.
The apocalyptic millennial scholars- Herman, Landes, Mendel, Redles- have, with carefully detailed research, exposed Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism as profoundly religious movements. Landes notes that Western intellectuals revolted against the evidence that was presented from speeches, writing, conversations revealing that their Marxist heroes were actually just religious nut cases. So also, with Nazism and now environmentalism.
What these historians acknowledge is that the main religious themes driving these apocalyptic crusades are Christian themes. And I would add- that very fact points directly to Paul’s apocalyptic Christ myth that framed the Christianity of our Western tradition from the first century of the CE era.
Don’t be afraid to confront and admit this fact (that apocalyptic today descends directly from Paul’s theology/mythology), because the brilliant counter to that great distortion of Paul is the Historical Jesus who rejected the apocalyptic lunacy of his own era, completely. Jesus had presented an entirely new theology of a non-apocalyptic God, a nonretaliatory God who rejected “eye for eye” retaliation. This is the great contradiction at the heart of Christianity.
Insert note: And touching base with my previous points that the dualism of this realm exists because we cannot know good except in contrast with its opposite- the bad. Does Paul’s Christ myth exist to more sharply highlight the brilliance of the central insight of Historical Jesus? Just musing.
Jesus’ statement of his central insight: “You have heard of eye for eye justice. Don’t do it. Instead, love your enemy because God does (base your behavior on this belief). How so? God gives the critical gifts of agrarian society- sun and rain- to both good and bad people. No discrimination. No exclusion. Equal inclusion and generosity to everyone. So love everyone unconditionally just like your Daddy does”.
Apocalypse is the ultimate expression of eye for eye retaliatory punishment as graphically illustrated by the Christ of Paul destroying the world in John’s Revelation, punishing humanity for their sin of ruining his originally perfect world. Paul stated his embrace of a wrathful, retaliatory God in Romans, quoting an Old Testament declaration of God, “Vengeance is mine I will repay”, repay as in the destruction of all unbelievers. Paul had previously stated in his earliest letters to the Thessalonians that his apocalyptic “Lord Jesus” would return in fiery rage to destroy/punish all who did not believe his Christ myth.
Jesus rejected that hateful, violent theology and gave us an entirely new cohering center for narratives- a non-retaliatory, unconditional God. Meaning no apocalypse, no threat of punitive retaliation against humanity, no demand for sacrifice or payment. No to “a lot of frightening things” in the old theologies.
Until we grasp the inciting, validating religious themes behind apocalyptic crusades, and counter those with better alternatives, we won’t solve the problem of the repeatedly erupting madness of apocalyptic as in ISIS, Marxism, Nazism, and environmental apocalypse. Look, for example, at Hollywood today obsessively pushing this lunacy of apocalyptic in their public story-telling. So also, media haranguing us endlessly with their climate apocalypse and mindlessly promoting the politician’s destructive Net Zero salvation scheme.
We look back and laugh at people in the past who were caught up in episodes of “madness of crowds” apocalyptic hysteria, but here we are today going through one of these very same lunacy movements- a madness of crowds episode now at an unprecedented scale in terms of spreading damage (see one example below). Future generations (even children) will look back and shake their heads that so many intelligent people of today were caught up in such insanity.
This is all about what we humans have done from the beginning- basing our behavior on validating belief. It’s about the ideas that we embrace to shape our narratives, to then guide our thinking, our emotions, motivations, and behaviors. Ideas that influence our support for policies and programs that then impact our societies, for good and bad, sometimes with really bad outcomes (Thomas Sowell’s “the test of facts/outcomes”).
It’s about the stories that we embrace and our responsibility to make sure that they are shaped by authentically human themes. This “make sure” reduces to our fundamental shared obligation to discern the human from the inhuman, the good from the bad, in all areas of life.
It’s about answering that fundamental question that arises from our primary meaning impulse- What does it mean to be human? What is the point and purpose of our existence, our stories, our lives? And most critical in this mix- What does the defining ideal of humanity- i.e. love- really mean?
My repeated comment above on the stark contradiction between Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth is a takeoff from what Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy saw way back when. While they clearly stated the contrasting difference between Jesus’ “diamonds/pearls” and Paul’s “dung/garbage/slime”, they did not outline clearly the details of that difference. They left that project to “Johnny-come-lately’s” like those of us concerned about the primitive inciting and validating ideas still too dominant in human narratives today.
Jefferson and Tolstoy may have been aware of the earlier emerging “Search for Historical Jesus” that had begun with papers published by German theologians around 1738. Jefferson’s life covered 1743-1826. Tolstoy’s 1828-1910. That search began to detail the differences between Jesus and Paul, recognizing that a lot of material in the gospels that was attributed to Jesus could not have been spoken or taught by him because it contradicted his central insight and theme of a non-retaliatory, unconditional God.
If I do nothing else here, I hope to make clear the profound differences between these two- i.e. history’s most influential religious figures, Jesus and Paul. Because the issues at play are critical and the influence of their ideas continue to profoundly impact human life and civilization.
Get the basic point that Jesus and Christ are not the same. They are radically different persons, with fundamentally opposite messages. You cannot mix and merge these two in some untouchably sacred and dogmatically protected combination as “Jesus Christ”. That is taking cognitive dissonance (“holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time”) to new reaches of confusing lunacy.
My comments on the Jesus/Paul contradiction derives from the research of three centuries of Search for Historical Jesus, and notably “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research. This is very much about probing the great issues of- What does it really mean to be human? What really is the nature of our ultimate ideal of love?
“If love is not unconditional, it is not love”, Bob Brinsmead.
Was Jesus’ definition of love as universal/unconditional the true framing of love (“sun and rain freely given to both good and bad”)? Or was Paul’s very different definition the right one- i.e. love as tribal (true believers included, unbelievers excluded), submissive (Lord Christ dominating all eternally), and punitive (Paul’s Christ destroying unbelievers in apocalypse and the lake of fire)?
This all goes deeper to the age-old impulse of humanity to understand what or who is God? What is this world all about? What are we to be as humans? What is our meaning and purpose in this world? What have we been created for?
Another on this subject: Wendell Krossa
The two chief icons of the Western tradition illustrate the very different ideals that shape the human meaning impulse with two entirely differing narratives or complexes of beliefs and ideas. To sort out the differences you have to do like Thomas Jefferson- get your scissors out and cut up the New Testament pages, putting the differing passages and statements on two different piles.
Here are some of the main differences:
Love as universal, unconditional (illustrated by Jesus, for example, in the Prodigal Father story), versus tribally limited love focused primarily and ultimately on true believers, a religious love that is highly conditional (i.e. based on the demanded condition of supreme sacrifice/payment in the death of a cosmic godman as a payment for sin).
Nonviolent resolution of conflict (the no more “eye for eye”) versus violence to solve problems (Paul’s promise of divine retaliatory destruction in apocalypse and hell).
Inclusion of all equally (“sun and rain” given to both good and bad), versus tribal exclusion (eternal separation of goats from sheep at the great White Throne judgment).
True greatness and glory in service to others, not dominating others, versus the greatness and glory of the Christ as eternal Lord, King, ruling eternally with a rod of iron.
Petty retaliatory punishment for every sin (look at the New Testament lists of sins that get you tossed on the Big Barbie down under), versus unlimited forgiveness (“seventy times seven”, meaning no limits), and so on.
One set of ideals/principles engenders and validates inhumane behavior and violent outcomes, the other set of ideals counters any such inhuman behavior and outcomes (inspires to truly human response and behavior).
The differences between the ideals and principles of Jesus, and those of Paul, have been confused entirely in the merging of both in “Jesus Christ”, a mixture where the primitively subhuman themes of Paul have distorted, deformed, and buried the more humane themes of Jesus.
You cannot merge the above entire opposites of ideals, behaviors in one and the same person without creating a monstrous perversion of central principles involved.
You could add to this list, in regard to the age-old struggle of elites to dominate society and divide populations into elites versus commoners, that the Christ of Paul represents the ideal of elite domination (Christ as sole Ruler/Lord/powerholder controlling all), versus Jesus advocating for commoner democracy (“true greatness is to serve”) as in Classic Liberal institutions and systems of law that protect the equal freedom and rights of every person and protect all from control by dominating elites (i.e. protect from totalitarianism by decentralizing and dispersing power away from elites to the people).
The human footprint on nature is too big and destructive? The fallacy of the Ecological Footprint, and its limited resources assumption, is that there are too many of us people consuming too much of Earth’s “natural capital”, as in world resources. Horseshit. This from Humanprogress.org…
https://humanprogress.org/dataset/global-agricultural-land-use-per-capita?countries
“Not only has food production massively increased, but it has also become much more efficient.
“Even with today’s richer diets, agricultural land use per person has fallen to around a third of what it was in the pre-industrial era.”
Add to this the dematerialization trend in modern civilization, also posted at Humanprogress.org.
https://humanprogress.org/markets-and-dematerialization/
https://humanprogress.org/trends/producing-more-with-less/
Destroying the home of Classic Liberalism– an E.G. (example). Here is how a fundamentally religious crusade destroys a society with apocalyptic lunacy. This in the very country that gave us Classic Liberalism, simply the best contribution to Western civilization ever:
“Ed Miliband’s ill-fated crusade to make Britain a ‘clean-energy superpower’ will put up bills and put us in the dark”, Julia Hartley-Brewer, The Sun, Sept. 5, 2024
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/30282407/ed-miliband-britain-clean-energy-superpower-bills/
Quotes:
“(Ed Miliband) is a man with a fanatical, almost religious zealotry to deliver Net Zero — and he’s all the more dangerous thanks to his abject lack of knowledge about the very task he is charged with.
“The Energy Secretary believes — along with the rest of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Cabinet — that he can decarbonise ¬Britain’s entire electricity grid within just six years…
“And here’s another problem: Miliband and his team at the Department for Energy haven’t actually got a clue how they’re going to hit their target….
“But you don’t need a degree in climate science or engineering to work this stuff out.
“You just need the basic maths skills of an eight-year-old to see the sums simply don’t add up…
“It all defies belief.”
There are more detailed articles/reports on the decline of Britain under Net Zero lunacy, reports posted regularly in Global Warming Policy Forum’s “Net Zero Watch” newsletter. Germany and other societies are suffering from the same “religious zealotry”. Watch us in Canada for another example of cultic religious zealotry (i.e. Trudeau’s “eco-zealotry”).
Notes on this and that: Wendell Krossa
One central purpose or project drives this site and all that is posted on here- the “Daddy” thing, to tell everyone visiting to read material here that you are safe in love, ultimately safe. That is the underlying motivation, intention, and point in all the repetitious ways that I express things here. And I am touching base with the human impulse to meaning as I post diverse material here.
We can argue for safety somewhat in terms of the material evidence that life here on Earth is the best that it’s ever been in history (“Humanprogress.org”, among many other sources). This evidence counters the exaggerated distortion of alarmist narratives that stir panic and anxiety that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Evidence that its “the best that it’s ever been” is especially critical to counter the hysterical nonsense of the climate alarmism crusade.
But even more importantly, in terms of fundamental human concerns, I would argue for safety as related to the spiritual insights that counter the distortions of traditional mythical and religious theologies that have battered human consciousness for millennia with lies about deities that threaten to punish human imperfection through natural disasters, disease, accident, or predatory cruelty (animal and human). There has never been any such reality as a retaliatory God behind the natural world punishing people for their sins.
Historical Jesus rejected that in one summary breakthrough insight, stating that “God does not retaliate with eye for eye justice but instead loves God’s enemies and exhibits that unconditional love by giving the good gifts of life (critical to agrarian peoples)- sun and rain for crops- to both good and bad people alike. Without discrimination or exclusion. Universal love”. (My paraphrase of the Q Wisdom Sayings gospel of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 5 and the better version in Luke 6.)
My Daddy point here is that Historical Jesus affirmed that there is no ultimate monster. So let that deeply embedded source of fear and anxiety go, the pathology of “threat theology”.
The proclamation of God as unconditional love, is the main theme/message of Historical Jesus that was denied and rejected by Paul two decades later as he retreated to the hideous myth of monstrous, threatening deity behind all reality in his violent apocalyptic Christ myth. Look at his letters and note his repeated threats of the “wrath of God… divine destruction”, and then look at John’s Revelation for a graphic portrayal of Paul’s monster deity (especially Revelation chapter 19).
For those of you who cringe, pained at the blunt comments made here re Paul’s violent Christ myth, I would remind you that if you claim to be a “true believer in Jesus” then you are obligated, by your claim to believe in the man, to honor him for who he actually was and for what he actually taught. That is simple integrity when dealing with historical fact (see Bob Brinsmead’s latest post just below).
You dishonor Jesus entirely by affirming the profound distortion of the man and his message that we have received in Paul’s Christ myth. In arguing this, I am pointing to the last three centuries of research from the “Search for historical Jesus”, the Jesus Seminar materials, and especially the “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research of James Robinson, John Kloppenborg, Stephen Patterson, and many others, and again, notably Bob Brinsmead.
Another note: Wendell Krossa
The 9/11 and ISIS eruptions of violence over past decades illustrate clearly how bad religious beliefs deform human minds and personalities with fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, nihilism, and violence. And most egregious in the mix of bad religious ideas- the perverse ideas of deity that validate the worst forms of evil. Nothing validates more destructive evil than “Cruel God theologies” with features such as tribalism, domination, and violent punitive justice as expressed in myths of divine destruction through apocalypse and hell.
Once again, I affirm the comment of the military guy who said that you must go after the “ideology” of ISIS to properly defeat such violence for the long-term. Meaning, by his reference to “ideology”, go after the beliefs of such movements.
See, for example- “What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy- and for how to stop it”, Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 2015.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
Point? Just as apocalyptic has been a central belief driving religious violence and madness across history, so also that same myth has notably fueled and validated the violence of Marxism and Nazism to embrace the “exterminate or be exterminated” phase of mass-death crusades, and now drives environmental alarmism as in the climate apocalypse crusade and its destructive salvation scheme of Net Zero decarbonization.
“Apocalyptic is the most violent and destructive idea in history”, Arthur Mendel in “Vision and Violence”.
This interview of Richard Dawkins by Piers Morgan: Wendell Krossa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA4Hx-dJAn4
Interesting to see Dawkins dance around mixing up the origin of the cosmos and biological life in response to Morgan who appeared to be asking more about biological origins at times. And a bit of a cringe at Dawkins insisting the mystery of life’s origin is a “small mystery” that materialist science will solve someday in materialist terms. To quote Freeman Dyson, responding to Daniel Dennett that the material brain produces consciousness, “I don’t think so (Mr. Dennett)”. Then he smiled.
Also, Morgan was not clear on religion. He insisted on a revival of religion in society, without distinguishing the critical issue of bad religious ideas as distinct from good ones.
Dawkins also seems to muddle around in a simplistic “dogmatic materialism versus fundamentalist religion” as the only two basic options available. I thought “let 8 billion flowers bloom” as I watched these two have a rather nice conversation around all sorts of religious/spiritual things like the existence of a deity and ongoing life in other realms.
One point that I ‘yessed’ as Dawkins spoke to it- the frightful idea of eternity. From our perspective of “the passing of time” (think Kamala Harris’s comments on this), it seems terrifying to live in eternal boredom. But the NDE people tell us, correctly, that time and space and other material things, are just part of this material realm. There is no time or space or eternal boredom in the realms outside of this material arena. The “eternal Now” thing.
And that is something entirely mysterious that we cannot even begin to comprehend, confined as we are by the limiting material brain which keeps our perception restricted to just 5 senses and in 3-4 dimensions. A “gotcha” to Dawkins on that one, as in I get your point.
Never better time to be alive, never more anxiety, despair, Wendell Krossa
Just before the 33-minute mark, Piers Morgan asks Richard Dawkins to comment on why so many young people today suffer so much anxiety about life when we live in the best time ever to be alive on earth- with longer lifespans, healthier lives, less wars than ever before, more opportunities, on and on…
Could the widespread youth anxiety of today be, in part, the result of the endless terrorizing of children with climate apocalyptic scenarios of life ending? The endless climate hysteria from adults broadcast daily all across media?
Has there ever been more hysterical haranguing of children with narratives of despair, anti-humanism, and nihilism?
Now some varied posts to a discussion group: Wendell Krossa (posts to this discussion group do not go through editing for proper grammar, etc. Its just conversational stuff.)
“The claim of the pro-censorship people is that they must “righteously” censor in order to protect people, especially children, from “misinformation, disinformation, mal-information”, from “hate speech”. Protect children from “online harms” such as pornography. And so on. It sounds well-intentioned. But what happened? The Twitter Files (Shellenberger, Taibbi) revealed that Democrats were also having opponent’s speech censored, opinions they did not like, even jokes.
“Hate speech” had been extended (i.e. “concept creep”) to include the differing opinions of political opponents. That was an extension into blatant totalitarian censorship. And, as so usual now- note below how they smear free speech absolutist Elon Musk as “right-wing”, dismissed as an extremist nut case. Just as they do with all populists, that includes conservatives, centrists, moderate center-leftists, independents, any who threaten their hold on power by demanding a return to true liberal democracy, and refuse the anti-democratic interventions and control of the new totalitarians. Ah, this is the crazy world we are in today.”
Another post to discussion group: Wendell Krossa
“”Equity” is a central plank of DEI and Marxism- that in collectives all get the exact same outcomes, the same amount of income and property, regardless of education achieved, work contributed, skills attained, or anything else that is individually defined. Collective equity destroyed societies and was behind the death of some 70 million Chinese under Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” into collectivism and “equity”. Add Stalin’s collectivist murdering of some 20 million people. And Pol Pot in Cambodia.”
And a comment on Net Zero Green approaches devastating economies: Wendell Krossa
“As in Australia, so in Canada and the US, Britain, Germany…. Ruined economies. As Richard Lindzen said, revolutionary leftists saw that energy was the thing to attack because it undergirded the Western civilization and society that they wanted to destroy. I don’t think the incompetent Prime Ministers or presidents of these countries think at the level of dedicated Marxist zealots, but more that they just affirm general principles of socialist collectivism, some at “lite” level, i.e. well-intentioned people who are concerned for fairness and the for the less fortunate but exhibiting concern that is based on distorted assumptions about the “evil of wealth accumulation and private property” as a zero-sum game. People holding fallacious assumptions of “limited resources”, etc.
“Who said that the most dangerous people in our societies are well-intentioned and sincerely believe that they know what is best for all others. That points to the “psychopathology of leftwing compassion and authoritarianism”. Such people are not too concerned with the intricacies of ideologies that the zealots get into, and are not perhaps aware of the long-range vision and planning of the more dedicated activists and the devastating outcomes of such utopian visions and crusades.”
Another good one from Bob Brinsmead (private posts to discussion group):
“I have already observed that while Jesus’ existence is not a myth just as John the Baptizer is not a myth, but the Christ of the Hellenists of Antioch is a myth.
“In his “Honest to Jesus”, Robert Funk points out how the New Testament Gospels are an amalgamation of history and myth. The authors were writing of an historical figure to which they added legendary material such as nativity stories and the account of the apocalypse, supposedly according to Jesus. They also added the great nature miracles and stories like the raising of Lazarus and some parables which are junk such as the Ten Virgins (yuk!) and the Rich Man and the Beggar at his gate.
“The authors are all post-Paul and post 70 CE or post-Second Temple era. They are written by Hellenists to support the Christology of Antioch and to refute the non-Christology of Jerusalem. These authors, following Paul, tried to unite Apocalyptic Judaism with the theology of the Jewish Hellenists that soon became Gentile Hellenism. It was Kaseman who said that “Apocalyptic was the mother of all Christian theology”, and we may add that Hellenism was the father of it.
“I have done further research into the influence of Hellenism, beginning with Plato, on the Jewish Hellenists with whom Paul joined forces. What strikes me as having enormous significance, is how the influence of Plato on Philo of Alexandria, influenced the way the Greek-speaking NT authors, including Paul, adopted the Platonic method of applying his interpretative principles to the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament. Platonic thinking and Philo’s attempts to amalgamate Judaism and Hellenism led directly to interpreting the scripture allegorically-figurately-typologically-symbolically, which are all terms to identify the methodology.
“To give one supreme example, the book of Hebrews interprets the Jewish sanctuary ritual as a type of the heavenly Patterns or Forms. This is classically Platonic.
“Paul uses the Law in this Hellenist way too when he interprets the story of the two women in Abraham’s life as an allegory (see Galatians 4). Or when, in his Corinthian letter, he takes the law about not muzzling the oxen which tread out the corn as having no intrinsic value (“does God care for oxen. Of course not!”). It is only of value as an allegorical or typological reality.
“These are not isolated instances of how Paul uses (and abuses) Scripture by ignoring the historical context as having real meaning. It is this Hellenist use of Scripture that is found in the greatest Jewish writer of the first century- Philo of Alexandria – that devalues the actual history being referred to in Hebrew scripture by making room for what is the real meaning of history by turning it into an allegory about heavenly Forms.
“I refer also to Matthew’s series of so-called messianic proof texts where he uses (abuses) scripture in this way. For example, he reads how the prophet is talking about God calling Israel as his son out of Egypt. The context in Hosea is not remotely connected to a prophecy of a future Messiah, but Matthew ignores the real point of Hosea and turns it into an allegory of the coming Messiah. He does the same with Isaiah 7:14 which is an account of the prophet’s wife bearing a son who won’t reach his teens before the nations of Judah and Israel will lose both their kings.
“The historical context does not mean a thing to Matthew anymore than the law about caring for your beast means a thing to Paul. People have wondered where is the Scripture that Paul is citing when he says, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture.” There is no such scripture. Paul is just using a far-fetched allegory or typology, or what have you, and lifting it right out of its historical context.
“According to Paul you can take every OT story, devalue its history and its real meaning, and read in it a message for the present end-time- an allegory for those “upon whom the ends of the world are come.” Amazing!
“This gives way to any hair-brained expositor who is able to “find Christ” in any story or incident in the OT. Every piece of cloth or arrangement or every joint in the tabernacle– all is taken to be an allegory of Christ. Just think of all those animals sacrificed on altars for century after century, supposedly to be read off as figurative lessons about Christ– a Hellenist one, for sure!
“The real Jesus loathed the wretched institution of animal sacrifices which really originated in primitive people killing humans to propitiate the gods, and did such ghastly things until sacrificing animals to the gods was a humane step forward. Yet religious minds turned this sub-human religiosity into allegories-shadows, copies (as Plato would say) of the heavenly or meta-physical Forms.
“Was not the protest of the Hebrew prophets against this appalling blood-letting institution of the temple enough for the Jews to reform away from this barbaric human behaviour until they had killed John and Jesus for revivify the protest of the prophets? No, no. Hellenism had to turn the teaching of Jesus around to make him the supreme sacrifice which invested all that animal slaughter with a sacred significance. That was not the work of those who like James and the apostles had listened to the teachings of Jesus, but it was the work of the Hellenists who raised the Christology of the Christian religion in the cradle of Antioch rather than Jerusalem.
“I recommend the reading of Helmet Koester, “History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age”. He says, “Christianity was deeply engaged in the process through which it became one with the Hellenistic world and its religious concepts,” p. 201. “Christianity, probably more than the other religions of its time, was able to adapt itself to a variety of cultural and religious currents and to appropriate a numbers of foreign elements until it was ready to succeed as a world religion, thoroughly syncretistic in every way,” p.166-167.”
(End of Brinsmead comments)
Desperate times produce multitudes of cowards but a few great spirits with spines of steel who refuse to give the knee to totalitarian bullies. In the face of such threats as today’s assaults on free speech, we are all tested in the depths of our spirits and given opportunity to make life-legacy choices. As someone said, the courage of the few willing to “not back down when stood before the gates of hell” (Tom Petty), such courage is infectious and inspires others to similarly stand free and bold.
This from Michael Shellenberger- “I Am Under Criminal Investigation In Brazil For Telling The Truth. That Won’t Stop Me From Going: The greatest threat to our freedom isn’t the totalitarians. It’s our fear of them”, Sept. 4, 2024
https://www.public.news/p/i-am-under-criminal-investigation
Shellenberger begins, “Tomorrow, I will fly to São Paulo to participate in a free speech rally on Saturday, which is Brazil’s Independence Day. After that, I will travel to Brasilia to meet with pro-free speech lawmakers….
“I am already under criminal investigation by the Brazilian government…
“I also believe that Brazil is a censorship test case for other nations around the world. While Brazil appears to be an extreme case, every major developed nation, including the United States, has leaders who are demanding similar kinds of censorship, including the deplatforming of disfavored voices.
“But the main reason I’m going is because I believe it’s important to stand up to bullies. If I am arrested, then the Brazilian government will confirm to the world that it is a totalitarian dictatorship. If I am not, then I will give courage to the millions of Brazilians who are too scared to speak their mind….”
He continues, stating that “the greatest threat to our freedom isn’t the totalitarians. It’s our fear of them….
“The stakes couldn’t be higher. Free speech is foundational to everything we hold dear. It is the First Amendment for a reason. It is a fundamental human right. Without free speech, there is no democracy….
“Various high-profile progressive influencers, including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, and actor Mark Ruffalo, praised Brazil’s censorship and denounced X owner Elon Musk. Reich even urged that Musk be arrested.”
More from these independent journalists doing such a great job exposing the real threats to our liberal democracies, threats emanating from within our societies… the varied strains in a new emerging totalitarianism that is undermining freedom, free speech, and, overall, the Classic Liberal principles that our Western civilization has thrived on.
Taibbi comments on the anti-science “appeal to authority”, the simple-minded approach of just trust authorities/the state, avoid critical thinking for yourself, just embrace submission to the state and state authority. This, as he notes, is much of what “education” today is about.
And beware of throwing around the smear of “anti-vaxxer”. It is much more complex than such simplistic dismissals of people who fact-checked Covid vaccines early on. Remember Joe Rogan in this regard and how CNN smeared him with distortions and lies.
“OIA Files: At Outset of Pandemic, Academics Scoff at “Doing the Math”, A “digital literacy” professor lauded for warning the public away from “critical thinking” blasts the public’s “addiction” to skepticism”, Matt Taibbi, Sept. 5, 2024
https://www.racket.news/p/foia-files-at-outset-of-pandemic
Taibbi notes the comments of an academic, Michael Caulfield, who challenges a basic assumption behind higher education- “Should we really be teaching young people to think for themselves, he wonders, when a simpler idea might work better?” This relates to how experts did not want average people thinking for themselves about Covid, people who would “do the math” for themselves and disagree with public experts.
As Caulfield argued, “’Math’ isn’t a great replacement for figuring out who to trust.” Taibbi adds that “If liberal education was once about teaching young people to think for themselves, the new ethos stresses knowing whom (it’s whom, professor) to “trust,” i.e. to whom one should outsource thought.”
This also relates to the larger battle of experts against what they labelled “misinformation/disinformation”, meaning critical people thinking for themselves, doing the math for themselves, and dissenting from the expert’s demand for “appeal to and submission to their authority”.
Taibbi says, “Most revealing: while researchers constantly scan for misinformation/disinformation spread by ordinary consumers, they never (literally not once that I’ve found, across years of reading these communications) look at government officials or credentialed experts as possible sources of bad information. The hundreds of millions spent on “anti-disinformation” initiatives can be boiled down to one principle, repeated endlessly: trust your betters. Forget critical thinking, locate authoritative voices, and stick with them.”
He adds these interesting facts on a WHO briefing that stated some 3.4% of Covid-19 cases have died, sparking panicked hysteria in news media. Those “who did the math” found the actual rate of infection was 50 times higher than estimates and that led to excessive over-counts of mortality rates which experts like Jay Bhattacharya estimated to be 0.2%, a number the WHO eventually agreed was correct.
But, as Taibbi notes, “Bhattacharya’s Twitter account was placed on a trends blacklist, among other forms of de-amplification.” Further, “There was a virtual blackout early on coverage suggesting lockdowns might not be effective/necessary.” Dissenting opinions that were shut down.
Taibbi says, “This episode revealed the basic weakness of ideas like SIFT. They don’t account for situations when a) authorities screw up or lie b) corporate media repeats the errors/lies and c) platforms censor truth. Caulfield guffawed at people who “did the math,” but a lot of those people were right about both the rate of infection and the mortality rate. The suppression of such voices, thanks in part to recommendations of “digital literacy” experts, delayed awareness about actual risks of Covid-19.”
A reposting of comments from psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo on psychologist Harold Ellens’ material (in “Cruel God, Kind God”): Setting the stage for some more “yack attack” comment on these “behavior based on belief” issues…
“Beliefs do exert much more influence over our lives than simple ideas… in the psychological sphere, generate ‘dynamis’, or mobilize energy… (they) may result, for instance, in fanaticism and violence, or… may also produce anxiety and inhibitions that hinder the full manifestation of the capacities of a person…
“The image of God can be seen as a basic belief or scheme, and as such it is never questioned…
“Basic cultural beliefs are so important, especially in a dominant widespread culture, because they have the same properties as individual basic beliefs, that is, they are not perceived as questionable….
“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (see Romans, Revelation) … This image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.
(Insert: Before this next quote, remember that Harold Ellens is a Christian psychologist and Army chaplain. He is not throwing stones from outside his Christian tradition, but exercising his responsibility to discern the bad from the good.)
“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.
“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…
“Hence, in our culture we have a powerful element that impels us to violence, a Cruel God Image… that also contributes to guilt, shame, and the impoverishment of personality…”.
As Harold Ellens says, “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.
I repost the above to illustrate the power of the “behavior based on similar belief” relationship that has dominated human thinking/behavior across history. Our primal meaning impulse has always stirred us to hold beliefs that inspire and validate our behavior, whether good or bad.
New material
The single most critical belief or ideal to go after is the “ultimate reality” that centers and shapes our narratives, worldviews, belief systems. Wendell Krossa
How critical? Note the comments of Harold Ellens above on the power of beliefs, and others also similarly affirming the emotional potency of beliefs in shaping our lives. Especially critical, in the mix of beliefs that shape human behavior, are beliefs in ultimate reality or deity, the absolute highest ideal and authority for most people across history.
Now to my point- What are the prominent features of our central beliefs/ideals and their outcomes/impacts on people and societies?
I apply this to religious systems, “secular” ideologies, science, whatever people consider as constituting their belief system or worldview.
Across the history of humanity, varied features have been used to shape our ultimate ideals, our belief systems or worldviews. Notably prominent have been the features of tribalism, domination, and destruction of differing others as among the worst of features used to shape human belief systems.
And my repeated argument here has been that no one has done better in overturning entirely the pathologies in past narratives and thinking than Historical Jesus with his stunning new reframing of ultimate reality as “no conditions love”. That was the single most radical reshaping of ultimate ideals or beliefs ever proposed and it took the human ideal of love (that which most defines us as human) to its highest reach possible.
Returning to the line of argument above….
A main line of probing here, offered repeatedly, is to go to the root contributing factors in order to deal properly with the foundational root of problems in our societies.
Example: What fundamental ideas/ideals are behind today’s Woke progressivism, and the subcategories of progressivism such as DEI collectivism, with its framing of populations in terms of “victim/victimizer” categories?
In these new “neo-Marxism” fronts we see again the Marxist skeleton of tribal dualism- i.e. humanity as two opposing groups of oppressed/oppressors. All humans categorized as one or the other in an opposing dualism, despite the infinite diversity and uniqueness of individual people.
And then we push back further to the origins of such dualism in the Zoroastrian cosmic dualism of true believers joining the “right religion” to battle against the false religions and enemies of the true and good. (Zoroaster formalized that theology some 1500 years pre-Christianity)
And, of course, that dualism can be traced further back to our origins in animal tribalism (small band versus other small bands). And if one wishes to pursue this even further in terms of “spiritual” speculation- We could go to the insights of religious or philosophical traditions that this world was created as a learning arena for human experience and life stories- a created material realm with its dualism of good versus evil that does not exist in ultimate reality.
We create ideas to explain these things to ourselves and in turn (i.e. feedback loops) our ideas/beliefs then influence us and how we live.
Note that Paul embraced the ideas of dualism, tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction, and embodied them in his Christ myth, creating a merged “Jesus Christ” who was someone entirely contrary to Historical Jesus who had challenged and rejected all such primitive ideas.
Returning to the project of confronting and solving current problems- No issue, arguably, has a greater impact on daily life than the climate alarmism crusade and its salvation scheme of “Net Zero decarbonization” that is ruining Western societies and harming, in particular, the poorest people with increased energy costs (i.e. blocked fossil fuel development and heavily subsidized renewables paid for by average taxpayers) and destabilized electrical grids (i.e. blackouts). That crusade is part of the greater project of “de-development, de-industrialization, de-growth” that is an essential goal of neo-Marxists to undermine and destroy Western civilization (affirming Richard Lindzen’s comments on this in an article below).
Yes, try to wrap your mind around the antihumanism of an ideology that wants to destroy the best thing that the West has offered the world- Classic Liberalism and its improvement of human wellbeing, especially the fact that it has lifted billions out of poverty into middle class status and that has achieved the “greater or common good” far more successfully than any alternative system for organizing human societies.
Insert: Note this interesting defense of private property– the chief enemy of socialist approaches, Marx’s great evil to be defeated and eliminated by his totalitarian collectivist approach.
S.T. Karnick- “This Labor Day, Celebrate the Work of Property Owners, too”, Sept. 2, 2024
https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/this-labor-day-celebrate-the-work-of-property-owners-too
Now a review of the root themes of the climate alarmism crusade, thereby uncovering the contributing or causal factors to this movement, at least some of the main ones. This is comment on how behavior is influenced and validated by beliefs. Wendell Krossa
I would urge anyone to read the “apocalyptic millennial” historians quoted below- Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, David Redles- if you want a fuller understanding of how apocalyptic millennial movements emerge, develop, and play out, the phases that they go through and their destructive outcomes. Today, once again, we are seeing people dangerously hinting at the “exterminate or be exterminated” phase of such crusades, as their desperation over potentially losing their grip on power looms larger.
For example, US Democrats have embraced straight-forward apocalyptic urgency by embracing and promoting the climate alarm movement. They also express the same apocalyptic pathology in political ways, i.e. stating that their enemies are irredeemably evil- “Hitler Nazis racists, etc.” and cannot, must not, be permitted to regain power, as they pose an existential threat to democracy and to life itself in their advocacy for using fossil fuels.
Refocusing again…
What narrative is driving the climate alarmism crusade? What shapes and influences this movement? What are the behavioral outcomes of the beliefs behind this crusade?
There are two critical sources/icons of ideals that are influencing/shaping our present narratives and lives:
Listening to my friend Bob Brinsmead (“Don’t beat around the bush”) I go directly to the two people who have shaped Western consciousness as much as any others, and arguably more than any others. Two people with entirely different narratives- i.e. Historical Jesus and Paul with his Christ myth. Both stand at the head of Western consciousness and civilization, way back just a few decades after year Zero.
This site has often traced Paul’s direct link to the present. More than anyone else, Paul has shaped Western narratives and consciousness with his Christ myth. See James Tabor, Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, among other historians.
I repost again Tabor’s comments:
James Tabor (“Paul and Jesus: How the apostle transformed Christianity”) buttresses my points on the contrasts between Jesus and Paul and specifically on the ongoing dominant influence of Paul’s apocalyptic Christ on Western narratives and consciousness and hence on our lives. Think climate alarmism and decarbonization in response to that influence.
“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.” Think- Why does “climate apocalypse” resonate with so many people to the point they are willing to support decarbonization schemes that destroy societies to “save the world”.
“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…. 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…”
“In Paul’s message we “understand the deeper roots of our culture….”
“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)… 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…”
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…”
“The early First Century AD Jewish movement was the actual religion of Historical Jesus (not Paul’s Christ-ianity).”
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)
See also https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/
The particularly destructive feature in Paul’s narrative, in his Christ, is the mythical theme of apocalyptic. That fallacy has been traced by historians as a critical driving influence behind Marxism, Nazism, and now environmental alarmism.
Note that Marxism did not collapse with the fall of the Soviet Union but went underground to then begin a “long-game” project to insidiously infect education throughout the West. See historian Niall Ferguson’s comments on this, for example,
https://www.hoover.org/research/treason-intellectuals-niall-ferguson
The indoctrinated students subsequently graduated to populate state agencies/institutions, mainstream media, and other social agencies as we see today in Woke Progressivism making moves to exert elite control across all sectors of our liberal democracies.
An insert illustration of the spreading influence of Marxism via its new front of Wokeism-
“Medicine in Canada: A woke takeover is coming for Canadian physician training: Radical reformers are months away from requiring new doctors to prioritize social engineering over their knowledge of medicine”, Leigh Revers, Sept. 3, 2024
Note also these on the widespread preference of younger generations for socialism:
https://www.axios.com/2019/10/28/millennials-vote-socialism-capitalism-decline
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/more-socialism-say-young-people
Marxism has re-emerged to widespread public acceptance today. Some 50% of young people in the West believe that socialism is the best system with which to organize societies. Along with employing other contemporary fronts like DEI, ESG, Woke Racism, Marxism embraces the climate alarmism crusade because, as Richard Lindzen noted, Marxist revolutionaries long ago understood that destroying the energy sector was critical to undermining and overturning the entire Western capitalist civilization that they want to replace with a new collectivism.
Add to the mix, the background influence of apocalyptic religion on contemporary narratives, as such religion still exerts a dominant place over human belief systems and, hence, general human consciousness. Some 85% of the human population affiliate with a world religion and all religions embrace some version of apocalyptic belief, notably the Western religions- Judaism, Christianity, Islam- that descended from Zoroastrian apocalyptic. But so also the Eastern religions hold varied versions of apocalyptic mythology as noted by historians of religion like Mircea Eliade (i.e. the “declining lifespan” myth of Buddhism, the great “cycles of rise and then decline to disastrous ending” in Hinduism, etc.).
This site probes and posts the origins of contemporary ideas that shape our narratives and notes the lines of historical descent of ideas- where such ideas originate from in history and their persisting impact on human minds and societies.
And I am, in particular, hitting the idea of apocalyptic here. As Arthur Mendel said about apocalyptic- “There has been no more violent and destructive idea in history than apocalyptic”.
So again, I affirm the military guy who stated that you can fight apocalyptic crusades like ISIS with military force and win battles, but you will lose the overall war if you don’t go after the motivating and validating ideas of such movements. So also, I apply this reasoning to climate alarmism- You can fight back with good climate science, and you have to do that, but that evidence does not change many alarmist minds. Beliefs prompt us to hold the emotionally satisfying idea, not the rational evidence-based alternatives (Kristian Niemietz).
Hence, the core beliefs of these apocalyptic crusades will continue to infect new generations and incite new crusades of alarmism that will continue to erupt to destroy societies because we have not dealt with the root contributing factors, the critical causal factors that incite the human fear of survival, and render populations susceptible to the salvation schemes of apocalyptic prophets like Marx, Hitler, and Al Gore/James Hansen, and now mini-alarmist prophet Greta Thunberg.
Here below are a few passages from David Redles “Hitler’s Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation”, mainly his chapter 4- “Hitler as Messiah”. The quotes illustrate the power of apocalyptic millennial beliefs to carry populations toward mass death outcomes. Think of the climate alarmism movement in this regard… the basic ideas/beliefs behind such crusades, the patterns of development, the population responses to such narratives, and destructive outcomes… always the same old. (Note: The few quotes that I have posted here do not reveal the full and dense development of Hitler’s apocalyptic millennialism that Redles presents in his book.)
With climate alarmism we are dangerously repeating the same old patterns of the past that Landes, Herman, Mendel, and Redles have detailed.
As Richard Landes said re Hitler- It is a mistake to dismiss him as just another madman. Yes, factors like syphilis may have been in mix of his madness (his personal physician was a syphilis expert). But consider his other pathologies.
David Redles has thoroughly researched Hitler’s “messianic pretensions” that arose out of “a period of weakened consciousness, a condition conducive to nondirected thinking and the subsequent flow of archetypal material, in this case messianic symbols”. He says this made Hitler “susceptible to the intrusion of unconscious imagery into his waking life” and put him in trancelike states.
Hitler engaged his messianic pretensions wholeheartedly and many Nazis affirmed him in such terms. He was able to access “archetypal symbols of the apocalypse complex” and then express those symbols to a German Christian public familiar with such archetypes.
“Hitler struck a chord with many Germans, revealing to them the archetypal forces that were swelling up under the pressure of psychic chaos, helping them reconstruct a new sense of order… (My insert- Note this carefully) It was not solely Hitler’s oratorical technique but the messianic and millennial content of his speeches that worked its magic”.
“His penchant for nondirected thinking, felt the impulse of the apocalypse complex and gave voice to symbols that express it. The audience, having given up its ego-consciousness and immersed itself in nonrational thinking, heard its innermost thoughts made audible and were enraptured… his ability to access the unconscious mind, to slip into nondirected thinking and to give voice to the archetypal imagery swelling up in the minds of the multitude.”
Redles further notes that the sociologist Jean-Pierre Sironeau observed that at the Nazi rallies “a sacred drama was performed there, which only the resurgence in the twentieth century of religious drives that were supposed to have disappeared can explain”, a drama where both leader and followers subjugated one another to a state of “possession” by religious archetypes, drives, and fervor.
The German public projected their messianic aspirations onto Hitler in response to his expression of the same. Germans were under great stress during the Weimar years and Great Depression, hence their susceptibility to what Hitler was expressing.
“In mass meetings where ego is generally subordinated, (Germans were) particularly susceptible to influence by archetypal contents. The religious rites and ceremonies of the Nazis… undoubtedly had a powerful psychological effect, as well, inducing nondirected thinking in large numbers of individuals…”
“Nazi speeches were filled with the rhetoric of the apocalypse complex- talk of turning points, rebirth, resurrection and salvation, of a coming battle of good and evil and the dawn of a millennial Third Reich.”
Individual Germans recounted how, during Nazi rallies, they felt immersed in a collective and in devotion to their redeemer, the Fuhrer, whose “millennial rhetoric of approaching apocalypse and resurrection in the coming Third Reich satisfied the millennial longings brought on during the heights of the depression. Nazi mass gatherings testified to the psychological power of this process”, says Redles.
“The effect for Hitler and his audience was one of altered consciousness where nondirected thinking predominates, where the archetypal imagery of the apocalypse complex came easily to the surface. The apocalyptic rhetoric of the speeches, and the millenarian desires of rhetor and audience met in a psychodrama of irrational hysteria…
“By turning away from logical, rational modes of thinking, Hitler was able to let unconscious material flow through him, material that was often millennial, messianic, and apocalyptic… what allowed Hitler to transform himself from nobody to agitator to prophet, and finally, to messiah…
“(His) ability to express the archetypal elements of the apocalypse complex made him seem to be their desired savior”. As one person said, “He seemed, in fact, to be expressing my own thoughts and desires… Much was touched upon that had long been in my subconscious mind, and was now called forth into consciousness…”
“This identification between leader and led was powerful and profound… (Hitler) provided a shared sense of mission, purpose, destiny…”
“Many Germans… consequently accepted Hitler’s messianic self-perception, his role as both prophet and messiah, interpreting him as a Christ or Godlike figure, sent from heaven to save Germany from utter annihilation…”
These personal abnormalities of the man had previously relegated him to fringe lunacy in Germany. But what were formerly viewed as madman peculiarities then resurged to the forefront when the Great Depression hit Germany hard. Many Germans then experienced that misery as apocalyptic, with unemployment, insane levels of inflation, starvation, and general suffering. It appeared that Germany was declining toward disastrous collapse and ending, with leadership blaming the German decline on threats from destroying enemies like the Jews. Consequently, there was a desperate longing among Germans for a savior figure.
It was then that Hitler’s apocalyptic millennial ideas and claims to messianic pretensions began to resonate with many Germans, with the public that had had inherited a Christian consciousness shaped by such ideas over past centuries, a subconscious shaped by deeply embedded archetypes of the Christian tradition- i.e. themes of a lost paradise (original strong and pure German spirit and society), now ruined by corrupt humans (Jews), now declining toward apocalyptic ending, hence the demand for a salvation scheme that involved sacrifice and violent purging of the threat (an Armageddon confrontation of “exterminate or be exterminated”).
Hitler posed the great battle of annihilation in terms of the Eastern battle with Jewish Bolshevism (Marxist Russia). He viewed the Western front as just a nuisance war that detracted from the real Armageddon in the East. Hence, Hitler’s stubbornly disastrous decisions to send millions of his soldiers to captivity and death in Russia and refusal to allow them to surrender even as their ranks were decimated.
The historians noted above have shown in detail how these apocalyptic millennial ideas can carry a society toward mass-death. Hitler, in affirming such beliefs, touched base with fundamental archetypes in German consciousness/subconscious, the Christian archetypes that are evident in his writing, his speeches, and his private conversations with colleagues. His Christian apocalyptic millennial themes resonated with the German public of otherwise “good people” and he was able to carry the population into the mass death of exterminate or be exterminated. He was possessed of an apocalyptic millennial vision and beliefs that would not permit rational thought.
My point in posting Redles’ quotes- Understand the framework of the climate narrative as just another similarly apocalyptic millennial crusade, another profoundly religious movement. Carefully note the basic framework of themes, often expressed in newish terms, categories, or definitions but still at core the same old primitive mythical themes as ever before. Also, be aware of the developing processes, stages, and overall trajectory that operate in such alarmist movements and the potential for destructive outcomes. The historians- Herman, Landes, Mendel, Redles- have done good work in tracing all this out for us.
And most critical: Get a good grip on the core of apocalyptic millennial narratives driving these crusades- i.e. the ultimate reality or deity that holds the apocalyptic millennial complex together, the violent deity that threatens apocalyptic destruction and purging as punishment for ruining an original paradise, and then offers the tribal salvation hope for true believers in a new millennial paradise. Understand that Paul and his Christ are mainly responsible for embedding this destructive mythology in Western narratives and consciousness. I affirm with Tabor that Paul (and his apocalyptic Christ) is the ultimate source of such psychopathology in Western civilization. Though Paul, admittedly, was just reembracing common themes that had descended to him from Zoroaster, and even earlier from the primitive mythologies of the ancient world- i.e. Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, etc. Paul did the inexcusable, however, because he had the insight of Jesus and he rejected that outright.
I will re-affirm my point that to solve problems like climate alarmism- do as Jesus did and go to the core idea in belief systems, the deity at the core of the apocalyptic millennial complex. See that for the deformity that it is, reject it, and replace it with the alternative offered by Historical Jesus.
Why this radical reformism is necessary… again, the behavior based on belief relationship noted above:
Here again is the warning from Christian theologian and psychologist Harold Ellens (quoted by Christian psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo in “Cruel God, Kind God”):
“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (see Romans, Revelation) … This image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.
“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.
“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…
“Hence, in our culture we have a powerful element that impels us to violence, a Cruel God Image… that also contributes to guilt, shame, and the impoverishment of personality…”.
As Harold Ellens says, “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.
My point? Note how apocalyptic prophet Hitler appealed to the apocalyptic messiah Christ of Paul to center his narrative for Christian Germany. Hitler, as Redles detailed, went through the stages of presenting himself first as the prophetic forerunner to Christ (a John the Baptist figure), then as the actual messiah, and finally as the violent Christ of Revelation who would annihilate his enemies.
Let this offend you, if it must, but try to learn something from this history at the same time, as Richard Landes urges. Otherwise, we will just continue to repeat these destructive eruptions of apocalyptic madness.
The apocalyptic myth incites the survival fear in populations and the felt need for salvation (for survival), and that salvation scheme involves sacrifice, purging and destruction of some purported threat, extermination of an evil enemy, followed with the promise of redemption, survival, utopia.
These themes have been endlessly repeated across history in early mythologies, world religions, and now in the modern era they have been embraced in “secular ideologies”, even in “scientism”. They are themes that affirm deeply embedded archetypes in human subconscious- i.e. our inherited impulses to tribalism, domination of weaker others, and destruction of competing others. These subconscious impulses were re-affirmed with Zoroastrian cosmic dualism of good versus evil, and also affirmed by the hero’s quest to engage a righteous battle to fight and conquer an evil monster/enemy.
The tribal dualism archetype (good versus evil) was embraced and pushed to mass-death scale in the last century with Marxist classes of oppressor/oppressed in irreconcilable opposition. It was also expressed through the dualist opposition of pure German versus polluting Jew.
Populations continue to experience subconscious resonance with these primitive themes of “us versus our evil and irredeemable enemies that threaten our existence”. Many continue to embrace the view of themselves as on the right side in a righteous cause against evil, in a true religion, a true ideology, a noble cause against some disagreeing enemy in the false religion/ideology/cause who must be purged to “save us, save the world, save democracy”. Enemies that must be censored, silenced, banned, shut down, eliminated, even exterminated.
Concluding points:
Make yourself fully aware of the ideas/themes/beliefs behind alarmism movements, how the beliefs of the “lost paradise, apocalypse, redemption through violent purging, etc.” can deform human consciousness and personality, how alarmism movements progress, and their potential for destructive outcomes. Note how the myths of the apocalyptic millennial complex can deform the hero’s quest and undermine our humanity when we engage some battle against evil, just as Joseph Campbell warned in his caution to not abandon Jesus’ “love your enemy”:
“For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Myths To Live By).
My point is not to leave a bad taste in our mouths by pounding a drum over the obvious inhumanity of these primitive themes. The intent is to provide a contrast that will highlight the good that has been deformed and buried by the bad, the liberation that has been denied, rejected, buried, short-circuited. The central insight of Historical Jesus offered the most profound liberation ever conceived, liberation at the deepest levels of human mind, liberation in the realm of subconscious archetypes, liberation of spirit, the most profound liberation possible that would free minds from primal fears of ultimate threat from violent, punitive deity, freedom from fears of a final end of the world and life, fears of after-life harm in hell.
The Liberation presented by Jesus involved challenging the core idea in human narratives- deity- and realizing there was no ultimate threat, only a stunningly unconditional love at the core of all, and consequently, all of us are safe in the end. That insight is the most critically important response to our primal survival impulse.
Others, adding further insights to that core theme of no conditions love, state that we are united to that Love, united also in the oneness of the human family that will eventually all return home to that originating Love.
As some have suggested, this world is just a temporary learning arena and our drive for survival here is really about eternal existence and survival and life where there is no dualism, no time or space limitations, no imperfections. but real utopia.
But in the meantime, we are to be fully engaged in life here, making life better in our realms of activity, living our unique life story, making a contribution to further love in this world in terms of offering some better product or service that makes life better for ourselves and others.
Alternative themes offered on this site to shape new narratives, better ideas to produce (inspire/validate) better outcomes in behavior:
Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives (Old story themes, new story alternatives).
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533
Free speech assaults
Shellenberger comments on the move toward totalitarianism in Brazil under Supreme Court justice de Moraes and President Lula
“Freedom Is On A Knife’s Edge Worldwide, As Brazil’s Ban Of X Shows”, Michael Shellenberger, Aug. 30, 2024
https://www.public.news/p/freedom-is-on-a-knifes-edge-worldwide
Shellenberger states that Brazil is no longer a democracy but a dictatorship. He says, “For many, totalitarianism conjures images of tanks and torture chambers, but it never starts that way. For George Orwell and many other thinkers, totalitarianism is more subtle and banal. He feared future totalitarianism would emerge from government bureaucracies, not just coups and revolutions….”
“The totalitarianism that is emerging today around the world is far more dangerous because it has convinced the elites and a significant percentage of voters in every country censorship is necessary to save democracy….”
He says of one particularly notorious promoter of censorship, “Soros’ foundation has for years been funding “fact checkers,” “journalists,” and “non-governmental organizations,” many of which are also supported by the US government, to whip up national hysteria about “misinformation,” demand more censorship, and justify the abuses of power by Moraes.”
And a whole lotta more to come….