The “behavior based on similar belief” relationship: “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.
Preface: Probing further the ideas that validate the impulse to dominate others, to re-establish the destructive “elite/commoner” divide in our societies, where power-mad elites irrationally enact policies that destroy our world to “save the world”, that destroy democracy to “save democracy”, Wendell Krossa
First, a reposting of comments from psychologist Harold Ellens and psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo regarding their work on the influence of bad religious ideas on human personality and society, how “threat theology” deforms human personality and societies.
Again, my point here is that the fundamental themes of primitive mythologies have not faded from human narratives and consciousness today but continue in the great world religions and have also been given new embodiment in so-called “secular/ideological” versions as in the climate alarmism crusade.
The old themes of past human narratives still impact our consciousness, lives, and societies.
Here are the comments from psychotherapist/theologian Zenon Lotufo (quoting psychologist/theologian Harold Ellens) on how images/beliefs, notably images of ultimate reality and ideals like deity, how such images influence human consciousness, emotion, motivation, and response/behavior in daily life. Both men are/were affiliated with the Christian tradition. Ellens was a US Army chaplain. In the comments of these men there is no throwing of stones from without.
Quotes from Zenon Lotufo’s book “Cruel God, Kind God”
The Introduction states that, among others, “(Lotufo) explores the interface of psychology, religion, and spirituality at the operational level of daily human experience… (this is of the) highest urgency today when religious motivation seems to be playing an increasing role, constructively and destructively, in the arena of social ethics, national politics, and world affairs…”, (Note here the resurgence of Islamic terrorism, and Marxist ideology in Western societies, among other psychopathologies).
My insert: The destructive outcomes of “religious motivation” are notable also in terms of the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade and its destructive “salvation” scheme of Net Zero decarbonization (“save the world”), as evident in the spreading harm, from Net Zero and renewables zealotry, in societies like Germany, Britain, and California. Climate alarmism exhibits the same old themes and destructive outcomes of all past apocalyptic crusades.
Lotufo then notes “the pathological nature of mainstream orthodox theology and popular religious ideation”.
He says, “One type of religiosity is entirely built around the assumption or basic belief, and correspondent fear, that God is cruel or even sadistic… The associated metaphors to this image are ‘monarch’ and ‘judge’. Its distinctive doctrine is ‘penal satisfaction’. I call it ‘Cruel God Christianity’… Its consequences are fear, guilt, shame, and impoverished personalities. All these things are fully coherent with and dependent on a cruel and vengeful God image…
“(This image results) in the inhibition of the full development of personality… The doctrine of penal satisfaction implies an image of God as wrathful and vengeful, resulting in exposing God’s followers to guilt, shame, and resentment… These ideas permeate Western culture and inevitably influence those who live in this culture…
“Beliefs do exert much more influence over our lives than simple ideas… ideas can also, 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. The reader may object that “God”, considered a basic belief in our culture, is rejected or questioned by a large number of people today. Yet the fact is that the idea of God that those people reject is almost never questioned. In other words, their critique assumes there is no alternative way of conceiving God except the one that they perceive through the lens of their culture. So, taking into account the kind of image of God that prevails in Western culture- a ‘monster God’… such rejection is understandable…
“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). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, 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’”.
Add also that the themes of (1) tribalism (true believers favored and “saved”, versus unbelievers who are rejected and destroyed), (2) domination (deity as dominating Lord, Ruler, King that validates human forms of domination- state leaders, priesthoods, fathers…), and (3) ultimate violent destruction of the differing others (apocalypse, hell)… such themes, sacralized in deity as ultimate ideals and authority, then serve to re-enforce the same features in the adherents of such belief systems.
Keep in mind the comments of Lotufo and Ellens as applied in the following material… The narrative themes we embrace potently shape our outlook on things, our feelings, our motivations and responses/behavior, the policies that we support that impact many others…
Relating Kristian Niemietz’s point to climate change- i.e. “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.”
Why do the facts/evidence presented by skeptical climate scientists change so few or the minds that are committed to the apocalyptic climate alarm? Because we live by emotional attachment to our beliefs, beliefs that just “feel right”. They seem true (a ring of truthiness) because they have been beaten into human consciousness across multiple millennia through endless iterations of the same primitive mythical themes, themes that have become deeply embedded in the human subconscious as archetypes. Time sacralizes the ancient and traditional, protecting it under the canopy of the sacred.
A refresher before moving on: The main complex of prominent mythical themes that have shaped human narratives from the beginning and still dominate narratives today both religious and secular/ideological:
(1) A lost paradise that must be restored, “saved” (i.e. the myth of a better past that has been ruined and lost and must be recovered).
(2) Corrupt humanity as the destroyer of paradise (the fallacy of “original sinfulness”, the anti-humanism of people as “bad to the bone”, a “virus, cancer” on earth).
(3) The fallacy of life declining toward a worse state, toward collapse and apocalyptic ending as the deserved punishment for our sin (apocalypse is the ongoing obsession of Hollywood story-telling).
(4) With the human survival impulse now incited by threat theology, the big stick of- the gods are angry with us and we are guilty, we deserve punishment, hence, we are susceptible to the demand for sacrifice/payment, and suffering as redemptive (i.e. embrace de-growth, de-development, return to low-consumption primitivism), embrace policies that will ruin our societies, just as socialists convinced entire countries, so the Nazis in Germany, and now environmental policies like Net Zero decarbonization.
(5) And most dangerous- the demand for a violent purging of some imagined evil threat (CO2- the food of all life is currently demonized as pollutant/poison that threatens all life). The religious belief in “violent purging of evil” is framed as a heroic adventure where the hero goes forth to engage a righteous battle against evil enemies that must be vanquished in order to save something (“save the world, save democracy”).
So as with mindless billions before us, we are told to embrace Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism of a battle between good and evil, as in the obligation to engage a righteous battle against some evil that threatens life (i.e. the hero’s quest to conquer a monster or evil enemy). This is what Richard Landes warned about in regard to the dangerous shift to the late-stage phase of “exterminate or be exterminated” in apocalyptic millennial crusades, a shift that resulted in mass-death outcomes in Marxism, Nazism, and now appears to be emerging in environmental alarmism with its obsession over Net Zero decarbonization.
This is followed with the carrot, (6) the promised hope of salvation in a restored paradise or new utopian world (a future of the ‘equity’ communalism of collectivism).
Let me repeat this critical point and requote Ellens’ comments on this…
“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). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, 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’”.
This is why I risk “harping” to make this point clear- that the ideas I listed above in the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” complex are the most destructive ideas in history. They distort the true state of life and history entirely, they deny the long-term story of progress that defuses human fear and engenders evidence-based hope, both vital to inspiring love and cooperation in societies.
Moreso, I post the above list as a warning because those ideas incite unwarranted fear in populations that renders people susceptible to embracing irrational and destructive policies in response to the fear those ideas incite, policies that destroy the lives of millions of people while affirming to advocates of such policies that they are heroically “saving” something. Irrationally destroying life to save life from some imagined and exaggerated threat. It is truly “madness of crowds” and the egregious shame in this is that we have long had the better alternatives to frame our narratives properly.
Historical Jesus rejected entirely the ideas that Ellens outlined- i.e. in cruel God theology. Jesus stated, entirely to the contrary, that God was no conditions love as in no anger at human imperfection, no judgment threatened, no exclusion of anyone, no discrimination between people, no saved versus unsaved, no favoring true believers and damning unbelievers, no threatened punishment or destruction, nothing from the old narratives that had terrified and traumatized people across history, adding psychic suffering to already unbearable physical suffering. Contradicting all previous historical mythology, Jesus stated that all were safe in love and that was central to his healing of sick people who suffered from psychosomatic illness. I.e. “demon possession” as the expression of mental/emotional trauma. Physical illnesses exhibited as the consequence of mental/emotional trauma from threat theology. Psychologist Harold Ellens and psychotherapist Zenon Lotofu offer detail on the deformation of human personality from threat theology.
Further, recognizing what Jesus really taught is what is meant by properly honoring the man for who he actually was and what he actually taught, not for the perversion in Paul’s Christ myth that re-instated all the old features of damaging threat theology.
Examine your own personal narrative and see if it has been infected by such psychopathology as the ideas listed above.
And particularly, note the big background theme of the tribal dualism of Zoroaster, his narrative of cosmic good versus cosmic evil. We have replicated that endlessly, even today with our division of human family into opposing tribes of oppressors/oppressed, victimizers/victims. And we long ago created a tribal God to validate such dualism pathology- a deity who favors true believers and damns unbelievers. A Lord/King who validates domination of disagreeing others. And who validates punitive destruction of the differing others.
These primitive themes continue to shape and deform contemporary narratives, both religious and “secular/ideological”, even “scientific”. They are themes that feel emotionally satisfying and resonate with the deeply embedded archetypes of our subconscious.
Now to take all this to the “climate crisis” fallacy…
For example, many people hear a contemporary version of an apocalyptic narrative like climate catastrophe that alarmism prophets claim is caused by evil humanity ruining life with their greed and corruption and thereby causing the looming catastrophe, and it just feels right and true to them. The alarmist narrative resonates. Many feel there is no need to rationally analyze it any further.
A majority of the world population have inherited such narratives, via both religious and secular/ideological versions, narratives that affirm the above mythical themes: That things were better in the past (originally paradise world). That there was a past paradise on Earth when there were fewer humans and Earth was mostly wilderness. But then people started to engage, use, and change the natural world. In the eyes of many, humanity thereby began “ruining” pure and noble nature. Hence, the conclusion of our ancestors- We are bad, we are destroyers. Moderns continue this anti-humanism with claims that humanity is “a virus, a cancer” on Earth. And consequent to humans using Earth’s resources and changes elements of the natural world, life is now declining toward a worsening state.
The result of our strong emotional attachment to such beliefs is that we then engage confirmation bias that focuses on anecdotal situations of destruction, the short-term reversals or downturns in long-term trends, all to support narratives of decline toward apocalypse. Based on this cherry-picking approach to evidence, its fairly easy to affirm the narrative of humans as destroyers who mess up the world.
Then fully demonized as corrupt, and blamed for the ruin of paradise, public consciousness is deformed with guilt and shame. Additionally, we are then panicked with scenarios of looming destruction and death, grossly exaggerated tales of a world going to hell in a handbasket that incite our survival impulse. Listen to panic-oriented media daily traumatizing the public with stories of every twitch in nature portending the end of days. Alarmist prophets even set dates for the end of days, dates that endlessly fail to occur, hence, must be reset again and again because life over the long term continues to improve toward a better state, not declines to a worse state.
Further, add to the demonization and hatred of guilty humanity, the associated belief that because of our fallen state and essential corruption, we deserve punishment. Many believe this fallacy. Therefore, we need salvation, redemption. We must make atonement for our sins. We must pay for our wrongs and suffer as part of redemption- notably suffer de-development, de-industrialization, de-growth, to pay for our sins of enjoying the good life too much, consuming too many of Earth’s good things. Like the lady in Japan who asked rhetorically after the 2011 tsunami, “Are we being punished for enjoying the good life too much?”
Hence, we wretched sinners must embrace the irrational myth-based salvation schemes of apocalyptic prophets that have repeatedly ruined societies- i.e. destroying life “to save the world”. And then true believers in the salvation schemes of the apocalyptic prophets, are re-assured with the hope for a restored paradise of true believers in communalism utopia.
We give primacy to our emotional attachment to our inherited beliefs because we live primarily by story, often not by rational observation of facts/evidence, no matter how vociferously we identify as secular, ideological, and even scientific. And our stories are still shaped dominantly by mythical themes. Look at the current dominance of apocalyptic Declinism in the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade and its salvation scheme of decarbonization. There is nothing new under the sun.
The core themes of the beliefs that most people hold today originated in the distant past and after multiple millennia of priesthoods beating these themes into public consciousness they have been deeply embedded in human subconscious as unquestionable “archetypes”- archetypes of original perfection ruined by corrupted humanity, life declining to collapse and ending, sinful humanity deserving divine punishment (usually through the natural world or from righteous true believers), threat of ultimate punishment in apocalyptic destruction of the world. Add the demands to make atonement- i.e. sacrifice, payment and suffering as part of redemption, also the obligation to purge the evil threat from life, to embrace the hero’s quest by engaging a righteous battle against evil enemies who must be eliminated in order to save life, the world. And then the hope of salvation is granted in restored lost paradise or new communal utopia.
These archetypal themes have motivated and validated Marxism, Nazism, and now motivate environmental alarmism. Yes, we are actually living through another outbreak of “madness of crowds” hysteria today.
No matter the claims of many moderns to have moved beyond the religious traditions to identify as secular, ideological, materialist, even atheist, a close examination of the core themes held by such people reveals the profoundly religious nature of their narratives and the religious nature of the crusades that they support- i.e. neo-Marxism (now presenting through Woke Progressivism and its subcategories of DEI, ESG, etc.), and environmental alarmism.
An evaluation of contemporary narratives reveals very little progress beyond the narrative themes of the priests of 5000 years ago in Sumerian temples who alarmed people with the myth of a coming Flood to destroy humanity. Much like apocalyptic prophet Al Gore warning of the very same flooding some 5000 years later.
So yes Bob, your playing on Bill Clinton’s statement (apparently originated with his advisor James Carville), “It’s the narrative, stupid.”
I offer an alternative list of themes to inform new better narratives oriented to more humane ideals. This is about transforming our narratives and reaching into the subconscious to transform archetypes, and this gets to the ultimate liberation of humanity at the depths of human mind and spirit.
Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives (Old story themes, new story alternatives).
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533
Further good sources to understand collectivism and its inevitable outcomes– Joshua Muravchik’s “Heaven On Earth”, Arthur Herman’s “The Cave and The Light”, Frederik Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom”, etc. Wendell Krossa
Added notes: Main features of the collectivist approach to organizing societies-
(1) The centralization of power in “enlightened elites/vanguards” who claim to know what is best for all others and will use state coercion to force populations to transform into “communal/communist persons”. The centralization of power inevitably unleashes the corrupting totalitarian impulse in powerholders. There are no benevolent rulers as per Plato’s vision of “good philosopher Rulers”. Hayek was right that dispersing power among competing individuals and institutions best protects against totalitarianism and maintains freedom. We do this today in our societies by reducing taxation and regulations. Decreasing the size and power of government elites and bureaucrats.
(2) The self-delusion of elites (i.e. psychopathology of left-wing compassion) who claim virtue in publicly signaling their compassion for oppressed people but then enact social programs/projects that harm immensely the very commoners they claim compassion for (i.e. nationalize sectors of the economy under state or elite bureaucratic control thereby denying private citizens the free democratic control over their own property).
(3) The subjection of individuals to collectives (to the “common or greater good”)- demanding the elimination of Marx’s number one “evil of private property” and thereby again denying citizens their individual freedoms and rights. Collectivists do not understand the fundamental human motivation to improve one’s life and family and the critical need of people to be free of state powerholders controlling their lives, to have individual self-determination as fundamental for human well-being.
This plays on the natural belief that private ownership of property (beyond certain limits) is greed and selfishness Acts 2, 4.
More in relation to Kristian Niemietz’s points on “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs”, Wendell Krossa
Here is more on this element of irrational emotional satisfaction in our beliefs, even though there is no evidence to support them, and even though the consequences are destructive.
There is in all of us the innate longing to play hero. It emerges as natural to the human spirit and our inherent human curiosity and longing for adventure, our desire to explore some unknown, and to engage some meaningful and purposeful endeavor. The result is the emotional satisfaction of engaging a hero’s quest or journey, of fighting some noble cause, confronting an evil monster that we vanquish, even though, like Don Quixote, we are often just running our lances at windmills like climate change. No pun, or whatever the literary thing is, intended in that one.
As with the monsters to be defeated during past quests and crusades engaged by people, moderns have exaggerated climate change to status as a monster that we have to fight and subdue. The persisting belief in the great lie of apocalypse leads to exaggerating natural world events to monstrous apocalyptic-scale threats.
Imagining ourselves as heroes, too many of us day-dream of saving something, perhaps saving something more local, or even megalomaniacally saving “the world”. We imagine ourselves becoming involved in a righteous battle, exercising justice by joining a crusade to get rid of some evil and thereby rescue something, and the grander the salvation project, the better.
This is what historians term the “messiah complex” that was notably embraced by Hitler, expressed in his dreams of saving Germany from the apocalyptic destruction that Germany appeared to be heading toward during the Weimar years and Great Depression. Hitler proclaimed his messiah-scale heroism would culminate in his taking his people into the new millennial paradise of the Third Reich.
Totalitarians narcissistically embrace such savior complexes. Interestingly, Hitler passed through the stages of self-identity as, first, the forerunner to the messiah (John the Baptist-like), then a messiah himself, and finally he identified as the violent destroying Christ of Revelation. Those were all Christian archetypes that were intensely familiar to German minds. Hitler’s presentation of himself as a messiah-figure resonated with the Christian consciousness long built into German worldviews.
You see the same savior complex in Marxism and its message of liberating the poor and oppressed, of the need to exercise revolutionary violence and totalitarian control to liberate “the people” from their enslavement to property ownership.
The messiah/savior complex feeds the virtue-signaling ego, the “psychopathology of left-wing compassion”. It is a profound deformity of human personality. And it results in a profound deformity of the hero’s quest, the distorting and deforming of human narratives and consciousness.
There is a better way of expressing the messiah complex- in saving ourselves from the monster within.
Classic Liberalism is the best that we have come up with to protect all of us from ourselves, to deliver us from the delusional power of deforming narratives that warp the hero’s quest.
Classic Liberalism re-orients our consciousness to the real battle against evil enemies that takes place inside each of us, the “noble cause” that must be directed against our own “evil triad” of inherited impulses to tribalism, domination of others, and the punitive destruction of differing others. That is the real “sinful nature” in all of us. And the real hero’s quest will focus on conquering this inner monster first before going forth to engage the righteous battles of our societies.
And fortunately, our inner evil triad is not our true self but part of the residual inheritance of an animal brain that we all possess. We put that in proper perspective by remembering that “We are not our brains” (to paraphrase the title of Jeffrey Schwartz’s book “You Are Not Your Brain”).
Classic Liberalism reminds us that in the real hero’s struggle to keep our own impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive treatment of others in check. We succeed in this battle by orienting ourselves to the protection of the equal rights and freedoms of everyone with common law systems and government institutions that exist to truly represent the people that they serve, as in the constant endeavor to ensure the return of “power to the people”.
We protect the freedom and rights of all individuals equally by persistently removing power from state elites/bureaucrats, by upholding mechanisms that prevent the centralization of power and control, primarily by opposing the elite/bureaucratic trend to coercively exert control over common citizens through increasing taxation and multiplying regulations.
Classic Liberal ideals orient populations to the critical need to maintain and promote state mechanisms that consistently limit the powers of elites with checks and balances, and redistribute power equally to all citizens via regular elections, surveys of people’s opinions, and referendums or ballot measures, all to prevent too much concentration of power in state elites and bureaucracies.
Classic Liberalism reminds us that there are no such persons as Plato’s “wise beneficent rulers” that can be trusted with power and control over others. And there is no more dangerous threat to democracy than to permit the ongoing centralization of power and control, most commonly in liberal democracies through increasing taxation and state regulations, and increasing the government bureaucracies required to maintain such.
Sources: Daniel Hannan’s “Inventing Freedom: How the English-speaking Peoples Made the Modern World”, David Boaz’s “Libertarianism: A Primer”, among other good sources.
Notes:
To protect our freedoms and rights in our “liberal democracies” we have to vigilantly oppose the power-mongering of state elites and bureaucracies by opposing taxation that is the coercive state appropriation of citizen’s wealth, coercion by state bureaucrats in removing citizen’s freedom of choice over their own property. That is the meddling and destructive outcome of bureaucrats who think that they know better than common citizens how to distribute their personal property. And we must vigilantly oppose the busybody impulse of state elites and bureaucrats to meddle and control the lives of common citizens by increasing regulations/rules/laws that diminish citizen’s freedom, thereby hindering, constricting common human freedom.
Aside from a minimalist “social contract” agreement to have some of our income taxed to fund shared infrastructure and programs, there must be a constant pushback against the tendency of state bureaucracies to succumb to unlimited growth.
Once again, Niemietz’s good quote on the danger of centralizing power and control over societies in state elites and bureaucracies:
“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.”