After the “here we go again” attack in New Orleans… Wendell Krossa
The military guy, following the 2014 eruption of ISIS violence in Syria, urged this- “You can crush these episodes of violence with military force, but they will just keep erupting until you go after the ideas that drive them”. But that will require the approach of going to the very root contributing factors and many people shy away from what has been presented to them by religious traditions as “blasphemy, heresy…”, as in tackling the prominent religious themes of our world religions.
Historian Richard Landes stated this just below, following his detail on how apocalyptic millennial themes drove Marxism to murder 100 million people last century, and Nazism to start a war that resulted in the murder of 50-60 million people, and before his chapter on environmental alarmism as another mass-harm crusade driven by the very same apocalyptic millennial ideas…
“The study of Nazism’s appeal, of Hitler’s charisma, belong to the field of millennial studies, whether one wishes to designate Hitler’s efforts as religious or millennialism as having secular variants. Only then can we identify the key problems of how movements go from the margins to the center of a society/culture, how they pursue their millennial goals, and how they respond… to cognitive dissonance, frustration, and failure… (Hitler) is not so much the measure of the unthinkably, the impossibly evil, as he is the measure of how, with modern technology and an only partially developed civil polity, a nation, a people, seized by, ridden by a millennial passion, can become one of the great dealers of death in human history” (end of ch.12).
His point? Until we deal with the religious ideas that drive such madness, we will only see further such eruptions of madness. Again, those root contributing factors.
Where are these apocalyptic millennial ideas protected and promoted today? They continue to dominate the major world religions, as well as dominate “secular/ideological” versions like climate alarmism conjoined to the neo-Marxism of Woke Progressivism, and are also promoted by the Hollywood public story-telling machine where apocalyptic millennialism dominates movie narratives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films
I would add to Landes’ research, that at the core of apocalyptic millennial mythology is the most critical of all religious ideas- i.e. the cohering center that is threat theology, the myth of an angry God who promises to punish and exterminate people with violent destruction. And consider psychologist Harold Ellens’ point that such a deity, held as ultimate ideal, then incites and validates the same punitive, destroying violence in followers. “We all become just like the God that we believe in” (Bob Brinsmead).
I repeat these comments because few have stated the issue better than Ellens. Here below psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo is quoting Ellens in his book “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). 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’”.
“Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research reveals that Historical Jesus went to the root of the problem of human narrative themes and ideals, and their influence on human life, and offered the stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God, a universally loving, unconditional God, who gave sun and rain to all alike, with no exclusion, no retaliatory destruction of “enemies”. Jesus went to the ultimate root of the deity, the highest human ideal and authority at the core of our meta-narratives.
“There should be no more eye for eye retaliation but, instead, love your enemy because God does. How so? God gives sun and rain (the two critical gifts necessary for survival in agrarian society) to both good and bad people alike. Be unconditionally merciful just as your Father is unconditionally merciful”.
Using the primal pattern of “basing behavior on similar beliefs in some ultimate reality or ultimate ideal”, Jesus argued- Be like the God, the highest ideal that you believe in.
That new cohering center of non-retaliatory, no conditions love should have revolutionized human narratives with entirely new supporting themes to influence human thought, emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior- i.e. the ultimate ideals of no tribalism, non-dominating relating, nonpunitive justice, nonviolence, non-apocalyptic, etc.
The “single most profoundly humane insight in the history of human ideas” should have liberated human minds and spirits as nothing ever before, it should have liberated humanity from the enslavement to millennia of threat theology, the worst form of slavery ever constructed. The “stunning new non-retaliatory theology of Jesus was his greatest contribution to the history of human ideas”, James Robinson.
But two decades after Jesus, Paul rejected that stunning new theology and retreated to re-establish the theology of a violent, threatening and retaliatory God to center his new Hellenistic religion. Paul’s main statement of his re-affirmation of primitive theology- “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord” (Romans 12). Paul couched that within a similar “behavior based on belief” setting that mirrored Jesus’ earlier “behavior based on belief” statement of his theology. Paul directly confronted the theological breakthrough of Jesus to repudiate it.
Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy set the outlines of the task before us if we are to solve the ongoing problem of violence in our societies- i.e. Distinguish the “diamonds/pearls” of Jesus from the “d___, sl___ and m___, g____” of Paul’s Christology that buried the message of Jesus.
They were simply pointing to a fundamental human responsibility- i.e. to distinguish between good and evil at a very foundational level, in terms of the themes of our meta-narratives.
This point can be argued and dismissed (and most commonly it is)- i.e. the influence of these religious themes on our lives today. But historians like James Tabor (“Paul and Jesus”) have nailed the issue that Paul’s apocalyptic Christ myth is still the most influential idea/ideal shaping most everything in Western civilization, as well as the wider world.
Insert from Tabor’s book:
“The message of Paul, which created Christianity as we know it, and the message of historical Jesus and his earliest followers, were not the same. In fact, they were sharply opposed to one another with little in common…
“Paul is the most influential person in human history and realize it or not, he has shaped practically all we think about everything… 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 largely been lost to our culture”.
The Search for the Historical Jesus, its latest phase in the Jesus Seminar, and most critically, the research on “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel, have all been pointing to the core issue that yes, there was a historical person named “Jesus”, and he said some of the things recorded in the New Testament gospels. But his actual message, while included in the New Testament, has been largely distorted (even “buried” according to Jefferson and Tolstoy) by the larger context that focuses on Paul’s Christ myth. Also, much of what has been attributed to Jesus by the gospel writers is added material that contradicts his main theme of an unconditional deity.
The root of the problem should not be ignored, that we all become just like the God that we believe in, meaning more generally, that we become just like the highest ideals that we hold in our narratives, whether religious or secular.
And no, none of the above is advocacy for a “pacifist” stance in the face of evil (i.e. the “de-carceration, decriminalization” policies of Woke Progressivism in US cities). It is the most fundamental of human responsibilities (of criminal justice systems) to protect the innocent, meaning the obligation to restrain the violent, to incarcerate violent people in order to protect others. The most basic responsibility of human love is to hold all responsible for consequences of behavior, as critical to human development and maturity.
When things go full-frontal insanity and totalitarianism raises its ugly visage there are human spirits who also rise to stunning levels of heroism to meet the moment in history. J. K. Rowling? Yes, but also Amy Hamm herself. She is the nurse who simply expressed admiration for Rowling and Canadian trans activists went after her to vilify and cancel her. Well, look what emerged. This incredibly well-spoken writer and fiercely free spirit who refuses to bow to the madness of crowds. Our own Vancouverite- Amy. You go girl.
Ah, the courage of the heroic few inspire the rest of us. Others emerging as similarly heroic and seeing clearly the issues at stake- Elon Musk, Vivel Ramaswamy, Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi/Walter Kirn, Jordan Peterson, and so many more….
Become truly woke to the totalitarians who are trying to destroy our civilization… coming at us through the varied fronts of Woke Progressivism, DEI, ESG, “fight against disinformation/misinformation”, and others. And here in BC our premier Eby has been every bit as fanatically crazy as Trudeau in pushing this insanity of Woke Progressivism.
See the link here for all the related links that Hamm included to illustrate her points. The spirit of the Classic Liberals that came out of Britain is still alive in the J. K. Rowlings and others.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/amy-hamm-j-k-rowling-saved-western-civilization
“J.K. Rowling saved western civilization: The billionaire Harry Potter novelist stood up for women and opened the door for society to push back against woke progressivism, writes Amy Hamm”, Jan.2, 2025
More on how apocalyptic deforms human narratives, consciousness, personality and life, and entire societies.
“Climate Anxiety: Manufactured Hysteria Masquerading as Science”, Charles Rotter, Dec. 30, 2024
“Sometimes you stumble across a piece of “research” so self-serving, so packed with assumptions, and so nakedly designed to push a particular agenda that you almost have to admire the brazenness. The Lancet Planetary Health recently published an article titled “Climate emotions, thoughts, and plans among US adolescents and young adults.” On the surface, it purports to be a large-scale survey analyzing the mental health impact of climate change on U.S. youth. Beneath the veneer of academic rigor, however, lies little more than a thinly veiled manifesto for aggressive climate policies, rooted in the hyperventilating world of climate alarmism.
“The authors claim that the emotional burden of climate change is creating widespread despair, anxiety, and life-altering fear among adolescents and young adults. Their evidence? Self-reported feelings and a whole lot of presumptive correlations between weather events, climate narratives, and mental health.”
My added conclusion: The mindlessness here is astounding- terrorize and traumatize generations of children with climate apocalypse then survey them to see the damage that you have done, and use that as evidence for more climate hysteria and coercive, state-mandated action that is destroying societies with decarbonization. Ruin the future of these children even more. “Madness” is a mild descriptive of this.