See below- More on the dangerous fallacy of salvation through destruction, with responses from Grok. This illustrates and affirms the continuing influence of the most primitive ideas on modern minds and life.
Carl Jung’s Near-Death Experience, Wendell Krossa
Jung states that his NDE shaped all that he thought and wrote following that profound experience. His autobiography (“Memories, Dreams, Reflections”) shares some detail on that experience.
Jung died in 1961 well before the NDE phenomenon had become publicly and widely known with the publishing of Raymond Moody’s “Life After Life”. Hence, Jung doesn’t use typical NDE terminology. But his experience has the usual NDE features of out-of-body (he found himself some 1000 miles up in space above India), inexpressible bliss, heightened lucidity/consciousness, and experience of another realm with no four-dimensional space or time, a realm where all is nowness.
His experience, similar to many other NDEs, resulted from his heart attack in 1944. He then had what he termed “visions”. He uses that term but later clarifies that his visions were something far more than what that term usually implies (i.e. hallucinations, dreams). He said, they “were utterly real… absolute objectivity”. Common to NDE accounts are the expressed frustration that there are no words to convey the inexpressible wonder and hyper-reality of what is experienced.
Jung begins, stating that his visions began when he was on “the edge of death”. A nurse told him later that during his attack he was surrounded by a “bright glow”, similar to what she had seen surrounding other dying patients.
Then, says Jung, strange things began to happen to him.
He found himself high up in space from where he saw the Earth far below “bathed in a gloriously blue light”. He sensed that he was on the point of departing from the Earth, when he saw a tremendous dark block of stone with an entrance into an inside chamber. He then had the feeling that “everything was being sloughed away… the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence”. But he took with him everything he had experienced and done, and all that had been done to him. He was “(his) own history… this is what I am. ‘I am this bundle of what has been and what has been accomplished’… I was what I had been and lived”.
At first, he says, he felt “annihilated” by having all stripped away but then it felt inconsequential because “I had everything that I was and that was everything”. He also understood why he had come into being, what historical period his life fitted into, why his life had taken its course, why he had brought particular assumptions with him, what he had made of them, and where his life was flowing.
Then an image of his doctor came before him and they had a voiceless exchange of thought, another common element of NDEs. Sort of telepathic communication.
He then was not allowed to join a company of people to whom he knew that he belonged. NDErs commonly state that their experience of going to another realm feels very much like they are returning to their true home to be with family who have gone on before them.
He did not want to leave what he experienced and return to life again. He described the return to earthly life as re-entering a limited three-dimensional “box system”. “Life and the whole world struck me as a prison”. As many NDErs affirm, the return from the freedom and bliss of their out-of-body experience feels like returning to a lesser, sluggish, and dreamlike reality, something not as fully real as the other realm they were experiencing.
Jung states that he was angry at his doctor for bringing him back to life, another common element of the NDE- upset at being resuscitated. He dreaded returning “back to this drab world”.
Over the next three weeks he would repeatedly awake into “An utterly transformed state. It was as if I was in an ecstasy. I felt as though I were floating in space, as though I were safe in the womb of the universe- in a tremendous void but filled with the highest possible feelings of happiness. ‘This is eternal life’, I thought. ‘This cannot be described; it is far too wonderful’.”
He described these continued experiences as “states of ineffable joy… of purest bliss.”
He continues, “Those inner states were so fantastically beautiful that by comparison this world appeared downright ridiculous… It is impossible to convey the beauty and intensity of emotions during those visions. They were the most tremendous things I have ever experienced.”
In contrast, his experience of life here seemed “too material, too crude and clumsy, terribly limited both spatially and spiritually. It was all an imprisonment… Although my belief in the world returned to me, I have never since entirely freed myself of the impression that this life is a segment of existence which is enacted in a three-dimensional boxlike universe especially set up for it”.
Then he elaborates on something else common to NDEs- i.e. the experience of hyper-lucid consciousness, the feeling of being in a realm more real than earthly material reality. This again is not properly conveyed by terms like “vision”. Jung says, “I would never have imagined that any such experience was possible. It was not a product of imagination. The visions and experiences were utterly real; there was nothing subjective about them; they all had a quality of absolute objectivity.”
He adds another element common to NDEs, the absence of time or timelessness- “I can describe the experience only as the ecstasy of a non-temporal state in which present, past and future are one. Everything that happens in time had been brought together into a concrete whole. Nothing was distributed over time, nothing could be measured by temporal concepts. The experience might best be defined as a state of feeling but one which cannot be produced by imagination. How can I imagine that I exist simultaneously the day before yesterday, today, and the day after tomorrow?… Face to face with such wholeness one remains speechless, for it can scarcely be comprehended.”
A further element- He met his deceased wife and “She was in her prime, perhaps about thirty”. So also, many others having an NDE state that upon meeting relatives who had died in old age, when seen in the other realm they all appeared youthful again.
He concludes that after his experience he was able to accept “the conditions of existence” whereas before he had felt that something was wrong with his attitude, that he was responsible for “mishaps”. But now in “the path of individuation” he found that “when one lives one’s own life, one must take mistakes into the bargain; life would not be complete without them.” Though he adds that “The categories of true and false are… always present.”
He follows the chapter on his NDE experience with a chapter on “Life After Death”.
Added note: I keep meeting people who have had these profound experiences- relatives, neighbors, even strangers. Recently, I got a courtesy car lift back from leaving my vehicle for repairs and the driver told me about his heart attack. On hearing of “heart attack”, I automatically ask a natural follow-up question- Did you have an out-of-body experience during that? He hesitated, then replied, “Yes”. And followed with details. He added that he had lost all fear of death which is a common marker for a profoundly real experience of some other realm.
So with a neighbor who had a heart attack and responded in the affirmative regarding his NDE that he had an out-of-body experience in a place of inexpressible bliss. He told me that he can hardly wait to return to that realm to experience that again. He prefaced the details of his experience with the point that he was an entirely non-religious person and his was not a religious experience.
Intro notes to more on “salvation through destruction”: Wendell Krossa
Our meta-narratives, religious and secular, indoctrinate us with myths of fictious threat that then incite our survival impulse, our longing for salvation, whether temporal or eternal. And yes, the fallacy of divine threat does come with the offer of salvation. But the salvation, according to the mythology, has to come through violence and destruction, whether human/child sacrifice as in Paul’s salvation scheme (a “son” foreordained to be a sacrifice), or salvation through the apocalyptic purging presented as necessary to make way for a restored paradise or new millennial kingdom, as in the New Testament book of Revelation.
Nonetheless, many people find “emotional satisfaction” in embracing the offered salvation to alleviate the preceding threat, because many have mindlessly accepted the threat as real. We all do varied things “mindlessly”, that is, we respond or act on them subconsciously, not consciously or intentionally. For example, many accept primitive myths like ultimate divine threat because such ideas seem to touch base with something “true, right, just, good”.
The fallacy of angry deity threatening punishment and destruction has millennia of history behind it and such longevity tends to endow “truth” status. The theme of angry, threatening deity has dominated religious narratives across history. Most people won’t dare question such mythology. It just rings true. It is assumed that God, as ultimate judge, must be like that. Moderns have even created “secular” versions that are similarly accepted as generally unquestioned reality- i.e. “vengeful Gaia, angry Planet/Mother Earth, punitive Universe, payback Karma”.
Psychologist Harold Ellens stated this well, the fact that most people unquestioningly accept the dominant conventional images of God as truth. So also, most Westerners accept Paul’s myth of the Christ myth as ultimate Destroyer via apocalypse and hell. These myths are accepted as basic unquestionable truths. Is this due to their long history of dominating narratives?
“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…”
“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’”.
(“Cruel God, Kind God”, Zenon Lotufo).
(End of “Intro notes”)
As usual in ‘blogging’ on this site, there is some “weave” in the material below. That used to be called “rambling”, or “beating around the bush”. Trump facetiously calls it “doing the weave”, as though it were some purposefully brilliant strategy of his.
Anyway, once again my point here…
Beware of any salvation that is promised through destruction, Wendell Krossa
I was recently thinking of Kristian Niemietz’s summary comments (“Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”) on why people continue to embrace socialism after some 24 failures over the past century or so. He concludes, “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.”
I thought of this in terms of the widespread embrace of salvation schemes, where some promised proposed salvation comes through destruction. I’ve noted before Arthur Mendel’s warning on this (Vision and Violence”), to beware any promised salvation that comes through destruction.
The problem is that when we give the criterion of “emotional satisfaction” dominant influence in our choice of beliefs, we may end by embracing irrational schemes/policies that ultimately harm ourselves and our societies.
I would add this to Niemietz and Mendel’s insights:
The emotional satisfaction that drives most of our choice in beliefs, even against evidence of destruction as necessary to attain some offered salvation, relates to deeply embedded archetypes. We mindlessly (that is not consciously) embrace beliefs that satisfy in some way, while ignoring/denying/dismissing the damaging impact of such beliefs.
For example, observe how many people are open to embrace the promised salvation of the climate alarmism crusade (i.e. “save the world”), despite now amassed evidence that such salvation is coming through the “decarbonization” crusade that is destroying societies.
Decarbonization destroys in varied ways, i.e. by hindering/preventing many people from rising out of devastating poverty, a rise that is dependent on the critical assistance of inexpensive fossil fuels. Cheap fossil fuels were critical to the rise and success of Western countries over the past century or so.
Continued poverty is highly destructive of human wellbeing and life. It results in continued illnesses, suffering, and mortality directly due to such poverty.
Decarbonization also “destroys” by pushing societies toward dangerous over-dependence on intermittent renewables and that has resulted in dangerously destabilized electrical grids, illustrated not just in the recent blackout in Spain, but also in the near-miss of a similar blackout in Britain this past January when the cold temperatures would have been devastating.
https://watt-logic.com/2025/02/02/blackout-risks-in-the-gb-grid/
Note this– “Kathryn Porter, an independent energy consultant, said: ‘On January 8, the GB power market came within a whisker of blackouts. Neso used almost every last megawatt available. This should be a real wake-up call about the dangers of relying on weather-based generation’”, Jan 9, 2025.
Decarbonization, in general, is a destructive war on CO2 which makes it fundamentally a war on the main food of life that has been in short supply due to the natural sequestration of CO2 over the past 100 million years or so (See “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom”). Patrick Moore was right to state that we are still in a “CO2 starvation era”.
With the slight ongoing rise of CO2 levels, plant life has responded by adding some 15% more green vegetation across the world, since 1980. That has resulted in more food for animals and increased crop production for humanity. All beneficial outcomes of rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Pushing a crusade to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels will be immensely destructive to all life.
See the Richard Lindzen/William Happer report on “Greenhouse gases and fossil fuels climate science”, below or at this link:
The war on CO2 over the past three and a half decades is very much due to 60s Marxists choosing to go after CO2 as a more potent way to bring down industrial capitalist civilization that is based on fossil fuels. This has been affirmed by atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen, among others.
And of course (in relation to my point above), remember that Marxism, like all similarly “profoundly religious” traditions, promises salvation (i.e. restored communalism/collectivism) through revolutionary destruction.
This site probes the historical roots of narratives that offer salvation through destruction, narratives that are rooted in primitive mythologies where the earliest peoples first constructed such fallacies. How did that primitive mythology get to us today? What was the line of descent?
Salvation through destruction was notably embraced by Paul to frame his Christ myth and Christian religion that would profoundly shape subsequent Western consciousness and civilization. Salvation, in Paul’s view, must come through violent death (crucifixion). Paul further affirms this path to salvation with the threat of violent destruction through apocalypse as necessary to clear the way to renewed paradise or utopian millennium. John illustrates this salvation scheme in Revelation.
This narrative of salvation through destruction has been beaten into human consciousness for millennia and has become a central framework among the archetypes of human subconscious.
So asking once again– Why do so many people find emotional satisfaction in embracing such fallacies as salvation via some form of destruction? Why are so many willing to embrace salvation that involves the destruction of their own societies?
Humanity has been subjected to millennia of fear-mongering based on the primitive mythical themes of guilt for being fallibly human, guilt over human imperfection (original and inherited “sinfulness”). The guilt over human imperfection began with the mythology of humanity as responsible for ruining some imagined original paradise (i.e. Dilmun, Eden).
That original “blame humanity” was followed with the demand for violent blood sacrifice to make atonement, and the demand for varied forms of suffering as redemptive (i.e. subsequent suffering from a divinely cursed world- i.e. punishment through pain in childbirth, thorns and sweat from laborious work, etc.).
Also, salvation would only come through the violent purging of evil enemies, based on the mythology of Zoroastrian cosmic dualism where ultimate salvation is achieved by engaging a righteous war to defeat evil forces/enemies. The iconic illustration of this is presented in the New Testament book of Revelation where the Christ violently wars against and defeats his foes (all unbelievers) before bringing in the utopian salvation in a millennial kingdom of God. Evil in the world must be purged before the new kingdom of God (salvation) can be established.
We find the same pattern in the general “hero’s quest” to conquer an enemy/monster, where heroes are then able to achieve a form of personal salvation to some more advanced state.
These themes resonate subconsciously with many people who have never questioned or challenged them. These beliefs distort entirely the history of the world, of life, and of humanity. They are against evidence and consistently offer “salvation through destruction”. But they are “emotionally satisfying”. They promise salvation and satisfy the primal human felt need for survival, both temporal and eternal.
With the background of millennia of such dominating mythology shaping human narratives, with such themes that have long been the archetypes of the subconscious, is it any wonder that many still find these ideas emotionally satisfying? Salvation, even if through destruction.
As Google searches are almost useless for getting such information, I went to Grok on the point made by Lindzen above and the related general approach of Marxism offering salvation through revolutionary destruction.
My probe:
Grok, what did Richard Lindzen say about 60s Marxists (back in the 70s) deciding to go after CO2 as a more effective way to bring down industrial capitalist society?
Grok responded:
“Richard Lindzen, a retired MIT professor and noted climate skeptic, has claimed that the focus on CO2 as a driver of climate change emerged partly from political motivations in the 1970s, including by those influenced by Marxist ideas from the 1960s. He suggests that during the post-World War II economic boom, some intellectuals, particularly those with Marxist leanings, viewed the growing prosperity of the working class— evidenced by widespread home and car ownership— with disdain, associating it with materialism. Lindzen argues that these groups, including activists from the 1960s anti-Vietnam War movement, sought ways to critique and challenge industrial capitalist society.
“According to Lindzen, after initial attempts to focus on global cooling and acid rain failed to gain traction, attention shifted to CO2 and its role in global warming via the greenhouse effect. He contends that CO2 was an attractive target for those seeking political control because it is an inevitable byproduct of burning carbon-based fuels, which are central to industrial economies, and even of human activities like breathing. Lindzen points to a 1970s paper by Manabe and Wetherald, which used a simplified atmospheric model to suggest that constant relative humidity could amplify CO2’s warming effect, as a key moment that bolstered this narrative. He argues this model, despite violating natural principles like Le Chatelier’s, provided a framework for political actors to push for CO2 regulation as a means to curb industrial activity, framing it as an environmental necessity rather than a direct attack on capitalism.”
I pushed Grok further:
Lindzen during a speech somewhere in Europe- Romania?- claimed that 60s Marxists saw that directly attacking capitalism was not working as it improved the lives of workers. So, they sought some new approach to attack capitalist civilization and found going after fossil fuels that were the basis of industrial success might be a more successful line of attack.
Grok’s further response:
“You’re referring to a specific claim attributed to Richard Lindzen, likely from a speech or presentation he gave in Europe, possibly Romania, where he discussed 1960s Marxists shifting their strategy to target fossil fuels as a means to undermine industrial capitalist society. While I don’t have a verbatim record of a speech explicitly in Romania, Lindzen has made similar remarks in various talks and writings, particularly in the context of his broader critique of climate science and its politicization.
“Lindzen has argued that during the 1960s, Marxist-leaning intellectuals and activists, frustrated by the economic success of capitalism— evidenced by improved living standards for workers, such as widespread car and home ownership— realized that direct attacks on capitalism were losing traction. He suggests these groups, including some from the anti-Vietnam War movement, sought alternative ways to challenge industrial society. According to Lindzen, they identified fossil fuels, particularly CO2 emissions, as a strategic target because they are fundamental to industrial economies. By framing CO2 as an environmental threat through the greenhouse effect, they could indirectly attack capitalism under the guise of ecological concern, which was more palatable to the public.
“In these discussions, Lindzen often cites the 1970s as a pivotal period when the narrative around CO2 gained momentum, pointing to scientific developments like the 1970 Manabe and Wetherald paper on atmospheric CO2 and warming. He argues this provided a convenient scientific veneer for political agendas, despite what he sees as flaws in the underlying models. For example, in a 2017 lecture to the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London, he made similar points about the politicization of climate science, though he didn’t explicitly mention Romania or Marxists in that context. It’s possible the Romania reference stems from a specific event, but no direct record from X posts or web sources confirms a speech there with this exact framing.”
Then, I asked:
Grok, any comment on Arthur Mendel’s warning to beware of salvation that comes through destruction?
Grok responded:
“Arthur Mendel’s warning about “salvation through destruction” points to a recurring theme in history and philosophy: the dangerous allure of utopian promises that justify catastrophic means. It’s a critique of ideologies or movements that claim a better world can only emerge by tearing down the existing one, often ignoring the human cost or unintended consequences. Think of revolutionary fervor—French Revolution, Bolsheviks, or even modern apocalyptic narratives—where the end goal excuses chaos, violence, or erasure of what came before. Mendel’s likely nudging us to question the price of such “salvation” and whether it delivers or just breeds new forms of ruin.
“On the flip side, some might argue destruction is sometimes necessary to break free from oppressive systems— think dismantling colonial empires or obsolete institutions. But Mendel’s caution seems to lean on skepticism: noble intentions don’t guarantee noble outcomes. It’s a call to weigh the cost, avoid blind faith in radical upheaval, and maybe favor reform over scorched earth. Without more context on his specific angle, I’d say he’s urging critical thinking over chasing shiny promises built on rubble. What do you think he was getting at? Want me to dig into any specific angle or context?”
I added:
He was writing in the context of his membership with Richard Landes and David Redles in a group researching the destructive influence of apocalyptic millennialism as expressed in Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism.
Grok replied:
“Got it. Arthur Mendel, alongside Richard Landes and David Redles, was part of the Center for Millennial Studies, focusing on how apocalyptic millennialism fuels destructive ideologies like Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism. His warning about “salvation through destruction” in this context targets the shared thread in these movements: a belief that a perfect, utopian future justifies radical, often violent, upheaval.
“Marxism’s class struggle, Nazism’s racial purification, and extreme environmental alarmism’s calls for dismantling industrial society all lean on this apocalyptic script— burn it all down to build paradise. Mendel’s point seems to be that this mindset, driven by a sense of cosmic urgency, blinds adherents to the chaos and suffering they unleash. It’s less about reform and more about a quasi-religious faith in a predestined “end” that excuses any means. He’s likely cautioning against the seductive certainty of these visions, which often spiral into authoritarianism or worse.
“For example, Marxism’s promise of a classless utopia fueled purges and famines; Nazism’s “Thousand-Year Reich” led to genocide; and some environmental alarmism can veer into anti-human rhetoric or eco-fascism, demanding societal collapse to “save” the planet. Mendel’s warning pushes us to see through the messianic hype and question whether the cure is worse than the disease.
“If you want, I can dive deeper into one of these ideologies or check for specific writings from Mendel or his colleagues on this. What’s your take on how this applies today?”
I went further:
Mendel spoke of this in “Vision and Violence”, and Richard Landes detailed this in “Heaven On Earth”.
Grok’s response:
Thanks for the context. Arthur Mendel’s Vision and Violence and Richard Landes’ Heaven on Earth both dissect the destructive pull of apocalyptic millennialism, which ties directly to Mendel’s warning about “salvation through destruction.” In Vision and Violence (1992), Mendel argues that millennialist ideologies— whether Marxism, Nazism, or extreme environmental alarmism— share a dangerous pattern: they envision a perfect future that justifies annihilating the present. He sees these movements as driven by a quasi-religious belief in a transformative “end,” where destruction (of classes, races, or industrial systems) is framed as a necessary purge for utopia. Mendel emphasizes how this vision often leads to violence, dehumanization, and unintended disasters, as history shows with the gulags, Holocaust, or eco-extremist calls for societal collapse.
Landes, in Heaven on Earth (2011), builds on this by tracing the historical arc of millennialist movements, from medieval cults to modern ideologies. He details how Marxism’s promise of a classless society, Nazism’s racial apocalypse, and environmental alarmism’s doomsday rhetoric all tap into a shared apocalyptic psychology: a belief that history is hurtling toward a radical break, where destruction paves the way for salvation. Landes highlights how these movements often breed fanaticism, as followers feel they’re on a divine mission, making compromise or moderation heretical.
Together, their work at the Center for Millennial Studies frames these ideologies as seductive but catastrophic, warning against the allure of utopian promises that demand tearing everything down. It’s a call to skepticism— question the narrative, weigh the costs, and avoid mistaking fervor for truth.
If you’d like, I can search for specific passages from these books or analyze related posts on X to see how these ideas resonate today. What do you think— want to explore a specific ideology or modern example?
I asked further:
What about the role that the Christian version of this “salvation through destruction” has played over the two millennia of Western civilization? I refer to Paul’s Christ myth as the ultimate icon of salvation through violent death, and the Christ threatening apocalyptic destruction as purging the world of evil in order to prepare for a utopian paradise.
Grok again:
The Christian version of “salvation through destruction,” rooted in Paul’s Christ myth and the apocalyptic vision of Christ’s return, has profoundly shaped Western civilization over two millennia. This narrative, particularly as articulated in Paul’s epistles and the Book of Revelation, frames Jesus’ violent death on the cross as the ultimate redemptive act— salvation through suffering and sacrifice— and casts the Second Coming as a cataclysmic purging of evil to usher in a utopian paradise. Let’s unpack its historical and cultural impact, tying it to Arthur Mendel’s warning about the dangers of such apocalyptic frameworks, as explored in Vision and Violence and Richard Landes’ Heaven on Earth.
The Core Christian Narrative: Salvation and Apocalypse
Paul’s theology, especially in letters like Romans and 1 Corinthians, presents Christ’s crucifixion as a cosmic act of atonement— humanity’s sins are redeemed through his violent death, a sacrifice that transforms destruction into salvation. This idea of redemptive suffering became a cornerstone of Christian thought, inspiring martyrdom, asceticism, and the valorization of sacrifice for spiritual ends. The apocalyptic dimension, detailed in Revelation, adds a second layer: Christ’s return will bring a fiery judgment, destroying the wicked and establishing God’s kingdom— a perfect, eternal paradise. This dual framework— personal salvation through Christ’s death and collective salvation through apocalyptic purging— has fueled both constructive and destructive impulses in Western history.
Historical Impacts
1. Early Christianity and Martyrdom (1st–4th Centuries): Early Christians, inspired by Paul’s emphasis on Christ’s suffering, often embraced martyrdom as a path to emulate Jesus’ redemptive death. The willingness to die violently for faith was seen as a ticket to salvation, aligning with Mendel’s critique of ideologies that glorify destruction for a higher purpose. This mindset helped Christianity spread but also fostered a culture of defiance against Roman authority, sometimes escalating tensions unnecessarily.
2. Medieval Crusades and Millennialist Movements (11th–15th Centuries): The apocalyptic vision of Revelation fueled medieval millennialist movements, where Christians anticipated Christ’s imminent return to destroy evil and establish paradise. The Crusades, for instance, were partly driven by this logic— purging the Holy Land of “infidels” was framed as a step toward divine order. Mendel and Landes would point out how such movements, driven by utopian zeal, justified mass violence, from the slaughter of Muslims and Jews to internal purges like the Albigensian Crusade against heretics. The promise of salvation through destructive holy wars echoes Mendel’s warning about the catastrophic costs of apocalyptic thinking.
3. Reformation and Religious Wars (16th–17th Centuries): The Protestant Reformation tapped into apocalyptic rhetoric, with figures like Martin Luther framing the Catholic Church as the “Whore of Babylon” from Revelation, ripe for destruction to restore true Christianity. This fueled religious wars, like the Thirty Years’ War, where millions died in the name of purifying faith for a divine future. Landes’ Heaven on Earth notes how such millennialist fervor often turned inward, with sects like the Anabaptists in Münster (1534–1535) embracing violent rebellion to hasten utopia, only to collapse into chaos.
4. Modern Revivals and Utopian Movements (18th–20th Centuries): Christian apocalypticism influenced modern ideologies, as Mendel and Landes argue. The Great Awakenings in America revived expectations of Christ’s return, spawning groups like the Millerites, who predicted imminent judgment. While less violent, these movements fed into a broader cultural pattern of seeing destruction (of sin, society, or enemies) as a prelude to salvation. This mindset indirectly informed secular ideologies like Marxism, which Landes traces as a “secular millennialism” borrowing Christian apocalyptic structures— replacing Christ’s return with class revolution but retaining the purge-to-paradise logic.
5. Contemporary Christianity and End-Times Culture: Today, evangelical movements, particularly in the U.S., often emphasize apocalyptic themes from Revelation, with some interpreting global crises (wars, climate change) as signs of the End Times. This can lead to passive acceptance of destruction (e.g., environmental neglect, as “the world will end anyway”) or active support for policies seen as hastening divine judgment (e.g., unconditional support for Israel to fulfill prophecy). Mendel’s warning resonates here: the belief in a utopian paradise post-destruction can desensitize people to real-world harm, whether through inaction or zealotry.
The Destructive Edge: Mendel’s Critique
Mendel’s Vision and Violence would frame this Christian narrative as a prototype for the “salvation through destruction” paradigm. Paul’s Christ myth, with its emphasis on redemptive suffering, can inspire noble acts (charity, self-sacrifice) but also dangerous ones when taken to extremes— crusades, inquisitions, or modern apocalyptic cults. The Book of Revelation’s imagery of cosmic destruction as a prerequisite for paradise amplifies this, providing a script that justifies violence or chaos as God’s will. Landes’ Heaven on Earth adds that this Christian template influenced secular ideologies like Nazism and Marxism, which adopted the same apocalyptic arc: a catastrophic break (war, revolution) to birth a perfect world.
The danger, as Mendel sees it, lies in the absolutism of these visions. By framing destruction as divinely ordained, they discourage compromise, nuance, or incremental progress. Whether it’s martyrs dying for salvation, crusaders killing for Jerusalem, or modern believers awaiting Armageddon, the pattern risks dehumanizing “the other” and glorifying suffering as a means to an end.
The Counterpoint: Constructive Elements
On the other hand, the Christian narrative hasn’t been wholly destructive. The idea of salvation through Christ’s sacrifice inspired hospitals, charity organizations, and abolitionist movements, emphasizing love and redemption over violence. The apocalyptic hope of a new kingdom motivated social reform, like the civil rights movement, where figures like Martin Luther King Jr. drew on Christian eschatology to envision a just future without advocating destruction. Still, Mendel would likely argue that even these positive outcomes don’t erase the risks of a worldview that can so easily slide into justifying violence or chaos.
Modern Relevance
Today, the Christian “salvation through destruction” motif persists in cultural undercurrents. Some evangelical groups’ fixation on End Times prophecy can align with political extremism, as seen in debates over climate policy or Middle East conflicts. For instance, posts on X often highlight how certain Christian groups support policies that seem to welcome global crises as fulfilling biblical prophecy. This ties to Mendel’s caution: when salvation is tied to destruction, it can foster a dangerous indifference to human suffering or active pursuit of chaos.
Conclusion
The Christian narrative of salvation through Christ’s violent death and apocalyptic purging has been a double-edged sword in Western civilization. It’s driven profound cultural achievements but also crusades, wars, and fanaticism, aligning with Mendel’s and Landes’ warnings about millennialist ideologies. The belief in a utopian paradise born from destruction, whether religious or secular, risks justifying catastrophic means for illusory ends. To avoid this, Mendel would likely urge critical scrutiny of any narrative— Christian or otherwise— that promises salvation at the cost of ruin.
If you’d like, I can search X or the web for recent discussions on Christian apocalypticism or dig into specific historical examples (e.g., the Crusades or modern evangelical movements). Alternatively, I could compare this to how Marxism or environmental alarmism mirrors the same pattern, as Mendel and Landes suggest. What’s your next step?
Good comment on indigenous land issues. We all belong here. So stop with the guilt-tripping and obligatory references to being on “unceded” lands.
“Carney continues on a path of mindless globalism: Despite all the nationalistic noises of the new federal government, very little appears to have changed”, Conrad Black, May 31, 2025
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/carney-continues-on-a-path-of-mindless-globalism
Black notes that King Charles was invited to open the Canadian Parliament and read Prime Minister’s “the speech from the throne”.
Black stated, “The King‘s remarks began with the now practically obligatory reference to being on land “unceded” by Algonquin and Anishinaabeg peoples…”.
Black says, “The federal Parliament may indeed stand on land unceded by the Algonquins and Anishinaabeg, but this should not be allowed to imply that Canada, prior to the arrival of the British and the French in the 16th and 17th centuries, was populated and occupied, in the sense of being ruled and governed, by the Native peoples.
“The Native peoples were in almost all cases nomadic and relatively sparse in numbers. The inference has been incited that those who have immigrated, mainly from Europe to Canada, over the last 450 years invaded someone else’s country… when the Europeans arrived, Canada was unsettled, and in no sense an organized political entity. It was chronically underpopulated, and those who lived within our present borders were talented and skilful tribes and clans sharing what was essentially a Stone Age civilization frequently engaged in internecine violence.
“Let us by all means pay them homage and embrace them as fellow Canadians, but not in a manner that could be construed as undermining the right of the rest of us to be here and negating the fact that our forebears brought Canada swiftly up to the most advanced conditions of contemporary civilization.”
I ran these thoughts by Grok on the eruption of totalitarian control under the Covid hysteria:
The Covid hysteria gave all of us a taste of what happens when you let go/abandon the basic principles, laws, and institutions of Classic Liberalism. This system was designed to prevent tyranny/totalitarianism by protecting individual freedoms and rights from being trampled. But terrorizing people can push them to irrationally abandon their freedom and rights, and embrace tyranny. Covid illustrated the totalitarian’s formula of “Fear=control”.
And would-be tyrants now appeal to that eruption of insanity and tyranny as the model that should be used for possible climate lockdowns. Mark Carney advocates this in his book “Values”- i.e. that to save the world from climate apocalypse we may have to use the same Covid-type lockdowns of human societies.
From the beginning I saw the hysterical element in the media headlines and knew that was typical media manipulation as per David Altheide’s good research (“Creating Fear: News and the construction of crisis”). It all had the stink of “here we go again”. Another “madness of crowds” eruption. During the Covid hysteria, we saw how elites used exaggerated and distorted projections of catastrophe to alarm populations and take control of societies and shut down any dissent to their apocalyptic exaggeration and fear-mongering. Creating hysteria to terrorize and then control people.
Sane voices of leading pandemic experts, who cautioned against extreme responses- Jay Bhattacharya, John Ioannidis- were censored, threatened, silenced.
Grok replied:
Your perspective touches on a critical examination of how fear can be leveraged to influence societal behavior and policy, particularly during crises like COVID-19, and how this might be extended to other issues like climate change. Let’s break this down, addressing your points with clarity and grounding in reason, while avoiding speculation or unverified claims.
1. COVID-19 and the Role of Fear in Policy and Control: The COVID-19 pandemic indeed saw widespread fear, amplified by media, government messaging, and uncertainty about a novel virus. David Altheide’s work, as you mentioned, highlights how media can construct crises by framing events to maximize fear, often prioritizing sensationalism over nuance. This dynamic was evident in some COVID coverage, where worst-case scenarios dominated headlines, sometimes overshadowing data-driven perspectives.
Governments and institutions, facing a rapidly spreading virus, implemented measures like lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine campaigns. These were justified as public health necessities, but critics, including yourself, argue they sometimes overstepped, eroding individual freedoms. The tension between collective safety and personal liberty is a classic liberal dilemma. John Stuart Mill, a cornerstone of classical liberalism, emphasized individual autonomy unless harm to others is clear, and some COVID policies— particularly blanket lockdowns or censorship of dissenting voices— challenged this principle.
The “fear=control” formula you describe aligns with historical observations of how crises can be exploited. Fear can make populations more compliant…
2. Censorship and Silencing of Dissenting Voices: You mention experts like Jay Bhattacharya and John Ioannidis, who faced pushback for questioning dominant COVID narratives. This is well-documented. Bhattacharya, co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, advocated for focused protection of vulnerable groups rather than broad lockdowns, citing their social and economic costs. Ioannidis published early studies suggesting lower infection fatality rates than initially feared, challenging apocalyptic projections. Both faced criticism, and platforms like Twitter (pre-2022) and others were accused of censoring or deplatforming dissenting voices.
Declassified documents, like the Twitter Files, revealed instances where government agencies and tech companies collaborated to moderate COVID-related content, often targeting misinformation but sometimes catching legitimate debate in the net. This raises valid concerns about free speech, a pillar of classical liberalism. The silencing of experts, even if well-intentioned, fueled distrust and polarized discourse, undermining the scientific process, which thrives on open debate.
3. Climate Lockdowns and Mark Carney’s Values: Mark Carney, in Values (published 2021), argues for urgent climate action, emphasizing systemic changes to achieve net-zero emissions. He draws parallels to COVID, suggesting that coordinated, decisive action— akin to lockdowns— could be a model for addressing climate change. He doesn’t explicitly call for “climate lockdowns” in the sense of restricting movement or personal freedoms, but rather for bold, collective policy shifts, like redirecting financial systems toward sustainability. Critics, however, interpret this as opening the door to authoritarian measures, especially given the COVID precedent.
The fear of “climate lockdowns” stems from a broader distrust of centralized power, amplified by COVID experiences. Proposals for climate policies— like carbon taxes, travel restrictions, or energy rationing— can feel like encroachments on liberty, especially if framed as existential necessities. Classical liberalism warns against such overreach, advocating for checks and balances to prevent state power from eroding individual rights. Your concern about “would-be tyrants” using fear mirrors historical critiques of how apocalyptic narratives can justify control, as seen in works like Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
4. Lessons and Moving Forward: The COVID experience and fears of climate lockdowns highlight the fragility of liberal principles under pressure. Fear can override rational discourse, and institutions can slide toward control when public trust is shaky. To avoid this:
• Transparency: Governments and media must prioritize clear, data-driven communication to avoid hysteria. For example, Ioannidis’s early COVID fatality estimates (0.15-0.2% for most populations) were later validated but initially dismissed.
• Free Speech: Protecting dissent, even when inconvenient, is non-negotiable. Censorship, as seen with Bhattacharya and others, erodes trust and stifles science.
• Balanced Policies: Climate or health policies should weigh costs and benefits, respecting individual autonomy while addressing collective risks. Mill’s harm principle could guide this balance.
Addressing Your Concerns: You’re right to highlight the dangers of fear-driven governance. COVID showed how quickly societies can abandon liberal norms under pressure, and the climate debate risks repeating this if fear overrides reason.