See below- “Pulling ‘diamonds out of dung’. Or ‘Contrasting the diamonds with the dung’.” More on the profound contradiction between the message of Historical Jesus and the entirely opposite Christ myth of Paul. These two archetypal persons/messages present differing narrative themes/ideals that shape human meaning and purpose, taking lives and societies toward differing outcomes.
And this from Barb Kay below: “Supremacist Islam is Communism with a theocratic face”. Both theocratic Islam and varied neo-collectivist movements pose the greatest threats to liberal democracies today.
“Theater of the absurd”- a reference to the contemporary apocalyptic madness of the climate alarm and its outcomes in salvation schemes that ruin our societies, Wendell Krossa
Over the past decades, we have heard more frequently the terms “insanity, crazy, lunacy” (and related synonyms) to describe the “madness of crowds” period that we have been live-streaming (i.e. real time observation and experience) with climate alarmism. This modern-day apocalyptic crusade has mimicked the same features of, for example, the earlier Xhosa cattle slaughter madness that erupted in South Africa a century earlier (1856-57). And yes, similar agriculture-like slaughters/culls, driven by the same guiding archetype of “ruin as redemptive, salvation through destruction”, were also tried in Ireland and Sri Lanka over recent years.
Here below Vijay Jayaraj uses another apt synonym-like phrase to describe the Net Zero decarbonization response to the apocalyptic climate crisis narrative- i.e. “Bizarre theater of the absurd”.
“Energy Transition Meltdown Could Mean Global Bifurcation’, Vijay Jayaraj, Dec. 27, 2025
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/12/27/energy-transition-meltdown-could-mean-global-bifurcation/
He says, “History will likely remember 2025 as the year energy corporatists finally stopped pretending there is a climate crisis. For a decade, a bizarre theater of the absurd played out as titans of the oil and gas industry apologized for their core business while pledging allegiance to a “green transition” that existed mostly in the imaginations of Western bureaucrats. But the curtain has seemingly fallen.”
He notes that energy producers, like BP, appear to be returning to common-sense in abandoning renewables investments and focusing again more on increasing oil and gas production.
As he says, “This is not a company abandoning climate responsibility but rather at last recognizing what has long been obvious: The path prescribed by the climate industrial complex is economically destructive and operationally impossible – even with massive government subsidies… reality, stubborn and unforgiving, has interrupted the psychedelic revelry.”
He notes the current “retreat from what is described as a ‘credible, science-based net-zero framework’ because there was neither credibility nor science. It was a political suicide pact. The energy giants looked at the cliff’s edge and refused to jump.”
Vijay concludes that what is likely now is there will be a “bifurcation” where Western bureaucracies, notably in Europe, will continue their economic decline under state mandates and taxes, while more pragmatic states, mostly in Asia, will continue to pursue prosperity with fossil fuels that work.
Note: As always, I urge readers to dip into the research of atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen and William Happer on the physics of CO2 and the fact that its warming influence is now “saturated”, a physics term that points to the fact that even a doubling of CO2 over the next centuries would contribute very little, if any more, to any possible further warming. Meaning- There is no “climate crisis”, and certainly not caused by increasing CO2 levels. They post research at “co2coalition.org”.
I have long appreciated the sage commentary from Barb Kay at National Post. She was among the few who, for example, recognized and publicly spoke to issues like female domestic violence against men that was statistically much more prominent than many realize, a taboo fact that Woke Progressive culture resists acknowledging. Here she offers some interesting background to issues like today’s resurging anti-Semitism.
“60 years ago, Norman Podhoretz’s writing led me to conservatism: The longtime Commentary editor was prophetic”, Barbara Kay, Dec. 27, 2025
She nails something that Podhoretz said that this site, along with others, have recognized for a while: “Supremacist Islam is Communism with a theocratic face”.
This is why, in varied “Pro-Palestinian” protests across Western societies in recent years, Marxists have cooperatively been marching with pro-Islamicists. They both share the same general goal of the overthrow and destruction of liberal democracy to be replaced with some form of totalitarian collectivism, either religiously oriented or “secular/ideological”.
The full quote from link above: “Post-9/11, Podhoretz sounded the alarm on supremacist Islam — Communism with a theocratic face in his view — in a long, riveting Commentary essay that went viral, ‘How to Win World War IV’…
“In his 2010 book The Prophets, Podhoretz wrote that the ancient prophets’ principal calling was to obliterate idols. In the past, men made idols of stone and metal. In the present, they make idols of utopian theories. It can be dangerous to smash idols, because those who believe in them often believe with ferocity, but prophets do it anyway.”
Kay opens her article, noting the death of Norman Podhoretz who was the editor of Commentary Magazine.
She then says this about Commentary:
“Commentary was a prophylactic against muddy thinking, because Podhoretz himself and those who wrote under his aegis refused to write in the abstract about essentially transgressive ideas such as pacifism, sexual liberation, multiculturalism and anti-racism, which ignore the limitations of an unchanging human nature and invite ugly boomerang effects. Ideas had always to be attached to specific situations, spokespeople and, above all, consequences.”
(See rest of Kay’s article at the link above.)
More on the madness front and illustrating again this version of collectivism as pointed out by Barb Kay on Podhoretz’s statement on supremacist Islam, “Communism with a theocratic face.” This anti-Semitic/Islamic version (article below) illustrates the simple-minded tribal dualism of all collectivisms.
“Eaton Centre mob wasn’t a protest. It was a warning: It is a domestic issue now. When movements that glorify violence seize public spaces, the social contract begins to fracture”, Matthew Taub, Dec. 27, 2025
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/matthew-taub-eaton-centre-mob-wasnt-a-protest-it-was-a-warning
Taub comments on the pro-Palestinian mob that recently took over the Eaton Centre in Toronto, calling for intifada that has historically meant “suicide bombings, stabbings, shootings, and the deliberate targeting of Jewish civilians.”
He says, “This is not about free speech. Free speech does not include calls for violence. It does not include glorifying mass murder.”
He adds (a point that I was making/illustrating) that this spreading movement in Canada is “an ideological worldview that divides society into oppressors and enemies.” Another “same old” version of the “simple-minded tribal dualism” of all collectivism.
Two main options- Which is most rational, common-sense, logical?
Here Stephen Meyer responds to the “gotcha” question from materialists like Richard Dawkins who try to confound and derail theists with- “Who or what created God?”
“Who Created God? Stephen Meyer’s Powerful Response to a Classic Objection”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbLO9PVGLWM
Meyers responds that only two candidates exist in all systems of thought/worldviews as the possible answers to this question of “prime reality or ground of all being or the thing from which everything came, the source of all reality.”
He asks- What is the best candidate to be the “eternally self-existent thing” that is affirmed in every system of thought.
Is “matter, energy, space and time” the best candidate from which everything else came, or is it a “transcendent creative intelligence- i.e. God”?
The discoveries in physics and cosmology that point to a Big Bang beginning of the physical universe of matter, energy, space and time, reveal that matter, energy, space and time are a poor candidate to explain what everything else came from. This is because matter, energy, space and time have not existed from eternity past but began a finite time ago. That suggests the need for something else that is external to such things as the ground of all being.
Where, says Meyer, theism posits an agent or entity that is separate from the physical world that is eternal and self-existent and has the quality of timelessness. This is the “I Am that I Am” of the Old Testament that provides a better explanation for the origin of the material universe. That eternally self-existent thing that is the Ground of all Being and presents a better explanation than that of materialism a primary, originating cause.
And if matter existed for eternity as materialists argue (i.e. endless universes being birthed in endless cycles), then you could ask the same question of “what existed before that”? What started all that?
Both theism and classical materialism posit an eternal self-existent something, says Meyer. You can ask of both somethings- What came before that? But then which of the two options provides the better explanation for all that we see in reality, in the world?
A response to emails posted to a discussion group: Wendell Krossa
“_____ this is a response to your earlier post on “searching for the best term” for creating reality. I had been working on this little insert note due to common reference in my material to theology.
This also relates to a growing understanding that the true basis of all reality is Consciousness. In the new pyramid of reality consciousness is at the bottom, with physics on top of that, followed by chemistry, biology, anthropology/sociology, then psychology at the peak. The primacy of consciousness as creating/sustaining all material reality is something that was affirmed, for example, from the Neils Bohr and Eistein debates (e.g. “Quantum” by Manjit Kumar). Varied experiments affirmed Bohr’s position over Einstein’s that there is some inseparable relationship of conscious observer to observed reality.
That was something that Einstein resisted as expressed in his statement, “I cannot believe the moon is not there when I am not looking at it”. Scientists like Lee Smolin (“The Trouble with Physics”) continue to argue for Einstein’s hope there is an independently existing material reality, aside from consciousness. So far, they have not been able to prove such.
Interesting in the Stephen Meyer videos is the story of Einstein’s admission that his fiddling with the cosmological constant was the greatest mistake of his life. Meyers recounts that to illustrate how the philosophical positions of these scientists have influenced their science in notable ways. Arthur Eddington admitted that the discovery of the Big Bang, and that it obviously pointed to a creation of material reality event, was a finding that was repugnant to him.
The intrusion of philosophical viewpoints into science is something that physicist Sabina Hossenfelder found was common among theoretical physicists, their crossing the science/philosophy boundary to claim conclusions that affirmed their criterion of “beauty in mathematical equations” (detailed in her “Lost in Math”). That is no different from religious people crossing the science/religion boundary to make their “spiritual” conclusions in response to the great questions of existence, meaning, and purpose.
The materialist types, who do very much the same as religious types in crossing the science/philosophy boundary, claim status as “more rational and scientific” in their materialist/atheist conclusions, compared to their primitive-minded “religious” opponents (i.e. the creationists). They claim superior status based on the assumption that good science will inevitably lead to their materialist/atheist conclusions- i.e. that reality and life are driven by meaningless, random, mindless natural factors and processes.
(Note: There are legitimate scientific criticisms of the more primitive versions of religious “creationism” that have been properly discredited. However, that is quite different from the “Big Bang” creationism that has become unavoidable, even in science. This is what Meyers is dealing with.)
This all relates to the fundamental human impulse to curiously explore and speculate on meaning/purpose issues. That impulse sparked the origins of mythology, religion, philosophy and, downstream through more recent history, all the scientific theories and ideologies that people have come up with.
And again, to re-affirm, I do not follow Meyers to his conclusion that it all ends pointing to the Christian God. He did better when in earlier work he stopped at arguing for some great “Intelligence” working behind all origins and development processes. In earlier articles, he stated that he was not pointing necessarily to the Christian God.
In varied videos noted below, Stephen Meyer offers his defense of theism as the philosophical materialism domination of science is now failing due to ongoing discoveries in cosmology and physics. Meyer is informative on these major trends in theoretical science that deal with human meaning issues.
And this in response to a discussion group member…
I view terms that define creating deity as “consciousness/mind/intelligence, etc.”, as more relatable to the human self or person that is essentially that same reality (John Eccles’ points, along with related others). Our conscious selves are similar to Ultimate Consciousness (i.e. we are expressions, manifestations of That).
And further…
Prefacing the “theology” comments on this site with a few notes, Wendell Krossa
When I use the familiar terms “deity, God, theology or spiritual”, I am not referring to anything that I view as remotely religious in nature/character. My view is that all of our notable historical religious traditions have distorted ultimate reality with religious features that frame deity with such features as being “sky gods” (up above somewhere), having human gender, and generally behaving in subhuman ways- i.e. being retributive judges, punitive enforcers of violent eye for eye justice, etc.
Religious traditions have consistently and very crudely anthropomorphized deity, framing the ultimate reality in terms of the worst features of primitive humanity- i.e. as tribal, dominating, and a violent, punitive destroyer (i.e. venting divine anger through apocalypse, hell).
With “deity” I am thinking more of Something or Someone of the nature of Ultimate Consciousness, Mind, super-Intelligence, a reality that creates and sustains all material reality in existence, an infinitely transcendent creating Consciousness that is present everywhere sustaining this material reality in existence. And if it is of the nature of consciousness, mind, intelligence then logically it has personhood, or is “Self”.
And most critically, I view deity as residing in all humanity as inseparable from our common human consciousness and our common human spirit. This relates to the “oneness” that many talk about, notably those in the Near-Death Experience accounts who were stunned to discover our inseparable union with God and with all things. Though, the oneness was “a union without loss of individual distinction”.
Theological types add that there is divine “immanence while maintaining transcendence”. Transcendence always characterizes anything relating to infinite creating deity (infinite and inexpressibly mysterious creating ability, infinite goodness, etc.).
I argue here that all forms of human religion have distorted this fundamental divine reality horribly with myths of an original paradise that was purportedly ruined by early corrupted people who consequently angered the creating deity that was obsessed with perfection. That religious deity, already perceived as outside of and separate from humanity, then rejected and punished “fallen people” by cursing the world with natural disasters, disease, predatory cruelty, and all else that causes human suffering. From the beginning, religious versions of deity were portrayed as indulging petty vindictiveness toward imperfect humanity.
The formerly present deity (according to primitive mythology) then further separated from us by retreating to the far away and infinitely remote heavens. And from that ultimate isolation, deity has since demanded bloody human sacrifice for appeasement, as required for restoration of the severed divine/human relationship. Such mythology is entirely distorting of the unconditional love that is the actual nature of deity that is present equally in every human person and always has been.
Another note:
But still- Why even engage and speculate on theology? Wendell Krossa
Because from the beginning bad ideas have shaped theology into the monstrosity of some ultimate threat that exists behind all reality and life and expresses itself through the worst in life as punitive and destroying (i.e. threat theology).
The reality remains that we will never eliminate this element of human curiosity and the consequent tendency to speculate on ultimate mysterious realities. Such speculation is driven by the primary human impulse to understand ultimate meaning and purpose. Like the curious Adam in Eden risking divine displeasure to gain knowledge of good and evil.
Further, the bad ideas already exist and have existed from the beginning, ideas that have dominantly defined ultimate reality or deity in the most distorting manner. Bad religious ideas have dominated the archetypes of the human subconscious from the earliest emergence of human consciousness and understanding.
So rather than “just get rid of all this metaphysical bullshit” (the urging of a pissed atheist), rather than just downplay, dismiss, or deny metaphysical speculations, we should deal with what exists and has been horrifically deformed by religious traditions. From the perspective of modern human sensibilities, we can offer better or more humane alternatives to define deity- i.e. this great divine embodiment of our highest human ideals and authorities that continue to play a dominant role in shaping our narratives, our thinking, emotions, motivations, and behavior.
And again, most critical, we do well to reframe the metaphysical creating/sustaining Reality in terms of the best of humanity, as inseparable from humanity. We do best to focus that concern for ultimate meaning/purpose on what we see as the best of human insights, features, behavior, and diversely creative output. All the infinitely diverse things that individuals do to contribute to making life better for all. All the infinite diversity of unique human stories/lives.
“Societies gripped by apocalyptic expectation embrace “salvation” decisions that are profoundly self-destructive” (Chat’s summary of my comment in recent posted material below).
This just below is another poke at the two most prominent archetypes in Western narratives that affirm two contrasting ways of thinking that then promote two very differing outcomes in life/societies. These are the two most dominant influences across the past two millennia in Western civilization, and even further across the entire world (James Tabor).
Pulling “diamonds out of dung”. Or “Contrasting the diamonds with the dung”. Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s terms for describing the core differences between Jesus’ message and Paul’s opposite Christology.
Or- What is true justice, really?
Two entirely opposite theologies, related ethical systems, and the consequence of two very opposite behavioral outcomes across the history of our Western societies. The two most dominant archetypes for shaping human society/civilization, Wendell Krossa
This site makes one prominent point, repeatedly, that at the core of all reality and life there is an inexpressibly, unimaginably transcendent love- i.e. profoundly unconditional.
“Core of all reality” as related to Stephan Meyer’s “Eternally self-existing prime reality, ground of all being, the thing from which everything came, the source of all reality- i.e. God.”
I come at this from a non-religious perspective, having left my religion long ago. I have concluded that the core reality is non-religious, and no existing religious tradition has ever communicated the true nature/character of this reality to humanity. To do so would be suicidal to any religion, because if God is unconditional love then absolutely no conditions, especially no “religious” conditions, are required for universal inclusion, full equality with everyone else, full acceptance, unlimited forgiveness, or however else one conceives of “salvation”. Its all “free” in the terms of what we understand unconditional to actually mean.
Hence, a preface warning: The central theological discovery of Historical Jesus- i.e. God as unconditional love- spells the end of all conditional religion. The unconditional theme of Jesus’ teaching is the “diamond” that contrasts so profoundly with the conditional religious “dung” that Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy spoke about.
This insight on ultimate reality, or theology, first became clear to me several decades ago when doing a reread of the New Testament record of the central message of Historical Jesus where he stated (my clarifying paraphrase)- “There should be no more eye for eye retaliation but instead ‘Love your enemy because God does’. How does God love enemies? God generously and freely gives the two basic elements for survival in agrarian society- i.e. sun and rain- to both good and bad people alike. Equally, without discriminatory exclusion of anyone.”
Nature itself, if you focus on the right elements as Jesus did above, reveals the generously unconditional love of God.
Jesus’ message and central theme can be summed as “Love your enemy because God does”. The ultimate ethical ideal is based on history’s singularly best theological insight on ultimate reality or deity (“Jesus’ most important contribution to the history of human ideas”, James Robinson). Or, to state another way, the highest and best of human behavior reveals and manifests the best of theology. Play with it in whatever way you find interesting. The Jesus insight on deity as unconditional love holds the “secret” to a lot of things. It is the last missing element to a complete TOE.
Moving on from that “weave”….
Years earlier (late 80s) I had taken an Asian Studies course at UBC in Vancouver BC where the professor had us read an article by anthropologist Clifford Geertz on the Balinese of Indonesia. Geertz had pointed out that the Balinese model their society on what they believe to be a divine pattern or model. They practised what people have done across history- i.e. basing their behavior on their beliefs, notably their beliefs in deity, or in divine archetypes.
I saw that Jesus had used that same coupling of “behavior based on similar belief in divine archetype” to present his stunning new theology of an unconditionally loving God. This was especially clear in the presentation of his central message in places like Luke 6: 27-36:
“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full.
“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving.” (My paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36 or Matthew 5:38-48.)
Jesus did two things in this summary of his main message-
(1) He revealed the unconditional love of God from the best/most critical survival elements of the natural world and
(2) He revealed the nature of God through the best of human behavior, the unconditional treatment of offenders/enemies (i.e. non-retaliatory justice). He did theology based on the best of being human, the best of human behavior, along with the best elements of the natural world (“best” as in enhancing human survival and flourishing).
His list of precepts above, illustrated exactly how to love unconditionally. He said, if you do these things, respond like this, treat your offenders like this, then you will be acting just like God. You will reveal what God is like. This point was made clear in his summarizing statement- “Be unconditionally loving, even to enemies, just as God is unconditionally loving” (Luke’s “Be merciful just as your God is merciful”). Love your enemy just as God loves God’s enemies.
His point: Reveal the true nature of God by loving your enemies unconditionally. Manifest the unconditional love of the God who indwells you.
His list of precepts illustrated just how to do this.
Normal love of family and friend also reveals the indwelling God of love. But the highest reach of love, i.e. unconditional love of enemies, takes things further to the most essential nature or quality of the love that is God- i.e. unconditional. That is the true transcendent glory of deity.
To further emphasize his point on unconditional, Jesus said that the love that he is advocating was something quite different from the normal tribally-oriented forms of love that we all exhibit. He countered our common tribally-limited expressions of love by stating this, “If you just love those who love you in return, then what credit is that to you?” Everyone does that, even gangsters, totalitarians, and other thugs (i.e. his term- “sinners”).
Instead, he urged, reach higher to heroic acts and states of love and human experience- i.e. love your enemy. Then you will be revealing the true nature of deity and experiencing the ultimate state of being truly human, experiencing the highest reaches of human maturity, attaining levels of the heroically human. You will be reaching for the highest of human achievements in this world and life. Like a Mandela.
Further, this unconditional feature makes God and love an entirely non-religious reality. Because (here is the most profound of all contrasts between Jesus and Paul’s Christ) all religion is highly conditional in nature. And hence my argument that no religion has ever revealed the true nature of God or love as “unconditional”. All religion buries this “diamond” discovery of Jesus in the “dung” of religious conditions. That was the blunt commentary of Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy in pointing out the contrast between the core message of Jesus and Paul’s opposite Christ myth.
Add also (for emphasis on contrast) that Paul’s highly conditional Christ myth embodies the single most supreme condition ever constructed- i.e. that of a godman sent from heaven to endure a torturous and bloody human experience of sacrifice as required to appease the wrath of a God who would not forgive anyone aside from that demanded condition.
That supreme religious condition was to be followed with related religious conditions like faithful and unquestioning acceptance of the “true” belief system, membership in and loyal adherence to a “true” Christian church, along with its rituals and religious lifestyle as identity markers of being a true believer in Paul’s Christ myth.
After seeing how Jesus used the “behavior based on similar belief” coupling, I then read the Near-Death Experience accounts and found that was the central insight discovery that they were making- i.e. that the “Light”, or God, was a stunningly, inexpressibly wondrous unconditional love that overwhelmed them entirely. I found that the NDE movement is the only “spiritual” movement in human history, aside from the early Jesus movement, that has got this unconditional nature of God’s love right.
An associated “mystery” to try and understand…
And my corollary point here is that after Jesus made this discovery and presented it, he incited outrage among the religious Jews of his day, the “righteous” people of his society. Over previous centuries they had located their identity in a retaliatory/retributive God who would some day take vengeance on their enemies, satisfying their view of “righteous justice” and proper salvation as ultimate divine retaliation and destruction. “Salvation through destruction.”
And that theme of “apocalyptic millennialism”, or “salvation through destruction”, became a central theme in all religious traditions. That was passed down to become, similarly, the cohering center of many “secular/ideological” systems of belief such as Marxism/collectivism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism. Salvation, imagined as some utopian future, can only be achieved by violently destroying and eliminating the evil society that currently exists and blocks the way to the imagined utopia.
The “righteous” rage of good people at Jesus’ new insight on God as no conditions love was illustrated in Jesus’ first public presentation of his new theology in a synagogue where he quoted an Old Testament section of Isaiah 61, reading this part:
“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor…”
(Insert note: Some have said that in referring to such OT quotes, Jesus was affirming a strain of teaching from the OT prophets that emphasized a new understanding of “justice”, not as retribution of some kind but as liberation from oppression, liberation to unconditional love, etc. That was an entirely new approach to ancient Hebrew/Jewish understanding of justice.)
Jesus stopped his reading of Isaiah on that note of “the Lord’s favor.” He left off this immediately following statement in Isaiah- “The day of vengeance of our God.” He did not include that statement of Isaiah that affirmed “eye for eye justice”, something that his oppressed audience longed to hear affirmed (i.e. the Jews in his synagogue audience were suffering under oppressive Roman occupation at that time).
Then, rubbing salt in their wounds of deeply-felt oppression and enmity toward their oppressors and other enemies, he went on to clarify exactly what he meant by “the Lord’s favor.” He further highlighted his stunning new theology of God as unconditionally loving by referring to incidents related to two of the most highly esteemed Old Testament prophets, Elijah and Elisha. He recounted two OT references to God exhibiting love for the enemies of Israel, sending these prophets to feed and heal outsiders to Jewish society:
“I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
His audience of synagogue Jews finally got his point– i.e. that he was rejecting traditional tribally-oriented “eye for eye” justice and emphasizing the unconditional love of God as illustrated in the nontribal inclusion of all people, including enemies. Jesus thereby presented a new image of a God who did not threaten exclusion of anyone, who did not threaten the exclusion or violent destruction of enemies, who, to the contrary, exhibited generous mercy toward all people by fully including Israel’s enemies, along with other despised outsiders.
Luke recounts the reaction of Jesus’ audience to his stunning new theology of the unconditionally loving God- “When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath” and tried to kill him by throwing him off a nearby cliff.
Nothing angers people who are committed to justice as some form of proper “eye for eye” vengeance against enemies than someone suggesting unconditional mercy toward such enemies/offenders. That generous mercy enrages many people.
The same reaction of outraged offense in others who heard Jesus’ new theology is presented in the parable of the older brother’s response to the father’s generous forgiveness and welcome of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). Also, it is illustrated in the all-day vineyard workers pissed at the owner’s generosity toward the late-comers (Matthew 20). They all complain that such unlimited and unconditional generosity is just not fair and just. Where is the traditional fair and righteous “eye for eye” justice that Moses and others long ago promised Jews?
Paul took up the cause of those people longing for the affirmation of eye for eye justice by constructing his Christ myth to be the ultimate archetype of such retaliatory justice. His Christ would destroy all who did not believe his gospel of a God who was, contrary to the theology of Jesus, a highly conditional and therefore “righteously just” deity.
Paul re-established “holiness” in deity as the highest feature of God– a feature that affirms some element of required retribution as essential to any proper (i.e. “true, righteous”) form of justice. You cannot simply “freely” forgive, accept, and “save” people, as in include them unconditionally and fully along with the “righteous” people who did good all their lives. And certainly not after the horrible things that some offenders do. There has to be some righting of wrongs, rebalancing the cosmic scales of justice, before there can be forgiveness, acceptance, inclusion, and full “salvation.”
The free forgiveness and inclusion that Jesus was teaching was just too overwhelmingly and outrageously offensive to the many good, religious people who were oriented to traditional understanding of justice as some form of necessary “eye for eye.”
Hence, Paul corrected the “error” that he viewed Jesus’ theology to be, by re-affirming that his God demanded the divine condition of a bloody human sacrifice for salvation. Blood sacrifice had been imposed on Jewish religion during the OT era as fundamental to Jewish understanding of deity and justice.
Paul’s image of God required the condition of blood atonement to appease the wrath of his God, a God who, with backup incentive, also threatened ultimate destruction through apocalypse and hell to all who did not believe the Christ myth.
(Insert: The “error” of Jesus? Paul viewed the “Q Wisdom Sayings” tradition, that Jesus’ belonged to, as intolerable heresy. This is evident in his excoriating that wisdom tradition in 1 Corinthians as “foolishness”, compared to what he claimed was the “true wisdom” of his Christ myth.)
Here is an example of retaliatory justice in theology from Paul’s letter to the Romans (note Paul’s affirmation here of the traditional element of “eye for eye” as essential to his view of divine justice):
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people… you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done.’… for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile…”. That hits all the right notes in human minds long attuned to proper justice.
And this from his letter to the Thessalonians: “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might…” Etc.
Paul’s re-affirmation of traditional eye for eye justice effectively buried the central “diamond” theological discovery of Jesus that God was unconditional- i.e. (1) non-retaliatory (no more “eye for eye” justice), (2) nontribal (including all, treating all with the same generous mercy), and (3) non-violent, a God who would not destroy enemies in the ultimate eye for eye retaliation of apocalypse or hell.
Paul rejected that “stunning new theology of Jesus” by using the same “behavior based on belief “coupling that Jesus had used. But, contrarily, Paul used it to confront and intentionally reject the central unconditional theme of Jesus. And he did that to re-affirm the very opposite theology to that of Jesus.
Paul stated, in Romans 12: 17-20- Do not retaliate against your enemies with eye for eye (“evil for evil”) but instead be kind to them. “Do not take revenge… but leave room for God’s wrath.”
Paul begins his re-affirmation of the traditional image of a retaliatory God, in his intentional project to contradict the theology of Jesus, by appearing to get the ethical precepts of Jesus right on non-retaliation toward enemies.
Remember, Jesus had straightforwardly rejected “eye for eye” justice toward enemies/offenders in the Matthew 5 and Luke 6 accounts of his message (i.e. “You have heard it said, ‘an eye for an eye’. But I say to you that, instead, you must ‘Love your enemies’”.).
So note that Paul, after stating the ethical demand as apparently non-retaliatory, then moved on to the belief element of the coupling of “behavior based on similar belief.” He then stated the theological element in the coupling, saying essentially, “Do not retaliate because God will retaliate on your behalf and destroy your enemies.”
He affirmed the retaliatory element of his theology by quoting an Old Testament passage- “’Vengeance is mine, I will retaliate’, says the Lord.”
His overall use of the “behavior based on similar theological archetype” appears to advocate an ethic that is based on a contradicting or contrasting belief- “Do not retaliate because God will retaliate for you.”
Where Jesus, to the contrary, had more logically coupled his non-retaliatory ethic to an image of a non-retaliatory God.
But then Paul further explained his use of the “behavior based on belief” coupling by making clear that the “kindness” to be shown to enemies was not the same ethical precept as those that Jesus had taught (i.e. love your enemy unconditionally because God does). Paul’s advocacy for “kindness” was to be motivated essentially by retaliatory vengeance- i.e. Do this and “you will heap coals of fire on your enemy’s heads.”
“Coals of fire on their heads”– Meaning that you will ensure, by your kindness, that your enemies are judged and vengefully destroyed by your similarly vengeful God. The ethic then actually matches the theology. It is behavior that is motivated by appeal to divine vengeance. Entirely opposite to what Jesus had taught just two decades earlier.
Paul’s full statement of his version of behavior based on belief: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.’ In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” (A bit of a paraphrase of Paul to make his statement clear.)
There is no element of a truly nonretaliatory, unconditional God in Paul’s Christ. Just the opposite. In fact, Paul takes traditional eye for eye views of justice to new heights. His new Christology embodies the ultimate statement of divine retaliation in the apocalyptic vengeance of “the day of the Lord” where Paul’s God/Christ will destroy the sinful world entirely (i.e. “sinful” because non-Christian). Paul’s God will purge the world of all unbelievers in order to prepare the way to install the totalitarian theocracy of his Christ who, in a purified and perfected world, will rule all with a “rod of iron.”
Paul’s gospel is eye for eye justice reestablished to ultimate expression in his Christ.
John’s “Revelation” later takes Paul’s vengeful Christ to further ultimate expression in the great orgy of final apocalyptic destruction followed by unbelievers cast into the eternal lake of fire (see, for example, Revelation chapter 19). His Christ tramples out “the fury of the wrath of God” before casting all unbelievers onto the big barbie down under.
Notes:
Paul, perhaps unaware of the contradiction, includes in his 1 Corinthian letter the love poem of chapter 13. That poem urges us to recognize and embrace an authentic love that will “keep no record of wrongs.” It will forgive all wrongs freely, without prerequisite conditions. Are we then to conclude that God is permitted to indulge a lesser form of love than we are urged to embrace? That God is allowed to keep a record of all wrongs to be rectified and punished in some future judgment? Then such a God is not authentic love, according to this love poem.
And we all intuitively recognize, from our own experience with family and friends, that unconditional is the truly authentic form of love. As Bob Brinsmead says, “If love is not unconditional, then it is not love.” Further, the unconditional nature of love is self-validating as true. Its needs no authority to affirm it.
Another note: We have, from historians/scholars, the evidence of the long history of outcomes from these two entirely opposite theologies and ethical systems- i.e. the endless violence and destruction from people who believe in and are committed to retaliatory justice against enemies, who then engage in crusades of “salvation through destruction” as we saw in last century’s Marxist revolutions, the Nazi holocaust, and now are seeing in environmental alarmism crusades. All crusades that were/are based on and fuelled by “apocalyptic millennial” beliefs, also known as “salvation through the violent, vengeance-fueled destruction of an evil society that currently exists.”
Another: Many online Christian responses to “pour coals of fire on their heads” defensively claim that this statement of Paul refers to acts of kindness as intended to make some enemy experience shame and regret that leads to repentance and belief in Paul’s Christ myth. But Paul’s context challenges such interpretations because he emphasizes the wrathful retaliation and destruction of God as the intended outcome of a believer’s non-retaliation toward enemies. The intention of the behavior in showing kindness is to ensure retaliation by God. Do this as prerequisite to God doing the retaliation on your behalf.
Paul encourages believers to ensure the outcome of divine retaliation by acting as he prescribes in the ethical statement of this context- i.e. show kindness toward your enemies. You can’t separate the main incentive that Paul presents in this context (holding the image of retaliatory deity) from the believer’s related motivations to act in the manner that he prescribes in the same context.
Jesus, to the contrary, effectively severed any motivation to act with vengeance by orienting the incentive to love enemies in the related image of a God who did just that. Again, we become just like the God that we believe in and worship. Our embraced image of deity shapes our thinking, feeling, motivations, and consequent responses/behaviors.
Another…
I am not affirming all the conclusions of the “Intelligent Design” people. Certainly not Stephen Meyer’s conclusions in his latest book “The Return of the God Hypothesis”, where he ends affirming the Christian God as the ultimate causal Creator. Wendell Krossa
However, his reasoning in general is convincing, that the most logical, rational assumption to be made on origins, whether of the cosmos or life, is that some great Intelligence was involved (so also, some intelligence clearly has to be involved in the mechanism behind the evolutionary steps/stages of life).
In some of his earlier work, Meyer did better in stating that he was not arguing for conclusions to end with only the Christian God but just that some transcendent Intelligence was obviously involved in the origin of the cosmos and life, as well as behind the mechanism of evolutionary change and emergence.
Here he notes how great scientists (i.e. Einstein, Eddington, etc.) had to face the fact that the beginning of the cosmos was obviously a “creation” event. They initially resisted/denied such a conclusion because their philosophical positions (i.e. “scientific materialism”) left them feeling repulsed by such a conclusion. However, hard evidence could not be denied, even though they initially tried.
As Meyers rightly (logically, rationally, reasonably) argues- If matter at some initial point came into existence, then you cannot invoke matter as the cause of the origin of the material universe. You logically need something that is immaterial, that transcends matter. That is the rational conclusion.
Scientists like Stephen Hawking proposed other alternative materialist explanations such as “steady state” or “oscillation”, to work around the idea of the universe having a beginning. But the ongoing emergence of new evidence discredited these positions also, says Meyer.
Hawking and Penrose’s work led to “singularity” theory which had an anti-material implication, according to Meyer.
Hawking, aware of the “creationist” implications of his discovery, spent the rest of his life looking for a loophole around this implication. Hawking wavered at times, admitting that he had given up on finding a materialist TOE and would have to live with “mystery”. As Meyers says, over the remainder of his life Hawking became a “God-obsessed atheist” (meaning- “God denying”).
But as other scientists like Robert Jastrow admitted, “This (i.e. the cosmos emerging from a “creation” event) is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians”.
Meyer continues, further quoting Jastrow, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries”.
I see the denial of scientific materialists as the simple-minded misunderstanding (my opinion) of the alternative views available. They appear to be assuming that they are left with only two choices- i.e. either (1) scientific materialism (and the inferred obligation to conclude with dogmatic atheism) or (2) some version of religious fundamentalism (creation by a religious God and the obligation to become loyal to a religious tradition like Christianity, etc.). Hence, of course their feeling of “repugnance” to accept the creation of the cosmos as the logical conclusion of accepting the “Big Bang” theory.
These scientists appear to believe the choices are only a simple dualism of extreme opposites- i.e. dogmatic atheism or traditional dogmatic religion. No. There are many more options/alternatives to how we frame a creating Intelligence, many that are not “religious” at all. Let 8 billion-plus flowers of creative options emerge and be proposed (“bloom” as Mao said), as many as there are free individuals.
Insert: Harold Ellens spoke to this “simple-minded misunderstanding” by otherwise very intelligent people. I repeat the pertinent quote:
“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…”
Kristian Neimeitz also spoke to this subconsciously driven loyalty to traditional beliefs in stating,
“Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.”
I wonder how much of this apparently unthinking embrace of the traditional is due to our locating our identity in traditional systems of belief and fearfully hesitant to engage any “death/rebirth or disintegration/re-integration” process with regard to such systems. Many seem hesitant to embrace openness to radically new understandings.
(End of insert.)
Continuing with previous….
Unfortunately, Meyers ends by taking his presentation toward affirming biblical accounts of creation and obviously directing his audience toward the general affirmation of traditional Christianity. I am not with him in that concluding direction. He did better when he left things at some immaterial, transcendent Mind, Consciousness, or Intelligence, something non-religious. Not ending focused on any particular religious tradition, not ending by affirming theism as defined by the biblical or Christian version.
Nonetheless, Meyer’s material is very much worth reading. The logic, rationality, and overall reasoning is good. His approach is non-dogmatic in nature.
“The Science of 19th Century Atheism Has Been Eclipsed”, Stephen Meyer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUprSCQvYYU
Note:
I don’t view the versions of “Q Wisdom Sayings” that have been assembled by James Robinson, John Kloppenborg, and others, as the proven complete teaching or message of Jesus. I don’t even refer to Historical Jesus as the final authority on the topic of unconditional beliefs, theology, and ethics. I take a more “self-validating as true” approach. Unconditional is self-validating as the best understanding of authentic love. It needs no outside authority to affirm its validity as right, true and ultimate good.
And this explains my selective use of statements from the Jesus material in the New Testament.
I am using a kind of “cohering themes” approach (i.e. “thematic coherence”), or what constitutes a coherent message. The statements from Jesus are useful here but I do not view them as any kind of final required validating authority. Hence, my loosey-goosey use of Jesus. What some disdain as “picking and choosing.” Exactly.