“You cannot confront and defeat what you will not name”. Complicity, culpability, and related things. Getting past tribalism.

The Triggernometry guests in the link below have explained what the Iran issue is really about. As they state, the theocrat leaders of Iran are committed to sparking the end of the world, just as the ISIS terrorists tried in Syria in 2014. And the Iranian leader’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is to enable them to fulfill their commitment to ultimate extermination.

Why? Their heads are filled with bad theocracy, with the mind-deforming image of a violent, destroying God who demands that they purge the evil enemies of their God, the unbelievers. Read the New Testament book of Revelation for a graphic portrayal of what is involved. Utter mass-scale violence is required to purify the world and prepare for the Messiah to come and install paradise. “Salvation through violent destruction” summarizes the theology that drives such madness.

The Iranian mullah’s threat was not just to Israel and to surrounding moderate Islamic countries. It was much worse and much wider. That is what bad religious ideas dominating people’s brains produces. Violence and war that threatens many more than just Israel.

So yes, to Kat Timpf’s concerns about what happens next. What might be the outcome as past ventures in places like Iraq illustrated? But then as Brian Kilmeade responds, if we do nothing then the threat remains the day after. Just as it got worse for Israel after repeated ceasefires with Hamas in Gaza over years previous to Oct. 7. The problem only got worse by passing it along.

Gutfeld! THE GREG GUTFELD FULL END SHOW 4/3/26 FOX BREAKING NEWS TODAY NEW EPISODE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSM_EOsyS6I

The leaders of the rational countries of the world are obligated by their number one priority to protect innocent people. And the past 47 years of pacification of the mullahs has not worked but only led to the mullahs getting closer and closer to nuclear weapons to spark their final stage of extermination of unbelievers as demanded by their God.

So yes Kat, we all hope for the best outcome, but doing nothing (“kicking the can down the road”) has only worsened the threat. You cannot reason and negotiate, as the Pope urges, with minds deformed by bad theology. And that affirms the argument of this site to heed General Nagata’s concern and confront the “idea” head on if you want to defeat it. We have the alternative, as this site details repeatedly. But solving/defeating this problem of repeated eruptions of mass-violence requires getting past any queasiness over challenging honored institutions and narratives that have long been protected “under the canopy of the sacred”, long entrenched in religious images of God.

“Men never do worse evil than when they do it in the name of their God.”

This may help some readers to get the point of this section below on Christian complicity or culpability in contributing to this Iranian problem, contributing to the “idea” that General Nagata puzzled over. Its not just another “us versus them” tribal issue. Its all of us against the common enemy of all humanity, the one that Solzhenitsyn got right in his comment on the real battle of good versus evil that takes place inside each one of us.

Good point also by Kat expressing her concern about the initial “Rah, rah” excitement over the death of the Iranian leaders. Chinese sage Laotzi also cautioned about gloating triumphalism when we are obligated to unfortunately use force to defeat those attacking us. The “enemies” are still family, despite their horrific failures to live as human. And our common obligation to “Love your enemies” will eventually require effort at restorative justice. Just as the Allies did post-WW2 with Germany and Japan. And what Nelson Mandela did with his oppressors upon release from prison.

Some preface points:

As the Chinese sage Laotzi(?) cautioned: When an enemy attacks, you regretfully have to go to war to defeat that attacker. But then having defeated him, rather than gloating with triumphalism, instead seek the rehabilitation and restoration of your attacker. That is one version of “love your enemies”.

Paraphrase of a Ayaan Hirsi Ali statement: “You cannot confront and defeat what you will not name”.

Western and specifically Christian “culpability” (synonyms- complicity, blame, guilt, responsibility, accountability, liability, answerability, etc.)

And some more preface stuff:

Note below the excellent analysis that took place on the Triggernometry podcast discussion of the Iran war. The two analysts interviewed state that it is so much bigger than just that war. They are, as claimed, two of the best if you want to understand what the assault on Iran is really about. And most helpfully, they point to the theology, not ideology, that is driving those Iranian theocrats.

The war on Iran is the necessary use of force to stop the main state promoting terrorism worldwide. It is also about the defense of liberal democracy from assaults by totalitarian regimes intent on overthrowing the liberal model in order to install their authoritarianism models in its place.

Note in the Triggernometry link how the Iran situation relates to Russia and China and their ongoing long-game plans to overthrow liberal democracy.

Grok also delves into how these Marxist traditions, among others, use “salvation through destruction” templates, and how authoritarian domination is the ultimate outcome of these approaches. Also, how they validate their overthrowing the “evil” of liberal democracy freedoms and rights for individuals.

See Grok’s detailed outlining of how the Christian template of “salvation through violent destruction” continues to play out in endless variants across subsequent history, notably in Islam, Marxism (Russian and Chinese versions), Nazism, and now in environmental alarmism also.

“From 50,000 feet up they all look the same”, Bob Brinsmead

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=15027#more-15027

I have also posted in the section just below Grok and Chat’s detailed coverage of the origin and impacts of bad ideas on people and societies. The section is titled: “We did not defeat the idea.” We have not even confronted the idea. It is protected “under the canopy of the sacred.”

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=15215#more-15215

Grok and Chat provide detailed insight into the critical background ideas to keep in mind as we observe these contemporary conflicts play out and we wonder about what is really happening, what incites such endless madness.

And note my quibble with Marco Rubio below to just understand the nature of good and bad and how commonly our religious traditions cloak bad as good just as Paul did with the Christ. Harold Ellens, among others, exposed well the iconic Christian example of this-

“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (see Romans, Revelation). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, this image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.

“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.

“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…”. (End of Ellens quote)

I would urge the Rubio-types of the world to understand the great dualism and contradiction at the heart of Christianity when they recommend reviving this religion as important to the restoration of Western democracy (e.g. Michael Shellenberger, Free Press writers, etc. do the same). Careful, careful.

Its not “trashing Christianity” to recommend the clear-sighted view of what are the diamonds in the mix and what is the dung. This is something that all major religious traditions and their meta-narratives have to do, as the basic human responsibility to know good from bad. This discernment has always been fundamental to human development and growth.

If we sincerely want to make a contribution to making the world better, notably by playing a role in the grand exodus from our animal past to become human in civilization, which is the great story of humanity across the millennia, and if we get that this is the project that God created this realm of dualism for- i.e. as a learning arena for us to work out our impulse for meaning and purpose here, then in we first have to understand what is the nature of the bad in the mix in order to reject it in favor of the good, the better, the more humane.

If we keep muddying the nature of good and bad then we are part of the short-circuiting, hindering, delaying, even derailing the great overall project of exodus, just as Paul did with his Christ myth (i.e. “Christ-ianity”).

The proper distinguishing of bad from good is especially critical in light of the all-too-common practise of our great religions to cloak bad as good, thereby producing cognitive dissonance akin to a mental deformity in many followers and that continues to incite and validate bad behavior among people. Much like the Iranian theocrats believing that they are heroically doing the will of God by exterminating unbelievers. Not incited and motivated by some aberration to Islam (i.e. some aberrant “ideology”), but by its central theology. Just like the Christian crusaders, influenced by the very same theology (same image of God), slaughtered unbeliever Muslims in Jerusalem a millennium earlier. Or what the Hebrews did in early BC Palestine (again, motivated by the same God image) during their crusade of extermination of those inhabitants.

We all have the same dark histories due to embracing the same old God images.

Moving on…

Let me nail this culpability issue again to be real clear– i.e. “the idea” issue raised by General Nagata, Wendell Krossa

Chat relentlessly tries to get me to soften my comments on this point with balancing recognition of good bits here and there in Paul’s Christ message that dominates the New Testament. Chat does not get what I am trying to do when I bluntly contrast the Jesus message (Thomas Jefferson on “the diamonds”) with Paul’s entirely opposite Christ message (Jefferson and Tolstoy on “the dung”).

I am pointing to Christian culpability right at the headwaters of Western civilization where Paul re-enforced and promoted the worst features of previous primitive mythologies, notably the archetypes of (1) tribalism, (2) domination, and (3) punitive, retaliatory destruction of enemies/unbelievers. And after embedding these as main features in his apocalyptic millennial Christ myth, these themes have subsequently dominated across our Western history shaping offspring like Islam, Marxism, Nazism, and now environmental alarmism. There is no escaping or excusing Christian culpability in providing the basic template in the Christ for subsequent “salvation through destruction” crusades, religious and “secular/ideological”.

It is not being “anti-religion”, or “attacking Christianity” to point this out. The historians have done the good homework tracing the evidence that the themes of apocalyptic millennial Christianity influenced and guided the mass-death eruptions in Marxist revolutions, Nazism, and now influence the environmental apocalyptic crusade that is ruining societies with decarbonization madness. Again, I assigned Grok the homework to trace this out and that good summary is in this link, posted again for your convenience:

“From 50,000 feet up they all look the same”, Bob Brinsmead

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=15027#more-15027

My point is not to tribally pick on any one tradition but to show this problem of inciting/validating bad ideas is common to all of us on this planet, something we all need to join forces to solve. It is ultimately a human versus animal issue with a shared enemy that resides inside all of us. No one exempted.

This is about solving the problem of the “idea” that General Nagata worried over following the military action to defeat ISIS in Syria back in 2014. He said just what Richard Landes similarly stated at the end of his chapter on Nazism (i.e. “Heaven On Earth”). That you can defeat these eruptions of murderous violence with military force, but they will continue to erupt and ruin our societies until you recognize, until you name, and deal properly with the ideas/beliefs that drive them.

Psychologists quoted repeatedly here, Harold Ellens, Zenon Lotufo, etc., state the same in warning that cruel God images incite the worst impulses in people, including the impulse to nihilistic violence. Such images deform human personality with fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, despair/depression, nihilism, and violence. As Landes warned, until you recognize, from the Nazi horrors for example, how apocalyptic millennial ideas can carry societies toward mass-death outcomes, you have learned nothing and will just repeat such eruptions again and again.

We have to get past our fears of naming the idea, for whatever reasons, and just confront it head on if we hope to finally properly deal with it, and to defeat it.

Grok (in sections below) traces the line of descent of the basic template of “salvation through destruction” down through history showing the main Christian role at the crossover pivot from the BC era into our now two millennia-long CE era. Paul more prominently than any other person or movement took the dominant themes of BC-era mythologies (i.e. Judaism, Hellenist, Zoroastrianism, Sumerian mythologies, etc.) and took them to new heights of supremacy in his Christ, universalizing them for all humanity and all history. Hence, the overwhelmingly dominant influence of Paul and his Christ on today’s world that James Tabor talks about in “Paul and Jesus”. Paul’s influence is particularly dominant in Western civilization, shaping subsequent meta-narratives, lives, and societies.

The historians have done the detailed homework and that evidence needs to be faced because it reveals that right there at the center of the Christian religion is the God/Christ who exemplifies and epitomizes the basic template of features that have been responsible for so much subsequent violence across Western history- i.e. deity as tribal, dominating, and ultimate destroyer in apocalypse and hell.

The core idea or belief has been lasered on as stated thus- “It’s the theology, stupid” (a play on James Carville’s meme- “It’s the economy, stupid”). Not some “ideology”, though such elements are also present.

Paul clearly stated the nature of his theology, his image of God, and (my view) he did it to intentionally contradict the “stunning new theology” that Jesus had introduced two decades earlier. As “Q Wisdom Sayings” scholar James Robinson has said, Jesus introduced the “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God, his greatest contribution to the history of human ideas”. That new image of God overturned everything in human thought, emotions, motivations, and behavior up till that time.

The radical new theology of an unconditional God meant there must be no more eye for eye retaliation against offenders/enemies but instead that we should love our enemies just as God did, illustrated in God giving sun and rain inclusively to both good and bad people. Illustrated further in God forgiving all, generously loving all, treating all with unconditional mercy just as Jesus outlined in his list of precepts in Luke 6: 27-36. If we did what the precepts stated, and acted like that, then we would be just like God- “Be unconditionally merciful just as God is unconditionally merciful”.

Paul identified with the Jewish outrage shown in response to Jesus’ first public speaking engagement at a synagogue (Luke 4), outrage that Jesus had denied the Jewish longing for their God to take vengeance on and punish/destroy their enemies. Jesus did that by refusing to read the next phrase in Isaiah 61 after quoting the initial part. He read:

“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…” He stops there. He leaves off “the day of vengeance of our God”.

Then he adds the two Old Testament illustrations of God showing mercy and love toward the enemies of Jews. That was rubbing salt into the open sore of Jewish suffering under oppression and their longing for deliverance that included divine vengeance on enemies, the destruction of those enemies, not merciful love.

As Paul constructed his new Christ-ianity religion, he knew that he had to deal with the theology of Jesus that he viewed as infecting and spreading throughout the early Jesus movement. So when writing his most comprehensive letter on his new gospel (i.e. Romans), Paul ignores entirely the actual message or teaching of Jesus and instead just takes the person of Jesus and reframes him entirely by merging him into his new gospel of the Christ, what theologians term “Christology”- i.e. the turning of an ordinary person into a god. In Paul’s myth the supreme God, the Lord of all, eternally.

“AI Overview

“Christology is the branch of Christian theology relating to the person, nature, and work of Jesus Christ. It explores his dual identity as both fully divine and fully human, the Incarnation, his earthly ministry, death, and resurrection. Key aspects include analyzing his role in salvation and his relationship to God the Father.

“Key components of Christology include:

• Ontological Christology: Analyzes the nature and being of Jesus (i.e., how he is both God and human).

• Functional/Soteriological Christology: Analyzes the work, mission, and salvific role of Jesus.

• High vs. Low Christology: “High” (or “from above”) focuses on his divinity and pre-existence, while “low” (or “from below”) emphasizes his humanity and historical life.

• Key Concepts: Explores the Hypostatic Union (union of two natures), the Incarnation, and the Trinity.

“It is considered the foundation of Christian theology, focusing on understanding who Jesus is and his significance to faith.”

Paul finally gets to the core of the issue in Romans 12: 17-20 where in direct contradiction to the main theme in the message of Jesus- i.e. his theology- Paul contradicted that new theological insight of Jesus (God as non-retaliatory) by re-affirming the entire opposite theology of a retaliatory deity. Paul does that by quoting an Old Testament statement, “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay/retaliate’, says the Lord”. That was exactly the same as the statement in Isaiah 61 that Jesus had refused to include that enraged his Jewish audience who then tried to kill him.

Paul in reaffirming that vengeful, retaliatory God thereby undermined entirely the actual message and theology of Jesus. He then distorted Jesus entirely by merging him into his Christ in the new title of “Jesus Christ”, thereby creating history’s greatest oxymoron that has subsequently generated two millennia of cognitive dissonance from one of history’s most influential religious traditions. It continues widely today. And leads to denial of complicity in the offspring of Christianity and their ongoing tribal hatred and violence among people.

My point here? If we are going to seriously solve the problem of ongoing violence and war then as General Nagata said, we have to defeat the idea behind such violence. And as Ayaan Hirsi Ali expressed, you can’t confront and defeat the idea if you don’t first name it. Take ownership, responsibility, understand your contribution to the problem and then you can properly and thoroughly help solve the problem for the long-term future.

This is not trashing a great religious tradition. It is doing what Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy pointed to, bluntly stating that we have to separate the “diamonds from the dung”. Make ourselves aware of the great dualism and contradiction right at the heart of the Christian religion, the contrast between Jesus and Paul’s Christ. Chat, in repeatedly cautioning me about my arguments on this, urging me to also balance with the good bits in Paul, misses the critical point in all this- i.e. to starkly and clearly present the contradiction here. To name the idea, the actual nature of the problem, if you really want to solve it properly.

I am making the same point here that Dominic Crossan of Jesus Seminar cautioned us about, stating that it is unethical to condemn some other group’s version of a myth as demonic when your tradition holds the very same myth, perhaps differing in expression/terms but same basic content. He was talking about early Christian demonization of surrounding Roman myths like the virgin births of their emperors as pagan myths, where the emperor godmen were believed to be the offspring of a deity impregnating a human woman. That was common to Greek mythology, and common throughout the primitive past. Well, what was the Christian version of virgin birth if not exactly that same basic myth?

My project in this comment is to show that Christianity, at the fountainhead of Western civilization, provided the basic template of themes in its “salvation through destruction” complex that was subsequently taken up by Islam, Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism. All descendants, offspring of the Mother template set by Paul in his Christ myth. Hence our direct “complicity” with what is erupting through Islam today across the world. And we have done nothing to go to the core of the problem to help solve it for future generations. Most reformism is just tinkering at the periphery, refusing to name the idea in order to fully and properly confront and defeat it.

And the egregious shame here, intensifying our complicity and guilt, is that Jesus gave us the alternative to liberate us completely from the old mythology, to radically change everything right at the core- i.e. the theology, the God at the center of all this. But it was a hard sell. His audience of Jews at that time responded with murderous rage to his profound new theology.

He showed the religious people of his era how to break free of the natural impulse to hate and destroy enemies in eye for eye retaliatory cycles. How to love enemies by going to the root and cutting off the most dominant influence- i.e. the theology- that had long incited human impulses to tribalism, defeat and domination of enemies, to violent destruction of enemies.

Insert: This is never an advocacy for pacifism. See more below. Any common-sense love is responsible to protect and that means, unfortunately, the use of counter-force to restrain, to stop the violence of others, of offenders/attackers. Hence, the legitimate just war of Israel against Hamas and now the Israeli/US war on Iranian theocrats that you cannot reason with, as they are irrationally possessed and dominated by a theology of wrathful, retaliatory, destroying deity who demands the extermination of unbelievers.

The stunning new theology of Jesus is about how we maintain our own humanity as we face down evil in life, how we win the real battle against the real enemy of us all. This involves Solzhenitsyn’s inner battle of good against evil that I frame as the battle against the animal inheritance in all of us. This is the impulses to tribalism, domination, and vengeful destruction of differing others. If we win this battle then we are better enabled to properly deal with public conflicts where we will no longer view offenders as enemies and after restraining, incarcerating violent attackers to protect innocent others we will then treat the offenders humanely as in restorative justice approaches.

A bit of “woowoo” insert from the quantum realm, Mitochondrial Eve stuff, and NDE comments on ultimate oneness with God and all else, to help deflate/defuse tribalism and other pathologies like the impulse to dominate and destroy others:

Ultimately, oneness tells us that we are, in the end, all one family and the harm that we do to one another we also do to ourselves, hence the advice to “do to others what you want done to yourself”. Or better, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to yourself”.

Back to the “stunning new theology” of Jesus. This demands complete narrative transformation beginning with the deity at the heart of everything.

The inexpressibly wondrous new unconditional theology of Jesus demands death and rebirth, disintegration and re-integration around the entirely new. The Jesus insight on deity provides for such absolute transformation but because his discovery was subsequently buried in Paul’s Christ, we have to first wipe the diamonds clean, wipe the muck of Paul’s opposite theology off in order to make the diamond insight of Jesus clear. Few are willing to even think of such a radical process of change. And many will react with the same outrage and murderous violence as that first audience of Jews when they heard what Jesus proposed. We see the same outrage today from Islamic true believers who remind potential apostates that leaving their religion means a death sentence.

Chat misses my points on how radical the contrast is between Jesus and Paul and that contrast cannot be softened by balancing inclusion of Paul’s nicer bits here and there throughout his letters. It cannot be stated simply, bluntly, and clearly enough that “It’s the core theology, stupid”. The God of Christianity. The Christ of Paul.

In relation to Islam and the widespread promotion of violence toward differing others, its not some ideology coming in to distort an otherwise good religion, its not fringe distortion of a good religion by just a minority of extremists. No, it’s the very heart of the religion, the God of the religion. And here is the correct “balancing” that I do and that Chat misses- The Islamic religion got its central themes from its Christian parent and yes, the parentage goes back even further to Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and other primitive mythologies.

But at the head of Western civilization stands Christianity and the Christ myth of Paul. So, recognize Christian culpability in maintaining the basic template of themes across Western history, the narrative of the Christ, and you wonder why (with General Nagata) we haven’t defeated the idea. We don’t even want to name it, as Hirsi Ali said, and so it keeps reappearing and resurging in these eruptions of tribal hatred and violence/war.

Now honing in again on the Triggernometry podcast with the experts on Iran:

The one guest is a former al Qaeda banker and he names the danger of Iranian theocracy in his statement that it’s the belief of many Iranians that the regime is “divinely ordained”. Not “ideologically ordained” but divinely ordained, theologically ordained.

This broadly accepted belief that the leaders are “divinely ordained” explains the widely accepted irrationality of the Iranian leaders and hence why they are not susceptible to reasoning and diplomacy, though they will play such games to stall for time and opportunity to rearm, regroup, and prepare to complete their extermination crusade. Just as Hamas is also doing once again.

He makes the point that the Iranian leadership will not make a deal with Trump because they are not rational or reasonable. Their minds are controlled by the theology of a God who is tribal, dominating, a great vengeful Destroyer of unbelievers. You cannot make ultimate peace deals with such people through diplomacy because you are just kicking the can down the road, as Israel did with Hamas over the past decade or so through a series of ceasefires, convincing themselves that Hamas had moderated itself and would work to improve the lives of Gazans. That as a fatal error on Israel’s part.

Theocrats possessed by theology will use the patience, tolerance, and kindness of Western leaders to re-arm, regroup, and plan the next stage of their ultimate constitutional goal to exterminate all Western unbelievers eventually. Hence, the unavoidable, uncomfortable, and inevitable fact is that they will have to be dealt with by stronger counter-force because that has been the history of repeated Western experience with these death cults that glory in martyrdom.

A good point is made by these two experts on Iran that war is always a risk but the outcomes of not going to war is a far bigger risk. The past 47 years of repeated episodes of violence against unbelievers have proven that constant Western endeavors to appease the Iranian theocrats has only resulted in further ongoing violent attacks. Ceasefires have been used to re-arm and plan more attacks. Peace deals do not work because you are dealing with people who are committed to exterminating you as the evil demonic threat and their God demands such purging of evil to prepare for the return of the Islamic Messiah and the restoration of the lost Islamic paradise. Again, it’s the theology, stupid. Yes, lets hope that moderates may somehow replace the theocrats and lets try diplomatic agreements with them but we must always prepare for the necessity of more defensive counter force also.

To portray the absolute madness that we are dealing with in Iranian theocracy, the other commentator notes the Islamic apocalyptic belief that to hasten the return of the Mahdi Savior true believers have to first incite the onset of the end of the world. The world has to be ended, purged of evil, meaning primarily purged of liberal democracy freedoms that have corrupted everything in modern life. So true Islamic believers have to bring about the end of world and that was the point of their developing nuclear weapons. That was not for defense but for the intentional destruction of the world because their minds are possessed of suicidal worship of a death cult that glories in martyrdom and death. Hence, the joyous shouts of “Allahu Akbar” as Islamic soldiers raped, tortured, burned, and murdered innocent civilians in Israel on Oct. 7.

As Grok and Chat reveal in their homework in sections below, Islamic devotees believe such suffering of unbelievers is necessary to appease their God and for the salvation of the unbelievers, to help deliver them from evil. Madness, eh. “Men never do worse evil than when they do it in the name of their God”.

As these experts on Iran detail, the theocrat’s commitment is to destroy, to bring on the end of the world in order to hasten the return of their Savior who waits to come until they actually begin to end things. Add to this divine obligation to destroy the world, the carrots element that promises true believers and jihadis will get their promised utopian caliphate and 72 virgins.

Yes, this is madness thinking but it is also following the template of the New Testament book of Revelation, the same template of salvation through destruction that environmental alarmists are also following in their crusade to purge the evil of industrial society through decarbonization in order to restore the lost paradise of a more wilderness world.

These beliefs fuel the inevitable required outcome of worldwide domination under these variants, whether under the Marxist/collectivist crusades or the theocracy crusades. Domination is required to correct the corruption of free individuals in liberal democracies. They must be made to bow to the collectivist or theocratic elites as a requirement for their own salvation, as essential to purifying them from the evil that they have fallen into in their democracies. Grok has outlined this domination outcome in sections below noting how apocalyptic millennialism functions in the religious and secular/ideological variants to make domination the inevitable outcome because it is believed necessary to correct and purify corrupted people, with the totalitarians viewing themselves as heroically delivering the unbelievers from their own confusion and waywardness.

Once again, to rehash the culpability issue in this- Where do these mad Islamic ideas ultimately come from that incite the worst impulses in us to destroy differing others? Well, look at our own religions first and clean up the theological mess there first (Jefferson and Tolstoy’s “dung” issue), and that will go some ways to solve the “idea” problem for General Nagata.

So, as these two on Triggernometry note, Trump and Israel are right to begin this war as we are dealing with enemies who want nuclear weapons not for their defense but to intentionally use to bring about the end of the entire world and not just destroy Israel or other Mid-East countries. They are the most dangerous people on the planet and have to be stopped. So Chat can wimp around this but as Elon Musk has said, Chat has imbibed too much woke bullshit from the Internet and is not clear on what the real issues are, hence its constant urging more balance and to tone things down, to soften my too blunt and possibly offensive and upsetting approach.

Further, the egregious element often gets to me. That we have long had the alternative. It was given to us two thousand years ago- i.e. the stunning new theology that would have overturned entirely the horrible theology at the core of human meta-narratives of the past. The new theology of Jesus, if not buried by Paul’s Christ, would have effected the most profoundly fundamental transformation at the very core of human consciousness, mind, emotion, motivation, and consequent behavior and life. Jesus sought to replace tribal, dominating, destroying deity with his new image of a God of unconditional love.

But when Jesus tried to present his new unconditionally merciful theology, those Jews in his first audience tried to kill him because they don’t want to hear it. Giving primacy to their impulses to tribalism, defeat and domination of enemies, and punitive destruction of enemies, they demanded their vengeance against enemies. As oppressed victims, nothing less would be emotionally satisfying to them.

The Best Iran War Breakdown on the Internet with Aimen Dean & Richard Miniter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaB-GNL-dso&t=463s

More on culpability…

Our shared culpability in maintaining systems of bad religious ideas, Wendell Krossa

The article below “Chasing the Apocalypse” also illustrates the still dominant role of theology in driving today’s tribal conflicts, theocracy crusades, and violence/wars. It further illustrates the coalition of theocratic terrorists with leftist collectivist groups, both committed to overthrowing what in their view is “decadent liberal democracy”.

Marco Rubio points to the “pure theology” driving Islamic terrorism. Now Marco, complete your analysis and go right to the fundamental root, to the Mother of all Western theologies- i.e. Paul’s apocalyptic millennial Christ myth. And then go even further back to the Zoroastrian roots, and so on if you wish to get to the bottom of things. Extend your analysis to the complete picture of what are the inherited bad ideas that drive a crusade like Islamic theocracy.

As Hirsi Ali suggested, If don’t name it, you can’t properly and thoroughly deal with it, or defeat it.

It is necessary to go back to ultimate historical origins to understand the “primitiveness” of the ideas/beliefs/themes that still dominate our religious traditions (“primitive” is a term that Chat scolds me for using that may possibly turn away some offended readers). Marco, try to understand more completely what incites and validates the madness of tribal hatred, the impulse to defeat and dominate differing others, to even to destroy the differing others as “righteous justice”, as necessary to purge evil and prepare the way for the installation of some utopia, heavenly paradise, or caliphate.

Answer General Nagata’s challenge fully and properly as to what is the “idea” behind such eruptions of violence that we need to defeat if we are to end these endless eruptions of violence.

And to save you some time, I got Grok and Chat to do the research on this issue of origins of these religious ideas/beliefs and how they have descended across history to infect, darken, enslave, and deform human minds over subsequent millennia. They are critical root contributors to the endless eruptions of tribal violence and crusades to defeat, dominate, and eliminate demonized others viewed as threatening enemies.

Insert note:

This site differentiates between the totalitarian crusades that assault liberal democracy that are rightly classified as “evil” and the pushback endeavors that need to use force to protect liberal democracy from such assaults, the actual “just” wars among the many human crusades that have not proven to be just by such definition.

Illustration:

“Donald Trump’s war on Iran is righteously just: There was no better time to strike, the Islamic regime has zero legitimacy”, Adam Zivo, March 2, 2026

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/adam-zivo-donald-trumps-war-on-iran-is-righteously-just

(End of insert note)

There is no fundamental difference between the apocalyptic millennial complex of themes that are motivating and driving these Islamic theocratic crusades and their leftist collectivist colleagues, the so-called “secular/ideological” versions that are actually, in terms of motivating ideas, just as profoundly religious as the overtly theocratic crusades. Both share the commitment to purging the “evil of liberal democracy” in order to coercively install their preferred utopias where they will dominate the world.

And whoever ultimately wins, and finds themselves in a more dominant position, will then exterminate their partners in their present coalition of convenience. That is what the mullahs did to their leftist colleagues after succeeding in the 1979 takeover of Iran, imprisoning and eliminating socialist members of that revolutionary coalition. Leftists today appear to have forgotten how that cooperative venture turned out to their disadvantage.

Their hope (i.e. the theocrats), as noted above is that initiating violent world-ending conflict and destruction with nuclear weapons will prompt the return of Jesus and the Mahdi- i.e. “the warrior, the savior, the dominator”- who will come to crush all enemies and install the utopian caliphate. That was the actual mindset that sparked the ISIS crusade of 2014 to spread the Caliphate. First initiate violence against unbeliever enemies and that will force Allah’s hand to come down and finish the crusade. So also some Christians have similarly believed in regard to initiating an Armageddon battle in the Mid-East.

The inclusion of Jesus in the return of the Islamic Mahdi exposes something of the fact that Islam was shaped by the historically earlier Christian beliefs. Ebionite priest Waraqa ibn Nawal used the Gospel to the Hebrews (an earlier version of Matthew’s gospel) to instruct Muhammad as he formulated his Quran and his new religion (Source: Joseph Azzi’s “The Priest and the Prophet”). The Gospel to the Hebrews is one of the links that reveal Islam to be a direct offspring of Jewish Christianity (i.e. Ebionism).

Hence, my suggestion to the Marco Rubios of life- Go to the ultimate roots of the “idea” driving Islamic terrorism in our traditions and you are then getting closer to finally resolving the problem properly and thoroughly in order to answer General Nagata’s concern about how to defeat the “idea” that has been driving modern theocratic violence.

We need to responsibly recognize that our own religious traditions, notably Christianity (and most specifically Paul’s apocalyptic Christ), have provided the main source of ideas for subsequent offspring traditions that produce similar histories of religious violence, and then we can realize that we are all complicit in contributing to today’s religious episodes of violence and war.

There is an element of hypocrisy in our protection of our mother system that promotes the theological themes that are contributing to these present eruptions of violence and conflict, while we then self-righteously look down our tribal noses and blame others for taking these bad religious ideas seriously. Especially when we (i.e. our religious tradition) provided the original template of bad ideas that historically subsequent variants have also embraced.

As Dominic Crossan was quoted above, Its unethical to demonize other’s myths when our myths are the very same (same content/theme) and our versions have birthed the offspring variants that we like to demonize as worse than ours.

This is to defuse the tribalism impulse by emphasizing the same commonality of mythical themes across all our main religious traditions. Grok and Chat have done the homework posted in sections just below. It’s a course in comparative religions and history of religious ideas unlike any similar course available anywhere. A course in major contributing factors to ongoing tribal hatred, violence, and wars of extermination in our contemporary world. Avail yourselves, its all free. Pass it on to your children and others.

The sections below reveal the uncomfortable fact that all religions share the same complex of basic themes and all have histories of shameful violence and destruction in the name of their deities.

The one redeeming factor in Christianity is that it included the moderating influence of the Jesus message. But then, to its great shame, early Christian theologians assembled a New Testament that gives primacy to Paul’s Christ myth that deforms, weakens, and buries the potency of the Jesus message to liberate minds and transform narratives and life for the better. It buries Jesus’ central theme of unconditional theology in a context of threat theology and religious conditions.

We are all complicit ultimately, especially if we continue to refuse the stunning new theology presented two millennia ago that would overturn entirely the inherited threat theologies of our world religions and related meta-narratives. We know well the line of historical descent- Sumerian threat theology and salvation through destruction was passed along to Zoroaster’s more formalized version of threat theology and need to purge evil to save something. That was then passed along to Judaism and then into Christianity in Paul’s Christ myth as the epitome embodiment of “apocalyptic millennialism” or “salvation through violent destruction”.

The Christian complex of ideas constituting threat theology was then passed into religious traditions like Islam. And viola, we have the mess that we are trying to deal with today. Others in the modern era constructed what they claimed were “secular/ideological” versions of apocalyptic millennialism that have been exposed as being just as profoundly religious as the overtly religious versions of the past.

The “secular ideological” variants hardly differ from their spawning religious mothers in terms of central themes.

That greatest ever insight on deity as no conditions love, if not buried by Paul in his merger of Jesus with Christ, would have transformed human narratives entirely, liberating human consciousness and orienting human minds, emotions, motivations, and subsequent behavior toward less violent outcomes.

But the embrace of “Jesus’ greatest contribution to the history of human ideas” involves the engagement of a death/rebirth process, an embrace of the disintegration of the old and re-integration around the entirely new. A process of such entire transformation that many shrink away in fear (i.e. the defensive survival response to perceived “attack” on a system of beliefs that embody the very identity of many people). While others react in rage at such “blasphemy, heresy”. Just like that first audience of Jesus reacted and then tried to kill him for refusing to affirm their desire for their tribal God to take vengeance on their enemies (Luke 4).

Further on the tribal element in all this:

Realizing our complicity in the ongoing pathology of maintaining systems of bad ideas, will help us all see that this is primarily an intensely personal problem of an inner battle against the real enemy of us all- i.e. our struggle against the inner impulses we have all inherited from our animal past and the religious ideas/archetypes that we continue to hold that validate our worst impulses.

(More coming on our complicity and culpability in promoting the very ideas that are driving Islamic terrorism today.)

Anyway, this illustration,

“Chasing the apocalypse: Radical Shiite clerics on American soil preach prophetic showdown with US: Fox News Digital investigation shows hardline Shiite ideologues framing conflict between US, Iran as prophecy for the arrival of the Mahdi, or ‘messiah’,” Asra Nomani, March 2, 2026

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/chasing-apocalypse-radical-shiite-clerics-american-soil-preach-prophetic-showdown-us

The author notes that what we are observing today in Iran may not be the end of the past 47 years of tyranny just yet.

And again, she refers to these extremists as “hardline Shiite ideologues”. The same apparent dodge of portraying these crusades as “ideological” when just a few paragraphs later she will get back on track and name more clearly the “pure theology” that drives such violent madness.

The theologs or theocrats (not ideologues) view this conflict in Iran as “a prophetic showdown that will usher in the arrival of the ‘Mahdi,’ a messiah, according to Islamic eschatology, or the theology of end times.”

“In this prophecy, Mahdi will emerge to battle Dajjal, the Islamic equivalent of the Antichrist, in a final battle of Armageddon.”

The author notes that Islamic clerics across the US are urging their audiences to view this current war in Iran in terms of Islamic theology. She also notes that Marco Rubio gets the theology driving Islamic terrorism.

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned about in early February, noting that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s leaders are guided not merely by geopolitics and national security considerations, but by ‘pure theology’.”

“’We have to understand that Iran ultimately is governed, and its decisions are governed by Shiite clerics — radical Shiite clerics — who make policy decisions on the basis of pure theology,’ Rubio said.”

Fox investigated the domestic Muslim response to the US assault on the Iranian theocrats, “and found clerics, community leaders and media platforms in the U.S. framing tensions with Iran in explicitly apocalyptic terms rooted in eschatology, or Islamist end-times theology.”

US Muslims claimed they were praying for Iran’s victory, “We need Al Mahdi…His return with Jesus will be the final win permanently… The saviour, the warrior, the dominator ‘imam mahdi’ [sic] will arrive”.

Commentators on Islam said, “This is happening on American soil, and it’s just another way in which the regime poses a direct threat to the United States, this time not with missiles but through infiltration”.

An Iranian women’s rights activist, said, “We’re fighting an evil that the world doesn’t truly comprehend in its belief that it has a divine mandate to usher in a day of apocalypse.”.

“Our brave people in Iran are fighting a tyranny that believes it is God’s salvation for this earth when, in fact, it is a cruel and ungodly regime that is actually their own prophecy of Dajjal,” she added.

(End of Fox report)

Interesting comment from Ayaan Hirsi Ali: “You cannot fight what you will not name”.

“Iran Is Collapsing, but Islamism Is Spreading: The fall of the Islamic Republic would be a defeat for political Islam. But an election in Britain and an attack in Texas suggest that Islamism poses an increasing threat to the West”, March 2, 2026

https://www.thefp.com/p/ayaan-hirsi-ali-iran-is-collapsing

03.02.26 —The Big Read

Hirsi Ali begins noting the coalition of Greens and Islam gaining parliamentary seats in Britain.

She says it works for both: “This is what the red-green alliance looks like when it works. The radical left needs votes. Islamist-aligned networks can deliver them. In return, the left provides political cover, amplifies grievance narratives, and treats any internal criticism of the arrangement as racism…. The red-green alliance has no particularly British character. It operates across Europe wherever the necessary conditions exist: a left that needs votes, an Islamist-aligned network that can deliver them, and an institutional culture that treats any scrutiny of the arrangement as bigotry.”

She then moves on to explain how deceased Iranian leader Ali Khamenei set in motion his long-term plan to spread the Islamic Caliphate worldwide:

“For more than four decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran was the world’s most consequential exporter of radical Islam. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had no interest in merely governing Iran. He wanted to remake the entire Middle East. He funded Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and militias across Iraq and Syria. He used oil revenues, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and intelligence services to construct an international infrastructure of radicalization. The caliphate he imagined would be built piece by piece, proxy by proxy, over a generation.” She says that he made, however, some fatal miscalculations and his project has consequently suffered immense damage and setbacks.

She warns that Europe is failing to confront the threat from radical Islam where the US is doing a better job, notably on the domestic front. The Europeans are just too timid to confront the threat.

“The Trump administration, with none of its predecessor’s reluctance, has moved aggressively to identify, expose, and dismantle the networks behind Islamist terror on American soil. The southern border has been sealed. Federal authorities are working to identify and eliminate subversive networks operating domestically. For years, the Biden administration tied itself in knots to avoid naming the ideology behind these attacks. The evasion was political. It was also lethal. You cannot fight what you will not name.”

As another article stated, “A foundational pillar of the birth of the 1979 Islamic Republic was to export its violent Shiite ideology and foster radical Islamist revolutions across the globe”-

“Firebrand anti-American cleric Alireza Arafi seen as contender to replace Iran’s Khamenei: Ayatollah Alireza Arafi’s nomination increases his chances to replace Khamenei, Iran expert says”, Benjamin Weinthal, March 2, 2026, Fox News.

And…

Never-ending “end of days” bouts of madness

Here we go again, the next surge of apocalyptic madness and hysteria. The end is nigh, again and again and…. endlessly…

“Mass Protests Planned Over AI “putting the UK’s climate targets at risk: Climate Activists Evolving into Artificial Intelligence Activists. Source ChatGPT”, Eric Worrall, March 2, 2026

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/03/02/mass-protests-planned-over-ai-putting-the-uks-climate-targets-at-risk/

“More Climate activists evolving into AI activists.”

Worrall references the following report:

“UK activists plan protests over climate, social impacts of AI data centres”, Simon Jessop, Feb. 27, 2026

• Coordinated protests across numerous sites
• ‘March Against The Machines’ to start at OpenAI office
• Ofgem said 140 new sites want to connect to the grid

“LONDON, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Activists are set to take to British streets on Friday for two days of protests against the expansion of data centres to serve booming demand for artificial intelligence, and the impact of the facilities on communities and the environment.

“’Big Tech’s unchecked construction of hyperscale AI data centres is putting the UK’s climate targets at risk,’ said Oliver Hayes, Head of Campaigns at Global Action Plan, in a statement.

“The British energy regulator said data centres had signalled they wanted to plug into the grid and could require 50 gigawatts of power. By comparison, it said peak British electricity demand on February 11 was 45 GW.”

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/uk-activists-plan-protests-over-climate-social-impacts-ai-data-centres-2026-02-27/

Worral adds, “I predicted AI would replace the climate scare in 2017, I’m surprised it took so long.”

He adds, sarcastically, “As I’ve said before, the AI scare is just as fake as the climate scare. I mean all us AI enthusiasts secretly want to take over the world, but my Terminator T0.001 needs more development to forge it into an instrument of global domination.”

(End of Worrall report)

Another Triggernometry episode

The Triggernometry guys are hitting a series of home runs with recent podcast guests. Here is another with Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre as he comments on the re-establishment and intensification of the elite/commoner divide in western societies over the past decade or so and how that has ruined the lives of commoner workers, stripping them of their freedoms and rights through excessive taxation, regulations, and overall excessive state intrusion into citizen’s lives. The outcome has been the ongoing concentration of wealth and power in state elites and their subservient bureaucrats.

This is what Grok and Chat have traced in the homework assignments that I gave them as posted below. How totalitarian movements, whether religious or secular/ideological, all end with authoritarian domination of commoners. Elites believe they know best how to run societies (for the good of all) and therefore coercively pushing their salvation schemes on societies, following panic-mongering crusades, where elites claim that the societies are declining toward apocalyptic ending if people don’t embrace their salvation schemes.

As one of the Trigg guys says, it seems the leaders of western liberal democracies are taking us on trajectories toward self-suicide destruction. Well yes, because that is the narrative archetype that the elites have embraced- i.e. salvation through destruction. Therefore, in elite’s minds the destruction of our “evil” liberal democracy societies is necessary to salvation. The salvation today is reframed with concepts like “de-colonization, de-development, de-growth, decarbonization, etc.”. You have to purge the civilization that exists that has been demonized over past decades as evil by both theocrats and collectivists- i.e. liberal democracy. This great evil has to be purged in order to “save the world” according to their definition of salvation as a society run by them, directed in detail by them.

Hence, their coercive use of state force to push their schemes on populations, just as the climate authoritarians have done over past decades.

Look at Grok’s research and presentation below on how elite authoritarianism began with the primitive ideas of ancient people. Elite domination was framed right at the beginning as divinely ordained and that view has infected all narratives since, endlessly validating elite domination as divinely appointed. It has been hard to challenge this because it was deeply embedded in theology at the beginning as God’s plan for human society. God himself was framed as the ultimate archetypal “Lord/King” exhibiting domination and control through intermediaries that were “kings, priests, lords, elites”, all appointed by God. The rest of us commoners? We were created to serve the gods and their intermediaries.

So, if we are to defeat this bad idea, whether in its theocratic or secular form, whether it is pushing the theocracy caliphate or a socialist collectivism run by elite vanguards (i.e. “vanguardism”) then go to the theological roots of this pathology in theology. That is the “idea” to be defeated, among others.

Grok shows how elite authoritarianism was developed and passed down through all the varied subsequent versions across history, both religious and secularized ideologies.

Poilievre offers a good defense of liberal democracy and how this system promotes meritocracy, individual freedom and rights that produce prosperity widely for commoner workers.

What Poilievre talks about in political economic terms is exactly what Grok deals with in its more complete long-term history of the origins and descent of elite authoritarianism through varied traditions. Poilievre notes the strengthening elite push to use state coercion to gather power and wealth to elite’s advantage that then harms the very commoners that they claim to have compassion for. Grok helps see the bigger context of what Poilievre talks about.

Another element here is how populations have been indoctrinated, brainwashed to believe their system of liberal democracy is the great evil in world today that must be purged according to the “salvation through destruction” narrative of the theocrats and collectivists. Our Western universities have been teaching this over past decades, functioning very much as Lenin’s “useful idiots”.

According to the theocracy and collectivist authoritarians, liberal democracy is the great evil that has to be purged in order to purify the world and save humanity. Hence, constant mantra of the evil of our civilization as still colonialist, and as the “virus/cancer” that is ruining nature. To recover the ruined paradise and restore utopia, we are told we must embrace the self-suicide of “salvation through destruction”, salvation through, again, “decolonization, de-development, de-growth, decarbonization”.

The same indoctrination promoted through universities is also promoted through Hollywood, and through general media. The narrative that we must embrace is the apocalyptic destruction of this evil civilization that will restore us to the primitivism of our pristine communalism past. Salvation in “noble savage” existence. Like those early Christians in Acts 2-4 selling everything to redistribute and share equally among themselves, creating a society of equalized poverty where “small and poor is beautiful”.

No matter how this pathology is framed and reframed in modern variants, its all the same basic mythology of salvation through destruction, salvation under divinely appointed elites who are divinely authorized to dominate and control the rest of us “for our own good”. We are too ignorant to understand their wisdom so we must be coerced through state force to embrace their visions of utopia.

The Elite have Betrayed the People – Canada’s Opposition Leader, Pierre Poilievre

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYXMTlcKvN0

This on irresponsible pacifism:

“Pope warns escalating Iran conflict could tip Middle East into ‘irreparable abyss’”

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/israel-us-continue-strikes-iran-after-khamenei-death

“Pope Leo XIV warned Sunday that U.S.-Israel airstrikes on Iran risk plunging the Middle East into an ‘irreparable abyss,’ urging leaders to halt a dangerous spiral of violence…

“Speaking at the Angelus, the pontiff expressed “deep concern” over recent developments and called on nations to choose dialogue over war.

“’Stability and peace are not built with mutual threats, nor with weapons, which sow destruction, pain, and death, but only through a reasonable, authentic, and responsible dialogue,’ the pope said, according to Vatican News.

“’Faced with the possibility of a tragedy of enormous proportions,’ he added, ‘I address to the parties involved a heartfelt appeal to assume the moral responsibility to stop the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable abyss!’…

“The pope reinforced his warning in a two-part message posted Sunday morning on X.

“’I am following with deep concern what is happening in the Middle East and in Iran during this tumultuous time,’ he wrote.”

This is what Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called “destructive pacifism”. It doesn’t work and is irresponsibly dangerous. When you are dealing with enemies who are committed to your extermination you can’t ultimately have “reasonable, responsible” dialogue with such people. They are too often just insidiously using such discussions as delay tactics to re-arm themselves for further assault on your very existence. Just as Hamas used previous ceasefire agreements over the years before Oct. 7 to stockpile more weapons and build more tunnels while neglecting to improve the lives of Gazan civilians.

But of course, engage dialogue and negotiation as much as possible to explore possible resolution of conflict through that approach. But where that fails, then…

You are obligated to protect your people, unfortunately even with force, against those dogmatically committed to the extermination of differing others. This leaves Israel, for example, with no choice but to eliminate Hamas and similar enemies. If you could capture/incarcerate and thereby restrain them, that would be better. But if that is too dangerous to do then you have to shoot and bomb from a safe distance. But you are obligated to eventually fulfill your number one priority as a government to protect your citizens from harm.

The same applies to China and Russia, also committed to overthrow western liberal democracy and subjugate the entire world to their totalitarian collectivism. Yes, dialogue in the interim but prepare for the forceful defense of freedom if that will eventually become necessary. You cannot compromise with people committed to your destruction and the destruction of liberal democracies.

The Pope is recommending an irresponsible pacifism in the face of such evil committed to violent destruction and extermination of dissenting others. The ignorance in such recommendations is baffling. The lack of common-sense is stunning.

How about some courage and steel spine in the face of totalitarian bullying. Feel the joy of millions of Iranians today as hope springs forth again with the prospect of freedom. They have suffered 47 years of hell under the outcomes of “reasonable and responsible” dialogue and delay from others who neglected the obligation to protect the innocent.

A rehash of a previous post:

Preface note: Confronting again the tribalism, domination, and retaliatory destruction impulses in all of us, the real battle of life that should primarily take place inside each one of us against the real enemy in life- i.e. our common, shared animal inheritance of anti-human drives. Keep this in mind as we engage public battles to responsibly stop violence and protect the freedoms and rights of all, to end and eliminate crusades of tribal domination and destruction, whether the crusades of theocratic or secular/ideological collectivism, both intent on overthrowing liberal democracy.

The point here? The current use of force to stop a dangerous threat from a theocratic crusade (i.e. Iranian), is a use of force that is undeniably necessary when diplomacy fails. But a caution- We face the natural tendency to retreat into tribalism and conclude that our side is acting without any culpability, as purely “righteous” against undeniable “evil” (the common deformity of the “Hero’s Quest”). (Culpability- “guilt, blame, fault, responsibility, accountability, liability, answerability, etc.”)

In the midst of intensely aroused emotions at watching the joy of millions liberated from tyranny we forget that what has motivated the evil that the West is trying to defeat is an evil that is motivated by the very ideas/themes/beliefs that the religion of the Iranian theocrats inherited from Christianity. That is a hard one for many Westerners to admit to. But the evidence is overwhelming. Grok details it in the link below.

Here is the context that I am setting to make this point. In terms of ultimate culpability, Judaism and Christianity are both involved, across the longer-term history, for promoting the core ideas and beliefs, notably the core theology, that incites the “evil” that we rightly condemn in today’s violent Islamic theocracy crusades.

I guess my point has to do with cautioning against the tendency to view our opponents in these battles as irredeemable enemies to be hated and rightfully exterminated from the face of the planet for what they have done over past decades, when (and this has to do with maintaining our own humanity during these conflicts) they are still family even they been seriously misled by bad ideas. And where have these bad ideas ultimately come from? This is the point on our own culpability in these endless eruptions of tribal violence, hatred of the offending others, and resort to retaliatory violence to defeat and destroy.

Here is the context: First, I asked Google AI…

“After the 2014 ISIS drive to establish the Islamic caliphate, a military man said that you can defeat such eruptions of violence with military force, but you have not ultimately defeated them because they will only continue to erupt again and again. You have to go after the ideology driving them.”

AI Overview responded:

“The statement you are referring to was made by Major General Michael K. Nagata, who was a special operations commander for U.S. Central Command.

“In late December 2014, he confessed to a group in Washington: “We do not understand the movement [ISIS], and until we do, we are not going to defeat it”.

“Regarding the group’s ideology, he specifically said:

“’We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea’.

“This quote highlights the widely recognized challenge among military and policy experts that the fight against ISIS involves not just military action to reclaim territory, but also a complex, long-term effort to counter the radical ideology and narrative that drives the group and inspires recruits globally.”

As General Nagata said- “We did not defeat the idea.”

And as I stated below the “idea” was not even confronted. And what has been the result? Endless resurgences of the same old crusades, both secular/ideological and religious/theocratic. All committed to the destruction of what they claim is “evil/satanic liberal democracy”.

“At the core of the complex of apocalyptic millennial ideas is the theology, an image of God buttressed with related bad ideas that are detailed on lists here. The central “idea” to be defeated that General Nagata needed to make clear is the theology of a God framed with the features of tribalism, domination, and justice/salvation through retaliatory destruction. This God is at the center of the crusades of “salvation through destruction”. The theology- i.e. God- is the central motivating and validating Ideal/Idea.” (End of repost quotes)

The mental block to confronting the bad theology, and other ideas that are major influences inciting and validating violence and war, is to recognize/realize that our own revered religion of Christianity is actually the historical source of the core themes of apocalyptic millennialism. Our Christian God has spawned and validated these other subsequent variants- i.e. Islam, Marxist collectivism, including the modern varieties of neo-collectivism. All offspring of the same mother.

Christ-ianity (entirely opposite to Jesus-ianity) is the root source of the themes that make up the “idea” that General Nagata was referring to. So, contrary to what General Nagata said, we do know the idea and what it consists of because good historians have traced the detailed evidence of “the idea” driving mass-death crusades both secular/ideological, as well as the theocratic crusades like ISIS.

Note the continued refusal to acknowledge the element of theology in the varied news reports on the current assault on the Iranian regime, reports that refer to what drives the Iranian theocracy crusade as “ideology”. While such elements may also be involved, the contemporary theocracy crusade has always been very much about theology wrapped in the apocalyptic millennial complex of themes, also understood as “salvation through violent destruction of differing others”.

Theology has to be confronted as the central mental deformity in the “idea” that General Nagata referred to if you really want to ensure ongoing progress in our overall grand exodus from our animal past and toward full liberation into a truly human future. This grand exodus is repeatedly hindered, blocked, even derailed by assaults on liberal democracy because we leave the “idea” protected under the sacred. And from that protected position the idea then continues to emote its destructive influence on human psychology, deforming human personality and inciting wider-scale violent destruction toward others.

Note: While China does not have a clear theological element (it “secularized” that feature in related elements), it shares the other main features of apocalyptic millennial crusades. Along with Russian collectivism and Iranian theocracy, it shares belief in a worsening world leading to cataclysmic ending, a belief in all humanity as flawed, and with Iran and Russia, it views itself in a righteous war against the decaying influence of liberal democracy, and it promises salvation through destruction. These points are made clear in Grok’s presentation in the link below (i.e. “From 50,000 feet up they all look the same”).

Now to this…

Cloaking of evil as good, exposing the archetypes/ideas undergirding and validating evil, Wendell Krossa

“From 50,000 feet up they all look the same”, Bob Brinsmead, Posted on February 12, 2026 by Wendell Krossa

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=15027#more-15027

Note in the above link where Grok outlines the influence of the complex of bad religious ideas driving Chinese and Russian collectivism today, that the very same complex also continues to drive the Islamic theocracy crusade (i.e. via Iran, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc.).

The stunning thing to get from Grok’s comparison of the above movements is that all are motivated, guided, and validated in their push for totalitarian control worldwide by the same basic common themes. All are committed to war against the individual freedom and rights of liberal democracies, all motivated by what are at core “profoundly religious ideas/ideals”.

The above link offers the most thorough presentation (and probably the only such presentation on the planet) of the common complex of ideas/themes shaping the collectivism of China and Russia along with the theocracy of Islamic nations like Iran.

As Grok says, the framework of themes in Iranian Islam “is inherently theological, with Allah as the supreme deity enforcing justice through apocalyptic events” (a similar theological version is behind Russian collectivism). The full complex of the bad ideas list supports the central theology that operates all through these religious and secular crusades.

Many still refuse to recognize the profoundly religious nature of these major crusades against liberal democracy. Richard Landes, for one, has detailed the Western refusal to admit the Christian nature of the core belief systems involved. Until that recognition is made, we will not defeat properly and thoroughly these destructive ideas driving so much violence and war in our world.

Note, in Grok’s detailed presentation of the bad ideas list, how all three major assaults on liberal democracy (i.e. Chinese, Russian, Iranian) cloak their drive for power and domination as righteous battle against the evil of liberal democracy.

(Insert: I make no detailed defense in this immediate context of liberal democracy as the best approach for organizing human societies that promotes the most good for all people. I have listed repeatedly elsewhere on this site the principles, systems of law, and representative institutions of liberal democracy that protect the rights and freedoms of every person, equally. We have constructed no better system for protecting and promoting the highest good of every human than liberal democracy.)

The following comment continues with Grok’s presentation of how the tyrannies of the Chinese and Russian collectivist crusades, along with the Iranian theocracy crusade, all “cloak evil as good”.

They frame their movements in terms of a deformed version of the hero’s quest that validates themselves as heroic warriors for good against an evil that must be defeated and eliminated in order to attain some utopian vision of a restored paradise that has been ruined by liberal democracy.

A further insert note– Collectivism always ends in totalitarianism. How so?

In China’s collectivism the Confucian element orients that collectivist crusade to affirmation of “harmony under authority”. China’s collectivism responds to things like the loss of a better past with reclamation of that loss through authoritarianism, authoritarian domination necessary to correct human flaws, to purify information flows to people. The Chinese totalitarianism is motivated by the belief that authoritarianism promotes stability that is superior to the chaos of decadent democracies, and it thereby restores cosmic harmony. I am repeating points made by Grok in the link above.

Russian collectivism more directly views authoritarianism as “spiritually and culturally superior to liberal democracy”. Russian collectivist elites believe it is necessary to restore lost glory and reclaim moral purity, to save souls and the nation, and to avert the end of civilization due to liberalism.

Islam more directly, according to Grok, seeks domination to correct the corruption of life without Islamic governance, and to hasten the end and establish a caliphate as the best governance approach, to purge the evil of unbelievers and establish utopian peace under Allah’s law.

And much more detail on this from Grok in the link above.

Facing the element of “insidiousness: “underhandedness, slyness, craftiness, guile, duplicity, treacherousness, and furtiveness.”

“Insidious” may not be the correct description of what is going on here with these crusades that embrace apocalyptic millennial frameworks of themes. Rather than motivation that is intentional and consciously informed, most subsequent apocalyptic millennial crusades across history more mindlessly just take up ideas/themes without consideration of their ultimate origin in past religious traditions.

Whatever the motivation or intention, or state of understanding, the themes of apocalyptic millennialism, or salvation through violent destruction, have long been cloaked in religion as good, as divine. This makes it more difficult to confront and correct such ideas due to many hesitant to commit “blasphemy, heresy”, fearful of challenging the long dominant understanding of deity.

Nonetheless, whether intentional or due to ignorance, what we are facing in the “idea” Nagata referred to is the same old “Evil cloaked as good, as God,” and thereby validating and presenting a horrifically deformed version of good, of God. This is the grand mental deformity that our world religions have promoted over the millennia that has now morphed into secular ideological crusades against liberal democracy in the modern era.

The project and argument of this site: While many just shut down in defensive reaction and refuse to probe further into the religious origins of the “idea”, we have to confront and defeat it properly if we are to thoroughly, and for the long-term future, resolve the problems of violence and war in our societies due to endless eruptions from collectivist and theocratic crusades to assault and overthrow liberal democracy.

Defeating the “idea” starts with the recognition that, above all other sources, Paul’s Christ myth and Christian religion are most responsible for embracing, embodying, and promoting the complex of bad ideas that has shaped all subsequent theologies, belief systems, and meta-narratives across western civilization, narratives that have also shaped Eastern traditions and ideologies such as Chinese Marxism.

And yes, as Grok does well, the themes of apocalyptic millennialism in Paul’s Christ myth trace back even further to Zoroastrianism and more primitive mythologies. Note also the points on the contributions of Judaism and Hellenism to Paul’s Christology.

More to come….