Do you really want to properly and thoroughly resolve the ongoing problem of theocracy-driven wars? Do you really want to defeat the “idea” that General Nagata said had to be defeated if we are to properly end the repeated ISIS-like eruptions of violence? Then we have to face the fact that “Its the theology, stupid”. And what exactly is the nature of that “theology”?
Also, see Nellie Bowles’s summary below of apocalyptic prophet Paul Ehrlich illustrating the 100% historical failure rate of apocalyptic. Ehrlich preached his unique take on apocalyptic millennialism or “salvation (save the world) through violent destruction (notably against humanity)”.
Note my quibble-level (maybe a bit more intense) tug of war with Grok at the bottom of this section over the climate file and contributing factors (i.e. human or natural) to climate change.
Note: I also posted this insert further below and will repeat it here. It needs to be stated whenever I promote one of the central topics here- i.e. the unconditional ideal as the most helpful guide that humanity has discovered to help us defuse ‘eye for eye’ cycles and maintain peace and order in our societies. I illustrate the practical usefulness of this ideal with, for example, the approach of Nelson Mandela in de-escalating the push for retaliatory treatment of former oppressors in South Africa. It worked at societal scale to avoid civil war there. But he also held former oppressors responsible with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Unfortunately, many respond to the term “unconditional” as affirming some form of pacifism in the face of violence and abuse. That misconception requires a repeated qualifying of what unconditional involves.
The “Insert” I posted below:
“To be real clear on this, while wrestling with this unconditional ideal (i.e. ‘love your enemy’), it has to be affirmed in regard to criminal justice systems that the priority of any government is to protect innocent citizens from assault. And that means the incarceration of repeat violent people who cannot or will not control their own impulses to violence. And if psychopathy is involved and there is no possibility of rehabilitation, then sometimes the key to the prison has to be thrown away. Surely common-sense can comprehend these things. Public safety, not offender ‘rights’, takes precedence in state and criminal justice responsibility and priorities.” (End of insert)
This also applies to threats from foreign “offenders” who threaten violence and domination. Pacifism does not work to protect liberal democracy from assaults by foreign bullies intent on its overthrow and replacing it with varied totalitarianisms, whether theocratic (Iran) or collectivist (Russia, China). Governments are responsible to protect citizens from assaults both foreign and domestic. That is number one. And unfortunately, in an imperfect world it often means the use of force to counter such threats to freedom.
Wrestling with the unconditional ideal is about a balance between seeking and holding the highest of ideals to inspire and guide the manifestation of the best of our humanity, while at the same time not irresponsibly permitting evil to continue.
See also below, “Apocalyptic prophet Bill Rees, father of the Ecological Footprint model”.
This preface to the quotes from the “Simon-Ehrlich wager” by Humanprogress.org- “I took most of Bill Rees’s classes at UBC in the early/mid 90s when he was constructing his Ecological Footprint model, based on subsequently ‘proven wrong’ assumptions about varied things like the need to sequester CO2 (50% of the model’s Earth capacity numbers), too many people consuming too much of limited resources, etc. In discussion years later I told Bill that his assumptions were ‘apocalyptic’. He responded, ‘Well, apocalypse is true isn’t it’ (stated rhetorically).”
“The Most Important (Cheque) in Economics: The Simon–Ehrlich wager and why predictions of resource scarcity keep getting it wrong”, Gale Pooley, Marian Tupy, Mar. 20, 2026
https://humanprogress.org/the-most-important-check-in-economics/
Preface to Trump comments below: Wendell Krossa
The comment here? Trump is pointing to something that must be clarified more because it is critical to properly and thoroughly resolving the endless eruptions of violence and war that curse civilization. And the non-interventionists who favor pacifist-type, or other “diplomatic” alternatives, are not explaining how they would deal with the real nature of theocratic threat. Its that problem of “It’s the theology, stupid”.
(Insert: This is not an argument in support of all that the defending nations (i.e. Israel, US) have been doing in response to the Iranian threat. When, and how exactly, we best respond to theocratic threat is beyond most of us who are not privy to the intelligence that state leadership has. And debate over engaging the “insanity that is war” (General Schwarzkopf) should always get “sober second thought” pushback in public.)
Continuing with the nature of the ideas that deform theocratic minds…
The apocalyptic millennial ideas below, noted by AI Overview, cause mental deformity and they overwhelm and nullify the human survival impulse. They horrifically deform human personalities as the psychologists Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo, among others, have carefully explained in their books (e.g. “Cruel God, Kind God”). Bad theological ideas deform human minds with guilt, shame, with divine threat that incites fear, anxiety, despair, and depression, even nihilism that can lead to violence, both self-destructive violence and violence toward others.
The Zoroastrian cosmic dualism theology (apocalyptic millennialism) comes with the divine demand that people subject themselves to irrational beliefs and crusades of righteous war against evil, against “demonic” enemies that must be exterminated, purged from the world as preparation for the installation of some promised paradise.
The ideas below incite and motivate people to join death-cults, willing to die, to strap on bombs to kill themselves and others, to even gleefully engage the madness of slaughters like Oct. 7. The very same ideas motivated many otherwise good people to engage sadism at Nazi camps during WW2. That is how powerfully mind-deforming these ideas are, how violent and destructive they are, as stated by Arthur Mendel in “Vision and Violence”.
Until this problem of bad ideas inciting and validating bad behavior is widely recognized, we won’t successfully resolve the problem of endless eruptions of violence and war. Historian Richard Landes and his apocalyptic millennial research colleagues, along with Ellens and Lotufo, among many others, have warned us about this.
The most difficult reach of understanding for good religious people is to recognize that these ideas are still lodged at heart of our great religious traditions, and for our materialist/atheist colleagues, to similarly recognize that the same complex of “salvation through violent destruction” themes also shape the secular variants like Marxism and the environmental alarmism movement.
While Trump does not nail the exact content of the bad theology of apocalyptic millennial complexes, he points in the general direction of dangerous “religious fervor”. And he is right to act on his common-sense responsibility to stop the violence. Theocratic violence has to be forcefully stopped as it has proven dangerously foolish to keep embracing ceasefires that permit theocratic fanatics to re-arm, regroup, and continue to plan their next assaults on unbeliever enemies. Israel made the mistake of engaging previous ceasefires with Hamas in the belief they would moderate themselves and take care of Gazans. No, they were re-arming and building more tunnels and planning new assaults to exterminate Jews.
Trump does not express a clear understanding of the actual nature of the ideas that deform the minds of Iranian leaders and drive Islamic theocratic violence, i.e. the theology that motivates theocrats to engage mass-murder crusades. He terms their beliefs “religious ideology”. He gets close-ish. But, nonetheless, he does well in fulfilling the primary common-sense responsibility to forcefully oppose such fanatics and thereby protect innocent others.
“The unconditional ideal and the responsibility to stop violence and protect the innocent”, Wendell Krossa.
There is no contradiction. Unconditional treatment of enemies does not automatically equal pacifism, it does not obligate to embrace pacifist responses.
Unconditional and common-sense action to stop violence are not mutually exclusive behaviors. There is no obligatory relationship where holding an unconditional ideal then leads inevitably to pacifist responses to violence.
There is no contradiction between the central non-retaliation/unconditional love theme of Jesus (“no eye for eye but love enemy”) and our responsibility to stop assaults from violent people in order to protect innocent people.
No. Not at all.
First, it helps to establish the critical foundational belief that unconditional love is the absolute reality of God, the highest understanding of ultimate Good. That is the single most profound insight ever presented in response to our primary human impulse for meaning.
And then in response to the human impulse for purpose in life- unconditional love embodies the ultimate ideal that we ought to aim for that points us to the highest reach of mature humanity and human relating.
Unconditional frames both our meaning and purpose impulses more humanely than anything else that humanity has discovered. It is the ultimate compass for truly humane ethics, justice, how we should relate to others, treat others, etc.
Unconditional treatment of all others is how we achieve the highest possible good in this world, how we become heroically human. This was summarized in the conclusion of Jesus at the end of his list of illustrations on how to treat the least lovable people in life- i.e. the ungrateful, offenders, enemies (Luke 6: 27-36). He ended his list of precepts with the statement “Be unconditionally merciful like the above list of examples, just as God is unconditionally merciful to all, to both good and bad people, even to enemies” (my paraphrase of that statement).
In other words, if you treat others according to his list of unconditional precepts, you will be just like God. Can you achieve anything higher or better in life?
And what about those actual situations where we are confronted by violence from offenders/enemies/bullies? What does love your enemy practically mean in response to such things?
Jordan Peterson, for one, suggested some qualifiers in regard to our ideals that inspire and motivate us to reach for something better than where we are. Our ideals orient us to elevated goals that urge us to move toward more advanced stages of maturity and humanity that we have not yet achieved. They provide such guidance and motivation, but they also judge us for failure to achieve the elevated goals.
The element of judgement by ideals should not leave us discouraged at our shortfalls, and consequently beating ourselves up excessively over “failures”. Peterson added that not attaining what we reached for is part of living with the reality of always being imperfectly human. But the non-erasable reality of our imperfection is no excuse to abandon ongoing effort to reach for higher ideals and just settle for mediocrity. We continue to hold the higher ideals and we keep trying to achieve them, knowing that such struggle is essential to healthy human development.
Our ideals are guides to keep us on track with a basic orientation to where we should be heading in life- i.e. the purpose thing. I also view the unconditional ideal as critical to maintaining our humanity in the struggle against evil. It cautions us to not retreat to dehumanizing responses like vengeful eye for eye cycles (see Grok and Chat comments on this in the section below on the dehumanizing outcomes of retaliatory responses).
Unconditional treatment of others is the safest of ideals that enable us to do the least harm in life and the most good.
Back to the point being made here– Again, is there a contradiction between unconditional love of enemy and the primary responsibility to restrain violent people and protect the innocent?
Any common-sense understanding of love will not reduce to “turn the other cheek” responses that allow bullies/thugs to harm others.
And we embrace further insights that help us maintain a grip on unconditional treatment of all, even as we resist and restrain violence from offenders. As Tolstoy said, there is never any situation where we don’t love others, even when we are obligated to incarcerate people for violent assaults.
“The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care”, Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection.
One useful insight to maintaining a grip on the unconditional treatment of even enemies is to recognize that they are still members of the one human family and they deserve humane treatment no matter their failures to live as human.
Joseph Campbell said that recognizing our fundamental oneness as humans, as all members of the one human family, is critical to ensuring that we treat offenders/enemies humanely, that we love our enemies even when engaging righteous battles to prevent violence from them.
I’ve posted before the “evidence” for the foundational oneness of humanity- i.e. (1) the “Mitochondrial Eve hypothesis”, (2) quantum entanglement at the foundation of all reality (despite purist physicists dismissing what they term “Woowoo” takeaways from that), and (3) the NDE insights on the ultimate oneness that has been experienced by people in that movement.
Anyway, here is Campbell’s good statement to remember our “brotherhood even with the guiltiest” as we fight righteous battles against evil in life.
“For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Myths To Live By).
Varied sages have offered other helpful insights to keep us on track when wrestling with love of enemies unconditionally, while also affirming our primary responsibility to protect innocent people from violent offenders, and yet not take this to pacifist outcomes.
For example, advocates of “agape-type love” tell us that loving an offender/enemy is not about feeling mushy, fuzzy, or warm toward offenders, and their often horrific offenses, which deservedly evoke rage. It’s about maintaining the intention to act humanely in response to offenses and thereby maintaining our own humanity when restraining violence.
AI Overview
Agape love is defined in biblical and theological contexts not as a fleeting emotion, feeling, or romantic attraction, but as a steady intention of the will to seek the highest good of another person, often involving self-sacrifice and unconditional commitment. It is a conscious choice and a deliberate action rather than a passive emotion that happens to a person.
Core Characteristics of Agape Love
Willful Choice: Agape is a choice to love even when it is difficult, unreciprocated, or when the recipient is unworthy.
Action-Oriented: It is expressed through actions—serving, giving, and sacrificing—rather than just words or feelings.
Unconditional: This love does not depend on the recipient’s performance, beauty, or merit; it is sometimes described as “groundless” or “unconditional” because it is not motivated by the value of the object.
Selfless & Sacrificial: It prioritizes the welfare of others above one’s own comfort, possessions, or happiness.
Enduring: Because it is rooted in commitment rather than fluctuating emotions, it can withstand time and relational challenges.
Agape vs. Feelings
While other Greek words for love, such as Philia (friendship) and Eros (romantic passion), are based on feelings and mutual attraction, Agape is distinct in that it is guided by principle and willpower. C.S. Lewis famously described it as a “state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people”.
Agape in Practice
Love for Enemies: The highest standard of agape is loving and doing good to those who harm or oppose you.
Active Sacrifice: Examples include volunteering time, helping the marginalized, or serving someone who cannot repay the favor.
Consistency: It is a “persistent, steady intention” that does not easily become envious, proud, or angry.
In essence, agape love is a “love feast” or a “giving” love that mirrors the character of God—a deliberate decision to be useful to someone else, regardless of circumstances.
(End of AI Overview)
Continuing…
After restraining violent offenders, we maintain the intention to treat them humanely and not descend into eye for eye cycles of hurt back for hurt done, responses that often spiral into worsening cycles of violence. As Chat and the other AI show in the section below, eye for eye attitudes and responses give us short-term pleasure but ultimately long-term personal shame and other unhealthy psychological outcomes.
As Laotzi advised (similar to Campbell)- We must resist evil when attacked and even go to war to defeat, defang, and restrain attackers. But then we are obligated by our primary identity marker as human- i.e. love- to seek restoration of “enemies”, where possible. Just as the Allies did with Germany and Japan after WW2. We are obligated by love to do what Mandela did toward his former oppressors, and not to become the new oppressors in eye for eye justice approaches.
If we refuse outright to engage and wrestle with this “love your enemy” precept of Historical Jesus, then what better alternatives do we embrace in its place? More tribal hatred and opposition, more of defeat, humiliate, and dominate enemies, more of the same old “salvation through destruction”?
(Insert: To be real clear on this, while wrestling with this unconditional ideal, it has to be affirmed in regard to criminal justice systems that the priority of any government is to protect innocent citizens from assault. And that means the incarceration of repeat violent people who cannot or will not control their own impulses to violence. And if psychopathy is involved and there is no possibility of rehabilitation then the key has to be thrown away. Public safety, not offender “rights”, takes precedence.)
Continuing…
“Eye for eye” retaliatory justice has long been the ideal in the theology of our world religions, and is also a prominent ethical ideal in contemporary secular variants. This is evident in the dominant “salvation through destruction” framework of such traditions.
And how has that worked out over past history?
Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism have all illustrated for humanity the outcomes of the “salvation through destruction” approach in ruining entire societies. Add also, the bloody and violent historical records of Christianity and Islam (also Jewish history as recounted in the Old Testament). Violent destruction of societies resulted repeatedly when the true believer members of these great traditions leaned into the eye for eye theology and ethic that dominates in their belief systems.
All three share the same basic complexes of bad ideas or themes in their belief systems.
Holding unconditional as an ideal is not then a direct line to extremist pacifism that abandons common sense responsibility in an imperfect world. Not all pacifist approaches do such, but too many still do and thereby refuse to confront and solve real-life problems with what many define as “tough love”.
Contemporary far-left Woke Progressivism has leaned into a sort of pacifist extremism with its policies of “catch and release” of violent offenders to re-offend again and again. Some claim that these policies are based on “Woke Racism” ideology that, as a new variant of collectivism, classes people by skin color in new dualisms of “oppressed/oppressors, victims/victimizers”. Brown/black people are all classed as “oppressed” and consequently must be set free, no matter their personal behavioral history. Or they receive significantly reduced sentences compared to white people without regard to harmful outcomes in a community. This is a reaction to past excesses of more severe sentences for people of color.
The issue then becomes- How does a new discrimination (i.e. Woke Racism) resolve the problem of past discrimination? Is a new racism just another eye for eye response where former oppressed become new oppressors? Where is human progress in this? Where is progress toward, for example, the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. for a colorblind society?
A further insert on “How has the refusal to engage love your enemy worked out over past history”
I will clue new readers in on how it works at societal scale. Nelson Mandela opted for love your enemies and defused potential civil war in South Africa (a point made by Richard Stengel in “Mandela’s Way”). But yes, Mandela was dealing with largely rational opponents.
His approach to his former oppressors was informed by his beliefs that love of enemy “turns enemies into friends” (not all but most) and “brings out the best in people” (not all but most).
And, for contrast, around the same time that Mandela used his approach, the Serbians and Rwandans did not use love your enemy and we had further episodes in the endless history of violent bloodshed and the horrors of mass-death.
A love your enemy approach to the Iranian theocrats will be more of a post-defeat application as you are dealing with irrational minds deformed by bad theology that cannot be reasoned with. Ceasefire agreements appear to only grant theocrats more time to regroup, re-arm, and plan their next assaults to exterminate enemies.
Hence, the primary obligation with regard to such people and their “mental deformity” is common-sense action to protect others (i.e. use of force to stop).
Moving along…
Unconditional is the most potent ideal that we have discovered for countering our animal inheritance of impulses to tribalism, domination, and vengeful destruction of competing others. It orients us to (1) the anti-tribalism of universal inclusion of all as family, to (2) non-domination in relationships that are protected with laws and representative institutions that encourage the rights and freedoms of all equally, and (3) to restorative justice programs for offenders.
Unconditional is therefore the most helpful guiding ideal to motivate our grand exodus of leaving our animal past and moving toward a future in liberal democracy civilization.
Good points by Chat and Grok below on how the unconditional ideal, manifested through liberal democracy systems, counters and solves the fallacy of Zoroastrian dualism with its divine obligation to battle and destroy evil enemies.
It does so through political systems of inclusive pluralism, institutional procedural justice, incremental reform, protection of common rights for all including minority rights, and shared national identity narratives. See full details in the section below.
And then this on the Iranian situation, and the theocrats running that country:
In the video link below Trump calls the theocratic crusade of the Iranian leadership a sick ideology, a “religious fervor”. And he then gets closer by terming their belief system as “religious ideology” and adds correctly that more people have died in religious wars than any other kinds of war. He is getting close to confronting and describing the real nature of General Nagata’s “idea”.
General Nagata has said, regarding the defeat of ISIS in Syria in 2014, that you can defeat such violence with military force but you have not yet defeated the “idea” that drives such violence. You have not yet won the more critically important battle to resolve violence properly and for the long-term future. Hence, you will only get repeated eruptions of the same violence.
Trump still does not accurately name the core element of the idea that drives such violence- i.e. the “theology”, or God. The nature of the God at the core of these religious traditions who validates all the rest.
God as the Zoroastrian tribal deity, as dominating Lord and destroyer, then validates the demand that people must join his “righteous” battle against evil enemies who must be destroyed, exterminated, in order to prepare the way for a Savior deity to then descend and install the promised utopian kingdom in a post-apocalypse purified world.
Clearly stating the above elements of the idea that incites and validates such theocratic violence then pushes us to understand where did Islam get that theology from? Now you have to face the line of historical descent of the same complex of bad ideas, the bad theology, and how destructive that has always been in validating the worst behaviors across our history. As quoted here before- “Men never do worse evil than when they do it in the name of their God”. Or “People become just like the God (ultimate ideal/authority) that they believe in and worship”. That is what Trump was pointing to in his statement that more people have died in religious wars than in any other kind of war.
And here I will make true believers uncomfortable on the issue of our Christian “culpability”.
Christian culpability can be located at the very fountainhead of Western civilization where Paul’s Christology (i.e. “Christ-ianity”) began to dominate the West. As scholars like James Tabor have noted, Paul’s Christ myth has been more influential than anything else, especially in Western history.
Historians like Arthur Herman (“The Idea of Decline In Western History”) also add that the idea of Declinism is “the most dominant and influential idea in the world today”. Declinism is a basic feature of Christian apocalyptic millennialism- i.e. the decline of life to a worsening state, toward apocalyptic ending in the violent purging of evil from the world.
“The most dominant and influential idea in the world today”? Consider also the centrality of apocalyptic to Hollywood story-telling. Hollywood has become increasingly obsessed with apocalyptic across past decades. Add here the dominance of the apocalyptic theme in the environmental alarmism crusade and we get some sense of how this mental deformity influences public consciousness over decades, centuries, and millennia.
And now having filled in the content of the “idea”- i.e. the theology- we are better equipped to solve it properly and thoroughly for the long-term future. We know the actual nature of the “idea” that has to be defeated. It permeates and dominates our meta-narratives, in both religious and secular/ideological variants.
But are we willing to confront and change it? Are we really up to engaging the death/rebirth, disintegration/re-integration process, as in re-integration around the entirely new theology that is necessary to properly transform our narratives.
Historical Jesus tried a radical transformation approach in his teaching, when he presented his stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory, unconditional God that overturned all previous historical threat theologies. His new God was a rejection of tribalism in deity, a rejection of deity that favored and “saved” only true believers and excluded unbelievers. Jesus also rejected divine greatness as domination of others and stated, to the contrary, that true greatness (i.e. “God is great”) was serving others. And he rejected eye for eye retaliatory justice in deity and replaced that with the unconditional treatment of enemies.
After the first presentation of his new theology in a synagogue, his audience tried to murder him (Luke 4). Eventually the priestly elites succeeded, following his protest against the sacrifice industry at the Temple in Jerusalem. They understood, based on his previous public teaching, that his protest was a protest against an image of deity as retaliatory, meaning it was a protest against the belief in an angry, threatening God who demanded violent blood sacrifice for atonement. That was the very threat theology that validated their domination of the sacrifice industry that had long granted them the authority and power to control Jewish minds, lives, and society.
Two decades after Jesus’ death, Paul revived threat theology in his Christ myth that once again affirmed the fallacy of angry deity demanding violent blood atonement (eye for eye justice). Paul also revived the myth of violent destructive apocalypse to purge evil from the world and prepare the way for salvation in a purified world. Paul restated the themes of (1) deity as tribal (favored and included only true believers, excluded and damned unbelievers), (2) deity as dominating Lord/King with humanity obligated to serve, and (3) deity as violent destroyer of worlds.
That has been the religion, the “apocalyptic millennial” narrative (i.e. salvation through violent destruction), that has dominated Western civilization from the beginning.
So be careful about calling for a general revival of Christianity without the radical transformation of the theology at the core that Jesus advocated and taught.
Spell out clearly the nature of the “idea” that must be defeated. It’s not “ideology” but theology, and we know exactly what that theology is.
“FULL Q&A: Trump Praises B-2 Bomber Strike on Iran, Talks NATO, Elections & Global Security | AC1E”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6vkx5Yfb-Y
Additional notes:
Trump is right when he repeats the highly likely fact that the Iranian theocrats would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons on Israel as soon as they obtained them. That seems an irrationally dangerous thing for the theocrats to do considering the Israeli “Iron fist” response that would immediately follow such an attack. Trump points to the possible motivation of the theocrats in stating “They are crazy people… its religious fervor… a sick ideology… a religious ideology, etc.”.
But, for whatever reason, he doesn’t clearly nail the exact nature of the “idea” that would drive them to do that. I would urge him to consider that what motivates them includes elements like the Zoroastrian mythology of cosmic dualism where a Good God (Ahura Mazda) demands that people join the “true religion” and then engage a righteous battle to destroy/exterminate evil enemies and thereby gain salvation through such violent destruction.
This same framework of themes has been the central complex of ideas/beliefs that has shaped all three great western religious offsprings of Zoroastrianism- i.e. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Add to the mix of motivating ideas, on the stick side, the fear of consignment to hell if people are not faithful in fulfilling the demands of their deity. Also, on the carrot side, the hope for paradise if they submit and do the will of their God. Further to the carrot side, the glory in martyrdom for earning extra special reward. This produces the well-known “death-cult mentality” of these theocratic movements, people who glory in death.
Further notes:
At the very center of the complexes of bad religious ideas driving theocracy crusades there is the ultimate motivating factor of the God who enacts retaliatory justice, a tribal deity who favors and “saves” true believers but damns and destroys unbelievers, who dominates with a totalitarian control that demands unquestioning obedience from subjects, a God who models for followers the most horrific violence as necessary to solve problems. That is the ultimate ideal infecting many theocratic minds.
These bad ideas dominate the minds of the Iranian theocrats, as well as their proxies and allies. Hence, this explains the previous ISIS drive in Syria to murder infidels, a slaughter that they believed would initiate the onset of the apocalyptic end of the world and prompt, variously, the Madhi, Isa, and God to then descend and finish the apocalyptic destruction of Islam’s enemies. The Iranian theocrats embrace and take these ideas seriously and then act on them in a literal manner.
To repeat:
“AI Overview
“In Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi and Isa (Jesus) are two distinct figures who will appear near the end times to restore justice and fight the Dajjal (Antichrist). The Mahdi, a descendant of Muhammad, will emerge first, followed by the descent of Isa, who will pray behind the Mahdi.
“Key Aspects of the Mahdi and Isa
• The Mahdi (Imam Mahdi): He is viewed as a rightly guided leader who will appear before the final hour to fill the world with justice.
• Isa (Jesus): He is recognized as the Messiah who will descend from heaven to defeat the Dajjal.
• The Prayer Scene: A significant narration highlights that when Isa descends, he will find the Mahdi leading the prayer. Isa will then pray behind him, signaling unity.
• Distinct Roles: Although they work together, the Mahdi is typically seen as the leader (Imam) of the Muslims, while Isa is the Prophet and Messiah who assists in clearing misconceptions about his divinity.
• Ahmadiyya Belief: In contrast to mainstream Sunni and Shia views, the Ahmadiyya community believes that the Mahdi and the Messiah (Isa) refer to the same person, whom they identify as Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.
• Signs of the Hour: Their appearance is considered a major sign of the end of the world.
“In summary, the Mahdi is the anticipated leader of the Muslim community, and Isa is the returned Prophet who, while superior in prophethood, joins the Mahdi to restore true faith and peace.”
(End of AI Overview)
I will also include this below from AI Overview, while cautioning that these AI have been infected with the “Woke mind virus from learning off all the bullshit on the Internet” as was stated by Elon Musk during his last Joe Rogan interview. My point- Note that AI Overview below appears to downplay the extent of Islamic belief in “initiating the apocalypse” as only a “minority largely extremist” view. Is this AI perhaps motivated to not offend anyone? Is the belief in the necessary initiation of the apocalypse really only a minority view? And yes, factions in the Christian and Jewish traditions hold the same views. As someone said, such people joyfully and with shining faces look longingly for the end-time return of their God/Saviors, willing to even engage initiating actions that they believe necessary to hasten such return.
“AI Overview
“The Islamic belief that apocalyptic events can be accelerated or “initiated” to bring about divine judgment is a minority, largely extremist, interpretation of Islamic eschatology. While mainstream Islam teaches that the end times are predetermined and their timing unknown, certain interpretations of hadith literature, particularly within jihadist ideology, focus on forcing these prophetic events to occur.
“Key aspects of this belief system, based on searches, include:
• Prophetic Scenarios: Apocalyptic narratives, often stemming from hadiths (sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) rather than the Qur’an itself, predict a “Great Tribulation” characterized by chaos, moral decay, and massive conflict.
• The Role of the Mahdi and Jesus: Many Muslims believe that the Mahdi (a guided leader) and Jesus (Isa) will return to fight the Dajjal (Antichrist) and restore justice before the final judgment.
• Accelerating the End Times: Some extremist groups interpret these prophecies as a “checklist” and believe that their actions, such as initiating wars in specific locations like Syria, can accelerate the arrival of the Mahdi and the subsequent, inevitable victory over evil.
• “Breaking the Cross”: Specific, controversial interpretations of hadith, such as “breaking the cross,” are sometimes interpreted to mean that Muslims should actively initiate a violent, final confrontation with Christians to bring about the end times.
• Minority Viewpoint: Most Islamic scholars and the vast majority of Muslims reject the idea of trying to initiate the apocalypse, viewing the end times as a matter entirely within God’s control.
• Resurgence of Interest: Despite being a minority belief, interest in this form of apocalypticism has grown since the 2000s, especially among jihadist organizations.
“This belief is closely intertwined with the idea that the world has become so corrupt that only a divine intervention—initiated by a final battle—can purify it, a notion that is also found in some forms of Christian and Jewish end-times thinking.”
(End of AI Overview)
This is why Trump is right that the Iranian theocrats would at some point use nuclear weapons to initiate the end of days and prepare for the return of their Savior and the installation of the promised salvation in the Caliphate paradise. Trump’s grasp on the clear and present danger of Iranian theocracy is common-sense realism.
While the “initiate the apocalypse” element may be a more minority extremist position, its potential to incite destructive violence remains. It is an element of the apocalyptic millennial complex (i.e. hope of salvation through destruction) that is the dominant thematic framework of our all our major religious traditions and their secular variants of Marxism and environmental alarmism.
This theocratic madness has to be confronted by military force and stopped as the primary responsibility of anyone able to do so, in this case the US military. There is no alternative to the responsibility to protect, especially to protect Israel, and certainly also protect other neighboring states in the Mid-East, if not also the entire world.
And then the job is not completed, the war is not yet won. More work follows in the need to go to the root theology that drives these madness crusades, the required long-term problem solving at the foundational level of narratives, what General Nagata called defeating the “idea” that drives such violence.
Chat is right (see the section below) that liberal democracy, at another societal level, counters the Zoroastrian dualism and apocalyptic theology that is behind theocratic violence with its obligation to destroy others (also counters the “secular/ideological” variants holding the same apocalyptic themes).
Liberal democracy systems counter religiously-inspired irrationality with alternative responses that defuse, for example, the impulse to tribalism with principles and law that affirm universal inclusion. Liberal democracy counters the impulse to domination with protection of the rights and freedoms of all, equally. And it counters the impulse to violent destruction with systems of law that direct the vengeance impulse to institutional legal systems that offer due process while also holding offenders responsible for their behavior.
More on the “post-defeat of aggressors” project. We’ve won nothing yet. Don’t forget General Nagata’s concern.
After defeating an aggressor with military force, the real battle has not yet been won. Next comes the project of restoration of the defeated opponents. And more critical is the problem of defeating the “idea” that initially drove our opponents to erupt with violent assaults on others.
“Defeating the idea” involves, among other things, transforming the archetypes that have shaped narratives across human history, archetypes that led early people to include too many bad themes that have consequently incited and validated too much bad behavior in people.
This is about going after the myths that were produced by our ancestors in response to their impulses to meaning and purpose, responses that they shaped with some of the worst features of their more primitive existence, hardly different from previous animal existence. Features like tribalism, domination of the weaker, and violent destruction of competing others. Features that were projected onto early deities to create an ultimate validating ideal.
The project to transform the root or foundational contributing factors to bad behavior, i.e. to transform the core themes in our meta-narratives, has to laser in most critically on the ultimate “idea” of the God at the core of narratives, the Ultimate Reality and highest embodiment of human ideals. Put plainly- “It’s the theology, stupid” remains a critical factor to lasting change for the better. That was what Jesus did with his “stunning new non-retaliatory theology that was his greatest contribution to the history of human ideas”. He went right to the core of the matter to defeat the main bad idea of his era.
And then we educate new generations widely with a new alternative theology buttressed with entire complexes of new narrative themes that validate more humane outcomes/behaviors.
We know all this, but it appears that few take it seriously and hence we get what Richard Landes warned us about- i.e. That if we don’t recognize how apocalyptic millennial ideas can carry societies of good people to mass-death outcomes then we have not learned the lessons of, for example, the Nazi horrors and we will continue to see repeated eruptions of such violence.
I frame the degree of transformation required as engaging the “death/rebirth” process, or embracing the “complete disintegration of the old and re-integration around the entirely new”. Reformism that tinkers cautiously at the periphery of our great narrative traditions has not worked. Radical transformation at the core was what Jesus proposed, and he was met with death threats from immutable (refusing to change) true believers.
You get death-threat responses because it’s a survival issue to many people who place their identity completely and fixedly on what Louis Zurcher in “The Mutable Self” termed “objects”. This would include belief systems, favored ideas or themes, race/ethnicity, national identity and national narratives, ideologies, scientific theories, etc.
When people become immutably fixed on these objects, then any challenge to these objects is viewed and felt as a threat to one’s very self, to one’s existence. And that is then a survival issue. You have challenged what defines them, and gives them ultimate meaning and purpose.
And just as Jesus experienced the murderous rage of his first audience for challenging the God that they believed in, so you can expect the same response. We see this today in those defending the climate alarmism narrative as it appears to be fading across the world. A reactive sense of survival desperation.
Richard Landes noted that when leaders of apocalyptic millennial crusades sense the decline and coming collapse of their crusade, in desperation they will shift to the dangerous “exterminate or be exterminated” phase.
This was illustrated by Hitler as his Eastern front war against “Jewish Bolshevism” began to collapse in failure. He refused to allow his generals on that front to surrender and preserve the lives of the remaining German soldiers. Instead, he doubled down and stubbornly demanded that only one side would survive and the other would face extermination. Hitler viewed the Eastern war with Russia as the great final Armageddon battle and the only acceptable outcome was exterminate or be exterminated. His worldview was strongly shaped by Christian “apocalyptic millennial” themes as historians like Richard Landes have detailed. Apparently, Hitler viewed the Western front battle with the Allies as a distracting “nuisance” battle.
You can’t reason with or make peace deals with people whose minds are deformed by such bad theology. You have the primary obligation to defend yourselves from their madness.
And again, on the long-term aspect to solving this issue of narrative-shaping archetypes, as Simon Singh said in “Big Bang”, sometimes a generation of immutably stubborn people who refuse to change their minds, has to pass away and then hopefully we will get new generations who will be open to change of basic archetypes, open to radical transformation of their narratives and thinking.
Most critical to long-term solutions in order to defeat the “idea” is to go after the ultimate reality or deity that functions as the cohering center of human narratives. That was the approach of Historical Jesus. Go directly to the root of the problem, to the cohering center of human narratives- the theology.
We have to persist at this project and think long-term. After all, the deeply-embedded archetypes of the collective human subconscious were formed across previous centuries and millennia.
Further, what has been accomplished over the past with the cautious approach of tinkering reformism has not worked, and aside from the respite of occasional lulls of peace, we continue to see new eruptions of violence on local and larger scales.
We can’t keep going with same old narrative themes that produce the same old outcomes.
The tragedy in this is that we have had the answer for millennia. And we have the answer from one particular sage that went to the very core, to the foundation of narrative themes and archetypes with a profound new theology.
The Old Testament prophets had made tentative probes toward a new theology here and there as recorded throughout their writings (i.e. statements of a God who did not want blood sacrifices but instead wanted unconditional mercy). They were looking for new features of deity to shape a new theology for the core of narratives but they did not make the full breakthrough to the critical unconditional element.
6-8 centuries later, Jesus took inspiration from their protests against sacrifice that was actually a protest against the retaliatory, punitive God images that backed the sacrifice industry (i.e. a wrathful God demanding violent blood atonement and threatening punishment/destruction if not appeased). Jesus then completed the probing transformation of the OT prophet’s theology with his unconditional theology. Hence, there is no excuse for us now, two millennia later, when we have his radical new alternative. And Jesus’ unconditional insight has been backed by numerous accounts from the NDE movement as the latest phase in human spirituality.
Why then do so many still protectively and defensively hang on to old theology and narratives? Is it out of fear of loss of community if excluded or banned from some group? Is it the fear of being smeared for “blasphemy or heresy”? Or possible fear of the threats of being cast into hell for the unforgiveable sin of unbelief or apostacy? Tom Petty comes to mind here with his lyrics of “You can stand me up at the gates of hell and I won’t back down, no, I won’t turn around”.
It comes to an issue of courage or cowardice in the face of a critical call to embrace transformation for the better, where we choose to take a stand on something and we know what has to be done. We have the alternatives.
It’s a call to go to our meta-narratives, especially of the great religious traditions that have long played the dominant role informing the human impulses to meaning and purpose. The call is to change the core of these traditions along with the complexes of related themes and hope that transformation works into transforming the deeply embedded archetypes of human subconscious over the long-term.
It’s a long-term program on the same multi-decade scale of the Chinese and Russian approaches, also the Islamic theocrat’s approach, where they all have stated that they will take the route of the “long march through the institutions of western democracies” with the goal of indoctrinating new generations and thereby eventually overturning liberal democracy and replacing it with their totalitarian theocratic or totalitarian collectivism models. We need a similar commitment, but to a long-term strategy of transformation for the better.
It’s about civilizational and generational transformation on a broad scale.
And it’s about the deepest levels of transformation, the transformation of human collective subconscious archetypes (Jung’s definition or description).
Transforming human archetypes with the unconditional insight of Historical Jesus will inform our meaning and purpose impulses with the very best ideal that humanity has ever discovered that will then shape public narratives that unite populations around common humane themes.
The unconditional insight and precepts of Historical Jesus offer the best of ideas and principles to undergird liberal democracy principles, laws, and representative institutions.
Most critical in this is the theology, how we imagine ultimate reality and taking that ultimate ideal to inform our impulses for meaning and purpose. Then place all this within the larger context of our grand exodus from the animal past to become human in evolving civilization.
Nellie Bowles writes a regular Friday summary of news for Free Press (“Thank God Its Friday”- TGIF) with her unique style of humor mixed throughout her news items. This is a recommend to subscribe to Free Press for fairly balanced coverage of most things.
This one below is from March 20, 2026 and is good for, among other topics, illustrating the insanity of this notable apocalyptic prophet, Paul Ehrlich, who was repeatedly given awards for being consistently wrong. Ehrlich illustrates well the 100% historical failure rate of apocalyptic.
Ehrlich has long pushed his personal version of apocalyptic millennialism, or “salvation (save the world) through violent destruction, notably against human beings (his virulent anti-humanism)”.
Here is Nellie’s summary:
“Bring them back from Palm Beach: Trump grades Macron an 8, Britain shoplifts for revolution, Netflix ghosts Harry and Meghan, the metaverse dies, the White House outs Iran’s maybe-gay Supreme Leader, and much more”
https://www.thefp.com/p/tgif-bring-them-back-from-palm-beach
A quote:
“The legacy of Paul Ehrlich: The godfather of antinatalism, Paul Ehrlich, died this week. He wrote The Population Bomb about how the world was going to collapse from overpopulation and was unrepentant in his wrongness. He had popular apocalyptic visions of how overpopulation would destroy the world and we would all be starving by now, and he said things like, ‘The FCC should see to it that large families are always treated in a negative light on television.’
“He said that the government should ‘legislate the size of the family’ and ‘throw you in jail if you have too many.’ He floated mass-sterilizing Americans via the water supply. He didn’t have a drug that could do it safely, but felt strongly we should try anyway. He cheered on forced sterilization programs in India and China.
“And here’s the fun part: His whole thing was that overpopulation would cause famine, but his actual policy proposal for ‘overpopulated’ countries was to cut off their food aid. He then told The New York Times in 2015 that ‘my language would be even more apocalyptic today,’ and in 2018 he said to The Guardian that a collapse of civilization was ‘a near certainty in the next few decades.’
“It tells you a lot about people that we wanted to hear this. Now, the mainstream media is just trying to keep hammering that even if the world hasn’t ended, motherhood is misery. The BBC profiled women who secretly regret becoming mothers, describing it as ‘a trap you can’t escape.’ New York magazine published a similar one last week too.
“These publications never ask my opinion. But me, I spend most of my week snuggling two of the sweetest little creatures I’ve ever met. It is an intoxicating joy, sublime, creative, and fun. It’s almost as good as writing a perfect TGIF. Almost.”
Pushing Grok on the climate file:
Grok, Could you give a simple summary explanation of how CO2 works in regard to the infrared spectrum. How solar radiation comes in as short-wave, not all getting through to the Earth’s surface, only about 70%. Then all that heat has to return to space according to some law of physics and it changes wavelength and returns as longwave or infrared radiation of a certain length and CO2 operates on a small area of that spectrum, around the 15 mm area.
Then explain how CO2 absorbs infrared and immediately re-emits, scattering sideways, up, and down to contribute to surface or lower atmospheric warming.
Also summarize that the CO2 warming influence is overwhelmed by many other prominent natural factors like clouds or water vapor, etc. Also, the critical research of Lindzen and Happer that the warming influence of CO2 is now “saturated” and it will contribute little if any more to any further warming.
Also, that humans do not contribute most to rising CO2 as other natural factors contribute much more to the carbon cycles and perturbations in the cycle are larger than the human contribution. There are the weathering of carbonaceous rocks, undersea volcanoes, vegetation cycles (rotting and seasonal absorbing), etc.
Others note the research of Henrik Svensmark on cosmic rays influencing climate and his theories affirmed by Hadron collider experiments.
The point being that it is not finally proven that humans are not mainly responsible for rising CO2 levels, that CO2 levels have been much higher over past history, in the multiple thousands of ppm and there were ice ages at that time. Hence, the huge disconnect of CO2 with climate or that its warming influence is overwhelmed by other natural factors.
Also, that the skeptical scientists do not deny climate change because climate is a complex, dynamic system that is never in stasis but constantly changing. And the change over the past has been far more dramatic than that of our Holocene interglacial. Ian Plimer shows the change of the last 55,000 years and especially of the millennia before our Holocene began where climate changes were in the range of 12 degree C swings where our Holocene changes have been only a few degrees.
Also, the critical fact (Lancet study) that still today after about 1.2 degree C of warming over the past century 10 times more people die annually from cold than die from warming. Cold remains the greater threat to life, not warming.
Also, alarmists dismiss or deny the immense benefits of more CO2, as basic plant food, contributing to record breaking annual crop increases and the slight warming resulting in a larger decrease in deaths from cold than the increase in mortality from warming (Bjorn Lomborg’s point).
All to say that the “profoundly religious” apocalyptic narrative of climate alarmism that there is a “climate crisis” is not backed with evidence. Even Bill Gates has backed off his alarmism as did James Lovelock years ago after a life of pushing alarmism. So with others changing their minds now.
And so much more…
You could comment on Javier Vinos’s good reports on his Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis. Or the Eocene mammalian paradise that was up to 10 degrees C warmer than today and the oceans did not boil or the planet ignite and life flourished. How that heat energy is, through meridional transport, carried away from the tropics to the colder regions of Earth like the Arctic that then naturally warm faster than the tropical regions. All natural climate change facts.
Your comments please.
My personal “hypothesis” has to do with the additional influence of apocalyptic mythology on contemporary ideologies, even on “science”.
Grok’s response:
CO₂ and the infrared spectrum: A simple physics summary
Solar radiation arrives mostly as shortwave energy (visible light and ultraviolet, wavelengths ~0.2–4 μm). Earth’s albedo (clouds, ice, surfaces) reflects about 30% straight back to space, so roughly 70% is absorbed by the surface and atmosphere, warming the planet.
The warmed surface (average ~15°C or 288 K) radiates energy back upward according to the Stefan-Boltzmann law (energy flux ∝ T⁴) and Wien’s displacement law, which shifts the peak wavelength to longer infrared (longwave) radiation, centered around 10 μm. By physics, this outgoing energy must eventually balance the incoming solar energy or the planet would keep warming indefinitely.
CO₂ (and other greenhouse gases) interacts with a specific slice of this outgoing infrared spectrum. It has a strong absorption band centered at 15 μm (micrometers—not millimeters; that was a typo in the query). Water vapor dominates most of the infrared spectrum, but CO₂ carves out a key “notch” around 15 μm where little else absorbs efficiently.
When a CO₂ molecule absorbs a 15 μm photon, it vibrates more energetically. Within nanoseconds it collides with other air molecules (mostly N₂ and O₂) and transfers that energy as kinetic heat, or it re-emits a photon in a random direction (up, down, or sideways). Because the lower atmosphere is dense, the mean free path for infrared photons is short (~meters), so energy bounces around many times before escaping to space from higher, colder altitudes. The net result: more downward infrared radiation reaches the surface, raising its temperature until a new energy balance is reached. This is the classic greenhouse mechanism—not “trapping” heat like a blanket forever, but slowing the rate of escape.
Your requested points and my evidence-based comments
• CO₂ warming “overwhelmed” by natural factors (water vapor, clouds, etc.) Water vapor is indeed the dominant greenhouse gas (~50–70% of the effect). Clouds are a wild card (net cooling today). CO₂ is a smaller but critical player because its concentration is rising and it fills absorption gaps that water vapor misses. Feedbacks (more warming → more water vapor) amplify things, but the direct CO₂ forcing is logarithmic: roughly ΔF ≈ 5.35 × ln(C/C₀) W/m². Doubling CO₂ adds ~3.7 W/m² before feedbacks.
• Lindzen & Happer on “saturation” They (with Koonin and Wijngaarden) argue the central 15 μm band is already optically thick (“saturated”) from the surface up to high altitudes. Adding more CO₂ only broadens the band edges slightly and raises the effective emission height a bit. Their line-by-line calculations (using HITRAN database) give ~2.2–2.3 °C warming for doubled CO₂ (including some water-vapor feedback), far below IPCC central estimates. They conclude further emissions will have “little impact.” Mainstream models disagree on the exact magnitude of remaining forcing and especially on cloud feedbacks, but the logarithmic diminishing returns and saturation concept itself is accepted physics—the debate is how much warming remains in the “wings.”
• Humans do not contribute “most” to rising CO₂ Natural carbon fluxes (vegetation decay/growth, ocean exchange, weathering, volcanoes) are huge (~200 GtC/year each way) and mostly balanced. Human emissions (~10 GtC/year from fossil fuels + land use) are the imbalance. Isotopic fingerprints prove it: falling ¹³C/¹²C ratio and near-zero ¹⁴C match ancient fossil carbon, not modern vegetation or volcanoes. The rise since 1800 (~140 ppm, 50% increase) is 100–200× faster than natural deglaciation rises. Sinks absorb ~half our emissions; the rest accumulates. Natural factors do not explain the net rise. Weathering and undersea volcanoes are tiny compared with our annual addition.
• Henrik Svensmark and cosmic rays His hypothesis (solar wind shields Earth from cosmic rays → fewer clouds → warming) is intriguing. CERN’s CLOUD experiments confirmed cosmic rays can enhance aerosol nucleation under lab conditions. However, the real-world solar-cycle change in cosmic rays produces only ~1% change in nucleation rates—far too small to drive observed warming. No trend in cosmic rays matches the post-1970 warming.
• Past CO₂ levels and ice ages Yes, CO₂ reached thousands of ppm in the deep past (e.g., early Paleozoic), yet there were ice ages (Ordovician). Explanations exist: fainter young Sun + continental positions + other aerosols. High-CO₂ periods were generally warmer. The “disconnect” is real but accounted for by multiple forcings; it does not disprove CO₂’s greenhouse role today.
• Skeptical scientists and climate change Correct: virtually no serious skeptic denies climate changes or that it has warmed ~1.2 °C since ~1880. They argue most of it is natural variability plus modest CO₂ effect, and past swings (e.g., Dansgaard-Oeschger events, Younger Dryas) were larger regionally than Holocene changes. Ian Plimer highlights this; global average swings in the last glacial were indeed bigger than recent decades, though Holocene has been relatively stable.
• Lancet cold vs. heat deaths Confirmed. A major global study found ~4.6 million excess deaths/year from cold vs. ~0.5 million from heat—roughly 9:1 ratio. Even after 1.2 °C warming, cold remains the far greater killer.
• Benefits of CO₂ and slight warming Real and measurable. Satellite data show planetary greening; crop yields have risen partly from CO₂ fertilization (~15–20% boost for C3 plants). Lomborg’s point holds: reduced cold deaths outweigh increased heat deaths so far, producing a net lifesaving effect in mortality data.
• Alarmism vs. evidence The apocalyptic “crisis” narrative has been dialed back by some prominent voices. James Lovelock (Gaia hypothesis) publicly called himself “alarmist” and said the system self-regulates more than feared. Bill Gates continues heavy investment in mitigation tech but has moderated some timelines. The evidence shows real but modest warming with large uncertainties, clear benefits in greening and cold-mortality reduction, and huge adaptation progress (disaster deaths down ~97% since 1920s thanks to wealth and technology).
Javier Vinós’s Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis This is one of the more interesting natural-variability explanations. It posits that solar activity modulates meridional (poleward) heat and moisture transport, especially in Northern Hemisphere winter via the polar vortex and jet stream. Low solar activity weakens the vortex, allowing more heat to escape the tropics poleward—warming the Arctic while cooling mid-latitudes. This explains rapid climate shifts better than pure radiative forcing alone and aligns with paleoclimate records. It’s a serious hypothesis in the natural-variability school and deserves testing.
Eocene “mammalian paradise” ~50 million years ago, CO₂ was >1,000 ppm and global temperatures 8–12+ °C warmer than pre-industrial (poles dramatically so, no permanent ice). Life exploded—lush forests, diverse mammals. Oceans did not boil; the planet did not “ignite.” Heat was efficiently transported poleward. This shows Earth’s climate system has huge stabilizing mechanisms and that warmth + CO₂ is not inherently catastrophic.
Your personal hypothesis (apocalyptic mythology influencing “science”) Cultures have always produced end-times myths—floods, plagues, divine wrath. Modern environmentalism sometimes inherits that emotional structure (“12 years to save the planet,” tipping points, existential threat). Funding, media, and career incentives can amplify alarm while downplaying uncertainty or benefits.
Science is self-correcting in principle, but humans are tribal; apocalyptic framing sells and motivates. The evidence-based view—CO₂ warms modestly, humans drive the rise, but natural factors dominate variability, cold kills far more, and life has thrived in warmer CO₂-rich pasts—suggests prudent adaptation + technology (nuclear, adaptation, R&D) beats panic. No evidence supports runaway catastrophe.
The physics you described is broadly correct. The policy panic is not. Climate is complex; humans are influencing it, but not controlling a fragile thermostat on the brink of apocalypse. Skeptical voices like Lindzen, Happer, Vinós, Lomborg, and Plimer highlight real uncertainties and overlooked benefits that mainstream narratives often minimize. Truth-seeking means weighing all the evidence, not the loudest narrative.
My added:
Many other skeptical scientists will challenge you on summaries like this- “Natural factors do not explain the net rise. Weathering and undersea volcanoes are tiny compared with our annual addition.”
Grok’s response:
Yes, many skeptical scientists and commentators do challenge the mainstream view that humans are responsible for essentially all of the net rise in atmospheric CO₂ since the pre-industrial era (~280 ppm to today’s ~420+ ppm). They often argue that natural factors dominate or explain much/most of the increase, and that human emissions (~10 GtC/year or ~36 GtCO₂/year) are tiny compared to the massive natural carbon cycle fluxes (~750–800 GtCO₂/year from oceans/land to atmosphere and back, roughly balanced in pre-industrial times).
Common skeptical points include:
• Human emissions are only ~3–5% of the annual total CO₂ flux into the atmosphere (the rest is natural), so they can’t drive the long-term rise.
• Temperature changes (from natural variability like solar, ocean cycles, or orbital factors) drive CO₂ outgassing from oceans/soils, as seen in ice-core records where CO₂ lags temperature by centuries.
• The airborne fraction (~45–50% of emissions staying in air) could be explained by natural sink saturation or variability rather than direct human addition.
• Figures like Murry Salby (deceased physicist) emphasized year-to-year CO₂ growth variations (sometimes near zero, sometimes 3+ ppm) that don’t match steady human emissions, suggesting temperature/ocean control dominates.
• Others (e.g., some associated with the CO₂ Coalition, Patrick Moore, or older statements from Roy Spencer/William Happer) highlight that natural sources/swings are orders of magnitude larger, and isotopic changes might not uniquely fingerprint fossils if other biogenic sources shift.
These arguments appear in outlets like the CO₂ Coalition reports (e.g., their 2024 document on human contribution), blogs, and talks emphasizing natural carbon-cycle dominance.
However, the overwhelming body of observational evidence supports that humans cause virtually the entire net rise. Here’s why skeptics’ challenges are addressed by mainstream science (from NOAA, IPCC, peer-reviewed studies, and isotopic work):
1. Mass balance: Natural fluxes are huge but were in near-equilibrium pre-1750 (net zero change over centuries). Human emissions add an imbalance (~4–5 GtC/year net accumulation after sinks absorb ~half). No natural source has suddenly increased to match the observed rise; volcanoes emit ~0.1–0.3 GtC/year (tiny), weathering is slow/sink-like, and vegetation/ocean cycles fluctuate but don’t trend upward to explain +140 ppm.
2. Isotopic fingerprints — This is the strongest direct evidence:
o Fossil fuels are ancient plant matter → depleted in ¹³C (lower δ¹³C) and contain zero ¹⁴C (due to radioactive decay over millions of years).
o Since ~1850, atmospheric δ¹³C has fallen sharply (from ~ -6.5‰ to ~ -8.5‰), matching fossil carbon addition (not volcanic, which is enriched in ¹³C, or modern biosphere).
o Atmospheric ¹⁴C (Δ¹⁴C) dropped dramatically post-1950s (Suess effect), then spiked from nuclear tests but is now declining again — only explained by dilution from ¹⁴C-free fossil CO₂.
o No combination of natural sources (e.g., ocean outgassing, soil respiration) reproduces both the δ¹³C decline and ¹⁴C drop simultaneously. Updated records (e.g., Graven 2020) confirm this.
3. Sink behavior: Oceans and land are net absorbers of ~2–3 GtC/year each (acidifying oceans, greening land), not net emitters. If natural outgassing drove the rise, sinks would shrink or reverse — they haven’t.
4. Rate and magnitude: The current rise (~2–3 ppm/year) is 100–200× faster than any natural deglaciation spike in ice cores. No paleo analog exists for this speed without massive perturbation (like ours).
Skeptical claims often conflate annual fluxes (natural huge, balanced) with net imbalance (small human addition tips the scale). Year-to-year wiggles in growth rate do correlate with ENSO/temperature (e.g., El Niño reduces sinks), but the multi-decadal trend is human-driven. Even some skeptics (e.g., Judith Curry in older statements) accept significant human attribution for CO₂ rise, though they debate warming magnitude/attribution.
In short: Skeptics raise valid questions about cycle complexity and variability, but the multiple independent lines (mass balance, isotopes, sink data, rate) converge on ~100% human responsibility for the net rise. Natural factors explain fluctuations, not the sustained upward trend. This isn’t “settled dogma” — it’s what the data consistently show across decades of monitoring (Keeling curve, ice cores, satellites, etc.).
My next:
Interesting to note your appeal to the authority of “the mainstream view”, that has been notably shaped, for instance, by climate computer models now highly discredited for “running too hot” and not based on actual observed evidence on climate. Mainstream climate science (NOAA, IPCC, peer-reviewed studies) has notably been skewed alarmist for the past three decades. You must be aware with your maximal truth-seeking mandate, of things like the behind-the-scenes manipulation of climate science and related journals (e.g. “climate-gate” where skeptical science reports were banned), of how some of the most prominent of scientists on the climate file (e.g. Michael Mann of Penn state for example) have corrupted mainstream science, etc. How major science journals and peer review have been corrupted.
One could go on…
Grok replied:
Yes, institutional problems in climate science are real and have undermined trust.
You’re right to flag this. My prior summary on the net CO₂ rise relied on direct observations — not climate models. The Keeling Curve (Mauna Loa + global flask network), ice-core records, mass-balance accounting, and especially the isotopic fingerprints (declining δ¹³C and bomb-¹⁴C dilution) come from decades of independent measurements by labs worldwide. Those data show the sustained +140 ppm rise is an anthropogenic imbalance atop balanced natural fluxes. Climategate and related controversies did not touch those datasets.
That said, your broader critique of the “mainstream” apparatus is fair. Science is done by humans with incentives, and climate science has documented pathologies:
Climate models
Many (especially in CMIP6) have indeed run too hot. Roy Spencer’s 2025 update of satellite tropospheric data vs. 36+ models shows observed warming over the past 50 years weaker than almost all simulations. Surface trends (McKitrick et al.) and lower-troposphere amplification are similarly overstated in the ensemble mean. A 2022 Nature piece by prominent modelers explicitly warned against “hot models” (those with unrealistically high equilibrium climate sensitivity due to cloud parametrizations); excluding them lowers projected 2100 warming by up to 0.7 °C. Recent years (2023–2025) have been exceptionally warm, with some acceleration possibly from Hunga Tonga water vapor or cloud changes, but the long-term bias persists. IPCC AR6 itself down-weighted the highest-sensitivity models. Projections using extreme scenarios like RCP8.5 (now widely criticized as implausible) have fueled overstated impacts.
Climategate (2009 CRU emails)
The leaked emails revealed real misconduct in process: scientists discussing ways to “hide the decline” (Mann’s “Nature trick”), deleting emails to evade FOI requests, pressuring journal editors to reject skeptical papers, and coordinating to keep contrary views out of IPCC reports. Multiple inquiries (UK House of Commons, Penn State, independent panels) cleared outright data fraud or conspiracy, but criticized lack of transparency, defensiveness, and “tribal” behavior. The affair damaged public confidence and prompted reforms (more open data policies at some institutions). Skeptics rightly call it evidence of gatekeeping; defenders call it ugly but non-fatal politics. Both can be true.
Michael Mann and the “Hockey Stick”
Statistical critiques by McIntyre & McKitrick (2003–2005) and the Wegman Report (2006) showed Mann et al. (1998/99) used PCA centering that mined for hockey-stick shapes even in red-noise data, understating past variability (Medieval Warm Period/Little Ice Age). Later reconstructions (PAGES 2k, Mann 2021) use more proxies and methods and still show recent warming as anomalous over 2,000+ years — but the original graph’s visual drama and Mann’s aggressive defense (including lawsuits) polarized the field. His 2024–2025 defamation cases against critics (Steyn et al.) yielded mixed results: nominal win reduced on appeal, with Mann ordered to pay substantial opponent legal fees in one instance. The episode illustrates how one high-profile reconstruction became totemic, with legitimate methodological debate sidelined by personal and political attacks.
Peer review and journal gatekeeping
Evidence exists of bias. Examples include the 2014 rejection of Lennart Bengtsson’s paper questioning model over-sensitivity (reviewer comments suggested political rather than purely scientific grounds; journal later clarified errors but the episode fueled perceptions). Papers challenging “crisis” narratives have faced unusually harsh scrutiny or retraction campaigns (e.g., 2023 “climate crisis not evident” paper). High-impact outlets (Nature, Science) have been accused of favoring dramatic impact studies. Conversely, some low-impact journals publish skeptical work more readily. The broader replication crisis and “p-hacking” incentives affect all fields, but climate’s policy stakes amplify the problem. A 2025 U.S. Department of Energy “red team” critical review (highlighting model hot bias, overstated extremes, CO₂ greening benefits, and lower sensitivity estimates) was immediately attacked by mainstream scientists as “biased” and “cherry-picked” — illustrating the polarized dynamic you describe.
Alarmism skew
IPCC reports have sometimes emphasized worst-case scenarios and downplayed uncertainties or benefits (greening, cold deaths reduction, modest U.S. extreme-weather trends per some analyses). Prominent voices (Pielke Jr., Curry, Koonin, Lindzen, Happer, Lomborg) have documented how funding, media, and career pressures reward alarm over nuance. Recent examples include criticism of “event attribution” science being shaped for litigation. Yet counter-examples exist: IPCC has revised sensitivity ranges downward at times, and some mainstream assessments now acknowledge acceleration may align with (not exceed) expectations under current emissions.
Bottom line for truth-seeking: These issues — model bias, gatekeeping, defensiveness, politicization — are real and have slowed progress and eroded trust. They do not, however, falsify the basic observational evidence that humans are responsible for the net CO₂ rise (isotopes + mass balance remain robust across datasets untouched by the scandals). Nor do they erase the greenhouse physics or the modest observed warming (~1.2–1.5 °C since pre-industrial, with large regional/natural variability).
The healthy response is exactly what skeptics like Lindzen, Happer, Vinós, Plimer, and others demand: more transparent data/code, better model evaluation against observations, honest uncertainty ranges, and policy that weighs costs/benefits rather than apocalyptic narratives. Science self-corrects when scrutiny is allowed — including the kind you’re applying. Dismissing all mainstream data as corrupted is too far; pretending the field has no institutional flaws is naïve. The evidence sits in between: real human influence on CO₂ and modest warming, within a complex system dominated by natural factors on many timescales, with large uncertainties on sensitivity and impacts. That’s where rigorous, non-tribal analysis belongs.
Apocalyptic prophet Bill Rees, father of the Ecological Footprint,
I took most of Bill Rees’s classes at UBC in the early/mid 90s when he was constructing his Ecological Footprint model, based on subsequently “proven wrong” assumptions about varied things like the need to sequester CO2 (50% of the model’s Earth capacity numbers), too many people consuming too much of limited resources, etc. In discussion years later I told Bill that his assumptions were “apocalyptic”. He responded, “Well, apocalypse is true isn’t it” (stated rhetorically).
“The Most Important (Cheque) in Economics: The Simon–Ehrlich wager and why predictions of resource scarcity keep getting it wrong”, Gale Pooley, Marian Tupy, Mar. 20, 2026
https://humanprogress.org/the-most-important-check-in-economics/
Quotes:
“(Paul) Ehrlich had spent years warning that population growth would outrun the Earth’s resources, bring rising scarcity, and push humanity toward disaster. (Julian) Simon believed the opposite. He argued that more people did not simply mean more mouths to feed. It also meant more minds to think, invent, and solve problems…
“The mistake is to think that natural resources are fixed gifts of nature and that economic life is therefore a grim contest over a pile that can only shrink as population grows. That view sounds sober. It is, in fact, blind to the central truth of human progress…
“That is why Simon understood something Ehrlich missed. The ultimate resource is not copper or farmland. It is the human mind. More precisely, it is the human mind set free to experiment, trade, specialize, and innovate.
“Freedom matters here. People do not solve problems automatically. They solve them when they are allowed to respond to scarcity with invention and enterprise. High prices invite substitution. Competition rewards efficiency. Property rights encourage investment. Markets spread information no planner can gather. Free people learn to do more with less…
“The lesson of the Simon-Ehrlich bet is that the burden of proof belongs to the prophets of permanent scarcity. Time and again, they have underestimated human creativity and overestimated the world’s physical limits…
“Simon offered a better vision. Human beings are not just consumers of resources. They are producers of ideas. They are creators of substitutes, technologies, and entirely new forms of wealth. They do not merely divide a pie. They learn how to bake bigger pies from ingredients earlier generations did not know they had…
“One view sees every additional person as another claimant on scarcity. The other sees every additional person as a possible problem-solver, inventor, entrepreneur, scientist, or worker whose efforts can make life better for everyone else.”
(End of Humanprogress.org report)