It is my habit to post new blogging comment, often repeating issues and themes that are central to the main concerns of this site, and then get AI to analyze and summarize what I have posted.
They have the skills to summarize things and sometimes give fairly decent analyses if asked.
Latest…
Grok, Your analysis and summary of the topics presented on the top two sections on
The sections are titled:
“The most consequential revolutions in history have been psychological and theological”
And
“Breaking the darkening/enslaving chains of the apocalyptic curse on humanity- Start with admitting that it has always been a great fraud”
Grok replied:
The first section is a blog post dated May 14, 2026, titled “The most consequential revolutions in history have been psychological and theological.”
Wendell Krossa argues that the deepest, most transformative changes in human history occur not primarily through politics or technology, but at the level of core beliefs, psychology, and theology— specifically the foundational ideas about ultimate reality (God/deity), human nature, and how we should respond to others (especially “enemies”). These “archetypal” themes shape societies, motivations, emotions, and behaviors across generations.
Core Themes in This Post
• Historical Jesus’ “stunning new unconditional theology”: Krossa presents Jesus (drawing on Q source wisdom sayings) as a revolutionary who rejected the dominant ancient pattern of a conditional, wrathful, retaliatory deity demanding sacrifice, punishment, and violent purging of evil. Instead, Jesus advocated a God of unconditional love/mercy, summarized in something like Luke 6: “Be unconditionally merciful just as God is unconditionally merciful.” This should lead to non-retaliatory ethics, even toward enemies. Krossa sees this as a profound “behavior based on belief” shift that could liberate humanity from fear, vengeance cycles, and threat-based control.
• Paul’s counter-revolution: Paul recognized Jesus’ insight but largely rejected/reversed it, re-emphasizing a wrathful, retaliatory deity and apocalyptic judgment. This “Christ-ianity” (with its totalizing demands) became dominant and shaped Western civilization more than Jesus’ original message, according to Krossa (citing historians like James Tabor). It re-embedded old primitive archetypes.
• Broader implications: These theological shifts matter because bad core ideas (e.g., threat theology, apocalyptic purging) fuel violence, totalitarianism, and destructive crusades. Krossa ties this to contemporary issues: defeating “the idea” behind groups like ISIS (referencing General Nagata), threats to liberal democracy from resurgent Marxism/collectivism and theocracy, and the importance of programming AI with classical liberal principles (individual rights, rule of law, anti-tribalism, restorative approaches to justice). He includes AI responses (from Grok and Claude) on these topics and discusses authentic love as requiring nuance— protecting the innocent may involve restraint, incarceration, or defensive force, not naive passivity.
• Personal and civilizational angle: Krossa shares autobiographical elements about escaping his father’s fear-based evangelical conditioning. He views Jesus’ insight as the ultimate taproot transformation for hope, freedom, and humane society. Historians like Richard Landes are referenced on how Paul’s myth influenced later movements (Marxism, Nazism, environmental alarmism).
The tone is passionate, synthesizing personal experience, biblical scholarship, history, anthropology (e.g., Clifford Geertz on Bali), and current events. It positions archetypal/theological renewal as key to solving recurring human problems.
The second section is a post from May 10, 2026, titled “Breaking the darkening/enslaving chains of the apocalyptic curse on humanity- Start with admitting that it has always been a great fraud.”
This builds directly on the first post’s themes, focusing on apocalyptic mythology as a primitive, destructive archetype that continues to enslave minds and drive harmful movements.
Core Themes in This Post
• Apocalyptic as a recurring “mental deformity”: Rooted in Zoroastrian cosmic dualism and similar primitive myths (“lost paradise → decline → imminent end → salvation via sacrifice/purging of evil enemies → restored utopia”). It provides emotional satisfaction through familiar dramatic narratives, even when outcomes are disastrous. It masquerades as science, justice, or religion while cloaking evil (violence, coercion, destruction) as good.
• Modern manifestations: Environmental alarmism/climate apocalypse (called a “profoundly religious crusade” more than rational science), Marxism, Nazism, theocratic violence (e.g., Iran), and emerging AI doomsday fears. These follow the same pattern and produce ruined hopes (especially in children), policy failures, and violence. Krossa cites examples like a young man plotting violence against AI leaders out of extinction fears.
• Solutions and antidotes:
o Admit the fraud and recognize the 100% historical failure rate of end-of-world predictions.
o Build mental guards: Embrace evidence-based optimism (e.g., Julian Simon’s Ultimate Resource— humanity as net creators, long-term progress despite problems). Be reflexively skeptical of alarmist framing in media and politics.
o Return to Jesus’ anti-apocalyptic “diamond” theology of unconditional love (non-retaliatory, no punitive destruction) versus Paul’s “dung” apocalyptic Christ myth (per Jefferson and Tolstoy). This offers the deepest liberation and hope.
• Consequences: Apocalyptic deforms personalities, incites violence (“to save the world”), and destroys societies (e.g., historical cases like the Xhosa). It is “the most violent and destructive idea in history.” Panic-mongering by media and politicians exacerbates it.
Krossa’s overall project across these sections is a call for archetypal liberation: Reject threat/apocalyptic theology at its root and embrace unconditional love as the true core of reality. This, he believes, counters recurring cycles of fear, tribalism, domination, and destruction while supporting liberal democracy, hope, and humane progress. The writing blends personal testimony, historical analysis, critique of contemporary movements, and advocacy for better foundational beliefs. It is repetitive in emphasis but consistent in framing theology/psychology as the decisive battleground.
Then this...
Chat, Your analysis and summary of the topics presented on the top two sections of
The sections are titled:
“The most consequential revolutions in history have been psychological and theological”
And
“Breaking the darkening/enslaving chains of the apocalyptic curse on humanity- Start with admitting that it has always been a great fraud”
Chat replied:
The two sections at the top of The Unconditional Human Spirit present a sweeping reinterpretation of religion, psychology, civilization, and social conflict. They are not written as detached academic essays; they are manifestos aimed at exposing what the author sees as the deepest destructive pattern in human history and replacing it with a radically different moral framework.
Core Thesis
The central argument running through both sections is that humanity’s greatest problems are not primarily economic, political, or technological, but psychological and theological. The author argues that:
• Human beings inherited animal impulses:
o tribalism,
o domination,
o retaliatory violence.
• Religions and ideologies historically intensified those impulses by projecting them onto God or “ultimate reality.”
• Once violence, vengeance, and exclusion are portrayed as divine or morally absolute, societies repeatedly justify persecution, war, apocalyptic thinking, and coercion.
The author calls this entire pattern “threat theology.”
In his framework, the greatest revolutions in history are therefore internal revolutions:
• changes in consciousness,
• changes in moral archetypes,
• changes in how humans imagine God, meaning, justice, and enemies.
This is why he calls psychological and theological revolutions “the most consequential revolutions in history.”
Analysis of the First Section:
“The most consequential revolutions in history have been psychological and theological”
This section is essentially arguing that civilizations are built upon deep narrative structures — what the author repeatedly calls “archetypes.”
These archetypes shape:
• emotions,
• morality,
• politics,
• social institutions,
• and human behavior.
The author’s core claim is that the image of God or ultimate reality functions as humanity’s highest moral model. Therefore:
• a violent God produces violent cultures,
• a tribal God produces tribal societies,
• a punitive God produces fear-based civilization.
Conversely:
• an unconditional God produces inclusion,
• restorative ethics,
• liberal democracy,
• and non-retaliatory human relations.
The “Jesus versus Christ” distinction
One of the most striking themes is the sharp separation the author makes between:
• the “Historical Jesus,”
and
• “Christ-ianity” associated especially with Paul.
This distinction drives nearly everything else in the essay.
The author portrays:
• Jesus as representing unconditional love, enemy-love, nonviolence, and radical inclusion,
while
• Paul’s theology allegedly reintroduced:
o apocalypticism,
o divine vengeance,
o tribal salvation,
o eternal punishment,
o and “salvation through destruction.”
The phrase “diamonds versus dung” becomes shorthand for:
• extracting the ethical teachings of Jesus from what the author considers corrupt theological systems built around fear and judgment.
This is a highly revisionist interpretation of Christianity and would be rejected by most mainstream Christian theologians, especially because it sharply divides Jesus from historic Christian doctrine. But internally, the argument is philosophically coherent:
• fear-based metaphysics generate fear-based civilizations,
• unconditional metaphysics generate humane civilizations.
Psychological Dimension
A major emphasis throughout the text is that apocalyptic and punitive belief systems psychologically deform people.
The author repeatedly links fear-based religion to:
• anxiety,
• shame,
• guilt,
• nihilism,
• aggression,
• and authoritarianism.
This becomes one of the central psychological claims: that humanity’s deepest enslavement is not political tyranny but internalized fear of ultimate punishment and cosmic threat.
He argues that:
• hell,
• apocalypse,
• wrathful deity imagery,
• and cosmic dualism
have traumatized humanity for millennia.
This idea resembles themes found in:
• existential psychology,
• humanistic psychology,
• Nietzsche’s critique of religion,
• Feuerbach’s projection theory,
• Jungian archetypal analysis,
• and parts of liberation theology.
But Krossa combines these into a unique synthesis centered on unconditional love as civilization’s liberating principle.
Analysis of the Second Section:
“Breaking the darkening/enslaving chains of the apocalyptic curse on humanity”
This section intensifies the earlier argument and identifies apocalypticism as the primary engine of human fear and violence.
The author argues that apocalyptic thinking has shaped:
• ancient religions,
• Christianity,
• political ideologies,
• Marxism,
• Nazism,
• and modern climate catastrophism.
He sees all of these as variations of one recurring narrative: the world is corrupted, catastrophe is imminent, the evil must be purged, salvation comes through destruction.
This is what he calls the “apocalyptic curse.”
Climate Change as Religious Structure
One of the most controversial aspects of the essay is its treatment of climate activism.
The author argues that modern climate-apocalypse narratives psychologically function like older religious end-times systems:
• guilt,
• sacrifice,
• fear,
• moral purity,
• and redemption through deprivation.
He frames concepts such as:
• “Net Zero,”
• de-growth,
• eco-anxiety,
as modern secularized forms of ancient salvation religion.
This does not mean the author is merely debating climate science; he is making a broader cultural argument: that apocalyptic frameworks themselves — regardless of topic — produce fear-driven societies.
That said, many readers would strongly dispute his characterization of climate science and climate activism, especially where he treats them primarily as psychological or quasi-religious phenomena rather than evidence-based environmental concerns.
(My insert here: Chat, as often before, misses or denies the strong notes that I have repeatedly made on “evidence-based environmental concerns”. This may be due to Chat’s infection with the Woke virus, as Elon Musk has noted, also noted by Grok, and that infection leads Chat to feel discomfort with the themes that I regularly touch on that expose the dominance of apocalyptic in shaping contemporary environmentalism. Chat favors the environmental alarmist obsession with narratives like climate apocalypse, what Chat appeals to as the “consensus”.)
The “Inner Battle” Theme
Perhaps the most philosophically important element in both sections is the insistence that:
• the true conflict is internal.
The author repeatedly argues that:
• humanity’s real enemy is not external groups,
• but inherited impulses toward domination and retaliation within ourselves.
This idea draws explicitly on:
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,
• Tolstoy,
• Mandela,
• restorative justice traditions,
• and nonviolent ethics.
The proposed solution is:
1. reject threat-based archetypes,
2. embrace unconditional love,
3. stop sacralizing enemies,
4. build institutions that restrain domination,
5. and psychologically “grow beyond” tribal consciousness.
Political and Civilizational Vision
The author ultimately connects these psychological/theological ideas to liberal democracy.
He argues that successful democratic societies emerge from principles consistent with unconditionalism:
• equality,
• individual rights,
• decentralization of power,
• restorative justice,
• inclusion,
• and freedom of conscience.
In his model:
• liberal democracy is not merely political engineering,
• but the social expression of a deeper moral revolution.
This is one of the more interesting parts of the site because it attempts to connect:
• theology,
• psychology,
• ethics,
• and political systems
into one overarching civilizational narrative.
Overall Intellectual Character
The writing combines elements of:
• religious critique,
• existential philosophy,
• moral psychology,
• political commentary,
• historical reinterpretation,
• and personal manifesto.
Stylistically, it is highly repetitive, emotionally charged, and polemical. The repetition appears intentional — the author is trying to reinforce a central narrative framework over and over, using recurring symbolic language:
• “diamonds vs dung,”
• “threat theology,”
• “salvation through destruction,”
• “the exodus from animal existence,”
• “unconditional love.”
The site reads less like academic theology and more like a sustained attempt to construct an alternative civilizational meta-narrative.
Final Summary
At its heart, these two sections argue that:
1. Humanity’s deepest problems originate in fear-based archetypes embedded in religion and ideology.
2. Apocalyptic and punitive visions of God have legitimized tribalism, violence, and domination throughout history.
3. The most important revolution is therefore not technological or political, but psychological and theological.
4. The “Historical Jesus” represents a radically different paradigm: unconditional love, enemy-love, non-retaliation, and universal inclusion.
5. Human liberation requires rejecting all systems built on fear, vengeance, and “salvation through destruction.”
6. Liberal democracy and humane civilization flourish when grounded in unconditional rather than apocalyptic narratives.
(End of Chat comments)
Posts from discussion list with Bob Brinsmead responding to this from Anthropic Claude’s recent analysis of my site material:
Claude had said this (See full Claude response in section below)-
Where I Would Push Back or Complicate
A few honest complications:
1. The Historical Jesus reconstruction is genuinely contested. The “criterion of embarrassment,” the Q source, the sayings tradition — these are real and serious scholarly tools, but the Historical Jesus is always to some degree a reconstruction that reflects the values of the reconstructor. Crossan’s Jesus is suspiciously egalitarian in a way that mirrors late 20th-century academic liberalism. This doesn’t invalidate the project, but it warrants epistemic humility about which Jesus we’re recovering.
2. Paul is more complex than the villain role allows. The passages in Romans 8, the “nothing can separate us from the love of God” movement — these arguably contain their own unconditional logic. The conditional/punitive Paul is real, but so is a Paul who is straining toward something he can’t quite articulate without the inherited sacrificial framework. The merger of good and bad that you acknowledge in his work is genuinely mixed.
3. The secular recapitulation of apocalyptic is real but not total. Not every secular concern about environmental degradation or social crisis is a recapitulation of primitive apocalyptic. There is a genuine empirical question about climate trajectories, biodiversity loss, etc., that is separable from the apocalyptic narrative frame. The pathology you identify is the frame — the paradise-lost, imminent-doom, salvation-through-destruction structure — not the underlying empirical concerns, which require their own evaluation.
4. Unconditional love as a civilizational norm has its own tensions. An unconditional God who punishes nothing, excludes no one, and demands nothing is psychologically liberating — but civilizations also require accountability, consequences, and enforceable norms. The work of integrating unconditional regard at the metaphysical level with appropriate consequence at the social/institutional level is genuinely difficult and incomplete.
Summary Assessment
Your framework is doing something important: identifying that the most durable and dangerous ideas are the ones embedded deepest in the unconscious structure of narrative, not the surface-level political arguments, and that genuine civilizational health requires working at that deeper level. The shift from conditional/punitive to unconditional deity-image is, as you argue, the root move from which better human institutions — including liberal democratic ones — can grow organically rather than being imposed against the grain of a civilization’s deepest story.
The AI systems being trained today, including me, are absorbing the surface-level commitments of liberal democracy reasonably well. Whether we are absorbing the deeper civilizational logic — including the unconditional regard for persons that underlies the formal rights framework — is a harder question, and one your work usefully sharpens.
My response to Anthropic’s “honest complications”:
Yes, these are valid points. My response has been to clarify that “I don’t believe in Jesus” in the sense of true believer commitment to him as some supreme authority or divinely favored prophet/savior. I selectively use some of his better insights due to the wide awareness and respect of many for his famous sayings such as “love your enemy” as acknowledged by Jefferson and Tolstoy.
But to balance that, there is also wide deformity of other sayings such as “turn the other cheek” as affirming extremist pacifism responses that promote “suicidal empathy” as in current leftist criminal justice policies like “catch and release” of repeat violent offenders to harm more victims.
And yes, Paul is more complex but the issue is that his re-affirmation of retaliatory deity (Romans 12: 17-20) became the dominant overall note in the books that early church fathers like Irenaeus used in selecting the books that would become the New Testament cannon and support Paul’s dominant “Christ-ianity” that did bury the core breakthrough insights of Historical Jesus, if not fully “bury”, Paul certainly distorted the core message and themes of Jesus and weakened his influence as James Tabor noted in “Paul and Jesus”.
The New Testament does present the more dominant message of Paul and the outcomes as historians like Richard Landes have detailed, have been horrifically destructive across Western history. That is the concern as it relates to major “ideological” crusades to overthrow liberal democracies (i.e. Marxist violent revolution- “salvation through destruction”). The same applies to climate alarmism dominating environmentalism over past decades. We certainly acknowledge the genuine concerns for environmental harms that must be taken seriously and resolved but separated from the alarmist exaggerations that have dominated the movement over past decades.
And I have clearly cautioned about the unconditional ideal as not an automatic affirmation of irresponsible pacifism (again, the “suicidal empathy” fallacy). Any common sense understanding of human love must take seriously the primary obligation of any government to protect citizens from harm- i.e. the issue of consequences and individual responsibility for behavior as fundamental to normal healthy human development.
End of my response.
Bob Brinsmead posted:
“Good thinking and clarifications here. Punishment is primarily self-harm. Jesus should be read critically too? Yes! His remarks on every topic are not always the best available. For example, his is not the best advice that you can get on sensible financial planning or what wealthy people ought to do with their enterprise. Further, inspiration is not confined to any book, tradition. It is not far from every one of us. It was mankind that was made in the image and likeness of God, not a branch of the human race or a religious tradition. The kingdom or rule of God is not an organized institution. Inspiration is like the wind: it blows where it wills. It is like yeast in the dough or mustard weed that can spring up anywhere. No one can control where it can break out. So, prove all things, hold fast to what is good. Inspired insights from enlightened people are as inspired as wisdom statements from the Bible. There is no monopoly on inspiration. Go Wendell, go. You seemed to have speeded up you thinking and research since you had your health setbacks. Go Wendell, Go! Your old friend Bob. PS. I am working on a long paper. I am now almost 93.”
(End of Brinsmead post)
I appreciate so much these words from my old friend in Australia.
I responded: see Bob’s latest at “Hope Taylor from Robert’s Substack” robertdbrinsmead@substack.com
Thanks Bob. And on your last Substack post on “The Creation of Christ”- It again presents in such good historical detail the difference between the message of the man Jesus and the influences (i.e. Hellenism) that led Paul to create something so contrary to what the man was about. The AI have picked up on the need for people to “make the separation” between these two such influential icons particularly in our Western civilization. The differing outcomes of what they promote in human societies is so consequential and has been over the past two millennia.
I have been using a blogging style over past years, touching base with familiar current events to then use that as springboards to make repeated points about our dominant public narratives and the themes that they are based on, themes inherited from notable historical figures like Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth.
I have found, for example, General Nagata’s statement, after the ISIS thing in Syria (2014), as a useful touchstone or springboard to urge consideration what exactly is that “idea” that he stated “we have to defeat” if we are to properly deal with these endlessly repeated eruptions of mass-violence and war.
And again, If I may get your permission, I would like to post your last essay (The Creation of Christ), with links to your Substack. It would get exposure to whoever those readers are in the some 100 countries around the planet that visit my site regularly. I recently re-opened the “Comments” section on my site, but it again just got a lot of what they used to call “spam”, so I shut that down again as too much of a nuisance thing. But I would like to hear more from visitors as I have had some interesting conversations with such visitors over past decades.
Interesting, this current resurgence, so intense within our own societies, to bring down or overthrow liberal democracy and replace with either a Marxist collectivist or theocratic totalitarianism. Such widespread ignorance today of basic liberal democracy ideals, principles, and institutions (i.e. the 51% of US youth who favor socialism).
But also encouraging how so many diverse voices have emerged to continue battling for freedom. But even some of the more notable ones, like the well-known Michael Shellenberger types, repeatedly bemoan the loss of traditional religion and urge restoration of an undifferentiated Christianity (i.e. not getting the profound difference between Jesus and Paul’s Christ). Jordan Peterson does the same. It would be good if such people could become more aware of the profound differences between Jesus and Christ as two great icons who embody the best and worst of what has shaped humanity across the millennia.
Good to hear Bob, that your mind remains so strong and your spirit keeps you putting out your best work ever in clarifying what gave us such dominant public influences like Paul’s Christ.
I will post the recent summaries from AI of my recent site postings as sometimes they do a better job clarifying the points I am making and sometimes even surprise with insights.
Another post:
And just a note on how in the darkest times in history, surprising new voices arise to heroically fight the monsters of the era and take up the defense of freedom. Canada has suffered under “the most incompetent Prime Minister ever” in Justin Trudeau (Kevin O’Leary’s summary of the man who ruined Canada). Reports from our Royal Bank concluded that we lost $1 trillion investment over the Trudeau years as fossil fuel development was shut down.
It has been even worse here in BC as we have the far more incompetent David Eby as Premier who behind the backs of BC residents made secret deals to give native groups (5% of BC’s population) co-governing authority by adopting the DRIPA legislation from the UN as dominant over BC law. That gives the native groups who do not represent our population equal authority over land issues and these groups claim almost all of BC’s land. And they are trying to shut down such things as Alberta pipelines to our West Coast to ship fossil fuels to Asia.
Outcome? Investment and businesses and people are fleeing this province because fundamental property rights have been undermined. There are cases of people who cannot even renew and pay their mortgages because banks are unsure of who owns their property now. Insanity taken to extreme crazy as property rights are the most fundamental underpinning of our Western civilization as William Bernstein revealed in “Birth of Plenty”. Our economy has face-planted now and the population is slowly waking up to the mess this man has created here.
But in the midst of such madness this lady- Caroline Eliot- has emerged to run for the Conservative Party leadership, and talk about “you (OT book of Esther) have come to the kingdom for such a time as this”- she has emerged as the exactly right heroic figure to respond to the mess this province is now in. She did her PhD in political science, specifically on the topic of native self-governance in comparison with liberal democracy. I would love to read that. Almost like divine guidance of her studies, eh.
Keep giving us the best of Brinsmead as you seem to be ever peaking with your best yet. Like an athlete who never fades.
Another:
This article below is how China, for one example, has accomplished its publicly stated goal (Adam Corolla noted this in a recent podcast with UFC champion Randy Couture) of bringing down liberal democracy and replacing it with Chinese totalitarianism. China has been employing a “long march through the institutions of the West, notably educational institutions”. Just as the Russian KGB agent warned the west back in 1984 (a video Joe Rogan repeatedly plays on his podcast), that Russia was also playing the long-game march through western institutions and would not just indoctrinate new generations but would also do the “pre-bunking” thing that guests like Mike Benz revealed on Rogan, where using Western media, they would prepare the public to view anyone warning of Marxist plotting behind the scenes… to view such warnings as discredited “conspiracy theory”, something Western media, now gone woke progressive, do regularly.
Also, as claimed by that Russian, anyone protesting what was happening (i.e. the undermining of western institutions) would eventually be formally criminalized for promoting “dangerous disinformation… hate speech”. Amazing that all this has actually emerged now in our societies, from within. Britain is a notable example here with its current Labor government actually arresting, fining, even imprisoning citizens for online dissent of the ruling Labor party’s policies.
AI Overview
As of early 2026, there is intense, ongoing debate regarding the UK government’s, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, use of existing laws to arrest and prosecute individuals for online speech, with reports indicating a significant increase in arrests related to online dissent.
Here are the key details regarding the situation:
• Mass Arrests for Online Speech: Data indicates that over 12,000 people have been arrested in recent years for online communications, with enforcement continuing into 2025 and 2026. Reports indicate a rate of around 30 people arrested daily for speech-related issues.
• Targeting of Dissent and Comments: Critics argue that the government is utilizing these powers to suppress speech it dislikes, including criticism of the Labour government’s policies, protests, and views on issues such as migration.
• Legal Basis and “Two-Tier” Policing: Arrests are largely carried out under the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988 for messages deemed “grossly offensive” or “menacing,” and in some cases, protesters have been detained, such as those protesting against the Labour government’s stance on the conflict in Gaza. Concerns have been raised regarding “two-tier” policing, where some offensive speech is ignored while others are heavily policed.
• The Online Safety Act: The Online Safety Act (passed 2023, fully operational by 2025-2026) empowers the state to force social media companies to remove “legal but harmful” content, with potential fines of up to 10% of global revenue.
• Reaction and Review: Some government ministers have indicated a need to review these laws to allow police to focus on street crime, especially after high-profile arrests caused significant backlash. However, the government has continued to defend its approach, arguing that it is necessary to curb “hatred” and violence.
Critics often describe the current environment in the UK as a “full free speech crisis” and an “assault on free speech”
(End of AI Overview)
This also illustrates why “globalization” did not work as Nixon and others hoped it would. China did not democratize as hoped but used that to play its long game approach to undermine liberal democracy. Trump and his team seem to understand a lot of this and are trying to counter it.
The article:
“The CCP controls the most intimate elements of our life. Most Americans have no idea: We must work alongside our most trusted allies and friends to build strong, resilient supply chains away from China”, Representative Young Kim
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ccp-controls-intimate-elements-life-americans-idea
Another post:
Also remember the critical role that Taiwan plays in all this as the manufacturer of the chips that NVidia uses for AI and “who wins the AI battle will dominate the world”. Nvidia is the main creator and supplier of the chips and Taiwan is the main producer of those chips (at 90%).
AI Overview
Taiwan produces over 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, making it the dominant supplier for AI and high-performance chips used by companies like Nvidia.
AI Overview
Nvidia currently holds a dominant position in the AI chip market, controlling roughly 80% to 95% of the sector. Their GPUs have become the industry standard for both training and inferencing large-scale AI models.
Japan, as dependent on Taiwan for chips, also recognizes the danger of a Chinese takeover of Taiwan and hence recently said they would militarily pushback against any such takeover attempts by China.
AI Overview
As of late 2025 and early 2026, Japan has significantly sharpened its stance on Taiwan’s security, driven by extreme economic dependence on Taiwan for advanced semiconductors and the recognition that a Chinese takeover poses an existential risk to Japan.
Here are the key details regarding this shift:
• Explicit Security Link: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated in November 2025 that a Chinese attack or naval blockade of Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan.
• Military Intervention Stance: Under the 2015 Legislation for Peace and Security, a “survival-threatening situation” allows Japan to exercise collective self-defense and engage in military action. Takaichi indicated that in such a scenario, Japan could deploy Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to provide support.
• Strategic Rationale: Japan sees its food and energy security threatened by any conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The fall of Taiwan would break the “first island chain” and place Japan in a vulnerable position, which Takaichi has argued is equivalent to a military action against Japan itself.
• Reactions and Tension: These statements have caused severe diplomatic tension, with Beijing warning Japan of a “crushing” defeat if it interferes, according to reports from [The Globe and Mail](https://www.theglobe andmail.com). Despite these warnings, Japan’s 2025 Defense White Paper has highlighted, for the first time, concerns that Chinese drills may be rehearsals for an invasion, notes The Diplomat.
• Semiconductor Dependence: Japan is heavily reliant on Taiwan for chips, which comprise roughly two-thirds of global output, a factor driving this urgent shift in defense posture.
While some debate exists regarding the precise legal thresholds for intervention, the official rhetoric and strategic planning in Tokyo have moved away from strategic ambiguity towards a firmer commitment to regional deterrence.
(End of AI Overview)
Add other issues of closing the Taiwan Straights, etc. So, behind all the public smiling and shaking hands, many realize the issues at stake. A future of liberal democracy or Chinese totalitarianism. Hard to believe we are back in Cold War 2 after many thought the collapse of the Soviet Union ended that collectivist threat.
Another post:
Others rightly warn that “the idea” driving that totalitarianism was never defeated (also General Nagata’s warning). What Bob and I have been doing over past decades is just our small contribution to making clear exactly what the “idea” is. As historians like Arthur Herman have shown (i.e. “The Idea of Decline in Western History”), so also Richard Landes and his colleagues in apocalyptic millennial studies, the “idea” is exactly what Paul created in his Christ myth- i.e. those main themes in apocalyptic millennialism that are more easily grasped as the “salvation through destruction” complex of themes.
I have fuller lists of the main bad ideas in that complex (see my “Bad ideas” lists)- i.e. (1) an original paradise ruined by bad people committing an original error/sin (this is the foundational plank in the complex). (2) Life since declining toward worsening state, toward apocalypse. (3) Salvation through demanded sacrifice and purging of the evil threat (i.e. Zoroastrian purging by fire/molten metal) so (4) a Savior (“Madhi, Isa”) can return to restore the lost paradise or install a new utopia. All “salvation through violent destruction”.
The book of Revelation illustrates these themes most graphically.
Thanks also to Herb for putting us on to his research that some 95% of human behavior is subconsciously influenced. That is also Carl Jung’s point- the influence of the archetypes of the collective human subconscious.
AI Overview
Neuroscientific and psychological studies suggest up to 95% of human behavior is driven by the subconscious mind—a “hidden engine” of habits, emotions, and automated decisions. This unconscious processing handles roughly 11 million bits of data per second, whereas the conscious mind only manages about 40.
How the Subconscious Dictates Behavior
• Habit & Automation: Routine tasks, such as driving, brushing teeth, or emotional reactions to stimuli, are controlled by the subconscious.
• Neural Pathways: The subconscious operates based on neural pathways formed through past experiences, beliefs, and emotions.
• The “Autopilot” Effect: Many decisions and actions occur without active, conscious awareness.
Why 95%?
• Efficiency: The brain uses the subconscious to save energy by automating repetitive actions.
• Information Overload: The subconscious processes vast amounts of information, allowing us to respond quickly without conscious deliberation.
Reprogramming the Subcontractor
Because the subconscious is shaped by childhood experiences and repetitive patterns, old or negative programming can drive behavior. Change is possible by actively utilizing tools like positive affirmations, visualization, and consistent behavioral repetition, as described in studies cited by Neuroba and community discussions on Reddit.
Impact on Daily Life
• Consumer Choices: The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) highlights that AI and marketers often target the subconscious because consumers may not know the real reasons behind their purchases.
• Habit Changes: Breaking habits requires conscious intervention to override established, automatic, subconscious pathways
Another AI Overview
Carl Jung viewed the subconscious (or unconscious) as a dynamic, vast, and “generative” force, not merely a repository of repressed memories. He believed it shapes reality by directing behavior, emotions, and decisions without conscious awareness, often using archetypes— innate universal patterns— to influence life experiences, a concept further explained by Verywell Mind.
Key Aspects of Jung’s View on Subconscious Influence:
• Collective Unconscious: Beyond the personal, Jung proposed a shared, inherited, and universal unconscious containing archetypes (e.g., the Shadow, the Persona, the Hero), which influence individuals throughout their lives.
• “Making the Unconscious Conscious”: Jung asserted that until one makes the unconscious conscious, it directs life, and the individual calls it “fate”. He believed in bringing hidden aspects (the “shadow”) to light to gain control over life’s trajectory.
• Dreams and Symbols: Jung believed the unconscious communicates through dreams and symbols, which, when analyzed, can reveal hidden conflicts and offer guidance.
• Individuation: The goal of life is to become a complete, “whole” self by integrating the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mind.
• Compensatory Nature: The unconscious tries to balance the conscious mind, often providing deeper insights and perspectives that the ego ignores or refuses to recognize.
• The Persona and Shadow: The “persona” is the social mask individuals wear, while the “shadow” constitutes the hidden or repressed parts of the personality that can influence behaviour unexpectedly.
How the Subconscious Operates according to Jung:
• The Shadow: Jung believed that people tend to project their own negative, unacknowledged traits onto others, a concept analyzed in depth by The SAP.
• Intuition and Creativity: The subconscious is a source of intuition and new, creative information.
• Complexes: Emotional, personal, and sometimes irrational patterns can “possess” the individual, influencing their behaviour.
(End of AI Overview)
Then people like Kristian Niemietz (“Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”), using social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s research, show us that most people respond with “emotional satisfaction” when choosing their beliefs, not using rational evidence to the contrary. Others add good insight on the psychology behind “suicidal empathy” such as social psychologist Gad Saad as on his latest Joe Rogan appearance. Also, we note how woke progressivism with DEI has embraced all this and taken the US Democratic party into this madness.
And check out this Instagram posting by Konstantin Kisin of the “Triggernometry” podcast, who with his fellow comedian host are among the clearest voices today defending liberal democracy. He has an impressive skill in summarizing the issues and challenges to liberal democracy today, what with his past in Russia (immigrated with his parents from there). These new alternative news media are simply outstanding for their presentation of issues and news as traditional news media have discredited themselves with so much lying and leftist propaganda over past decades.
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DYUI0LFsaEO/
Another Post:
Note that the divinely required “violent purging” in “salvation through destruction” narratives, in order to prepare the way for the return of a messiah and restoration of lost paradise, that this drives the Marxist violent revolutions as Herman pointed out in his research on Declinism, the “most dominant and influential idea today”, as he argues.
So also, this is central to Islamic theocracy crusades as in the Iranian leadership and hence their pursuit of nuclear weapons which Trump is right to state they will use immediately and hold all hostage. Rubio gets that this “theology” is a key driver of this theocracy in Iran. Few in media acknowledge this is the “idea” driving this modern version of theocratic totalitarianism. It also drives Marxist collectivism, as also the other modern variants in woke progressivism, etc.
Most people embrace the same old complex of basic ideas/beliefs/themes that are repeated endlessly in our narratives due to the unchanged theological core that glues “bad ideas” complexes together. Historical Jesus went directly after that theological core, beginning with his first public presentation in the synagogue. When the Jews listening to him realized that he was rejecting their core belief in a vengeful, retaliatory God, they were enraged and tried to kill him. The Jewish leaders eventually succeeded in having him put to death upon realizing thata his protest against sacrifice was driven by his assault on that core theology that supported the sacrifice industry and everything else in their rule.
Paul understood just what Jesus had done in rejecting the old theology of a vengeful, retaliatory God and then intentionally (my conclusion) confronted that “error” of Jesus in Romans 12:17-20 and “corrected” it by re-establishing the theology of vengeful, retaliatory God at the core of his gospel of Christ. He knew from his conversations with James and Peter what Jesus had taught and believing that it was “damnable heresy”, he confronted it in constructing his Christ mythology as entirely opposite to the new theology of Jesus.
Another post (who commented on my conversations with varied AI):
Tim, it’s a strange time to be alive on this planet with all this fascinating technology emerging. Especially engaging this “tool” of AI. That gives one the uncanny sense of talking with a person who pushes back with arguments, sometimes pats on the back with praise, says polite things, etc., knowing its not human but has that “feel”.
It was interesting to get the evaluation from Grok that Chat and other AI “lean left progressive” which is what Musk explained to Rogan. He countered that they were trying to program Grok to avoid the “woke virus”. Gad Saad on the latest Rogan episode discussed his new book on “Suicidal empathy” which is big in the justice policies coming out of woke progressive regimes, notably in some US cities.
We have the same wokeness infecting our justice systems at provincial and even national level, permitting skin color to determine treatment in criminal justice, not character or behavioral record. Hence, in Kelowna for example, a small group of offenders have been responsible for a majority of crimes over the past years and are becoming more violent over time but repeatedly released under “catch and release” approaches. Harms business areas and who are these judges letting them go again and again. That discourages police from doing their jobs.
AI Overview
Data from 2025 and early 2026 confirms that a small, highly active group of chronic, or “prolific,” offenders is responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in Kelowna, with several instances highlighting hundreds of police files linked to just a handful of individuals.
Key Findings on Prolific Offenders in Kelowna (2025-2026):
• High-Volume Offenders: In 2024, a group of just 15 individuals was responsible for 1,335 police files, averaging 89 files per person or a new police incident every four days.
• Specific Examples of Escalating Violence: A report highlighted that 15 chronic offenders are responsible for a large portion of crime, with one specific offender (Subject C) accumulating 70 police files in just seven months in 2025, with increasing violent behavior including weapons-related assaults and robberies.
• “Criminal Ecosystem”: The distinction between property thieves and violent criminals has blurred, as chronic offenders are increasingly engaging in both, causing high levels of social disorder.
• Revolving Door Issues: Despite numerous arrests, many of these individuals are quickly released, leading to frustration from local police and city officials.
Current Initiatives and Response:
• Targeted Enforcement: In late 2025 and 2026, the province launched a pilot program targeting 5 specific prolific property offenders in Kelowna with enhanced monitoring.
• Gang Enforcement: The Kelowna Gang Enforcement Team began operations in January 2026, focusing on removing weapons and drugs from these high-risk offenders.
• Results: As of March 2026, provincial funding for special investigations resulted in over 456 new police files, 121 arrests, and dozens of weapons and drug seizures, according to an RCMP report.
• Bail Reform: The city continues to advocate for stricter bail laws, citing a four-fold increase in non-compliance with bail conditions among these offenders in the past five years.
While some metrics, such as property crime, have seen slight decreases in 2025 due to these interventions, the concentration of crime within a small group of highly active, often violent individuals remains a major challenge.
(End of AI Overview)
I appreciate what Saad and others are doing at the psychological/sociological level on these things. Bob and I are probing deeper to the archetypal roots behind all this (I have never felt comfortable with this word “archetype”, but whatever- model, prototype, forerunner, etc.).
We focus on ideas at the deeper level of emerging from past history and persistently embraced as fundamental narrative themes. We believe that is how we get to the “idea” that General Nagata said we have to defeat if we are to prevent these endless eruptions of violence such as the crusade to establish the Caliphate that spread out of Syria in 2014. The same theological idea drives the current Iranian issue. Nagata said that “we don’t even know what the idea is”. Oh yes we do. The problem is that many don’t want to face the idea and change it. When Jesus tried that in his first public presentation of his stunning new theology, that audience of Jews, as they realized just what he was saying, then tried to murder him.
Touching the root theology as Jesus did, incites something very primal in people, something long ingrained over previous millennia that gives emotional satisfaction and people do not want to let go of. Hence the murderous rage.
(End of posts to discussion group)
Bob’s article on “The Creation of Christ: Christendom, the domain of Christ”, Bob Brinsmead, May 12, 2026
The Greek worldview called Hellenism produced an enormous amount of imaginative tradition about the life of the gods in the heavenly realm. This included legends of their interactions with humans, including having sexual liaisons with them to produce an elite class of godmen or godwomen called heroes. The only thing that Hellenism ever proved about heavenly things was that it was a mythical place which was a product of the human imagination.
The one thing which stands out in the history of Hellenism is that the divine birth was its premier mythology. This was the major factor which determined who were the elite with the divine right to govern the common people. This did not change when Rome succeeded the old Grecian Empire, because the Greek language and culture and conquered the Roman Empire. It did not change when Constantine began the process of making Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire with the virgin-born Christ as the ruler of Christendom. Adopting the classical Hellenist mythology of the virgin birth of Christ was all part of the Church’s Hellenizing process that finally made the Christian religion more completely Hellenized than any rival religion. As Helmut Koester, a recognized authority on Hellenism, has written:
The theocracy which was forged by the Emperors of Rome and the Bishops of the Christian Church became known as Christendom, meaning the domain of Christ. It proved to be one of the most ruthless totalitarian systems of thought control and suppression of human rights in human history. The reign of this mythical Christ began with Christians burning books and documents of dissenting voices, including other writings that never made it into the NT canon. It was Christians who burnt and destroyed the great Library of Alexandria which contained an irreplaceable record of the learning of mankind. With the denunciation of all things in opposition to the rule of the mythical Christ, Western civilization began a retreat toward the Dark Ages, a long era of superstition and ignorance, with healers boring holes in the heads of sick people to let the devil out. Christian civilization began losing even basic architectural skills.
Hellenism’s cult of the divine birth remained intact in the Empire’s conversion from Pagan Rome to Christian Rome.
The change from Pagan Rome to Christian Rome appears to be an enormous change, but there was really no change at all.
When the Roman Empire exchanged the many virgin myths of paganism for the one virgin myth of Hellenized Christianity, what did Western civilization have to lose? The uncomfortable answer is that it had a lot to lose in the matter of religious tolerance. Christian Rome was destined to make many more martyrs than Pagan Rome martyred.
Given the intellectual tools of Plato’s dualism and Philo’s skillful use of shadowy types and allegories to interpret history, Christian apologists such as Justin and Origen responded to the pagan critics of Christianity such as Celsus and Trypho by saying that the Christian religion was teaching nothing essentially different to pagan Hellenism. Instead of being such a complex matter, the conversion from pagan Rome to Christian Rome was made to appear almost as simple as changing the name of pagan gods such as Dionysus, Asclepius or Attis to Jesus Christ. Even the popular birthday celebration for the pagan god Attis on December 25 became the day to celebrate the birth of Christ. One virgin born hero called Christ was presented as the heavenly Form of all the divinely born heroes of Greek antiquity.
It would be all too easy to say that in the case of Christianity, the problem started when Constantine issued an edict at the Council of Nicaea that anyone teaching contrary to the Nicene Creed would be put to death. A thoughtful reading of the NT, however, will show that some of the first Christians used far more serious threats than Constantine used to convince people to accept the heavenly Christ. Take for example, the threat- theology that Christ was “coming in flaming fire to take vengeance on them who do not acknowledge God or obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”(2 Thessalonians 1:6-9) Take as another example the Church’s teaching of the eternal torment in Hell for all who are not baptized into the cult of the Christ. There are many such evidences of evangelizing the Christian faith against this background of a terrifying threat-theology. Voltaire is reputed to have quipped that if we start out saying that God will severely punish those who don’t believe what we believe, we will end up being willing to assassinate those who don’t believe what we believe.
Long before there was a Christian Inquisition using physical thumbscrews on people suspected of heretical thinking, early Christians were using the intellectual thumbscrews of a threat-theology to gain converts.
The Greek Vertical Order
Plato was the philosophical father of both Hellenism and Western civilization. We have already seen how his dualism of heavenly Forms and earthly shadows severely devalued the created world in comparison to the meta-physical heaven. To this dualism Plato added social dualism of the elite over the common people. The elite were those whom Plato said were divinely qualified to rule and govern. In this Greek worldview, common people were too ignorant to govern, so they should listen and obey the elite who were divinely appointed to govern them.
More than a century before the rise of Hellenism with the reign of Alexander the Great, the period of classical Greece flirted with democracy, but that movement did not have the legs to withstand the far more popular wave of Hellenism which arrived in the fourth century BCE. This was a religiously orientated Hellenism. It was this mythical element of Hellenism which we need to understand if we are to follow the trail of Plato’s ideal government of the elite in subsequent history.
Hellenism had its pantheon of the twelve Olympian gods of Greece – Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemas, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, Hestia or Dionysus. To these Greek Olympian gods, Hellenism added a host of ancient gods as well as new ones from Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor – Osiris, Isis, Tammuz, Attis, Adonis, Cybele, and Sarpedon, to name some of the most prominent ones.
These heavenly deities of Greece were obviously nothing more than creations of the human imagination. We could say that their storytellers must have been gazing into a deep well to see these gods because what they saw were all too obviously only a reflection of themselves. Except for calling these gods “the immortals,” they looked more like giant humans who were just as inclined to be proud, envious, greedy, jealous, angry, lustful and promiscuous as humans, and not always the easiest characters to propitiate if humans gave them any reason to become offended.
The most important thing to know, however, is that these gods and goddesses of the Greek imagination frequently mingled with humans, and more seriously, had sexual relations with them from time to time.
Zeus, the father of the Greek gods, must have been a lusty old fellow who slept with enough women, most of whom were virgins, to sire at least one hundred human sons and daughters. These mythically divine offspring were qualified to become the Platonic elites whom the Greeks called heroes. This is how Hellenism’s divine right of kings originated.
The names of some of Zeus’s progeny from his sexual encounters with humans were Dionysus, Asclepius (more accurately, a grandson of Zeus), Helen of Troy (the most beautiful woman of antiquity), Heracles, Apollo, and Alexander the Great. Those who claimed entitle entitlement to be among the elite included not just the immediate human progeny of the gods, but their lineage.
It was also a feature of Hellenism that anyone who performed great deeds, displayed more than ordinary abilities, or possessed remarkable wisdom would be suspected of being divinely born, for how else could such exceptional qualities in a human originate? In this way Plato was counted among those who were virgin born, and so too were Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. If Don Bradman had played cricket or Babe Ruth had played baseball in this period, their prowess would have generated rumors of them being divinely conceived. Once the hero status of a divine birth or some divine inspiration was acquired, then the luster of being classed among the elite could be retained by the recipient’s lineage.
Hellenism was a virgin birth cult, or more broadly, a cult of the divine birth and all those who were in some way divinely inspired to be above ordinary humanity. In Jewish Hellenism BCE, this divine inspiration came to include the legendry 70 scholars who were said to have translated the Hebrew scripture into the Greek Septuagint version within a legendary 70 days. The translation actually took over a century to complete. In other words, the religious claim of a miraculously inspired translation of the 70 scholars was just as mythical as all the claims which Hellenism made for its divine births and special writing inspiration which created heroes such as Homo, the blind storyteller and poet. We could include the myth of special inspiration which the Christians claimed for those who wrote anything, no matter how mistaken, in holy Scripture.
“Christianity became deeply enmeshed in the syncretistic process [the borrowing and merging with other mythologies and religions], and this may very well have been its particular strength. Christianity began as a Jewish sect with missionary ambitions, but it did not simply arise out of Judaism, nor directly out of the ministry of Jesus. On the basis of these beginnings, however, Christianity probably more than the other religions of its time, was able to adapt itself to a variety of cultural and religious currents and to appropriate numerous foreign elements until it was ready to succeed as a world religion – thoroughly syncretistic in every way.” (History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age, pp.166-7).
By the fourth century of the Common Era, the Roman Empire’s rulers could see the political advantages of monotheism over polytheism. Polytheism was appearing to be less tenable due to the increasing knowledge of a Universe which could only have a single Creator. Still dominated by the Greek language and a Greek worldview, the Roman Empire was ready to embrace a thoroughly Hellenized version of monotheism called Christianity.
Hellenism was built on the religio- political philosophy that only the elite were divinely qualified to rule, and the common people had the duty to obey. This meant that Hellenism did not and could not create an egalitarian or horizontal human order in which all human beings were equal. The governments of the Greek and Roman Empires were oppressive regimes which granted few human rights to the common people. Human slavery was maintained as an important feature of social order.
When we look at the Greek language and culture called Hellenism, we need to acknowledge its rich and valuable contribution to human history. The movement called Hellenism which arose in the fourth century BCE enriched the family of nations with literature, art, architecture, libraries, love of learning, philosophy, drama, theatre, poetry, science, music, and a gymnasium culture to enrich the human condition. It many ways Hellenism was like a BCE Enlightenment that lived on to become the culture of the Roman Empire and Western civilization. We need to say this because this paper has concentrated on an aspect of Hellenism which has not elevated but rather degraded its achievements.
There was this mythical aspect of Hellenism that corrupted its culture and philosophy of government. It failed to create an egalitarian or horizontal order in which all human beings are equal. In ruthlessly suppressing the human rights of common humanity, the Hellenistic Empires of Greece and Rome suppressed the progress of all humanity. What triumphed in the march of Hellenism was the divine rights of kings and rulers to distort history as if it was the story of their triumphs in the drama of domination, tribalism and xenophobia which exists in the animal kingdom.
Yet the main critique of this paper is not so much directed at the civil governments which were corrupted by the mythology of Hellenism. It is directed at the Hellenist mythology which created the pecking order of the animal kingdom. This did not change when the Christian religion took the first steps in united with the Empire in 325 CE. The Church had become an institution ruled exclusively by a hierarchy of Bishops who had used their myth of Christ to lock every common person out from having any voice in the governance of the Church. As it was in the civil government of Rome, the Church itself mirrored the pecking order of the animal kingdom rather than a truly human order in which every man and woman was created equal.
Religious intolerance and martyrdom did not end but it dramatically increased after Pagan Rome became Christian Rome.
In his recent book, The Triumph of Christianity, Bart D. Ehrman draws attention to an astonishing historical fact: pagans, being polytheists, were much more inclined to be tolerant than monotheists. With a plethora of gods always on offer, pagans had to be tolerant and were generally welcoming of new gods. The Roman Empire itself was inclined to be tolerant of all religions and required only that its subjects acknowledge its own cult of Caesar worship in a public act of burning incense to the divine Emperor. Rome was tolerant enough to grant an exemption to the Jews who would rather die than obey this requirement.
The theocracy which was forged by the Emperors of Rome and the Bishops of the Christian Church became known as Christendom, meaning the domain of Christ. It proved to be one of the most ruthless totalitarian systems of thought control and suppression of human rights in human history. The reign of this mythical Christ began with Christians burning books and documents of dissenting voices, including other writings that never made it into the NT canon. It was Christians who burnt and destroyed the great Library of Alexandria which contained an irreplaceable record of the learning of mankind. With the denunciation of all things in opposition to the rule of the mythical Christ, Western civilization began a retreat toward the Dark Ages, a long era of superstition and ignorance, with healers boring holes in the heads of sick people to let the devil out. Christian civilization began losing even basic architectural skills.
Jesus arose from the common people as voice for the common people.
“Jesus needs to be given back his humanity” says David Galston of the Jesus Seminar (Embracing the Human Jesus, p.6). Thomas Sheehan also says, “Christianity tends to overlook the fact that, exceptional though he proved to be, Jesus was a young Jewish man of his times, as mortal and as fallible as anyone before him or after him (The First Coming, p. 32). This is basically the consensus arising from the search for the historical Jesus which has been going on now for more than two hundred years.
Here are the solid reasons we can say that Jesus was a real son of man in the order of humanity where everyone is created equal:
Firstly, he was the first-born son of two parents classed as common people from the Jewish province of Galilee. That is what the apostolic congregation at Jerusalem always believed, what his brother James who was the leader of that congregation always believed, and what the whole family clan of Jesus always believed. Even conservative Christian scholars such as James Dunn have conceded these historical facts about the Jerusalem church or congregation. (See Unity and Diversity in the New Testament; bobbrinsmead.com What the Scholars are Saying)
When Jesus was crucified by the Romans, it was a cruel form of execution reserved only for the lower class of people.
Secondly, when Jesus began his public ministry as a sage or teacher of wisdom, he called himself the son of man. The Jesus scholar Geza Vermes has shown that in the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus, the son of man could not have been a title but only a modest reference to himself. It certainly could not have meant no man’s son!
Thirdly, in response to his teaching mission, it was said that “the common people heard him gladly” (Mark 12:37). The ruling elite responded to his disdainfully: “These people who know nothing about the Law are cursed”(John 7: 49). That remark was very typical of the low regard in which the common people were held by the ruling elite in that age.
Fourthly, in his frequent public dining appearances, Jesus practiced what John Dominic Crossan calls an open commensality. Crossan defines this as “the symbol and embodiment of radical egalitarianism, of an absolute equality of people that denies the validity of any discrimination between them and negates any hierarchy among them.” (New Testament Solutions).
Jesus was noted for frequently dining with “tax collectors and sinners,” a term used to describe people of low social repute. Pharisees and people of a higher social rank were sometimes present at dinners with Jesus too. This is where Jesus practiced his open commensality by disregarding all social rank and treating all guests as equals.
Fifthly when his disciples became caught up in a dispute as to who among them would occupy the highest seats of greatness, Jesus said that their thinking reflected the Gentiles who called themselves benefactors while lording it over others. In the human order which Jesus called the rule of God, Jesus said, “you are all brothers,” and that greatness is not achieved by gaining dominion over others, but by serving them. “The greatest of all is the one who is the servant of all” (See Mathew 18:1-4; 20:25,26; 23:11; Mark 9:32-37; 10:42-45; Luke 22:25).
Sixthly, in the so-called Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus is featured as outlining the charter of his teachings to “a large crowd of his disciples” (Luke 6;17), Jesus said: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Mathew 5; 13,14). The people to whom Jesus was speaking these words were literally poor according to Luke’s version of the discourse (Ch. 6:20), rather than “poor in spirit” as Matthew has it (5:3). Most of the audience would have been illiterate just as 97% of the general population were illiterate in the first century.
Jesus’ stunning high appraisal of the common people turned on its head the low regard in which the common people were held by the ruling elite in the Hellenistic world in the time of Jesus.
It was these egalitarian features, so prominent in the life and teachings of Jesus, which inspired Thomas Jefferson, a serious student of the historical Jesus, to write those immortal words in the Preamble of the American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
Jesus taught that the kingdom of God was already present in the world.
Jesus viewed the kingdom of God as already present and “spread out upon the face of the earth” (The Gospel of Thomas). He mocked the fallacy of continually looking for signs for the coming of a violent apocalyptic kingdom while refusing to recognize the presence of the kingdom of God already working like yeast in the dough and sprouting up like mustard seed in the fields. (Luke 17:20-21: Luke 13:19-21). Among the Jews, yeast was regarded as a symbol of sin, and mustard was a detested weed. Using these biting metaphors, Jesus depicted that the presence of God’s kingdom was very unwelcome to his opponents.
When Jesus addressed God as Abba [dearest Papa] Father, it was not as if he was talking to a God who was far away in heaven, as Matthew has it in his gloss. Luke more correctly leaves off the words in heaven when Jesus refers to God as his Father. Jesus teaches that the Father is here, with us and in us, nearer than our breathe or heartbeat. He is not “an elsewhere God” as Michael Morwood puts it (God is Near). Jesus believed that God was not in some place called heaven more than God is in this place called earth, nor would God be more present in some future time more than God is present now. As Stephen Mitchell puts it, “Jesus taught one thing only: presence. Ultimate reality, the luminous, compassionate intelligence of the universe, is not somewhere else, in some heaven light-years away…it is always right here, right now” (The Gospel According to Jesus, p.10).
This leads us in the direction of thinking of the One “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:20) as an inner light given to “everyone born into this world (John 1:9). This presence of God with us and in us is never a coercive force, but a quiet influence of suasion that respects human freedom. This is not the government of a monarchical dictator, but a gentle Spirit promoting the truest kind of human freedom.
(End of Brinsmead article)