See at bottom of this new opening section Joe Rogan’s recent interview of Chase Hughes. Hughes begins the discussion by commenting on his recent experience with DMT. He says that when people doing DMT find themselves in the other realm opened by that experience, similar to the NDE experience of another realm, that most say the other realm is a “million” or more times more real than this material realm. Inexpressibly more real. Like NDEs, people taking DMT also state that words fail to communicate that reality. And it cannot be dismissed as hallucination.
Hughes and Rogan then get into the common DMT discovery of “oneness/connectedness” underlying reality and humanity. Also, interesting discussion of the shame common to most people based on a personal sense of imperfection and the resulting “performative” displays in response to mask inner shame. Does this help understand the “virtue-signaling” so common today, people seeking status and acceptance with some group, status as morally superior?
See below more on apocalyptic- its origin, its development, its domination of the narratives of Western history (both religious and secular/ideological), and its devastating outcomes in ruining lives and societies. How one man transformed the deformed theology at the core of the apocalyptic complex of beliefs.
Note on “Undifferentiated” in reference to Christianity (i.e. not distinguishing major differences/opposites) Wendell Krossa
A major problem that this site outlines is Paul’s merger of Jesus with Christ- two entirely opposite messages and complexes of themes, beliefs. Here are some lists of the main contradictions between Jesus and Paul…
“The Christ myth buried the singularly profound insight of Historical Jesus. The project to recover that profound insight involves ‘separating diamonds from dung’” (Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy).
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=8664
“Notable contradictions between Jesus and Paul’s Christ (updated 2025), Wendell Krossa”
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=14451
To continue the embrace and promotion of an undifferentiated Christianity is to continue the cognitive dissonance from this greatest oxymoron ever created- i.e. “Jesus Christ”- an oxymoron that holds entirely opposite messages in one entity where the bad has dominated the good, and thereby distorted and even buried the good, leaving “bad cloaked as good, as divine”. I’m riffing off Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s point that the “diamonds” of Jesus’ message were “buried under the dung” of Paul’s Christology. (See, for example, James Tabor’s “Paul and Jesus” for comment on how Paul’s Christ myth has dominated Western civilization and overwhelmed the very contrary message and themes of Historical Jesus.)
An example of the confusion from not differentiating fundamental things that differ: Harold Ellens exposed this issue well in unmasking an epitome example of “evil cloaked as good, as divine”,
“The crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’.” Blunt, but helpful for clarity on critically important distinctions/differentiation.
And the result of leaving the bad in the mix, undifferentiated?
The history of Christian violence and war (i.e. historian Richard Landes’ research, along with others, on how Paul’s “apocalyptic millennial” Christology has influenced Marxist/collectivist revolutions, Nazism, and now drives environmental alarmism).
(Insert note: As stated in sections below, this site is not anti-Christianity but committed to properly honoring the profound “non-religious” discovery of Historical Jesus that God was unconditional love, a revolutionary insight that has been distorted and buried by the highly conditional religion of Paul’s “Christ-ianity”. We inherited Paul’s conditional religion instead of unconditional “Jesus-ianity”. That was Jefferson’s point.)
The unconditional message and themes of Historical Jesus inspired the best of the human spirit with (1) nontribal inclusion of all, equally, (2) non-dominating relating (“no lording over others but mutual serving”), and (3) non-punitive, non-destructive treatment of human failure (qualified by holding all fully responsible for personal behavior- i.e. “go and sin no more”, with incarceration of violent offenders, but under full unlimited forgiveness and restorative inclusion as in treat offenders humanely while incarcerated). These themes subsequently affirmed contemporary liberal democracy principles and laws that protect the rights and freedoms of all, equally, along with representative institutions that restrain elite power and uphold the primacy of state departments/agencies serving citizens, etc.
Here’s my argument:
With nearly 3 centuries of research from the “Search for Historical Jesus”, the “Jesus Seminar”, and “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel, we now have the outlines, more clearly, of a major difference between the message of Jesus and Paul’s Christ. And we have two millennia of evidence on the outcomes from each.
I would add: Don’t give too much heed to the defensiveness of AI arguing for “the stability” of the slow reform approach of religious traditions, not wanting to disturb the present state. What “stability” was there last century when the Christ themes of “apocalyptic millennialism” influenced the mass-death from Marxist revolutions, Nazism, and now the mass-ruin of societies from environmental alarmism (i.e. climate apocalypse). Not people to grant us any respite, the apocalyptic prophets, seeing the fading of their climate panic, are now ginning up the next apocalyptic scenario in AI becoming Terminator.
Do what Historical Jesus did- Go to the core of the problem that is the wrathful, retaliatory, dominating, and punitively destroying God at the core of religious traditions. Reject that monster as Jesus did and replace it with the unconditional God that was “his greatest contribution to the history of ideas” and the single most profound idea ever presented to human consciousness. Then let that death/rebirth or disintegration/reintegration of core theology work its way through the rest of human belief systems and narratives both religious and secular/ideological.
No religion has ever communicated “the stunning new theology of Jesus” to humanity, the inexpressible wonder of an unconditional God. Most religious people prefer to defensively tinker at the periphery of religous traditions with no serious consideration or embrace of the Jesus transformation that would liberate human consciousness as nothing ever before. All religion is necessarily conditional in fundamental nature and orientation.
We need to take seriously what Richard Landes warned of how apocalyptic millennial ideas can carry societies to mass-death outcomes (e.g. the Nazi case), how the wrathful, destroying God behind apocalyptic millennialism influences human minds, emotions, motivations, and behavior. As psychologists Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo have warned, bad theology energizes people to fanaticism and violence. Until we “defeat the idea” that incites and drives human violence, as General Nagata urged, then we will continue to see repeated eruptions of the same horrific violence and war of past millennia. (See more below on apocalyptic)
I just watched this episode of Gutfeld with guest VP J. D. Vance. It illustrates the critical need for clarification of the profound difference between “Christ-ianity” and “Jesus-ianity”.
“Gutfeld! 6⧸16⧸26 Greg Gutfeld FULL END SHOW | ᗷᖇEᗩKIᑎG ᑎEᗯS TRUMP June 16, 2026”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuFWtm-bHVA
Gutfeld brought up an interesting point that within all people there is a desire for a “spiritual connection” that raises the question in people of where we came from, of what or who created us. Yes, and when we deny this to people, he continued, then we get data showing huge levels of depression and mental illness because life is without meaning.
But, in the larger discussion that the panel participants had with US Vice President J. D. Vance in this episode, the choice of options that give humans meaning was not made clear. Our choices are not between materialist nothing or the traditional Christian religion. Human choices to fulfill our impulse to meaning need finer honing and clarifying. We have better options or alternatives.
Gutfeld rightly adds that the underlying issue is about “meaning”. However, the VP’s recommendation for the restoration of undifferentiated Christianity confuses that point on meaning. People recommending the revival of undifferentiated Christianity to resolve the issue of widespread meaninglessness, depression, and nihilism today, do not acknowledge and explain why much of Christian history has been so violent.
This gets to Bob Brinsmead’s point on the historical outcomes from the loyal followers of Paul’s Christ, or “Christ-ianity”. The all-too-common consequences of loyalty to Paul’s Christ above loyalty to the message of Historical Jesus was illustrated well in the John Calvin episode. Calvin was zealous to defend the Christ and, hence, put fellow Christian theologian Michael Servetus to the fire for a tortuous death (i.e. felt obligation to kill the false prophet, heretic).
Other Christians in Geneva argued with Calvin to honor Jesus’ message and “love his enemy”. But Calvin replied that his loyalty to the Christ took precedence. He was obligated to uphold the honor of Christ (i.e. faithfulness to Christology) and that led to him ignoring and dismissing the actual message of Jesus.
That nails the problem with Christianity across past millennia. As Brinsmead says, that Christian loyalty to the Christ resulted in the horrific history of early Council violence, Crusades and slaughter of Muslims and Jews, Inquisitions with the torture and murder of heretics and witches, and religious wars. If Christians had followed the precepts of Historical Jesus to “love their enemies because God does” that violence would have not happened. It was inspired by Paul’s Christ themes.
We see the evidence of this also in Marxist/collectivist revolutionary violence, in Nazi industrial murder of Jews and others, all driven by the “apocalyptic millennial” themes of the Christ.
If we had inherited solely the ideas/beliefs/themes of “Jesus-ianity” and not “Christ-ianity”, the history of Western civilization would have been radically different. Continuing the oxymoronic merger of “Jesus Christ” does not solve anything but perpetuates the cognitive dissonance that has been there from the start in Christianity when Paul rejected the new unconditional love theology of Jesus (see, for example, Romans 12: 17-20 where he states his re-affirmation of divine vengeance and retaliatory destruction of unbelievers/enemies, also in his second Thessalonian letter).
But yes, props to the many who find ways to use their Christian faith, to focus on the good parts and downplay the nastier features, and make it work to help them function as better people. Go Christians, go. Many are my friends, family, and neighbors. Good people.
This site is not anti-religion or anti-Christianity. Shock, eh. When you look at how repeatedly I go after Paul’s Christ myth.
My argument is along the line of Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s “diamonds buried in dung” point. Make a clear differentiation between what is good in the Christian tradition and what went off the rails and actually distorted and buried the good element that is the message of Historical Jesus.
Christianity is no different from all religious traditions that do not represent or present properly to people the true nature of God as unconditional love. Religious beliefs and conditions have all buried that most basic and critical insight/truth. Unconditional theology versus conditional theology.
This is a necessary point of clarification that has to be made if we are to defeat “the idea” that drives so much that is wrong in our world. Argue for a clearly differentiated Christian religion and not for the revival of the undifferentiated religion that changes nothing and continues to distort and bury the “stunning new theology” and unconditional message of Historical Jesus.
Added note:
“Behavior based on belief”. The dominant ideas/beliefs/themes that we embrace powerfully affect how we think, feel, are motivated/energized, and then act or behave. The core themes of the Jesus message affirm the principles of liberal democracy and its representative institutions that protect the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally- i.e. (1) the anti-tribal inclusion of all humans as family, (2) non-domination in human relating (no lording over others but mutual serving as in government institutions that constrain elite/bureaucratic power and put citizens rights and freedoms first), and (3) no “eye for eye” punitive justice but humane treatment of human failure while holding all people fully responsible for their actions (i.e. incarceration of violent people, no unworkable pacifism as in the suicidal empathy of “catch and release”, etc.).
Now, getting into the main points of this new section. (Note that this material is presented “blog-style” with comment, inserts, notes, etc. A whole lotta bobbing and weaving, then continuing with main points. At least that’s my excuse for the way material is presented here.)
Never lose sight of the big background story of the cosmos, life, and especially humanity and our long-term trajectory from an animal past to human civilization. These are the fundamental elements in the overall story of reality as a trajectory of constant rise toward something ever better than what was before. The three long-term trajectories are the background for a solid evidence-based narrative and hope for a better future, despite the problems that still exist everywhere.
This is about countering the horrific fallacy of apocalyptic mythology that has produced endless fear, anxiety, despair, nihilism, and even violence across history.
We have the insights and evidence for an entirely different and better narrative of reality and life. Insights from wisdom sages and evidence from the best scholars/historians on the true state of reality and life that affirm confidence in concluding that “Its going to be alright for everyone, ultimately”. There is no monster behind reality or life, no ultimate monster/deity angry at imperfect humanity for supposedly ruining an imagined original paradise and then the pissed deity spitefully, the myth claims, sends life into a decline toward disaster, toward apocalyptic ending. Insights and evidence that affirms, despite all that we may suffer in this imperfect world- “We are all safe in love, ultimate love.”
That ultimate assurance helps to dissipate despair over remaining problems in our world that have to be tackled and solved to the best of human ability. Recognition of ultimate safety steels spines and energizes human spirits to overcome fear and despair at the imperfections of life, to engage life with creative intelligence and work to make some contribution to the grand overall trajectories of rise and progress that are the true state of life.
Both spiritual insights and physical world evidence are critical to human progress and development. Our impulses to meaning and purpose are not neatly separated and compartmentalized but overlap in all areas. This is different from the necessary separation of state and religion to protect liberal democracy principles and institutions. That separation is more to do with protection from bad religious ideas and what they incite and validate in populations- i.e. impulses to tribalism, domination, destruction.
Next- Let me wander around and point to varied bad ideas based on bad theology in the common “salvation through destruction” framework that has long shaped human narratives.
The ancient beliefs that our ancestors concocted to structure their earliest pre-religion mythologies have continued to dominate human narratives across all history and across all the cultures of our world. I persist in outlining these ideas/beliefs from differing angles because of how they are fiercely defended and protected in world religions and even the dominant secular/ideological variants of our modern era (Marxism/collectivism, environmental alarmism).
Knowing clearly the exact nature and content of the bad ideas in human belief systems helps us to understand much that is wrong today- i.e. why we continue to face the same old eruptions of violence and war. It’s the same story of bad ideas/beliefs that incite, energize, and validate bad behavior as ever before. People becoming just like the gods or whatever other ultimate ideal/authority that they believe in, basing their behavior and lives on their beliefs.
Among others sourced here, General Nagata, referred to often here, set before us the task of understanding “the idea” that has to be defeated if we are to properly deal with violence and war for the long term future. Richard Landes urged the same. I summarize the nature of “the idea” repeatedly with the paraphrased “It’s the God, stupid”. Deformed theology is central to the complex of bad ideas and the one area of belief that many are fearful to confront and transform due to millennia of accumulated threats toward dissenters/doubters/challengers to religious orthodoxy (i.e. threat of exclusion from a tribe, banning, shunning, censorship, smearing as heretic, unbeliever, and worst- threats of punishment, torture, death, and even eternal damnation, etc.).
Theology has always been the projected location of humanity’s images of the ultimate monster, both in religious and secular/ideological/scientific variants. Whether wrathful, destroying religious God, or vengeful Gaia, angry Planet/Mother Earth, retributive Universe, payback karma, or the cold and impersonal Self-Organizing Principle assigned the imaginary responsibility as creator of all and operating by random, meaningless natural law.
Apocalyptic has always been the biggie in the mix of bad human beliefs as the ultimate manifestation of an angry, retaliatory, destroying God who is enraged at imperfect people and will destroy the entire world and all life just to vent his “eye for eye” justice on all. Read that Revelation 19 passage that illustrates Paul’s apocalyptic Christ with eyes aflame with rage (as in Paul’s “will return in blazing fire to punish with everlasting destruction”- 2 Thessalonians). Paul’s raging, destroying deity will trample out the “fury of the wrath of God”. He is covered in blood from the sword he uses to slaughter all unbelieving enemies before casting them all into the torment of eternal fire.
Apocalyptic is the singular mental deformity that we have inherited that endlessly makes fools of otherwise bright people and traumatizes populations with unnecessary fear that renders them susceptible to irrational salvation through destruction schemes, like the Net Zero decarbonization “madness of crowds” we are still suffering from (some estimates are $20 trillion wasted so far).
“Makes fools of otherwise bright people”? Yes, even Stephen Hawking fell for apocalyptic in the final two years of his life.
AI Overview
During his final two years, Stephen Hawking shifted toward an urgent, apocalyptic worldview. He argued that humanity faced existential threats from rogue artificial intelligence, runaway climate change, engineered viruses, and hostile alien civilizations [cite: 1.1.4]. He warned that our species had roughly 100 years to colonize other planets to survive [cite: 1.1.6].
His primary apocalyptic scenarios and warnings included:
• Environmental Alarm & Self-Destruction: Hawking frequently pointed out the fragility of Earth, warning that global warming, nuclear warfare, and genetically modified viruses could bring about the end of human civilization [cite: 1.1.4]. He believed humans were putting “all our eggs in one basket” and called for the urgent establishment of off-world colonies [cite: 1.1.4].
• Artificial Intelligence Run Amok: Hawking expressed grave concern over the development of super-intelligent machines [cite: 1.1.11]. He warned that AI could take off on its own and continually redesign itself, which could result in humans being outpaced and ultimately superseded [cite: 1.2.15].
• Alien Contact: Despite supporting passive listening projects like the Breakthrough Listen Initiative [cite: 1.3.15], Hawking strongly warned against actively broadcasting to extraterrestrials [cite: 1.1.3]. He compared advanced alien contact to Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas, noting that civilizations with vastly superior technology and weaponry could likely raid Earth for resources and move on [cite: 1.1.3].
• Cosmological End: Only weeks before his passing in March 2018, Hawking, alongside collaborator Thomas Hertog, finalized a paper outlining his final theory on the universe [cite: 1.3.13]. This research proposed that our universe would eventually fade into obscurity, ending in a different kind of cosmic apocalypse [cite: 1.2.1]
(End of AI Overview)
Insert note: “Remaining problems” (noted above) throughout reality and life speak to the “imperfection” that was purposefully included in the original creation of reality and life. Imperfection as something intentional for humanity to struggle with as essential to human development, essential to bringing out the best in people. Our struggle with problems brings out the best of our human spirit and our creativity and impulse to make something better (manifestation of essential human goodness not essential “sinfulness” as in religious anti-humanism mythology). Julian Simon in “Ultimate Resource” covers this issue that our problems are good for us and his conclusion is that “we are more creators than destroyers”.
Struggle with problems, as essential to human development, is much like the philosophical argument (along with the “theodicy” people) that a realm of dualism between good and evil is necessary to provide free people with choices and authentic moral good only results from the truly free choice for good against its opposite- evil. We would not know true good or experience authentic good if we did not have the opportunity to also freely choose evil.
AI Overview- theodicy
A theodicy is an argument in philosophy and theology that attempts to justify God’s goodness and omnipotence in the face of the existence of evil and suffering. The term literally translates to “vindication of God,” coming from the Greek words theos (God) and dike (justice).
The Core Problem
Theodicy seeks to resolve the “problem of evil”. If God is simultaneously all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly good, it raises a profound paradox:
• If God has the power to stop evil but doesn’t, is He truly good?
• If God wants to stop evil but cannot, is He truly all-powerful?
Common Theodicies
Philosophers and theologians have developed various frameworks to reconcile these traits with the reality of suffering. The most common approaches include:
• The Free Will Defense: Argues that evil exists because God granted humans free will. This allows for genuine love and goodness but opens the door for humans to choose moral evil.
• Soul-Making Theodicy: Suggests that the world is not meant to be a flawless paradise, but rather an environment for human growth. Suffering and hardship provide necessary challenges that allow human beings to mature spiritually and morally.
• Augustinian Theodicy: Posits that God did not create evil; rather, evil is not a “thing” in itself but merely the absence or corruption of good. In this view, evil entered the world as a consequence of humanity’s original sin (e.g., the Fall of Adam and Eve).
Theodicy vs. Defense
While a theodicy goes a step further to provide an actual, plausible reason for why God permits evil, a defense only aims to logically prove that the existence of God and the existence of evil can coexist without contradiction.
Historical Context
The term was first coined in 1710 by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his book Théodicée, where he famously argued that the current universe is “the best of all possible worlds”. You can read more about Leibniz’s foundational work and the broader philosophy of religion on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
(End of AI Overview)
I would lean into the point Bob Brinsmead makes that love and freedom are inseparable realities. If God is truly love, then God cannot intervene to overwhelm human freedom or God would not be love. Hence, the risk of creating truly free people and granting them existence in an imperfect world as a learning and development arena. The upside is authentic moral goodness experienced and emerging.
There are good arguments for the necessary dualism of this realm versus the oneness of love in the realm that we all come from. The dualism here (good versus evil) is necessary to experience the nature of true goodness that only results from free choice against its opposite- i.e. evil.
Moving back to my point of evidence-based hope and the apocalyptic narrative that distorts the true state of life and true trajectories of progress with the mental deformity that all is declining to something worse.
The long-term improvement and progress in all three great trajectories (cosmos, life, civilization) has continued despite short-term episodes of downturns and setbacks in all trajectories (i.e. the peaks and valleys of long-term trend lines).
Add the horrors of natural disasters, accidents, and predatory cruelty (both animal and human), and the ineradicable (“impossible to eliminate, remove, root out, or change”) failures of performance in human populations. Things that apocalyptic minds like to focus on as dominant realities, as defining life to the point of obscuring the overall progress of life and thereby distorting the true state of life. Much like some in cosmology (including Stephen Hawking who waffled back and forth on this) who used to claim that the Second Law was dominant in defining the trajectory of the universe.
Insert: Site essays on the three emergences/trajectories of reality and life:
An affirmation of evidence-based hope to counter the apocalyptic-scale exaggeration and hysteria of today (re climate, AI, etc.)
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=14601#more-14601
Three great emergences, three grand trajectories… the exodus to ultimate human liberation (with Grok and Chat evaluations)
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=14623#more-14623
From Retaliation to Unconditional love- the story of humanity’s exodus/liberation from animal existence to become human.
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9809
Apocalyptic, the great distortion of the true state of life, the grand denial of the rising trajectory of life, has been a horrific curse in human consciousness from the beginning of human mythmaking. From its origins, human mythmaking has been humanity wrestling with the impulse to meaning and purpose, trying to explain why this world exists and what is our purpose in living here. What are we, how should we live as humans? What is the point of it all?
Apocalyptic was constructed as the mythical fallacy that life was once perfect but early humans became corrupted and fell from their original “noble savage” state in communal societies. They committed an original error/fault and ruined paradise. Ever since, according to the myth, life has been declining toward something worse. The creator, angry with the human ruin of paradise and the ongoing degeneration of humanity would finally reaching a point of divine fed-upness. The apocalyptic myth claims that God will then punish corrupt/fallen humanity and purge it from the earth in order to restore the lost paradise and install utopia once again, restore the “noble savage” communalism that never existed in the first place.
This horrific mental deformity has incited incalculable human fear, anxiety, depression, nihilism, and even violence across history. And it has missed entirely the actual rising, improving trajectory of life, thereby giving people an entirely distorted understanding of the true state of life.
Insert: Here is an article on climate apocalyptic, the constant irresponsible public panic-mongering over climate change, as a major contributing factor to youth anxiety, depression, etc. today.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/06/16/worry-about-climate-fearmongering-not-climate-change/
“Worry About Climate Fearmongering – Not Climate Change: No wonder children are experiencing more anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts”, Paul Driessen
As noted earlier- Our ancestors concocted entire complexes of ideas/myths to shape their belief systems, ideas that have continued to dominate human narratives across history. Zoroaster is believed to have been among the first to formalize the main ideas of our ancestral predecessors in his new religion.
Primitive logic that led to apocalyptic conclusions
Apocalyptic has its primitive origins in the misread by our ancestors of the harsh elements of the natural world (i.e. disasters, disease, predation, etc.). The ancients believed there were spirits behind all elements of the natural world. They then concluded, according to primitive logic, that the harsh elements of nature manifested divine anger at human imperfection and failure (i.e. failure to honor taboos, failure to feed the gods with offerings or appease with sacrifices, etc.).
We see their mythical conclusions expressed in images of angry, threatening deities obsessed with early anti-humanism in such tales as the Sumerian Flood myth where waterworks deity Enlil planned to finally destroy “corrupt, evil” humanity by flood.
Possible prehistory events that sparked the early apocalyptic imagination- e.g. the great deluge of 5600 BCE.
AI Overview
The 5600 BCE Black Sea breakthrough (Deluge) is a famous geological event where rising Mediterranean waters catastrophically breached the Bosporus Strait, flooding the ancient freshwater Black Lake.
This event, proposed in 1997 by marine geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman, claims the event transformed the basin into a saltwater sea.
• The Catastrophe: Mediterranean water rushed through the narrow Bosporus channel with incredible force— estimated at 200 times the flow rate of Niagara Falls.
• The Scale: The torrent submerged over 100,000 square kilometres of surrounding coastal plains, expanding the Black Sea’s shoreline significantly.
• Historical Impact: The deluge is widely hypothesized to have forced early farming populations to scatter into Europe and Asia, potentially inspiring oral traditions that evolved into ancient flood narratives like the story of Noah’s Ark and the Epic of Gilgamesh.
(End of AI Overview)
Ultimate or archetypal tribal dualism in Zoroaster’s religion-
Zoroaster, gathering up the varied strands of ancient mythologies, stated that there is a cosmic war of good against evil. On one side there is the true religion of the Good God who is engaged in eternal war with unbelievers in the false religion of a satanic Force/Spirit. The Good God demands that people choose his religion and battle against the unbelievers in the false religion, exterminating and purging the evil in the world in order to prepare the way for salvation, basically a crusade of “salvation through destruction.”
People also intuitively live their lives in terms of a Hero’s Quest where we go out into life to heroically face a monster that we have to conquer and defeat in order to return with a boon to benefit others, or to save something. Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism presents a framework that deforms the Hero’s Quest where people then imagine and frame themselves as the heroic true believers on the side of the Good God set implacably against the evil enemy unbelievers of the satanic force/spirit. That is how a Zoroastrian dualism can validate tribal fanaticism and violence, dualism that loses sight of the essential oneness of humanity and leads people to battle against differing others in crusades of salvation through destruction of “enemies”.
Further, defining differing “unbeliever” others in Zoroastrian terms as “satanic or demonic” (under the control of an Evil Force/Spirit) intensifies the belief that enemies are existentially dangerous threats that must be eliminated, exterminated and purged from life in order to save the world, to save life. The unbelief and impurity of enemies so angers the Good deity who then rightly and justly demands that such evil be eliminated from the world in preparation for restoring the original paradise that was ruined by the evil unbelievers of the false religion. Salvation through destruction.
This Zoroastrian framework of tribal dualism and violent opposition has been repeated endlessly across history.
Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism of a Good God warring against evil forces/spirits was embraced by offspring Western religious traditions and has validated endless human tribal divides ever since. Fundamental to Zoroaster’s theology was the belief in a retaliatory God who punished evil in the ultimate act of eye for eye retaliation- i.e. the apocalyptic destruction of the whole world.
This mental pathology has continued to dominate major religious traditions across subsequent history, notably in Judaism (late pre-CE centuries). Apocalyptic was then also embraced by Paul in his “apocalyptic millennial” Christ myth that became the ultimate embodiment of this apocalyptic fallacy that has shaped Western civilization, dominating narratives of religious movements, passed on to Islam and finally into the modern-era variants of Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism.
If, as the apocalyptic believers claim, that we are going to die soon, then our survival impulse incites us to save ourselves, to rightly eliminate the threat to our lives and societies. And if the threat to our lives is “imminent”, as apocalyptic prophets commonly insist, then we are justly obligated to act immediately. Hence, true believers in apocalyptic constantly set dates for the imminent end to intensify a sense of urgency. In modern versions the urgency of imminence requires setting aside the slow and messy processes of democracy as not sufficiently capable to respond to clear and present dangers. And if the enemies are satanically evil anyway, then they deserve destruction as logically required to save the world (“break eggs to make an omelette”).
This site takes the Historical Jesus response and goes to the core of this fallacy- i.e. to the angry retaliatory deity who threatens severe punishment through apocalyptic destruction and demands his true believers take up this noble cause of vengeful destruction, this deformed hero’s quest. This mythology shapes both religious and secular variants. Angry Force or Spirit behind all is given all sorts of updated names- i.e. vengeful Gaia, retributive universe, angry Planet/Mother Earth, payback karma, etc.
Added insert notes: The apocalyptic minds among us dismiss and deny the overall rise of life and civilization to obsessively focus public attention on downturns/setbacks and incite irrational panic over varied downturns and setbacks in long-term trajectories/trends. Add the apocalyptic obsession over other negatives of life like accidents/failures. They often exaggerate these normal and constant elements of existence all out of proportion to their actual impact and frequency (see, for an example, the article below on El Nino) claiming that such things are portents of the looming end of all things that is soon coming (i.e. never-ending claims of “the end is nigh”, again and again and…).
Apocalyptic minds specialize in inciting fear and consequent irrational hysteria as audience prep so they can then step up with their salvation schemes that grant them unelected power and control over populations, salvation schemes framed by the primitive “salvation through destruction” templates of historical religions, schemes that have repeatedly ruined societies, whether through religious versions like the Xhosa cattle slaughter of 1856-57 or through ideological variants like Marxist collectivism and the environmental alarmism that is still ruining societies today.
This episode of Gutfeld discusses exactly this- how power seekers use exaggerated fear (the end of the world is nigh) to frighten populations to vote for them
“Gutfeld! 6/17/26 Greg Gutfeld FULL END SHOW June 17, 2026”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAAeo75IMgs
They discuss h ow one US party has been using threat of looming apocalyptic ending to incite populations to vote for policies that have ruined places where implemented. The panic-mongering has also incited repeated assassination attempts on a president and other violence. Desperate people, convinced that they are going to die unless they take violent action to stop some constructed threat to their existence. Salvation through destruction.
Tyrus notes the same panic-mongering was used to inspire young Muslim men to put on suicide vests.
H. L. Mencken,
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary”, In Defense of Women.
Another note: The apocalyptic myth has been a tool of elite control for millennia. Power-mongering elites terrorize people with threats that their world is soon to end, rendering people frightened and susceptible to the irrational salvation schemes of the apocalyptic-obsessed elites, even if those schemes offer salvation through destruction of their lives and societies. Recent historical evidence? Marxist use of salvation (restored communal paradise through violent overthrow of capitalist societies), Nazism (paradise in Third Reich through war that brought ruin), and now the environmental alarmism crusade promising the “save the world” through Net Zero decarbonization that is ruining countries like Germany, Britain, etc.
When you beat populations with apocalyptic-scale panic-mongering for decades, then what do you get? You get the “madness of crowds” insanity of our world where many continue to vote for the destruction of their societies, electing Net Zero fanatics and socialists. Salvation through destruction, the fundamental framework of major religious traditions and their secular ideological offspring.
Continuing with the response of Historical Jesus to the apocalyptic madness of his era:
The man did something that cost him his life but was critical to fulfil his mission to liberate people from enslaving fear of an ultimate monster- i.e. the punishing, destroying deity who threatened the apocalyptic destruction and ending of life. He fearlessly confronted and rejected that age-old theology of angry, punishing God as central to his project to liberate people from fear of such ultimate monster.
Remember that Jesus revolutionized theology with a “behavior based on belief” coupling. He started with the behavior element urging no more “eye for eye” retaliation against offenders/enemies. With that statement he rejected retributive, punitive eye for eye justice. Then he presented his alternative stunning new theology primed by first stating his new restorative justice, saying, “Instead of eye for eye retaliation, love your enemies because God does. How so? God loves all inclusively and restoratively by giving the two most critical natural elements necessary for survival in agrarian society- i.e. sun and rain for crops- to all alike, equally. To both good and bad people”. I’ve added connecting filler paraphrasing to make sense of what he actually said.
The above is the central core of his message as presented in Matthew 5: 38-48. A better version of the same statement is found in Luke 6: 27-36 where he presents a list of unconditional precepts before concluding with a summary statement of what the listed behavior means for understanding theology. “Be unconditionally merciful just as in the listed precepts because God is unconditionally merciful just like in these precepts”.
He had earlier, in his first public speech in a synagogue (i.e. the Luke 4 episode), made the same point on a stunning new theology of an unconditionally loving God. He had rejected to end his reading of Isaiah 61 by finishing with the statement that said, “The day of vengeance of our God”. That was a direct rejection of eye for eye justice as defining God as a retaliatory, punishing and destroying God. He then added the incidents with Elijah and Elisha that illustrated that God was unconditional love. Those two incidents revealed that God did not vengefully destroy Jewish enemies (“a day of vengeance of our God”) but exhibited love for them.
It did not just shock that audience of Jews. It enraged them instantly to the point of trying to murder Jesus by throwing him off a nearby cliff.
Jesus went to the core belief of Judaism and all other religion, to the most critical of all ideas to get right, the idea/belief that is the most important basis for stating confidently that “its going to be alright for everyone, ultimately”. As always, “It’s the theology”, the source of all reality, the creator and sustainer of all, the very core and essence of all things, and essence of any thing that science admits it does not know.
All across previous history to Jesus God had been understood as the ultimate upholder of eye for eye justice that would retaliate against bad people, against enemies and offenders, with punitive destruction, whether through the natural world’s disaster, disease, or predatory cruelty (animal and human). A vengeful God would also enact divine vengeance through the ultimate act of retaliatory destruction of apocalypse, followed by such justice taken to its worst reach in eternal burning in hell.
Paul, directly rejecting the stunning new and liberating theology of Jesus, restored all these elements of the monstrous retaliatory deity of past religion in such statements as his warning to the Corinthians that they were sick and dying because God was punishing them just as he had punished the Old Testament Jews for their sins by sending poisonous snakes among them.
The Corinthians warning:
AI Overview
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul connects the physical sickness and death experienced by the Corinthian church to the Old Testament judgment of God. He warns that just as God sent poisonous snakes to punish the Israelites for their sins in the wilderness, He also disciplines New Testament believers.
Paul’s Teachings in Corinthians
• The Wilderness Warning (1 Corinthians 10): In 1 Corinthians 10:9, Paul explicitly references the Old Testament plague of snakes. He reminds the Corinthians that the Israelites were destroyed by serpents because they tested Christ. He presents this as a warning for modern believers, stating that these events happened as examples to keep them from indulging in evil.
• The Consequences of Unworthy Communion (1 Corinthians 11): In 1 Corinthians 11:29-30, Paul addresses the Corinthian church’s disrespectful participation in the Lord’s Supper. He states that failing to “discern the body” brings judgment. Consequently, he explains, “that is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep” (with “asleep” being a biblical metaphor for physical death).
The Old Testament Context (Numbers 21)
Paul is drawing a direct parallel to the events recorded in Numbers 21:4-9:
• The Sin: The Israelites became impatient, grumbled against God, and spoke against Moses.
• The Punishment: As a direct consequence of their disobedience and lack of faith, God sent “fiery serpents” (poisonous snakes) into the camp, and many Israelites were bitten and died.
(End of AI Overview)
Paul was rehashing the primitive belief that deity punished human sin through the natural realm– i.e. natural disasters, disease, accidents, and predatory cruelty whether animal or human. This has been one of the most psychically damaging myths ever concocted that adds the element of psychic suffering to already unbearable physical suffering.
That was additional to Paul’s restoration of the theology of retaliatory, destroying God, in direct contradiction to the new unconditional theology of Jesus.
Remember also, Paul’s more direct contradiction of the new theology of Jesus in his statement of Romans 12: 17-20, where he used the same “behavior based on belief” coupling that Jesus had used. But Paul used that coupling to restore the theology of a retaliatory, destroying God. He did that by quoting a similar Old Testament verse that Jesus had two decades earlier refused to read when he introduced his new theology. Paul quoted the Old Testament verse that said, “’It is mine to take vengeance, I will repay/retaliate’, says the Lord”. That is another take on the Isaiah 61 version rejected by Jesus that says, “The day of vengeance of our God”.
Paul couched his retreat to reaffirm retaliation in the ultimate reality of deity, in the same behavior based on belief coupling that Jesus had used. On the initial behavior element, Paul at first appears to be affirming the non-retaliatory, no eye for eye ethic of Jesus. But then he urged in regard to his “do not repay evil for evil, do not take revenge” with this motivation that actually affirms retaliation, saying, “Don’t retaliate but be nice to your enemies based on the hope that God will take vengeance and retaliate on your behalf and that divine retaliation and vengeance will far exceed yours. Exhibit your non-retaliatory niceness toward your enemies in order to ensure their destruction by God” (i.e. be nice in order to “pour coals of fire on their heads”). Again, I have added fillers to make clear what Paul actually stated.
The real story of the contrary messages and theology of Jesus and Paul is one of the fundamental battle and opposition between their entirely opposite views of God. The most fundamental and central of all beliefs/ideas.
And Jesus stunning new theology presented that core and foundational reality as of the nature of love, inexpressible unconditional love, that sustains every atom in existence, the basic reality behind quantum realms, behind dark energy and matter. It is the missing element in TOE.
I digress a bit….
Scattered additional notes:
Back to the core idea/belief in the apocalyptic mythology–
“The idea that has to be defeated”
There is a central idea that we have to defeat, just as General Nagata urged, if we are to defang the influence of apocalyptic in inciting tribal fear among people, as in the felt desperate need to purge some evil threat to life that we project onto our opponents/enemies. Apocalyptic incites the fear that leads to fanaticism and violence toward the demonized enemies who are believed to be the threat to one’s life and society.
Apocalyptic mythology tells us there are unbelievers/bad people who are believed to anger one’s God and incite the angry deity to punish and destroy some world that exists, a deity who demands that his true believers get busy in initiating that violent destruction as preparation for him to finish the job of destruction. This mythology is currently driving the Iranian theocrats, as well as Marxists and environmental alarmists. Don’t take my word on this. Check the sources I regularly post here (Landes, Mendel, others).
We defeat the idea by doing just what Jesus did- by understanding that “It’s the theology, stupid.” That its the retaliatory, destroying God at the center of such mythical pathologies, known as “mental deformities” for how they deform human personalities and push people toward fanaticism and violence.
This mythical pathology of angry, destroying deity who would punish sinful humanity by apocalyptic destruction had dominated religious traditions up to the beginning of the CE era that was also defined by apocalyptic hysteria.
AI Overview
Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean religious traditions frequently framed natural disasters or political collapse as the wrath of an angry, punishing deity. By the transition into the Common Era (CE), this evolved into intense apocalypticism— a belief that cosmic catastrophe and the end of the world were imminent.
The shift from historical, localized retribution to apocalyptic hysteria during the turn of the CE era was shaped by distinct historical and theological factors:
• Imperial Oppression: The expansion of the Roman Empire and the Hellenization of Judea caused immense suffering. For marginalized communities, including early Jewish and Christian sects, apocalyptic texts like the Book of Daniel (c. 167 BCE) and later the Book of Revelation (c. 1st Century CE) served as a theodicy to explain present torment while promising divine justice.
• Persian Influence: Zoroastrian cosmology heavily influenced Judaism during the Persian period. This introduced concepts of dualism (an ultimate struggle between good and evil), a final purging of the universe by fire, and the promise of a restored, perfect world.
• Theological Transition: Early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic groups shifted from viewing gods simply as creators who sent floods (like the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh) to expecting an imminent, dramatic intervention where God would destroy “this world” to establish an entirely new, righteous kingdom.
(End of AI Overview)
At that very time of “peak apocalyptic” there emerged one notable historical person who broke with the Zoroastrian complex of apocalyptic themes and the irrational hysteria that it incites in populations. Historical Jesus emerged to reject the theology of an angry deity who punished sinful humanity. He did that by presenting his stunning new theology of God as non-retaliatory unconditional love for all, for both good and bad people. He went directly to the core idea/belief of theology or deity and radically transformed that core belief. Cutting the root of the diseased tree.
He did it like this (as noted earlier above)- There must be no more eye for eye retaliation but instead love your enemies because God does. Because that is what God is really like. How so? God does not retaliate with punitive destruction of “enemies/unbelievers” but gives the most basic elements for survival- i.e. sun and rain for crops in agrarian society- to all alike, none excluded. God practises universal inclusion, equal treatment for all despite badness. So be unconditionally merciful just as God is unconditionally merciful toward even enemies.
That was a rejection of Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism and consequent human tribalism. It was a rejection of the fallacy of angry God retaliating against bad people and threatening to punish and destroy them and the world, whether punishing people through the natural world elements (i.e. natural disasters, disease, accidents, predation) or through some future final apocalyptic-scale destruction as a grand purging of evil from the entire world in order to restore lost perfection. Jesus rejected the false image of the angry, destroying God at the core of apocalyptic millennialism. There was no “salvation through destruction” as illustrated later in the book of Revelation.
If God is non-retaliatory as Jesus stated, then God will not destroy the world in apocalypse, the ultimate display of retaliation against enemies.
Also noted in other places here, a millennium-plus later, Zoroaster shifted from Sumerian apocalypse by flood, to apocalypse by molten metal surging across the world to purge impurity, notably, to purge the world of the “evil” people who are following the satanic Force/Spirit. Zoroaster’s Good God punished evil with apocalyptic destruction, as required to cleanse the world in order to prepare the way for salvation in restored perfection. These features were projected onto deity and that became the archetypal model for subsequent western religious traditions.
James Tabor has stated that Paul’s apocalyptic Christ has been a most dominant influence on Western civilization and that apocalyptic millennial myth has buried the opposite Jesus message. Paul, two decades following the murder of Jesus, re-established the theology of threatening, destroying deity. He restored what Jesus had tried to liberate people from- i.e. fear of divine monsters. Paul re-affirmed in people’s minds “The terror of the Lord” by restoring the theology of a God of “eye for eye” retaliatory justice by quoting the Old Testament statement- “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay/retaliate’, says the Lord”.
Jesus rejected Zoroaster’s theology of cosmic dualism, where a Good God warred against evil enemies and demanded his subjects join that battle of true believers versus unbelievers, good against evil. Jesus, to the contrary, taught a theology of oneness, a God who included all equally- sending sun and rain on all alike. The unconditional behavior points to the unconditional theology.
The Jesus message spoke of love for all inclusively, including “enemies”. There should be no tribal war of true believers against differing others/unbelievers. His new God (new at that time) rejected eye for eye retaliation against enemies, opting for love of enemies.
More insert notes:
The real curse of slavery across human history has been mental/emotional, the enslavement of human minds to bad theology, enslavement to fear of angry, retaliatory deity punishing people’s imperfection through nature and threatening ultimate punishment in the apocalyptic destruction of the world (i.e. the ancient fear of “return to chaos”, the end of ordered and structured reality).
Then one iconic trailblazer presented ultimate liberation at the core of human personality (mental/emotional freedom) with his stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory, unconditional God. But his greatest-ever theological innovation was then buried some two decades later by Paul who merged him with his Christ mythology that re-established retaliatory, threat theology. Too many still remain enslaved to this mental deformity even today.
The outcomes- ongoing cosmic tribalism (i.e. true believers favored, included, saved, unbelievers excluded, damned). That metaphysical archetypal tribalism models, incites, and validates human tribalism, and that then generates fear and hatred of differing others, along with crusades to defeat and dominate others viewed as dangerously threatening enemies, even to exterminate the demonized others.
We have had the insights of Historical Jesus to “defeat the idea”, the idea being the core belief that has long shaped the tyrannical monster theology that has terrorized people across history with fear of looming punishment and destruction in apocalyptic ending.
We have the “diamond” discovery of Jesus, but it has to be pulled from the dung, differentiated and made clear. Its current context in a threat theology religion deforms, distorts, and buries the diamond insight.
Continuing…
This site focuses repeatedly on the fundamental theology in our religious traditions. Theology (i.e. human constructed images or beliefs about God) is the core idea/belief that validates all else in religious belief systems. And this site, to illustrate with iconic examples, references repeatedly the contrast between the two great and entirely opposite theologies of Jesus and Paul. “Diamonds and …”. Well, see above references for Jefferson’s blunt term to describe Paul and his Christology. That term he used would be damned as “hate speech” today.
Everything else flows from the core theology. If God is unconditional love as Jesus taught from his very first public speech in the Jewish synagogue (Luke 4), then that changes all else. Profoundly so. Justice is not eye for eye retaliation as all humanity had been taught from the beginning (i.e. angry, offended gods punishing people’s sins through natural disasters, disease, predatory cruelty, etc.).
In Jesus’ project of liberation, justice had to be framed within the new ideal of “love your enemies”. Still robust protection of people from violent offenders (i.e. incarceration to protect others) but restraint that would treat offenders humanely as in restorative justice systems.
However, Paul rejected that “stunning new non-retaliatory, non-vengeful” theology and justice of Jesus. He rejected the non-retaliatory, unconditional deity that Jesus had presented and re-affirmed vengeful, retaliatory, eye for eye deity and justice (Romans 12: 17-20). Based on his re-affirmation of retaliatory God, Paul then revived the myth of apocalyptic destruction and ending of life. His Christ became the ultimate icon of apocalyptic destruction as portrayed in John’s Revelation and Paul’s statements in letters like 2 Thessalonians 1: 7-10.
The core theology of retaliatory, destroying deity then validates so much more- i.e. the right to retaliate and punish your opponents/enemies, even to destroy enemies just as God promises to do (again, 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, Revelation 19, etc.). They are going to hell anyway, so let’s help our God send them on their way, as in “People become just like the God that they believe in”.
The theology of Paul’s Christ as ultimate Lord/King then also validates domination in relationships. Hence, Paul logically followed up with “wives submit to your husbands, slaves submit to your masters, commoners submit to divinely appointed governing elites” (Romans 13), etc. Theology as the core foundational human idea/belief influences, defines, and validates all else. Behavior based on belief.
Theology is the “cohering center” of human narratives, whether in religious versions of “secular/ideological/scientific” variants. Note the feature of retaliatory vengeance and punishment in contemporary versions of deity- i.e. “Vengeful Gaia, angry Planet/Mother Earth, retributive Universe, payback karma”, or the “science” variant of mindless, soulless “Self-Organizing Principle” as ultimate creator, etc. We are all driven to intuitively speculate on the nature of Ultimate Reality that creates all and to try to understand what is the purpose/reason for all that is created. Our primary impulse to meaning and purpose incites us to do so.
Another feature of theology that radiates out to influence other areas of life…
Consider also Jesus’ statement on a God who serves. Taking his common use of the “behavior based on belief” coupling, I see him stating the very best forms of human behavior and then concluding that is what God is like, but, of course, to transcendently better degree. Deity as the ultimate “Good”, the ultimate “Love”. We saw him do this with the list of unconditional responses to ungrateful people in Luke 6:27-36 then conclude that we should to such things- i.e. unconditionally love enemies/offenders- because God does. “Be unconditionally merciful because God is unconditionally merciful”.
Apply this also to Jesus’ statement that true greatness is serving others, not lording over them. So, is God also great and good? Then God will not lord over others but will serve others as any truly great person would do.
Theology radiates out from the center of narratives to change all else in justice, human relating, etc. So get this point that “It’s the theology, stupid”. The key belief/idea and issue to get right.
And the contrasts in this core idea/belief was set before us in the great contradiction between these two iconic historical figures and their messages, their opposite theologies- i.e. Jesus and Paul. They went right to the most critical foundational idea/belief of all- i.e. the core of reality and the nature of that ultimate reality. All else in their messages stemmed from that core theology, the nature of the God at the center. That core belief shaped and defined the nature of justice, ethics, behavior, life, and society.
Your core theology validates all else. It is appeal to the ultimate embodiment of human ideals and authority- the Creator of all, the Source of all. There is nothing higher for validation of all else in your belief system.
Moving along…
Jesus was the historical first to break the grip of these powerful beliefs that had darkened and enslaved minds and lives for millennia under elite priestly control (priests as leaders of early societies hence the grand temples on ziggurats at the center of early cities). Note that statement of liberation from the old theologies as Jesus read from Isaiah 61 in his first public presentation. He read that as a declaration of liberation from bad theology, the core of religion, the most dominant of all human beliefs. How do I know that? Because complete theological transformation was the central theme in his teaching- i.e. the Matthew 5 and Luke 6 summaries of his message and parables like the Prodigal Father.
He was not a man to tinker with reformism at the periphery, to dilly dally and beat around the bush on issues.
Historical Jesus went directly to the theological core of apocalyptic mythology and rejected it. As noted earlier, he did that through a “behavior based on similar belief” coupling when he stated there must be no more eye for eye retaliation against offenders/enemies but instead we should love enemies because God does as evident in God generously and mercifully giving the basic gifts of survival and life to both good and bad people, inclusively and equally.
That was a direct rejection of ideas/beliefs in vengeful, retaliatory deity that threatened punishment and destruction through the ultimate expressions of eye for eye justice and retaliation in apocalypse and then afterlife hell.
Jesus stated that there was no such reality of tribal deity as in Zoroastrian cosmic dualism (i.e. favor true believers, rejects and punishes unbelievers). There was no dominating or destroying deity at the core of reality and life. Apocalyptic deity punishing imperfect humanity had been a grand lie from the beginning. There was only love at the core of life, and as Jesus illustrated, it was an inexpressibly transcendent unconditional love that treated all people the same (non-tribal) with inclusive generosity and mercy, unlimited forgiveness (Prodigal Father), no demand for sacrifice or payment as illustrated in the Luke 6:27-36 precepts that were summarized in “Be unconditionally merciful just as God is unconditionally merciful toward all”.
Insert qualifier (This is always necessary as unconditional theology tends to orient many to unworkable “pacifist” approaches): God as unconditional love, sets the standard for similar human behavior (“Be merciful as God is merciful”), but is not prescriptive for irresponsible “suicidal empathy” that lets violent offenders free to further harm innocent people. That violates any common sense understanding of love. The primary responsibility of government and criminal justice systems is to protect innocent people from violent assaults, requiring the restraint and incarceration of repeatedly violent people. Though, after offenders are necessarily incarcerated, they must be treated humanely (Tolstoy- “There is no situation where humans are not to be treated with love”).
(End of insert qualifier)
Another weave:
Continuing the previous line of thought- The unconditional love that is God has incarnated in all humanity equally and, as inseparable from our human spirit, and hence, is closer to us than our own breath or atoms. The immediately present God the Psalmist spoke of,
“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there”, 139.
Do not believe the fallacy of an absent God. The Creator and Sustainer of all reality is present within all reality, material and metaphysical, sustaining every atom in existence at its core. Rather, try to understand the present God, not intervening in the freedom of life and the freedom of people, in terms of authentic love that honors freedom. Love that overrides and intervenes in freedom would not be love.
Better, imagine God as immediately present in all human sorrow, pain, and sharing human rage at suffering and fighting through our efforts for something better. As someone said, we are the voice, hands, and feet of God, God manifesting through all our effort to stop evil and promote good in life. God present in all humanity, equally.
The divine presence is most commonly felt in the gentle persuasion of our consciences or human spirits to do the right thing during the multitude of choices throughout the ordinary and mundane of daily life. Authentic divine love is inseparable from respecting the freedom of others. It will not overwhelm, intervene, or coerce free others. Love would not be authentic love if it did not respect the freedom and independence of others. If God is authentic love, then God will not “lord over others but will serve”. Hence, the presence and influence of the divine is through gentle persuasion, the still, quiet voice that Elijah heard in the cave opening. God was not in the frightening, overwhelming and threatening storm and thunder. But in the small, quiet voice.
Scattered notes:
Hopefully, we have constructed our personal narratives with themes that help us detect good from bad in all areas of life- i.e. themes of non-tribal inclusion of all as family, non-dominating relating to others of all classes and status, and nonpunitive response to the failures of others, though with responsible restraint of violent behaviors.
Another:
The story of reality and life is our grand exodus and liberation from our animal past and our ongoing progress toward more truly human existence in liberal democracy civilization. Along the way of this grand trajectory of progress, we have discovered the insights into true nature of the core or Ultimate Reality as unconditional love. That discovery now gives us a full and complete TOE (i.e. “complete” in the sense of including material and metaphysical/spiritual elements, hence offering something that deals thoroughly with the complete nature of human beings and their primary impulses to meaning and purpose that are essential to authentic human mind and consciousness).
Sages, like Historical Jesus, presented the most critical breakthroughs to our mental/emotional liberation and understanding of ultimate realities. NDEs today now repeatedly affirm the central discovery of Jesus.
Further, we now have the evidence of good outcomes of the Jesus themes in liberal democracy principles (equal rights and freedoms, not equality of outcomes), representative institutions that constrain elite power and control (i.e. constraining the tools of elite power and control, notably excessive taxation and regulation) and laws that ensure that governments function to serve citizens (“not lording over others but serving others”).
With the Jesus insight that God is non-retaliatory, unconditional love, we have the new ultimate ideal to guide our meaning and purpose impulses to the best outcomes in our lives and societies.
We have the solutions to defeat bad ideas and counter bad outcomes. Do not despair.
With all I have noted and commented on above, I can confidently state that its going to be all right for everyone, ultimately. We are all safe in the end.
This is fundamentally a Daddy site and it has been a main project of mine from the beginning of posting this site (i.e. late 80s) to tell readers- Do not be afraid of big bad monsters, and most especially do not fear the ultimate monster of religious deity that has neve existed but was constructed from the beginning to cow fellow tribe members into submission to irrational salvation schemes, demanding sacrifices and payments/offerings, and loyalty to religious tribes and lifestyles. That enslavement through elite-manufactured fear has ended (shaman as the earliest elites).
New comment on Rogan’s podcast:
Take a listen to the first 17 minutes or so of this recent Joe Rogan interview of Chase Hughes. Then after an interlude of comments on the UFC White House fights, they continue and Hughes makes this insightful point on something that most of the NDE people discover regarding what Hughes terms our greatest fallacy- i.e. that we live under an illusion of “separation”. He says that when people doing DMT find themselves in the other realm opened by that experience, similar to the NDE experience of another realm, a realm that most say is a “million” or more times more real than this material realm. Inexpressibly more real. Like NDEs, people taking DMT also state that words fail to communicate that reality. And it cannot be dismissed as hallucination.
On having that experience, DMT users state that they realize “separation” is a false illusion in this realm. They experience a oneness and connectedness that is fundamental and ultimate. Interestingly, even quantum mechanics points to this fundamental oneness with its discovery of “quantum entanglement” (Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance”).
This insight/discovery of fundamental oneness is another reason why I repeatedly hit the Zoroastrian fallacy of “cosmic dualism” that has infected and festered in human minds from ancient times and feeds so much destructive human tribalism. Fundamental cosmic dualism of the Zoroastrian variety has become a dominant prototype and the divine model that validates human tribalism of many varieties. Such tribalism promotes fear and hatred of differing others, demonization of differing others as threats to one’s own existence.
Admittedly, there are real threats from others that we encounter here in life that have to be dealt with. But in relation to larger points made here- there is no ultimate Dark Force threat behind reality as in Zoroaster’s mythology.
The cosmic dualism fallacy that models and validates human tribalism leads to violence and war against the differing others, struggles to defeat and dominate others as in animal kingdom battles (including death struggles within same species). Tribalism even feeds the impulse to destroy and exterminate others, especially when we frame the other as Zoroaster did, as agents of an evil force, as “demonic or satanic”, dangerous enemies that “existentially” threaten our own existence.
(Note how apocalyptic in this Zoroastrian mix of ideas exaggerates the threat from differing others. Apocalyptic has always been about grossly inflated exaggeration of some danger of “the end of the world” variety.)
Zoroastrian religion also gave western narratives the fallacy that imperfect humanity has corrupted the world and hence, must be purged so that the true believers on the side of the Good God and righteous religion or movement can recover whatever utopian salvation dream their belief systems present to them. Add that the purging/purification demands immediate coercive action as the threat of life ending is always “imminent” with dates endlessly and repeatedly set.
The separation fallacy that Hughes references, clouds our understanding of a deity of oneness that includes all as equal family, who gives sun and rain on all, to both good guys and bad guys. God as unconditional reality loves all the same. There are no elect, special, true believers or insiders versus the excluded rest. There is no fundamental dualism of Good God against some evil Force with humanity divided into fundamentally separated enemies on one side or the other. Our tribal constructions are just that- i.e. made-up tribalism divides based on false illusions about ultimate realities.
Again, we are talking here of the nature of fundamental creating reality. How we understand that ultimate reality of a creating God influences how we think, feel, and treat others in this life. And while differences between people are unavoidable, natural, and even essential to human development, some divides become dangerously destructive when based, for example, on distorting myths of deity (ultimate ideal) as favoring true believer insiders and committed to wrathful destruction of unbelieving outsiders. The inciting/validating influence of ultimate ideals, and the beliefs stemming from such beliefs, have what psychologist Harold Ellens noted as “energizing” power on people that can influence people to fanaticism and violence toward others.
And this site, as with many others, has touched before on the insight that this realm of dualism between good and evil is “temporal”, existing to function as a learning arena for human development and growth. It does not manifest some ultimate reality. Joseph Campbell and others have spoken to these things. NDE people affirm the same (i.e. this material realm as not modelling and manifesting ultimate reality beyond but existing for some other temporal meaning and purpose).
AI Overview- “temporal”
Temporal is an adjective that relates to time, worldly or earthly matters… It is a formal word with distinct meaning:
Worldly or Earthly (vs. Spiritual)
In religious, historical, or philosophical contexts, it contrasts the physical world or political authority with the eternal or spiritual realm.
Continuing…
Just after the 30-minute mark, Hughes goes into the personal shame issue that we all suffer to some extent. What some people call “imposter syndrome”. He notes that many/most people suffer this shame in some degree where they feel that if even those most close to them knew their real self they would not like them. This goes to (my added take on this) a fundamental human shame over human imperfection that has been true of most people who have ever lived.
Consequent to this shame, Hughes says we have a “performative” culture, performative lives and societies where we perform for others and present to others, selves that we feel are more likeable to others. We perform even for those closest to us and hence nobody really knows the true selves of others. This may help understand what we term today “virtue-signaling” for status in some group, seeking recognition for our “moral superiority” that is often posed in opposition to differing others who are devalued as worse than us (even demonized as evil).
Hughes notes that we hold a sense of there being something wrong with us and, in comparison, we wrongly imagine that others have things all figured out and are put together, “they have their shit together”. In comparison, we may feel that we are not quite right, that there something wrong with us and others would not understand if they knew this. He ties this to what he said about the separateness illusion and widespread problem of loneliness that so many experience.
He goes into the fear of many that if people really knew us then we would be made fun of and be disliked, and that most have some degree of this inner shame that we cover up or deny. Hughes continues, noting this inner shame is behind so many problems, i.e. the fear that we will be rejected, kicked out of our tribe, not liked. All part of the illusions that we live and suffer under.
I see this inherent shame thing as deriving somewhat from the misunderstanding of reality and life that is central to religious narratives, and the belief of early humans in a God who created perfection in an original paradise with “noble savage” humans existing harmoniously in communalism societies (i.e. owning nothing and happily sharing limited goods). According to this early mental pathology, humanity committed an original error and then “fell” (i.e. fell into sin, became “fallen”). That original sin then supposedly angered the perfection-obsessed God who cursed the world with subsequent imperfection (i.e. natural disasters, disease, human suffering and death), thereby punishing people for ruining the original perfection.
The anti-humanism of that “fallen humans” myth began right at the start and also added the note of humanity, subsequent to the original “fall, then on a declining trajectory, humanity on a trajectory of increasing degeneration, becoming worse and heading for deserved punishment and destruction. We see this anti-humanism repeated in crusades like environmental alarmism where humans are demonized as a “virus/cancer” that must be purged from the world in order to “save the world” and restore the falsely-imagined lost paradise.
This antihumanism has been beaten into us from the beginning in the earliest fallacies that missed the point of a world with imperfection built in (i.e. the insight that this realm was intentionally created imperfect, as a realm of dualism between good and evil for human experience, learning, development, and to bring forth the best in humanity in the human struggle for good against evil, the struggle to create something ever better than what exists).
As Bob Brinsmead says in response to the fallacy of a perfect creation followed by the lie of life declining toward something worse, the true story of life is not how far humanity has fallen, but how amazingly high we have risen from our brutal beginning in a violent, barbaric animal past.
Some helpful sources on the true story of life and the true trajectory of long-term progress from worse toward better.
“Constant Battles: The Myth of the Noble Savage and a Peaceful Past”, Katherine E. Register, Marcia E. Register, and Steven A. LeBlanc
“Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc takes a long-term view of the nature and roots of war… The notion of the “noble savage” living in peace with one another and in harmony with nature is a fantasy. In ‘Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage’, LeBlanc contends that warfare and violent conflict have existed throughout human history…” (Amazon blurb)
Also…
“A History of Force: Exploring the Worldwide Movement Against Habits of Coercion, Bloodshed, and Mayhem”, James Payne
AI Overview
A History of Force is a 2004 book by American political scientist and researcher James L. Payne. It challenges the common perception that the world is becoming increasingly violent, arguing that there is a massive, long-term historical trend away from coercive practices and bloodshed.
The book systematically reviews over two dozen coercion-based practices, categorizing them into four main themes:
• Eradicated Practices: Forms of extreme coercion that have largely vanished from human society, such as human sacrifice, witch burnings, and chattel slavery.
• Declining Violence: Significant long-term drops in the rates of homicide, war casualties, riots, and genocide.
• Reformed Criminal Systems: A historical retreat from extreme punishments, including the decline of torture, debt bondage, and capital punishment.
• Government Coercion: An analysis of state-level force, tracking how reduced reliance on force correlates with rising economic prosperity, the development of democracy, and decreasing trust in government institutions.
(End of AI Overview)
Note also Rogan’s interjection regarding past guests who have explained how we are manipulated on social media by AI bots that stir up fear and hatred of differing others, vilifying and demonizing opponents as existential threats. This comes from “bot farms” created to incite citizens of other nations to hate and fight one another as part of intentional projects to sow dissension and ultimately overthrow other societies. Rogan, among others, has previously pointed to Chinese, Russian, and Iranian sponsorship of these bot farms in this regard.
As Rogan explains, the bots are not real people but AI-generated to incite fear, demonization and hatred of others, and thereby incite the base tribal impulse to destroy opponents and their societies (i.e. the US has done the same over past decades to destabilize and overthrow unfriendly nations). So much manipulation from behind the scenes that we are hardly aware of.
Joe Rogan Experience #2515 – Chase Hughes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVXli9YkY0o
Hughes adds an important point that much of what is going on with research on psychedelics now recognizes how critical such therapeutics are for helping people with PTSD, anxiety, depression, etc. These chemicals (or related natural elements) can no longer be dismissed and prohibited as dangerous “drugs” but are now more recognized for what they really are as therapeutic medicines with strong healing influences on the above mental/emotional disabilities. Note the research on DMT, Psilocybin, etc. Good on Joe Rogan for getting Trump to fund and push forward research on these things.
More to come… affirming “Its going to be alright for everyone, ultimately”. Defusing primal human fears.