The Unconditional Human Spirit

My brief history of narrative development across history is just below. I am interested in how the narrative themes that we construct either resist or assist our progress in the grand project of humanity to exodus out of animal existence to learn to live as human in human civilization. How we each contribute to that grand quest. It’s about the core ideas/beliefs that we embrace to shape our personal engagement of the “behavior based on similar belief” relationship. Our ideas/beliefs powerfully shape how we think, feel, how we are motivated, and how we respond and act.

First, venting some of the “quibble” impulse…

My statement to Grok for feedback:

Grok, I affirm Jordan Peterson for his heroism in defending freedom of speech in his private battles with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. I applaud his defense of classic liberalism, his great insights for young men in his book “12 Rules for Life”. But I have problems with his general defense of Christianity. So also, I have a similar issue with Michael Shellenberger (whom I appreciate much for his excellent journalism). I have quibbles with his general calls to restore the Christian religion in society to counter the meaninglessness of today’s world.

Both Peterson and Shellenberger don’t seem aware of the central issue with the Chrisitan religion, i.e. the profound difference between Jesus and Christ, two men with entirely opposite messages merged into the oxymoronic “Jesus Christ” myth of Paul. A difference that Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy claimed was a difference between “diamonds and dung”. Jefferson and Tolstoy argued that Jesus has been distorted and “buried” in that religion. Nothing makes much sense in advocating for Christianity until you deal with that central deformity in the religion- i.e. the profound difference between the messages and theologies of Jesus and Paul.

Grok’s response:

Your perspective raises an interesting and nuanced critique of Jordan Peterson and Michael Shellenberger’s advocacy for Christianity, and it’s clear you’ve given this some deep thought. I’ll engage with your points as I see them, while keeping my response conversational and exploratory— let me know if I miss the mark anywhere.

You’re affirming Peterson for his courage in standing up to the College of Psychologists of Ontario, which is a fair nod. His fight there was about resisting what he saw as overreach into personal freedom— compelled speech, specifically— and it’s hard to argue that didn’t take guts, whatever one thinks of his broader views. His 12 Rules for Life also undeniably resonates with a lot of people, especially young men, offering practical advice in a world that can feel aimless. Shellenberger, too, gets your respect for his work— likely his journalism or his push against certain cultural trends— though you don’t specify which parts you admire most. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Taking Bob Brinsmead’s advice to “not beat around the bush”, here below are some of the most fundamental issues in regard to human narratives across the millennia. The issue here is that the ideas/beliefs that we embrace to frame our narratives have potent outcomes in terms of how they impact human thinking, feeling, motivation, and response/behavior. The repeated posting here of research from historians like Richard Landes affirms, for example, the impact of religious ideas on mass-death crusades like Marxism and Nazism, also environmental alarmism. Religious themes are significant contributing factors to such “madness of crowds” eruptions.

Elon Musk on his recent Joe Rogan appearance made the claim that the corruption his DOGE is exposing is the greatest scam of all time, ever in history. I would counter that Paul’s corruption of the original message of Jesus is a far worse scam with far more reaching implications and damage across history. Just saying, Elon.

It takes a village to raise a child, Wendell Krossa

Sorry Elon, but we are sticking our noses in to try and help educate your baby, Grok. Not so smart yet though certainly the politest AI and great at summaries. Much more polite than Siri who has become a bit snarky lately. You can no longer ask her silly questions like- “Siri, do you love me?” and get a fun answer. I guess Woke has now rendered her more cautious and afraid to banter with jokes.

So Grok sometimes misses the main point when summarizing someone’s material, but when challenged, Grok does offer a comeback and quickly gets back on track. Still learning. So take this as just a little help from your friends.

I had asked Grok to summarize Bob Brinsmead’s first essay “What the scholars are saying”. Grok gave a summary but missed Bob’s main point. So Bob responded to Grok’s summary. Here are a few excerpts from Bob’s response. (See below, Grok’s further response to Bob’s comments):

“Grok misses big time my focus in Jesus’ stunningly new doctrine of God that implies universalism. Jesus’ God is non-violent or a non-violent response to evil which rejects retaliatory justice and exhibits a healing restorative justice…

“Others before Jesus had taught a similar ethical behaviour (i.e. non-retaliation) but none ventured like Jesus did to disarm the God of violence and to reject all the threat theology pushed by religion for centuries…

“What Paul’s doctrine of atonement does is turn Jesus’ announcement of an unconditional amnesty of all human debts into a temporary cessation of divine hostilities instead of a total disarmament of God and disarmament of all the threat theology that goes with it. Because the New Testament threat of the Apocalypse puts the worst violence expressed in the Old Testament on steroids in the twin doctrine of blood atonement and an eternal Hell. If the more than 600 passages of divine violence of the Old Testament are hard to stomach, at least it never reached the level of New Testament violence.” Read the rest of the opening comment here

More “Preface” below, or “weave” into Bob Brinsmead’s coming essays…

These quotes from coming material… See new material below…

“Ponder this a bit: This world-straddling religion, that has dominated world consciousness for two millennia, is now exposed by a growing body of scholarship as a “cultic heresy”. That was the argument of the family of Jesus who most accurately represented what the man had actually taught.

“Contrary to its claim to represent Jesus and God, Christianity has profoundly distorted and buried the message of Historical Jesus and outright rejected his new insight that God was an unconditional reality. Imagine the epitome of gall in claiming that you most faithfully represent Jesus and God to humanity when your complex of onerous religious conditions contradict entirely the unconditional and anti-religion message of the man. His central insight and themes focused on unconditional ethics and unconditional validating reality.

“Think of how this colossus of a religion has influenced billions for good and bad. And oh, the bad has been so really bad.

“Before getting into more of Bob’s essays…”.

See the rest in soon to be added comment…

The most dangerous ideas/themes still protected in our meta-narratives, and the horrific outcomes in human societies, Wendell Krossa

The deformities, the psychopathologies in primitive mythology (which is to say- derangements in human thinking), were built into narratives right at the beginning. And the same core themes that the ancients constructed to shape their worldviews have continued down through history, to shape contemporary narratives, whether religious or secular. Just as Joe Campbell said, people have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of the world- i.e. myths of an original paradise that was ruined by early people who “sinned” (original sin fallacy), fables that life was then cursed by God and subsequently declines toward something worse, toward final ending in apocalypse. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Before posting some intro comment on Bob Brinsmead’s new essays, here below is some interesting interaction with Grok. Some of it deals with the greatest fraud and lie in history, Paul’s transformation of the Jewish Jesus into the Gentile Christ, a Hellenized deity that contradicts entirely the very message and life of Historical Jesus. Bob has written some very good material on this issue. Wendell Krossa

Bob’s comment has to do with primitive narrative themes, long buried as archetypes of the human subconscious, from where they have influenced people to construct endless new religious belief systems shaped by the same old complex of themes. Paul embraced those very themes to construct his Christ myth. They are ideas that have now influenced people in the modern era to shape contemporary narratives- i.e. “secular/ideological” systems of belief- with the same psychopathologies.

Using those themes to incite, guide, and validate human behavior, has repeatedly resulted in brutally harmful consequences in human societies. Note for example that those themes drove the mass-death movements of Marxism, Nazism, and are now driving environmental alarmism.

And also probing with Grok what the universe means.

Another note:

The current crusade to “revive religion in society” (noted, for example, in “Free Press”) appears to be ignoring the major issue of merged good and bad in religious traditions. That push for some general revival of religion, leaving psychopathologies in place, denies the fundamental responsibility of all of us to discern between good and bad and then eliminate the bad. The process of discernment and cleaning up our systems of belief is fundamental to human development and maturing, whether in the overall history of humanity or in our personal life stories.

Bob and I are pointing to fundamental ideas/themes that have shaped meta-narratives across history and calling attention to the ideas/beliefs in the religious mix that have incited and validated the worst impulses in people to harm others across history. These ideas are still prominent in the world religions and have been passed on to and embodied in the secular/ideological traditions of the modern era.

Examples of bad ideas/elements in religious traditions: Interesting that the opening story of the bible- i.e. Adam and Eve in Eden- is the presentation of a deity that is angry at human curiosity to know the difference between good and bad. Hmmm? Kinda petty, similar to the myth of the waterworks god Enlil pissed at people having too much fun (too many people talking too much and too loudly) and threatening a flood apocalypse to destroy them all. Just for partying?

Then Charles Templeton pointed out another of these “bad” ideas in that the Old Testament God demands to be the constant center of attention and demands constant praise of his greatness, on pain of death if not done. Templeton is right that is more like an Idi Amin character, than anything remotely human. (While appreciative of Templeton’s insights, I do not go with him to his atheist conclusions.)

Authentic love does not selfishly demand constant attention but denies itself to focus on others and serving others, much like the true “greatness” that Jesus advocated. So, if “God is love and God is great”, then some bad ideas in the mix need to be pointed out and discarded. Otherwise, you get too many people finding validation for their bad behavior from bad ideas in these respected religious traditions. Read the rest of the opening comment here

There is no greater contradiction in the history of human thought and communication/writing than the epitome oxymoron of “Jesus Christ”, the merger of two profoundly opposite persons and messages. What led to Paul burying the diamonds of Historical Jesus in the “d___, m___, s____, and g______” (Jefferson and Tolstoy’s terms) of the New Testament Christology? The forensic work has been done by historians and theologians and Bob Brinsmead presents that research with his own brilliant summary conclusions in two new essays on bobbrinsmead.com. This is some of the best of the “Search for Historical Jesus” (taken up by the “Jesus Seminar”) and “Q Wisdom Sayings” research.

This is all critical to human construction of narratives, complexes of ideas/beliefs, that guide human thinking, emotions, motivations, and responses/behaviors. This is especially critical to how we treat differing others/”enemies”. History is replete with episodes of the barbarity of how people have treated fellow humans, too often incited by primitive ideas that validate the worst of behaviors. Until we go after the ideas/beliefs responsible for driving so much inhumanity, we will only repeat such eruptions of barbarity, as the military guy warned after the crushing of ISIS in 2014 in Syria.

And the ideas/beliefs responsible for validating such inhumanity are common to all the major religious traditions, and similar themes have been embraced by contemporary “secular/ideological” systems of belief.

See new material below on Grok 3, Elon Musk’s new baby.

I urged our discussion group to play with it: “Hey all, how about some fun with Grok 3, pushed by Musk as the best AI out there.

“Note below my queries about alarmist climate narratives (below the opening stuff on Hellenism shaping Christianity) and what appears to me, to be Grok’s biased leaning toward alarmist accounts in climate science. Grok appears to be a smarty pants at excuse-making for the alarmist take.”

Insert: Note how Grok persistently ends his/her/it’s comments with a wrapping-up statement of typical alarmist pessimism that is a denial of the previously presented information. So typical of alarmist denial. I think Grok is more biased by apocalyptic mythology than he/she/it is willing to acknowledge.

The more I pester Grok with climate questions, the more I see a clear bias toward climate alarmism narratives in his/her/it’s responses, meaning Grok has been deformed with the apocalyptic fallacy like most other human thought and narratives, past and contemporary. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Note below some comment on the US pushback against the European shift toward Soviet-style totalitarianism (i.e. the J. D. Vance speech), as well as comment on the partisan politicization of US justice.

When considering the issues here below, first set aside the simple-minded dualism of “atheism versus religion”, as if that were the actual alternatives. That is a dead approach to working through these issues.

Better, as my paraphrase of Mao goes, “Let (8 billion) flowers bloom.” C’mon, we are a creative bunch. We can do better than that dualist extremism that distorts the issues entirely and locks people within limited and false contrasts.

And props/kudos to all those people comfortable to remain within a religious tradition for whatever reason (i.e. sense of family, community, shared enterprise, etc.), people who have found ways to ignore the darker stuff in their traditions and focus on the good elements and thereby moderate their positions. Go my friends and family, go.

So, a sincere “Clap, clap, clap” to all moderation of religion projects. As Jefferson and Tolstoy said, “Pull the diamonds out of the dung”. Like Jefferson’s abbreviated New Testament that tried to include only the original teaching of Historical Jesus. An original version of the “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research, the closest that we get to what the man actually taught.

See Bob Brinsmead’s comment below in relation to his latest essay on the Hellenization of Christianity.

Some excerpts from Bob’s comments:

“The Christianity built on the Christ myth which has been the central plank of Christian civilisation is not a friend of democracy, rights of women, or emancipation of slaves, opposition to divine right of kings. For over a thousand years, lay persons were not allowed to read the Bible and some of the first people who insisted this was a human right and had a copy of the Bible in their house were in danger of being put to death…

“Just as the 18th century was about to dawn, a young student by the name of Akenhead was hung in Scotland, the home of the Enlightenment, because he dared to suggest that Moses did not write the first five books of the OT. There was no religious liberty in Protestant- founded America until the Declaration of Independence and the forming of the Constitution of the US guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion and the separation of church and state which thereby became the pioneer in liberal democracy… Read the rest of the opening comment here

Fighting the ‘Paragon’ (ultimate example, epitome) of all monsters… a bit of autobio, Wendell Krossa

“Fighting a personal monster”, or “How monster theology works monstrously deforming influences on people”. A personal experience in religion, firsthand exposure to “bad religious ideas”.

Note, in particular, the quotes further below from psychologist Harold Ellens on how monstrous views of deity deform human consciousness and life, even dangerously so. Historian Richard Landes, among others, has also detailed the destructive outcomes of bad theology on entire societies, notably in the themes that drove/validated Marxism, Nazism, and are now shaping and validating environmental alarmism.

This is a bit of my experience of the dehumanizing dark side of an institution that most people across history have framed as ultimate Good. Through my struggle with the religious monster, I was motivated (survival desperation) to eventually discover the Palestinian sage’s stunning new theology- i.e. his insight that there is an inexpressible no conditions love behind reality and life.

That discovery shaped my subsequent life purpose- i.e. the “Daddy” thing I do on this site, telling everyone that its ultimately going to be alright, for everyone. There is no real ultimate monster.

Intro notes on a basic outline of common human story:

Joseph Campbell’s outline of the “hero’s journey or quest” illuminates some fundamental features and struggles of all human lives. Here is my paraphrase of that framework and how it appears to have worked throughout my personal life story.

As Campbell notes, we go out into life on an adventure, a journey of discovery to understand what it means to be human on this planet. To learn something and to work out the meaning and purpose of our lives.

And in our journey, we face a monster, an enemy (or multiple enemies/monsters). The enemy/monster should not be framed in terms of our fellow human beings. To focus our fight on differing others as “enemies/monsters” is to miss the real point of our quest. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Useful notes/insights from sages for understanding religious commonalities and claimed differences:

John Dominic Crossan was right to state that it is “unethical” to call someone else’s myth “fiction”, and then claim that yours is “history”, if both of you are holding the same fundamental myth. This would include Christians claiming the virgin birth myths of Ceasars/emperors were false, when Christianity had itself borrowed such claims to frame its Christ myth- i.e. the mythology of gods impregnating women to birth great men. So also resurrection themes descended from traditions such as the Egyptian mythology of Isis and Osiris.

The charge of “unethical” applies also to similar claims made regarding varied other shared core themes/myths of the world religions. The other guy’s beliefs are “fiction”, while mine are “history”. Look carefully at the core themes behind the diverse expressions of beliefs from tradition to tradition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_births

https://www.thenewsminute.com/features/shared-myths-jesus-time-miraculous-birth-stories-common-kings-and-emperors-54776

Note: I am giving some more time to the interest from Islamic countries… Is that citizens with VPNs who can get around state censorship? Or state actors? I will let that play out a bit more…

Contact: wkrossa@shaw.ca

Soon coming– Bob Brinsmead’s latest writeup on how Hellenism, from the time of Alexander the Great, began to shape the consciousness and narratives of the world, mainly the West. Brinsmead does a brilliant job showing how Plato’s approach to reality shaped the Christian approach to the Bible- i.e. that Plato’s invisible Forms were the Real and the patterns/shadows of this world just pointed to that greater Reality that was invisible to us.

That became the way in which Christians viewed and read the Bible and Paul’s Christ myth. Everything that happened before, i.e. in the Old Testament, were just patterns that pointed to the Real Form of the invisible Christ and his sacrifice to pay for sin. The outcome of embracing Plato’s approach? Nothing in this world really matters except, with Paul, to be focused on attaining salvation with the Christ in the next invisible world. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Topics below:

On the claims of Christianity and Islam to “Represent/fulfill” that wisdom sage? Not if you ignore his core message and themes. More on the shared “bad ideas” in the major religious traditions.

And the “holy shitoli” presentation of Javier Milei at Davos. That is what courage and common sense looks and sounds like. The “Populism” that he speaks to is commoners pushing back against dominating elites who have abandoned common sense Classic Liberalism and persistently try to re-establish the elite/commoner divide in societies.

Then see below the Ken Haapala summary of the William Happer presentation on the warming influence of CO2. That warming influence is now “saturated” and increasing levels of CO2 will not contribute much, if anything, to any more warming.

Further, the warming that we have had so far (1.2 degree C over past century) has been beneficial to all life. And the rise in CO2 has also been beneficial to all life. We need more of both to get back to the optimal, natural levels for most of the Phanerozoic history of life, when all life flourished with more of its basic food and warmth- i.e. CO2 in the multiple-thousands of ppm, and temperatures up to 10 C warmer than today (i.e. the Eocene “mammalian paradise” of some 55-33 million years ago). The oceans did not “boil” and the planet did not ignite on fire in that world that was entirely free of ice for over 80% of its history.

Why did the oceans not “boil” (an ignorant alarmist exaggeration)? Because that extra heat energy is transported via ocean and atmospheric convection currents to the colder polar regions to naturally warm those areas and benefit life there. The media hysteria over melting ice and faster Arctic warming is a denial of natural states and climate processes. See the research on the natural factor of “meridional transport”, that Javier Vinos argues is the main influence on climate change. He posts his reports on “co2coalition.org” and “Wattsupwiththat.com”.

Sample of Vinos’ reports:

https://co2coalition.org/news/the-sun-climate-effect-the-winter-gatekeeper-hypothesis-parts-i-ii/

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/02/01/tom-nelson-interviews-javier-vinos/

Why do elites like Mark Carney have such difficultly grasping this basic science of climate presented by experts like atmospheric physicist Happer and others?

The conclusion from Happer’s research? There is no scientific reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies. There is no “climate crisis”.

More on site themes: Wendell Krossa

Is there any greater cultic delusion today than “Lets destroy human civilization (i.e. degrowth, de-development, decarbonization) to “save the world” from an imagined climate apocalypse with no science to affirm it. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Soon coming- More on atmospheric physicist William Happer’s excellent research on the warming influence of CO2. His conclusion from the evidence- “There is no climate crisis.” And our response? “Do nothing.”

And Javier Milei’s refreshingly blunt takedown of destructive ‘Wokeism’ at Davos recently. He presented a defense of freedom that few can match today. Amazingly, the WEF collectivists invited him back after a similar speech last year to tell them to their faces that their bad ideas are destroying Western liberal democracy.

Further, more coming on why Christianity does not represent Historical Jesus, and why Islam is not the “fulfillment” of the actual message and person of Historical Jesus. Yes, Islam does “fulfill” varied features of Jewish Christianity such as the rejection of Jesus as a sacrifice for sin (his redemptive death), the rejection of his virgin birth and divinity, the embrace of Jewish water purification, abstention from alcohol and pork, and so on. And Islam “fulfills” varied elements of Paul’s Christ mythology- i.e. judgment and severe punishment for refusing the message/messenger (i.e. hellfire), and the demand for obedience and submission to God, etc. But these features contradict the actual Jesus of history. Much like Paul’s “Christ-ianity” contradicts the message and person of Jesus.

The point of “Carney barker for a cult” below? Despite clothing himself with “highly experienced international financial expert, highly educated, etc.”, the new wannabe emperor is nakedly a cultic extremist, no different from all religious extremists across history who fell for crusades of primitive apocalyptic hysteria. As historian Richard Landes stated in his recounting of apocalyptic millennial movements like Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism (“Heaven On Earth”), the leaders have all been just “superstitious members of a salvationist apocalyptic millennial cult”. That applies to all today who embrace “climate alarmism”.

Mark Carney may take a scrap of comfort from the fact that Stephen Hawking also fell for Chicken Little climate alarmism over the last two years of his life. He engaged “end of days” date-setting, initially proclaiming the end in about a 1000 years (2016), then logarithmically dropping to the end in just 100 years from either AI Terminators or climate change (2017). The next year, had he lived and continued his logarithmic pattern, he would have dropped to apocalypse in 10 years. Still just enough time to exit the planet before being humiliated by reality as all apocalyptic prophets are eventually exposed. Because apocalyptic has a 100% historical failure rate. Apocalyptic consistently makes fools of the otherwise brightest people. Look at what it did to Chicken Little. Sheesh, eh.

https://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-hawking-1000-years-2016-11

https://www.wired.com/story/stephen-hawking-100-years-on-earth-prediction-starmus-festival/

Now posted below– Mercy toward opponents/enemies enrages some people. They detest efforts to “normalize” their opponents and vilify those who refuse to join them in demonizing and dehumanizing their opponents. What is this psychopathology of outrage at any mercy, kindness, generous forgiveness and inclusion being shown toward differing others?

It is deeply rooted in history as illustrated by, for example, Historical Jesus omitting the “divine vengeance” element in his reading of Isaiah 61, an omission that incited his fellow Jews with murderous rage. They then tried to try to toss him off a cliff. Moderns today similarly exhibit the same furious outrage at mercy toward opponents/enemies. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Further below– “Some things that Michael Schellenberger, Matt Taibbi, Mike Benz, Jimmy Dore, and many others have exposed regarding elite manipulation of our liberal democracies over past decades…”

The outline of “common elements” below helps to understand what has happened in varied liberal democracies across the West- i.e. the elements that have facilitated a leftward shift, as in Canada under Justin Trudeau. Is this due to new generations of young people emerging from universities indoctrinated by Woke Progressive leftism of an extremist variety? Hence, the 50% of young people today who affirm that socialism/communism should be embraced to organize our societies. What role does the psychopathology of “left-wing compassion” play in this shift? As in the narcissistic impulse to virtue-signal unconcerned for the actual outcomes of the ideology and policies that you promote? These new graduates then populate all the main institutions/agencies of our societies- business, government, media, even intelligence agencies.

Note: Evolutionary Behavioral Scientist Gad Saad states that destructive socialist, and other ideas, were breeding over the last century to finally come to fruition on university campuses. We have all watched these ideas pushed across our societies in the lunacy of the Woke Progressivism of the last 10 years. Host Brian Kilmeade responds that the current surge of populism pushback against Woke is not a Republican resurgence but more the resurgence of common sense across Western democracies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI1_pvSQb9M

Coming soon– How the Jewish Christian priest Waraqa mentored Muhammad over 45 years to embrace the fundamentals of Ebionism. Waraqa was the Ebionite priest in Mecca, cousin to Muhammad’s first wife Khadija.

Muhammad embraced the basic themes of Waraqa’s gospel to the Hebrews (an earlier version of the gospel of Matthew) and Waraqa’s God. But while acknowledging his debt to the earlier “book”, he failed to embrace the moderating message of Historical Jesus that was a critical element of early Jewish Christianity.

This is my response to the Piers Morgan interview of Jordan Peterson, and others, where panel members argued points for which religion was better- Christianity or Islam, among other topics related to the British ‘mass rape of children scandal’ recently publicized by Elon Musk. The discussants missed the fundamental point that all three Western religions share the same fundamental themes of their inheritance from Zoroastrianism. They are all much more alike than different from one another. Read the rest of the opening comment here

After the “here we go again” attack in New Orleans… Wendell Krossa

The military guy, following the 2014 eruption of ISIS violence in Syria, urged this- “You can crush these episodes of violence with military force, but they will just keep erupting until you go after the ideas that drive them”. But that will require the approach of going to the very root contributing factors and many people shy away from what has been presented to them by religious traditions as “blasphemy, heresy…”, as in tackling the prominent religious themes of our world religions.

Historian Richard Landes stated this just below, following his detail on how apocalyptic millennial themes drove Marxism to murder 100 million people last century, and Nazism to start a war that resulted in the murder of 50-60 million people, and before his chapter on environmental alarmism as another mass-harm crusade driven by the very same apocalyptic millennial ideas…

“The study of Nazism’s appeal, of Hitler’s charisma, belong to the field of millennial studies, whether one wishes to designate Hitler’s efforts as religious or millennialism as having secular variants. Only then can we identify the key problems of how movements go from the margins to the center of a society/culture, how they pursue their millennial goals, and how they respond… to cognitive dissonance, frustration, and failure… (Hitler) is not so much the measure of the unthinkably, the impossibly evil, as he is the measure of how, with modern technology and an only partially developed civil polity, a nation, a people, seized by, ridden by a millennial passion, can become one of the great dealers of death in human history” (end of ch.12).

His point? Until we deal with the religious ideas that drive such madness, we will only see further such eruptions of madness. Again, those root contributing factors.

Where are these apocalyptic millennial ideas protected and promoted today? They continue to dominate the major world religions, as well as dominate “secular/ideological” versions like climate alarmism conjoined to the neo-Marxism of Woke Progressivism, and are also promoted by the Hollywood public story-telling machine where apocalyptic millennialism dominates movie narratives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films

I would add to Landes’ research, that at the core of apocalyptic millennial mythology is the most critical of all religious ideas- i.e. the cohering center that is threat theology, the myth of an angry God who promises to punish and exterminate people with violent destruction. And consider psychologist Harold Ellens’ point that such a deity, held as ultimate ideal, then incites and validates the same punitive, destroying violence in followers. “We all become just like the God that we believe in” (Bob Brinsmead).

I repeat these comments because few have stated the issue better than Ellens. Here below psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo is quoting Ellens in his book “Cruel God, Kind God”…

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

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

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

“Hence, in our culture we have a powerful element that impels us to violence, a Cruel God Image… that also contributes to guilt, shame, and the impoverishment of personality…”.

“As Harold Ellens says, “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”. Read the rest of the opening comment here