The Unconditional Human Spirit

See recent report on climate by atmospheric physicists Richar Lindzen and William Happer below. “The common assumption that carbon dioxide is “the main driver of climate change” is scientifically false…. All Net Zero Actions Worldwide Should Be Stopped Immediately”.

Sitesplainin qualifier: This site repeatedly appeals to the US situation to illustrate common major issues that are afflicting most Western societies.

Projection, demonization of differing others, Wendell Krossa- Just some musing with other curious explorers of these things.

This is some street-level psychology from a fiercely independent commoner, or populist if you will, as in Winston Marshall’s comment that “populism is democracy”. Definitely not dogmatically right or left but more floating butterfly as per Louis Zurcher’s “Mutable Self” trying to exist in open process- open to ongoing learning, development, change, and progress toward a more humane future. Shaped by the basic principles of Classic Liberalism (Daniel Hannan’s “Inventing Freedom” or David Boaz’s “Libertarianism: A Primer”, etc.). Paraphrased as “Live and let live”.

And patience liberals/Democrats… After some early hard knocks for your side, the bothsideism element appears further below.

Intro note:

We dehumanize ourselves when we engage the projection of our faults onto others and then exaggeratingly demonize the differing others as “evil”. All sides of political and social divides exhibit such behavior. This social pathology has become so prominent over recent years- to view the differing other as an enemy and then to frame our disagreements in terms of us positioning ourselves on the purely righteous side and battling intolerable evil on the other side. Such framing deforms the hero’s quest. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Evaluating Donald Trump, Wendell Krossa

Whatever you think of Donald Trump as a person, and even his strongest supporters over the past have told him to tone down the nasty Tweets and vengeful comments about his opponents. But nonetheless (distinguishing person from policies), I don’t know if anyone else could have done what he did in his first term in courageously pushing back, for example, against the lunacy of climate alarmism and getting important things done like criminal justice reform, lowering business taxes across all sectors of business, deregulating at an unprecedented scale (Kevin O’Leary said the deregulation was more important than lowering taxes in stimulating businesses), and much more.

And contrary to Nancy Pelosi’s repeated assertion that Trump “just made the rich richer”, US government budget agencies noted that the highest percentage median income gains were made in the lowest quintile of the population, among other similar data.

Jordan Peterson has offered one of the best assessments of the man in recognizing his personal peculiarities, but then arguing that perhaps the very nature of the man is necessary in the current political atmosphere, both domestic and international.

Here is a reposting of some previous comment on this site:

“This is a very interesting analysis of Trump by Jordan Peterson, psychologist. Not entirely flattering but very interesting and balanced. I have felt the same. Trump can be upsetting at times (i.e. bullying) but “necessary” for the world that we live in today??

“Note Peterson’s comment on “no wars… the Abraham Accords…” that are still holding up. He asks- Why no praise for these amazing accomplishments of Trump? Most people allowed media to infuse them with such hysterical “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (Orange Monster, Hitler) they could not do any sort of rational analysis as Peterson does here.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo1GfKAKy6I

Add here that over past years, more and more Democrats exhibited increasing integrity in acknowledging the good things that Trump has done with his varied policies- i.e. Van Jones of CNN pushing back against a Jake Tapper rant and admitting that Trump’s policies benefitted minority communities- e.g. the opportunity zones, criminal justice reform, booming economy, low unemployment, etc. Democratic party business leaders also eventually admitted that his policies were helpful to the economy. And others have come (even though grudgingly) to acknowledge that his border policies were good, among other things.

Donald Trump once said something to the effect that he wanted to be considered a great president. I would suggest that key to gaining such status would be to abandon “his guiding ethic” of “eye for eye” retaliation (apparently his statement in one of his autobiographies which I have not read). I would encourage him to take the approach of Nelson Mandela to forgive “enemies” and work toward reconciliation with opponents, rejecting tribalism to include all equally in a better future as per Classic Liberal principles.

Topics in this section:

1. Eye for eye retaliation- Us at our most infantile and subhuman.
2. The central Jesus message- No more eye for eye, but instead, love your “enemy”.
3. True greatness- Win the inner battle against the real enemy inside each of us. Then do a Mandela- “Let us surprise them (our opponents) with our generosity”.
4. Links to varied comments on “bothsideism” and “onesideism” in creating the lethal atmosphere of tribal hatred that incites violence.

Read the rest of the opening comment here

See the comment below in this opening section on reviving Magna Carta principles to counter the excessive criminalizing and lawmaking trends of today (countering “moralizing busybodies”).

Note: To doubters of the fact that the most primitive of ancient mythical themes still dominate human narratives/worldviews today. I have posted below a brief list of these primitive themes for readers on the run who prefer quickie summaries. Others would say these themes are about “archetypes” of the subconscious. OK, but let me deal with this in a more street-level manner befitting my “independent commoner” status.

Paul embedded these pathological themes listed below in his Christ myth giving them respected status as ultimate religious or metaphysical/spiritual truth, thereby perpetuating the worst of mental pathology in human narratives and consciousness, especially for those of us in Western civilization.

Historical Jesus had previously severed the long historical tradition of mental/emotional enslavement to these personality-deforming themes by presenting a stunning new alternative- i.e. a non-retaliatory, unconditional God that should have become the cohering center of a new complex of supporting ideas, an entirely new narrative. His breakthrough insights could have sparked the greatest liberation movement in history if early Christians had understood him and embraced his core message. Then we would have gotten true “Jesus-ianity”, instead of the opposite- “Christ-ianity”.

It would have been profound liberation of mind and spirit from threat theology that deforms human personality with fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, depression, nihilism, and violence.

Here again is a summary of the basic themes- the baddies, framed in terms of contemporary “secular/ideological” versions like environmental alarmism:

(1) There was a better past (i.e. the wilderness world before humanity and human civilization).
(2) Essentially “corrupt, greedy” people (“virus, cancer on the planet”) are consuming too much of Earth’s resources and are ruining the originally paradise world (this expresses an essential anti-humanism, hatred of humanity).
(3) Life is now declining toward a worsening state, even toward an apocalyptic ending.
(4) Humanity must make a sacrifice/payment and endure punishment for human sin- i.e. such as give up the good life in modern society and return to the “morally superior low consumption lifestyle”. Meaning- Embrace a retreat to primitivism framed as “de-growth, de-development”.
(5) Humanity must also purge life of some great “evil” threat (CO2 has been lasered in on as the chief marker of human sin today- i.e. human greed in using too much of Earth’s resources like energy. Try to comprehend the insane irrationality of demonizing the basic food of all carbon-based life as a “pollutant/poison”. Yes, Bill Maher, who did not attend Grade 1 science class, called CO2 a “poisonous gas”.).
(6) Only after embracing and fulfilling this salvation scheme can we then restore the lost paradise or achieve some new utopia (i.e. as in the Marxist restoration of original communalism with people re-engineered to become once again “Noble savage collectivist humans” liberated from the great evil of private property, “owning nothing and happy eating bugs”).

Added note on feature 3 above: “Life declining toward a worsening state” is the central feature of the primitive psychopathology of apocalyptic- “the most violent and destructive idea in history” (Arthur Mendel).

Historian Arthur Herman (“The Idea of Decline in Western History”) rightly states that the idea of “decline” is the most dominant and influential theme in today’s world. “Ten Global Trends” (Tupy and Bailey) affirms this dominance with world survey data.

Declinism dominates public consciousness worldwide despite the best evidence that reveals life is improving over the long-term and today we are living in “the best time ever to be alive on Earth” (Humanprogress.org, and of course- Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource”). Most notably, the life-distorting myth of declinism dominates the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade.

Other historians have detailed the evidence that the primitive themes outlined above shaped and fueled Marxism, Nazism, and are now shaping environmental alarmism and driving its “salvation” scheme of Net Zero decarbonization. The salvation schemes (“save the world”) of apocalyptic movements have consistently “destroyed the world to save the world”.

Conclusion: We are not as advanced, or “secular/ideological”, as we like to imagine ourselves. Many of us would find ourselves clapping and cheering if we teleported back some 5000 years ago into a Sumerian temple where the priests droned on about Enlil, the waterworks god, who threatened to send a Great Flood to punish “too many people” (early “overpopulation bomb” nonsense) making “too much noise” (enjoying the good life too much). Too many of us still embrace those most primitive myths of an ancient past, even many with PhDs.

My list of Alternative themes to frame/shape/construct a more humane narrative:

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=12043#more-12043

Topics below:

(1) Revive Magna Carta- The origins and main principles of Classic Liberalism that grant us the freedom and equality that we value today.

(2) The process of leaving my religion- example of death and rebirth in human story.

(3) The transformation of narratives, consciousness, and life at the “archetypal” level.

(4) James Tabor on the still dominant influence of Paul and his apocalyptic Christ myth on our lives and societies today. (Insert: And you wonder why apocalyptic continues to dominate Hollywood story-telling, media narratives of “climate apocalypse”, and resonating with the general population? Well, when Paul embedded that primitive mythical theme in his Christ myth, he gave apocalyptic supreme, unquestionable status “protected under the canopy of the sacred” in the most influential icon in Western consciousness and narratives, for two millennia. Not just influential in religious consciousness but also in “secular/ideological” consciousness, even in “scientific” consciousness.)

(5) The God obsessed with perfection- The baseline myth of “ruined original paradise” that sets the stage for all the rest of the complex of bad religious ideas- “lost paradise, corrupt humanity, life declining toward apocalypse, demanded salvation as sacrifice and purging, promise of restored paradise”.

(6) Goodies from Michael Shellenberger. And more…

Read the rest of the opening comment here

Why conservative politicians needed the spanking they got in Britain, Wendell Krossa

Rishi Sunak, lost the election in Britain. He illustrates a significant mistake made by many conservative politicians over past years, including the otherwise brave Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta. They engage some pushback against the madness of Net Zero Decarbonization, arguing the pace is too rushed and we will still need fossil fuels for some time yet. So slow down, eh.

But then they quickly turn on their heels, pivoting to affirm- But yes, there is a “climate crisis” and we must do something about “dangerous climate change”. Meaning, eventually cut off entirely the human use of fossil fuels.

What the fuck, eh? Do something? Have none of them ever looked at the most basic facts in climate science? Especially the “physics of CO2” and the fact that the CO2 warming effect is now “saturated” (a physics term). Listen to the most credible of atmospheric physicists- Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and others (posting their research at co2coalition.org). They are telling us that the CO2 effect is now saturated (i.e. the ability of more CO2 to operate in a narrow range on the long-wave infrared spectrum, absorbing and instantly re-emitting energy to make a very minor contribution to warming. This ability is now saturated).

So the climate physicists tell us that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere from today’s 420ish ppm to 800 ppm would not contribute much, if anything, to any further warming.

Conclusion? “Do something about fossil fuel emissions”? No, we don’t need to do anything except just adjust/adapt to whatever climate does and become fully woke to the fact that plentiful and cheap fossil fuels are critical to enable humanity to make such adaptations. So stop the irrational and insane war on carbon. C’mon, Danielle. Do some basic research on the fundamentals of climate science.

There is no good scientific reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies. Add here, to counter the insanity of alarmism over warming, that 10 times more people still die every year from cold than die from warming (Lancet study). Cold, not warming, is the great threat to life. Media- Where are you on these facts? And what about the hugely beneficial addition of 15% more green vegetation to the world since 1980, due to more aerial fertilization from the basic food of plant life- CO2? More food for animals, increased crop production for humanity. Again, media where are you on these critical facts?

The “madness” of climate alarmism. Yes, as related to Charles Mackay’s “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”, as well as Douglas Murray’s more recent “The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity”. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Sitesplainin (more on going to root contributing factors in human narratives and the outcomes in human lives): Wendell Krossa

I have no “scientific” reputation to protect or maintain. That does not weaken my respect for good science. But I am an “independent and generalist”, taking helpful insights from anywhere and everywhere, using personal criteria to evaluate the usefulness (or “truthiness”) of any given insight or bit of information. Sources are always provided here for readers to evaluate.

This site unapologetically engages “spiritual” issues and deity theories. These have always been central to human curiosity and the primal human impulse to meaning- i.e. to understand and explain existence, reality, and the why and purpose of it all. As curious beings, we “have to” explore the nature of ultimate reality, ultimate ideals, and ultimate purpose. So, speculate away. Just recognize what you are doing- i.e. what is fairly settled evidence and what is speculation.

Moving back to the point here on engaging the metaphysical/spiritual…

Note for example (our irresistible urge to probe the metaphysical), in Manjit Kumar’s “Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, And The Great Debate About The Nature Of Reality”, how repeatedly Einstein offered religious explanations in his responses to Neils Bohr. “God doesn’t play dice… God doesn’t use telepathy (quantum entanglement)…”, etc.

Einstein held traditional theories of God as some great intervenor and controller of all things, hence his “doesn’t play dice” comment. That misunderstands the essential and inseparable relationship of love to freedom. The “indeterminacy” of quantum mechanics points to this element of freedom.

Einstein resisted what quantum mechanics was uncovering because he held very traditional, very primitive views of deity which did not fit with his dated views of what reality should be. He could not let go of his “Old Man” deity and that is part of why, later in his life, he was sidelined by the physics community.

Einstein stated that one fundamental thing drove his curiosity- i.e. to know what “the Old One thinks”. He said, “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are just details”. Interesting also that he wanted to spend the rest of his life probing light, much like NDEs are centrally about Light.

But a critical qualifier to this point on “spiritual” or deity ideas: I part ways with the long history of religious theories of God. This site embraces “stunningly inexpressible no conditions love” as the singularly defining feature of God. The single most profound insight that humanity has discovered. Read the rest of the opening comment here

More on the real battle of good versus evil: Wendell Krossa

Today US Woke Progressives are presenting the latest example of how repeatedly across history people have abused and deformed the Zoroastrian (Zarathustra) cosmic dualism of good battling evil. This is daily illustrated in their derangement over the Orange Monster. As Michael Shellenberger and Jordan Peterson comment below, this liberal Progressive derangement rests on a self-conception among Democrats who “view themselves as children of light battling children of darkness”. (Yes, this is a “bothsideism” issue as following comments will point out.)

When we frame fellow human beings (opponents, differing others) as our “evil enemy”, then we miss entirely what the Hero’s Quest should be about. Our hero’s journey should first and foremost focus us primarily on the evil within each of us. For communications sake I oversimplify and summarize our inner evil as the inherited animal impulses to (1) tribalism (us “righteous ones” versus differing “evil” others), (2) domination (enlightened elites dominating and controlling ignorant commoners), and (3) punitive destruction as the “righteous justice” response to the imperfections and failings of others. The “evil triad” that illustrates the worst of the worst.

Insert: Just for illustration, note this guest of Joe Rogan (“Rick Doblin’s DMT realization about Hitler”) discovering his own inner evil from a DMT experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd92fg1VWyU&t=532s

The struggle against these inner impulses is the real battle of life, the fight against the real enemy and monster in life. This battle takes place inside each of us. It’s intensely personal. Miss this and you have missed the fundamental point of human life and story.

We must first win this intensely personal inner battle and then we are better qualified to go out and fight public “righteous battles against evil” equipped with the mature human understanding and attitude that enables us to maintain our own humanity during the public struggles. Differing others are not our “enemies” but fellow members of the one human family.

Again, listen to these two sage commentators on this critical inner battle and how to understand and frame the public battles of life:

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the real battle of good against evil that takes place inside us, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either- but right through every human heart- and through all human hearts.”

Joseph Campbell: “For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Myths To Live By).

New stuff

Scattered qualifiers and points on another “good versus evil” dualism…

“Collectivism” is perhaps the best general descriptive for its varied iterations across history in Robert Owen’s communalism, Marxism/communism, socialism, and social democracy or democratic socialism, etc. They are all forms of collectivism with its primary mission to eliminate the “evil” of private property (Marx) and to subjugate individuals to centralized control by enlightened elites who believe that they know what is best for all others- i.e. how to manage and control populations of “ignorant, unenlightened” commoners. Leftist elites sincerely believe that they alone know how to socially engineer all to become collectivist spirits who own nothing and are happy eating bugs. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Main comment below: Watch how you interpret and use your narrative themes: Taking off from Michael Shellenberger’s point- “Beware fighting monsters- take care when battling monsters not to become one”, Wendell Krossa

The points of Nobel laureate John Clauser on climate are posted below in this opening section. “There is no climate crisis”. Thanks John.

Hope springs back with these courageous defenders of Classic Liberalism, liberal democracy.

“Argentina’s President Javier Milei Loves Being the Skunk at the Garden Party: A sit-down with the world’s first libertarian head of state”, Bari Weiss, June 6, 2024

https://www.thefp.com/p/bari-weiss-argentina-president-javier-milei

Contrary to endless media propaganda, global natural disasters are not increasing.

“Is the number of global natural disasters increasing?”, Gianluca Alimonti, Luigi Mariani, Aug. 2023

Quote from Abstract of their report:

“The above result sits in marked contradiction to earlier analyses by two UN bodies (FAO and UNDRR), which predicts an increasing number of natural disasters and impacts in concert with global warming. Our analyses strongly refute this assertion as well as extrapolations published by UNDRR based on this claim.”

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17477891.2023.2239807?mc_cid=b29f845c02&mc_eid=bbd9cad85f

See also from Global Warming Policy Foundation press release of June 6, 2024- “New study confirms GWPF reports on declining climate disasters”. These links were included in their press release:

https://ourworldindata.org/disaster-database-limitations

https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2021/04/Extreme-Weather-2020.pdf

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/10/13/un-claimstaggering-rise-in-climate-emergencies-since-2000/

https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/red-cross-claims-of-increasing-climate-disasters-is-grossly-misleading

https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/un-disasters-report-is-a-huge-blunder-and-embarrassment

Further update from Michael Shellenberger- the war on democracy

“Blind Fury Drives Anti-Democratic War on Trump: Beware fighting monsters”, Michael Shellenberger, June 2, 2024

https://public.substack.com/p/blind-fury-drives-anti-democratic

Quotes from Shellenberger:

“Ever since Donald Trump emerged as a presidential contender nine years ago, America’s most esteemed scholars and journalists have argued that he was violating democratic norms. Trump, they said, was ignoring the stabilizing, unwritten rules and values of American politics….

“But the Democrats’ relentless effort to imprison Trump has undermined the rule of law, faith in the criminal justice system, and democratic norms more than anything Trump has ever done….

“The case was so weak that both the Department of Justice and the former DA refused to prosecute it…. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Other comment just below the opening essay:

(1) Two of the best on climate science- atmospheric physicists Richard Lindzen and William Happer (co2coalition.org). Points made: The crusade against fossil fuels will cause massive human starvation. Atmospheric CO2 is now heavily saturated and more CO2 will have little warming effect. CO2 is essential to our food and to all life on Earth. Greenhouse gases prevent our freezing to death in a world where 10 times more people die of cold every year than die from warming.

(2) Anti-humanism in dominant narratives of today and the murderous call for another mass-death crusade- to cull the human population and thereby “save the world”. Examples: Paul Ehrlich’s “Let India go down the drain” (mass starvation). Or Paul Watson’s call to cull 85% of humanity. But not himself or his family.

(3) The dangerously totalitarian project to criminalize political opponents, critics, even comedians.

(4) Michael Shellenberger on the elite war on freedom, framed as a righteous battle to “protect democracy” by demonizing and blocking “populism”- the revolt of commoners against dominating elites. Populism being real democracy. (“Populism is democracy”- Winston Marshall in Oxford Union debate with Nancy Pelosi, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFmjgbdNNgw )

(5) “Misinformation, disinformation”- buzzwords of our era to distort facts, demonize opponents, and mask censorship projects.

(6) Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn- discussions of the big issues facing liberal democracies.

Some more at the bottom of this opening section... (“Please, s’more Sir”)

(7) 2022 Nobel laureate John Clauser- “There is no climate crisis”.

(8) Jordan Peterson’s interview of Patrick Moore, one of the best on paleoclimate and “celebrating CO2”. Moore states that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that CO2 is having any effect on the temperature. Theoretically it might have a little bit, he adds, but it doesn’t show in the record that it has any significant effect.

These bluntly clear statements deserve wide circulation to combat the fallacies that (1) human emissions of CO2 are the “main contributor” to rising CO2 levels, that (2) rising CO2 is the main cause of climate change, and that (3) climate change is becoming an “existential crisis”. All outrightly false, or at least unproven/uncertain with strong evidence to the contrary. I would include, for added punch to counter the climate alarmism narrative that has profoundly distorted the true state of life, that a return to the 3-6 degrees C warmer temperature of the Eocene “mammalian paradise” of 55-33 million years ago would be a more optimal, natural, and net beneficial climate. It was up to 10 degrees C warmer during the Eocene and the oceans did not “boil” and the Earth did not “ignite on fire”. In fact, tropical temperatures varied only a few degrees (Javier Vinos on the “Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis”) and that “equable tropical climate” points to strong negative feedbacks that kept tropical temperatures within a range beneficial to life.

(9) Paul’s Christ myth has been mainly responsible for re-enforcing the primitive and destructive myth of apocalypse in Western narratives and consciousness. Historical Jesus presented the “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God, his greatest contribution to the history of human ideas”. Pardon my simple logic- If God is non-retaliatory, then God is non-apocalyptic. God will not enact the ultimate act of retaliation against human sin in a world-destroying apocalypse.

I am just affirming the central insight of Historical Jesus that is entirely contrary to Paul’s apocalyptic Christ myth.

(10) A report of research on scientific censorship: “Scientific censorship appears to be increasing. Potential explanations include expanding definitions of harm, increasing concerns about equity and inclusion in higher education…”.

(11) Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn: “The other thing that’s interesting here is that what you’re really seeing is a new Inquisition. Whatever they want to call it, what this really is, is a search for heretics and heresy… they are, I hate to say it, complete dangerous zealots, religious zealots made worse by the fact that they don’t think their religion is a religion. They file it under science….

“Walter Kirn: I guess my point is that under the cover of suppressing disinformation, they actually have created the biggest disinformation spreading machine of all time.”

(12) Jimmy Dore interviews the “Plandemic” documentarian and author- Mikki Willis.

And more…

“Death and rebirth, disintegration of the old and re-integration around the new”, Wendell Krossa

Note: I am not replicating exactly here what anthropologists and others have presented in terms of the shamanic experience as a schizophrenic-like breakdown, retreat inward, enduring terrifying experiences, then reintegrating around something new as in a rebirth. Or what others refer to as a “separation-initiation-return” process. This process has been framed by mythologists in terms of the “shamanic experience” as prototypical of human stories or quests.

Some sample commentary on this:

https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/22433.pdf

https://verchot.com/the-shaman-and-the-epic-heros-journey-separation-initiation-return/

Rather, I am referencing the general element of transformation in our stories when we part ways with something wrong, harmful, a drag on our progress and then embrace something new, more helpful, and that inspires us to be the better persons that we all want to become.

What Joseph Campbell and others refer to as the “Shamanic experience” is useful to consider as essential to human experience, learning, development, growth and the ultimate achievement of mature humanity. The “death to all that is in the past and a rebirth to a new life” is an essential element of the hero’s quest to conquer a monster/enemy, learn the key lessons of life, to then tower in stature as maturely human, and to bring a boon/blessing to one’s community or to life in general.

Below is my outline of a disintegration/reintegration process that I would urge everyone to consider as vital to all our life stories or quests. This process is critical, uncomfortable as it may be, to the healthy development of human personality and a human life story. My focus in this is on the element of the fundamental themes, ideas, myths that have shaped human belief systems and worldviews across all history and across all cultures of the world. I draw attention to the powerful role in human life of the old narrative themes that have become archetypal in human subconscious. Read the rest of the opening comment here

More is coming– I have slowed a bit in posting material here due to daily radiotherapy for aggressive metastatic prostate cancer. Appointments are in another city, usually in the middle of the day, so travel takes up lot of time.

I’ve been surprised at the normal tone of the waiting room conversations with patients expressing good humor, even joking, as we wait our turns to go in for radiation. One elderly man entered the waiting room the other day with a broad smile, stating, “Well, our fun place, eh”.

We hope our bladders are full enough and that we have no gas, both micro-offenses that get you sent out to either walk off the gas or drink more water and thereby rachet up the pee pot into the “dancing on the spot” pain of a full bladder. Walking off gas demands holding the full bladder till some rumble emits from the nether regions.

Another fellow traveller on this quest said with a smile the other day, “Look, if I gotta fart I’m just letting it go right here (in the waiting room)”. We smiled back with understanding affirmation- gotcha.

After an initial CAT scan to see how inner organs are lining up, the scan machine pulls back, and you lay still, waiting tensely for a minute or so as technicians in their outer room examine the results to see if they can go ahead with the radiation machine or need to come back in with the bad news that its walking time. They reassure us that we will thank them for being strict about full bladders and no gas. If not, the side effects are nasty diarrhea, painful peeing, rectal bleeding, and so on. A full bladder, for example, pushes the little intestines up and out of the way of inflaming radiation so as to avoid creating the diarrhea problem.

The radiation destroys healthy organ cells along with cancer cells. The healthy organ cells will recover but the cancer cells will not.

I joke with one fellow patient about his good fashion sense and taste in pants as we all wear the same brown pajama-like bottoms for our treatments. There is no other alternative. His wife hoots at the back and forth between us over our “haute couture”.

Also, some sad stories that express and highlight the mess that the Canadian health care system is, though the people working in the system are beyond wonderful for all they do, the help they provide given what they have to work with.

Trudeau, you gave tens of billions in subsidies to foreign companies for battery plants to chase your Net Zero fantasy that even the eco-zealots of Europe are abandoning because it doesn’t work (i.e. physics limits on renewable input due to natural factors, massive state subsidies to produce renewables, and consequent higher energy costs, destabilized grids, declining economies, etc.). That subsidies funding, adds unnecessarily to taxpayer’s already too heavy tax burdens, and it could have gone to medical equipment located nearer sick folk like the man who has to travel from Kamloops, a 3-hours journey, to get radiation treatment in Kelowna as he suffers bone cancer that is creeping painfully up his spine. Have some mercy, Justin. Get your priorities right.

Re your eco-zealotry- Listen to the best of atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen and William Happer (co2coalition.org) who are telling us that the warming influence of CO2 is now “saturated” (a physics term re its limited operating range on the infrared spectrum) and any further warming, as with the recent past mild warming, will be caused mainly by natural factors. Further, there is no threat of a “climate emergency”. Point? There is no need to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies, a ruinous “salvation” scheme that is destroying our societies. Stop it already, eh.

Even the Greens of Germany have recognized that their decarbonization policies are ruining German industry and have backed off somewhat. Wendell Krossa Read the rest of the opening comment here

A reposting… Feel free to share this list anywhere… Revised, updated.

Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives, Old Story Themes, New Story Alternatives: Rethinking 18 of the most fundamental bad ideas from across human history, and presenting 18 alternative ideas to transform narratives, human consciousness/subconscious, and liberate the human spirit, Wendell Krossa

“Worst” because of the deforming influence of bad ideas on human thought, emotion, motivation, and response/behavior, notably in inciting and validating the base impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of “enemies” or differing others (See comments of psychologists/theologians Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo in “Cruel God, Kind God” on the potent influence of “threat theology” beliefs in deforming human consciousness and personality).

(1) Old story theme: The myth of deity as a judging, punishing, and destroying reality that metes out final justice- i.e. rewarding the good, punishing the bad (i.e. threat theology affirming retributive justice). The myth of a “wrathful violent God” continues as the cohering center of the world religions and is now also given expression in “secular” versions such as “vengeful Gaia, angry planet, pissed Mother Earth, retributive Universe, and payback karma”- the new retaliatory, destroying gods of environmental alarmism, history’s latest apocalyptic movement. (Note: Western religious traditions have always affirmed violence in deities. Eastern traditions have similarly affirmed violence in deity as in “Lord Shiva the Destroyer”.)

The myth of God as a retaliating, punishing reality has long under-girded human justice systems as retaliatory and punitive. From early human beginnings, belief in a punitive deity has incited and validated the demand for punitive response to human imperfection and failure.

The primitive view of deity as punitive, i.e. God as the Ultimate Destroyer (via apocalypse, hell), is the single most important “bad idea” to engage and overturn. All other bad religious ideas are anchored to this foundational pathology in human thought, because deity has long functioned as the cohering center of human belief systems and narratives, and continues to do so today, even in “secularized, materialist” versions of theology/ultimate realities.

New story alternative: The “stunning new theology” that God (Ultimate Consciousness, Mind, Intelligence, Self/Personhood, Source, Transcendent Mystery) is an inexpressible “no conditions love”, a non-retaliatory Reality. The adjective “unconditional” points to our highest understanding of love. It is simply the best of being human and is therefore most critical for defining deity as transcendent “Goodness”.

Takeaway? There is no ultimate judgment, no ultimate exclusion of anyone, no demand for payment or sacrifice to appease angry deity, no need for redemption or salvation, and no ultimate punishment or destruction of anyone (no such mind-perverting horror as “hell”).

Why bother with these speculative metaphysical corrections? Concern for human well-being should include a response to humanity’s “primal fear of after-life harm” that is the personality-deforming outcome of millennia of shaman/priests/pastors beating bad religious ideas into human consciousness/subconscious. Fear of after-life harm adds intolerable sting to the already unbearable fear of death that many people suffer. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Section topics:

(1) Tilak Doshi on the absurdity of the global warming narrative and lawfare to reduce CO2 emissions when 10 times more people die of cold every year than die from heat.

(2) Chris Morrison on the threat of mass-death if Net Zero is fully implemented in our societies. Fortunately, there are signs the decarbonization madness is falling apart as many realize the horrific damage it is causing.

(3) Danielle Smith (Alberta Premier) on the real cost of Net Zero (i.e. the battery storage issue).

(4) And a good discussion by Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi on the exposure of the Woke Progressive bias at NPR by editor Uri Berliner. The NPR situation illustrates the same bias in most mainstream media that have abandoned true journalism to become loudspeakers for state propaganda.

(5) Richard Lindzen and William Happer on celebrating CO2.

(6) Discussion group posts on the Joe Rogan interview of Tucker Carlson- episode 2138 of JRE on Spotify. They cover some very interesting topics from aliens to elite control of government that has abandoned “consent by the governed”. Meaning, we don’t really live in liberal democracies any more. Add the comment of Carlson that most politicians are “terrified” of the intelligence agencies.

(7) A report showing changes in temperature precede increases in atmospheric CO2 and natural changes in CO2 far exceed human emissions. My conclusion- there is no good reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies.

(8) Bill Maher praises Ron DeSantis. Huh? Holy Moly, what is the world coming to? And more….

We hear the climate alarmism crusade described with terms like “lunacy, crazy, insane, absurd…” How else to define the irrational, irresponsible and dogmatic spirit that promotes this “profoundly religious movement” and its highly destructive “decarbonization” salvation scheme (to “save the world”).

Decarbonization is one front in a larger political, ideological, environmental crusade that is promoting “de-development, de-growth, de-industrialization, de-pretty much everything of progress in the modern world”. Advocating for a return to primitivism but only for the common folk (“You will own nothing, and you will be happy eating bugs”), while dominating elites continue their obsession with controlling and debasing all aspects of our lives. Ah, it takes the psychologists to analyze and unravel this elite lunacy- as in “the psychopathology of left-wing authoritarianism”, or “the narcissism of left-wing totalitarianism”, etc. Read the rest of the opening comment here

New at bottom of this opening section: The impulse to domination in Christology (the transformation of common man Jesus into Lord Christ mythology- Brinsmead commentary), Martin Durkin on domination in climate class warfare, and musings from yours truly on this same issue of the base impulse to society-wrecking domination.

Why our hesitancy to purge our narratives/belief systems of the dangerous ideas that have, from the beginning of our history, incited and validated our inner inheritance of animal impulses? I give the nod to Solzhenitsyn’s point that the real battle of good against evil takes place inside every human heart, against what Campbell termed “the animal passions”. Most notably the “evil triad” of impulses to tribalism (exclusion of differing others), domination (coercive intervention to override the freedom of others, to control others), and destruction of the differing or competing other (punitive, retaliatory justice).

Our primitive ancestors, responding to the primal human impulse for meaning, manufactured ideas of deities (humanity’s highest ideal and authority) to validate the impulses and behavior that dominated their primitive existence. We excuse them for not knowing any better. But to continue affirming those same ideas/themes today is inexcusably irresponsible. And we see the same old outcomes of violence across today’s world.

The US military guy was right (during the ISIS eruption of insanity in Syria years ago) to state that you can destroy those violent groups with military force, but if you don’t go after the ideas that drive them you will only see more such eruptions of violent insanity. Hence, Hamas and Iran today.

See new material below on “Metaphysical bullshit”, apocalyptic and the challenges to the 2nd Law dominating the cosmos, and some Brinsmead “thought provokers”.

The Iranian attack on Israel brings to the fore, once again, a persistent threat to peace in our world. No, not primarily the actors involved in these “eye for eye” cycles, but the core ideas, themes, beliefs that deform human minds with tribal hatred and commitment to punitive destruction of differing others.

And this is not to deny the responsibility to take defensive action in the face of irresolvable commitment of attackers to extermination of differing others. Pacifism does not work, especially not in the face of religiously-inspired hatred that renders human minds delusionally oriented to irrational visions of apocalyptic millennialism.

Until we face head on and address the themes that continue to shape human narratives both religious and “secular/ideological”, we will not get to the root of this persisting problem of society-destroying violence. By avoiding the root contributing factors we only tinker around the edges. This is not to deny the importance of ceasefire and appeasement/settlement initiatives. They are critical in the short term, but they do not go to the root of the problem if we leave in place the very ideas that continue to deform human minds and lives, as they have across multiple millennia. Read the rest of the opening comment here