The Unconditional Human Spirit

Below: The human story is about the historical exodus of humanity from animal existence to become human. Each one of us lives a microcosm story of this meta-exodus to freedom. We do well to understand what it means to be animal and, in contrast, what it means to be human.

From Retaliation To Unconditional Love: The Narrative of Human Exodus from Animal Existence, Wendell Krossa (revised Jan. 2024)

(Note: This essay is the outcome of several decades of interaction with a valued friend, a great human spirit, and probably the finest theological mind to have ever graced this planet, Bob Brinsmead, notably with material of his such as “The Scandal of Joshua Ben Adam”.)

The foundational story of humanity is the story of liberation from our animal past. This is more than just the narrative of our physical/geographical exodus out of Africa (modern humans leaving Africa over the period of roughly 200-50,000 years ago). Our defining story is about our exodus out of our past animal existence and our subsequent struggle to become more human or humane beings. Our subsequent history has very much been a quest to understand what it means to be human, what new human values and practises define and express authentic humanity.

This is an intensely inner journey or quest of the human spirit, what Solzhenitsyn described when he stated that the real battle of good against evil is not an outer battle against physical “enemies’ but rather an inner battle that “runs down the center of every human heart”. The human struggle to make an exodus from animal existence is a personal adventure (psychological, social, spiritual/philosophical) that each of us engages against our individual experience with inherited animal drives. This quest has set us on a uniquely different trajectory from animal behavior and life.

Our exodus from the animal and our struggle toward a more human mode of living is the engine that drives humanity’s overall trajectory of progress toward a better future- a progress that is fueled by the primal impulse to find something better. This story reveals the meaning and purpose of human existence in our endeavor to humanize all life. It is a story that responds to those profound human questions of Why we exist? or What purpose are we here to engage or fulfill? It explains the millennia-long quest of people to understand what it means to be human and to live as human.

Our story begins in an animal past shaped prominently by the drives of domination (alpha male/female), small band or tribal exclusion, and destructive retaliation. This triad of prominent animal drives illustrates the worst of animal reality and existence. It is the dark past that provides the greater background context against which the wonder of our becoming more fully human appears all the brighter as humanity emerged and developed gradually over multiple-millennia.

Joseph Campbell (“Myths To Live By”) has similarly noted the exodus of humanity leaving the animal past for human existence in stating that human story is about learning to conquer the “animal passions” in order to live as maturely human (see also “The Power of Myth”, pages xiii, 104, 144, 191, 201, 218-19, 223, 235). The struggle to overcome our animal past and its base features is engaged on the individual level as well as by humanity as a whole. Campbell also framed human story as going out on a great adventure or quest, confronting and conquering monsters, learning lessons and gaining insights, undergoing a disintegration of the old animal and then reintegrating around the new human, and then returning with insights gained to benefit others in our societies.

In our personal stories, the element of “struggle to overcome” arises from the fact that the animal past continues into our human existence in the form of a residual animal brain with its animal-like impulses that continue to influence our thinking, emotions, responses, and behavior. We see this in the fact that people continue to act like animals when they exclude one another, dominate others, or punitively retaliate against others. And these base animal features have even been embedded in our belief systems where we employ ideas/themes to maintain and validate the animal impulses to the detriment of our efforts to be more human. Nothing has been more critical to maintaining the animal than the embedding of animal features in deity- the ultimate ideal and authority at the core of human narratives.

Retaliation, in particular, is the one notable feature that brings the worst of animal existence into human life. Musonius Rufus (Roman philosopher, circa 30-100 AD) expressed the animal nature of retaliation well, “For to scheme to bite back the biter and to return evil for evil is the act not of a human being but of a wild beast” (http://unsafeharbour.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/ancient-quotations-returning-evil-with-good/). Retaliation is humanity behaving at its animal worst. Establishing retaliation as a feature of our animal past helps expose its bestial nature, its essential inhumanity.
To fully sense the animal nature of retaliation, think of dogs snarling and snapping angrily at one another on a street.

One of the more damaging mistakes that early people made was to project this destructive feature of animal existence- retaliation- onto early views of gods. They created the understanding of early gods as greater dominating realities that were threatening, maliciously retributive, and destructively punitive. Deity as something that would retaliate violently against human failure or sin. In doing that they created super monsters for people to fear. Something that would harm you in this life as well as in the after-life.

Over subsequent time the feature of retaliation in divinity was refined with further developed legal categories as “righteous justice”, proper and fair punishment of evil, or just retribution. Retaliation would further be developed into systems of human justice as deserved payback, or what we know as “eye for eye” justice. Consequently, retaliation makes a line down through history to become the legal reality today of justice as punitive retribution- the “just” consequence for bad behavior.

Note this example definition of punitive retribution: Read the rest of the opening comment here

Though its not his stated intention, Arthur Herman in “The Idea of Decline in Western History” shows how primitive mythology was secularized for the modern era in the ideology of Declinism. The idea of decline (i.e. life declining toward something worse, toward collapse and ending) has become the most dominant and influential theme in the modern world. Life declining is a central feature of apocalyptic.

This is among the most primitive, irrational, and distorting of mythology manufactured by ancient minds.

Richard Landes’ Preface to Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence”.

Note- Landes uses the term “millennialism” but that term should be extended more comprehensively to “apocalyptic millennialism” as that better expresses the narrative that incites to mass-death outcomes with its mix of elements that play on both fear and hope. Or even better- “lost paradise/apocalyptic/redemption” as the summary of the larger complex of primitive themes that have been so destructive to humanity across history. Hence, my little bracketed edits to Landes’ term.

Quotes:

“Historian Norman Cohn sought the origins of the two most devastating millennial movements of his day- Communism and Nazism- in the millennial impulse most medieval historians had generally ignored…

“(Apocalyptic millennialism) is not marginal, it is a widespread belief system shared by many people, especially in the monotheistic cultures, but also quite notable in Buddhism and Taosm (I would add it is also notable in Hinduism with its great cycles of rise and then decline to apocalyptic ending, WK)… episodically bursting forth in the characteristic dynamics of an apocalyptic episode…

“(Apocalyptic millennial) phenomena survive all forms of secularization… not only undiminished but intensified…

“(Apocalyptic millennial) movements play a far greater role in the dynamics of modernity than most historians have imagined…” (end of Landes’ Preface).

Then Mendel: “It was through Christianity that the Apocalypse became part of our culture”. He notes that apocalyptic has had a long and violent history. “The apocalypse is a self-fulfilling prophesy. It promotes the suffering it predicts”.

My conclusion: Apocalyptic is God executing a final destruction and extermination of God’s enemies. It is no wonder that across history, believers in this myth have tried to replicate the same exterminating violence against their enemies, validated by God’s own example of violence. See Harold Ellens/Zenon Lotufo quotes below on the long-term human practise of validating behavior with appeal to beliefs in divinity, basing ethics on theology. People trying to model their lives according to what they believe God is like. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Michael Shellenberger and his colleagues have crafted this excellent statement defending freedom that is under attack from within our societies…

https://westminsterdeclaration.org/

This is why they put forth the Westminster Declaration on freedom of speech…

https://public.substack.com/p/this-is-the-most-terrifying-graph

Note also in relation to this what psychologists term “concept creep”, where the former category of “hate speech” has been extended further and further to now include the disagreeing opinions and speech of others, even comedy (note the Dave Chappelle episode), that makes some feel “uncomfortable… feeling threatened, upset…”. The minority of hyper-sensitive and easily-triggered people are trying to criminalize the disagreeing opinions and speech of majority others. Is this not totalitarianism?

More from freedom warrior Michael Shellenberger– “This video can stop totalitarianism”, Jan.15, 2024

https://public.substack.com/p/this-video-can-stop-totalitarianism

Quotes:

“Imagine for a moment that you wanted to seize control over the Internet and put in place a system of mass censorship worldwide. How would you do it?

“You wouldn’t advertise your intentions. You’d hide them. You’d claim there was a rise in hate speech and misinformation and that it was hurting vulnerable people.

“You wouldn’t take on powerful interests. You’d pick on individual citizens. You’d say that they were on the verge of committing real-world violence.

“And you wouldn’t start in a big nation. You’d find some small country to start. You’d get their politicians to go out on a limb for your agenda.

“That’s precisely what’s happening. Politicians in Ireland are, at this moment, attempting to ram through legislation that would allow the police to invade the homes of ordinary citizens, search their phones and computers, and throw them in prison for “hate speech.”

Intro note to comment below-

Note carefully the ideas in the reposted/revised articles below, and the impulses and patterns that they incite during alarmism outbreaks. Just be clear- these ideas that continue to dominate human narratives today, notably the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” complex of themes, are derivative from primitive mythologies, later embraced by world religions, and now embraced in the “secular ideological” versions of our contemporary world. They continue as the most dominant and influential ideas of today’s narratives, still inciting the worst of human impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others. We are seeing the same old outcomes that affirm Arthur Mendel’s point that apocalyptic is “the most violent and destructive idea in history”. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Triads. No, not the Chinese ones. Just as memory aids, Wendell Krossa

Repeated themes on this site:

Three bads (animal impulses)- tribal exclusion, domination of others, punitive destruction of others.

Three goods (human impulses)- full inclusion of all, equal freedom and rights of all, restorative treatment of failure.

Three major distortions of the true state of life- “lost original paradise, life declining toward apocalypse, redemption/salvation via instantaneous coercive purging of exaggerated threat…”

This site takes the primal meaning impulse of humanity seriously and is committed to responding with the best of insights from across history. Hence, the unapologetic embrace of the metaphysical element in human narratives (long dominant in human narratives as the embodiment of ultimate ideals, ultimate authority), along with a lot of physical evidence on the true state of life (rising, improving, not declining toward something worse). Inform narratives with insights from all areas of life.

A critical project for our time- Counter destructive myths like “apocalyptic millennialism” that endlessly re-erupt today, often in “secular ideological” versions, even scientific. Recognize the prominence of this mythology today in both religious and secular belief systems. Acknowledge the destructive outcomes of this mythology in salvation schemes like decarbonization. Then offer alternatives to shape entirely new narratives that affirm the better angels of our nature and promote better outcomes.

Create an exaggerated monster. Scare yourself silly. And then aflush with virtue, you can convince yourself that you must heroically engage a righteous war to “save the world”. Wendell Krossa

Michele Obama is “terrified”.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/01/08/michelle-obama-terrified-2024-election/72153207007/

So also other Democrats are similarly terrified. Why? Well, they have created a grotesquely exaggerated monster, so irredeemably evil that he threatens “the end of democracy”.

When you have insistently defined your chief opponent as “Hitler… Nazi…. Fascist tyrant…. Racist… will cause the end of democracy”, there is then no further worse extreme element of threat that you can appeal to. You have reached for the worst.

Progressives also claim that their opponents further threaten the end of life itself due to their advocacy for continued use of fossil fuels that alarmist Progressives claim will cause a climate catastrophe that will be the end of the world.

Having defined and smeared all those who disagree with you with such claims and terms, you now cannot back away to a more rational and sane perspective on your opponents. You have painted yourself into a corner with those horrifically exaggerated threats. Read the rest of the opening comment here

We embrace beliefs to inspire, guide, and validate our behavior. It’s the ancient human practise of “basing behavior on related belief”. This primal practise is the outcome of our primary impulse for meaning. The question then is- Are our beliefs fully humane? What criteria help us evaluate this?

Bob Brinsmead, “We become just like the God that we believe in”.

This site is pursuing a liberation at the depths of human consciousness/subconscious, liberation from the inherited ‘archetypes’ that have deformed human narratives and consciousness from the beginning. Meaning the primitive mythical themes that have always incited, guided, and validated the worst of our inherited animal drives to tribalism, domination, and destruction of differing others (i.e. the “evil triad” as a summary of the animal inheritance inside us).

As psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo argues in “Cruel God, Kind God”, bad religious ideas, notably those defining religious Gods as tribal, dominating, and violently destructive, have always deformed human personality with fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, depression, fatalism, nihilism, and violence. God theories have, from the earliest mythology to world religions of the present, functioned as humanity’s highest ideals and authorities.

This site offers new narrative themes informed and shaped by the best insights from across human history, giving us better ideas to guide and validate our responses and behavior, liberating us from our animal inheritance and thereby enabling us to “tower in stature as maturely human”, energizing us to become the heroes of our personal hero’s quest.

Check to see if the bad ideas listed below (18 “Old Narrative Themes, New Story Alternatives”) are present in your personal worldview or narrative. Then (here’s a New Years project) replace them with the better alternatives.

As Bob Brinsmead states in a section below, playing on Bill Clinton’s comment on the economy, “It’s the narrative, stupid”.

https://www.spectator.com.au/author/bob-brinsmead/

And be fully aware of the self-delusion (or cognitive dissonance) of holding “secular/ideological” versions of these same bad religious ideas, using terms that on the surface appear different from the religious versions but express the same core themes of (1) a better past world, (2) bad people ruining paradise (“Fall of man and original sin” mythology), (3) life declining toward something worse, toward apocalyptic ending, (4) demand for sacrifice/payment for sin, punishment, (5) demand to purge some threatening thing (“coercive purification to attain instantaneous transformation”, Arthur Mendel), and then (6) the promise of salvation/utopia. Read the rest of the opening comment here

I posted this response below to Michael Shellenberger’s latest article on Public- “Hatred, Brainwashing, And Mass Psychosis Behind Democrat’s War On Democracy: We have to break the hypnotic trance destroying our country”, Dec. 23, 2023

https://public.substack.com/p/hatred-brainwashing-and-mass-psychosis

My response:

“Michael- Your material is much appreciated. And apply the same analysis of “brainwashing and mass psychosis… hypnotized by propaganda” to the climate crisis crusade which is just as great a threat to democracy with its push to control all aspects of life.

“Prof of economics Ross McKitrick, who helped expose Michael Mann’s hockey-stick fraud, recently noted the drive for central planning behind the climate crusade, and the populist revolt against that impulse to totalitarianism.

https://financialpost.com/opinion/cop28-out-of-touch-globalist-climate-agenda?mc_cid=fba001e275&mc_eid=bbd9cad85f

“Last year’s Nobel laureate in physics, John Clauser summed it best- “There is no climate crisis. Much as it may upset many people, my message is the planet is not in peril”.

https://co2coalition.org/news/nobel-laureate-dr-john-clauser-i-dont-believe-there-is-a-climate-crisis/

See “It’s the narrative, stupid” by Bob Brinsmead at the bottom of this opening section. See also the article by Ross McKitrick re the global elites use of climate alarmism to validate their crusade for global central planning. Sterling Burnett affirms the same reveal made by McKitrick. As noted before on this site, beware the totalitarian’s formula- “Fear=control”.

See also below Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn’s latest on the Democratic party threat to US democracy… a threat that Democrats, with a stunning absence of self-awareness, project onto their opponents. This is about the protection of fundamental freedom, now threatened from within our societies by former liberals/democrats who have swung far-left into extremist Woke Progressivism. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Pass this link on to others… Listen to her comment on the Hebrew word- “Now”. “Each moment is an eternity in hell”, Ayelet Levy-Shachar, mother of Naama.

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-woman-in-the-hamas-video-is-my-daughter

In their moments of fear I have told my children that there were no monsters. But there are. And they create hells worse than any imaginable hell. So Jewish “Protest Theology” was right. God must be held in judgment for the Holocaust, and so much more hellish human experience. Why such hells? Nothing in human spirituality, mythology, or philosophy assuages/mitigates the horrors that people suffer. It just is in all its revolting ugliness. And Why, really Why do people have to go through such savagery? But still we try to comfort one another. What else can we do?

I don’t affirm the conclusions of people like Charles Templeton- “Farewell to God”- to embrace the nihilism of dogmatic atheism (as contrasted with the “atheism” of the skeptic). I can’t go there. But I strongly affirm his spirit. Why do children suffer as they do in this world? Where and what is ultimate Goodness and Love? What possibly can be any meaning to such horror? And so we continue to struggle with this primal impulse for meaning. And how do we maintain our own humanity in the face of such evil?

This from Jordan Peterson, Dec.7, 2023- “Blame idiotic Marxism for the demented antisemitism oozing out of universities: Presidents of Harvard, MIT and UPenn turn blind eye to calls for genocide against Jews, while claiming the moral high ground.”

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-blame-idiotic-marxism-for-the-demented-antisemitism-oozing-out-of-universities

This clip from the Joe Rogan Experience (episode 2073 on Spotify). Just check from about the 1-minute to the 5-minute mark, where Rogan is commenting on the fucked up Canadian situation under Justin Trudeau. Go Joe, go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsQv610jSwg

Note also the comments below this clip, mostly from Canadians affirming what Rogan says about our country- the embarrassment that Justin Trudeau is to this country, the mess that he has made of Canada. Well, what did people expect? He had no business experience at all. And the two defining comments from the man were that he pays no attention to macro-economics (“I don’t think about monetary policy”), and he admires the dictatorship of China because they get things done. Just like Daddy who was a fanboy of Castro and Mao.

Further illustrations of how apocalyptic makes fools of ordinarily bright people, Wendell Krossa

E.g. Bill Maher stating that CO2 is “a poisonous gas”. Holy shit? That trace gas is one of the fundamental elements critical to our existence, along with all other carbon-based life. Bill, its Grade One science. CO2 is the basic food of all life and it has been in especially short supply for the last few million years (our “CO2 starvation era”- Patrick Moore). CO2 levels almost dipped to a massive die-off of plant life some 20-30,000 years ago (down to 185 ppm, just above the 150 ppm where all plant life dies). We need far more CO2 in the atmosphere, just as when CO2 levels were in the multiple-thousands of ppm over much of the 500-million year Phanerozoic era of life, and all life flourished. And when CO2 levels were that high, Earth was sometimes suffering ice-age eras. How’s that for a huge disconnect between CO2 and climate warming?

https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2016/10/Moore-2.pdf

And another self-proclaimed “bright one” exposed as foolish by apocalyptic mythology: Bill Nye “the anti-science guy” argued during a Tucker Carlson interview that we need to return to preindustrial temperatures to save the world. Bill, that was the “Little Ice Age” of roughly 1645-1715, a dangerously cold time on earth that caused crop failures in Europe with subsequent starvation. We need the climate to warm much further, even to the 3-6 degrees C warmer than today that occurred during the Eocene “paradise for mammals” (55-33 million years ago) when, again, all life flourished. Because in our abnormally and sub-optimally cold world of today 10 times more people die every year from cold than die from warmth (Lancet study). Cold climate is the greatest destroyer of life.

And no, with much warmer average temperatures the oceans will not “boil”. Why not? Because “meridional transport”, the “main influence on climate change” (Javier Vinos), will carry that extra topical heat energy to the colder regions of Earth to “even out” climate across the planet, benefitting all life with extended habitats and more diversity, along with increased crop production for humanity.

See the reports of Vinos on the “Sun-Climate Effect: Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis” at Wattsupwiththat.com. Even when average temperatures were 10 degrees C warmer than today, Earth did not “ignite on fire or fry”. And during those much warmer eras tropical temperatures only varied by a few degrees, evidencing strong negative feedbacks that kept tropical temperatures within an “equable climate” range.

For over 80% of the Phanerozoic era of life, Earth has been much warmer than today and entirely ice free with fossils of tropical plants and animals discovered in both polar regions. That is a more normal and optimal world for all life.

Point from paleoclimate evidence? Don’t fear even much more global warming. It will be net beneficial for all life. The terrorizing of the human population over another 1.5 degrees C warming is irrational, anti-evidence hysteria that can only be understood as apocalyptic-incited madness, informed more by primitive mythology than anything remotely scientific.

To all the kids who know better (they have Grade One science under their belts), keep blurting out to your parents- “Mommy/Daddy, the emperor has no clothes”. You will help pop the bubble of delusion now fogging the minds of too many adults that have embraced the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade, just another in a long history of apocalyptic “madness of crowds” eruptions.

Most critical in the mix- probe the “physics of CO2”, the most fundamental evidence in the climate science issue, at places like “co2coalition.org” where atmospheric physicists Richard Lindzen and William Happer, among others, are doing good work presenting this evidence to the public.

That evidence affirms there is “no climate emergency/crisis”. And hence, no need to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies.

Section topics:

(1) Tamping down the tribal impulse.

(2) Ranting and raving about unconditional. A friend says “Push on”. Do you have a better alternative ideal?

(3) Apocalyptic- Landes on the greatest fraud and lie ever. And most destructive myth ever.

(4) Main site project: Go to the root and solve the problem for the long-term.

(5) On the freedom front- Cover your ears, snowflakes. Musk joins Dana White with a “Fuck you” to Wokeism. The courageous refusal to be cowed by Woke bullying and threat.

(6) There is no Madhi or other Savior coming to save us. The incarnation of God in all humanity.

(7) More on the consciousness-transforming insight of Historical Jesus that overturns all religious theology and all conditional religion too.

(8) The “holiness takes precedence over love” fallacy.

(9) Yee gads, its Gad Saad trying to be happy. His views on what’s wrong today.

(10) The Borgen Project on Nelson Mandela. How an unconditional approach to enemies enables one to “tower in stature as maturely human”.

(11) The great “Switcheroo”- Libs/Dems have rejected liberalism, and Conservatives have taken up the torch for Classic Liberalism. Well, not entirely. Conservatives have attempted to limit the free speech of pro-Palestinian protesters.

(12) The 6 most important words in all history- “Love your enemy because God does”. Be fully woke on this. When we talk about “love of enemy” we are not talking about feeling mushy, warm, or fuzzy toward offenders and their offenses because it is just entirely unnatural to feel good toward often monstrous offenders and their too often horrific offenses. Outrage is the natural emotional response to offense. In advocating the precept of “love your enemies” we are talking about the preformed intention to do the humane thing in response to offenders and thereby maintain our humanity in the face of evil. It’s a nuanced thing. And yes, restorative justice approaches point in the right direction.

(13) What is love, really? What is justice, really?

(14) Contemporary storytelling glorifies physical force in the same old infantile vengeance tales (in contrast with the force of love at societal scale).

(15) The new Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, satanic leader… the excessive demonizing of political opponents. Left and Right are both guilty here.

(16) Cease the climate alarmism hysteria- a note to politicians. Take a good look at the physics of CO2, that CO2 has reached “saturation” in terms of its warming influence, and will contribute little to any further warming, warming that has been mild, showing there is “no climate crisis”. Nobel laureate in physics, John Clauser, affirms this.

Other posts below:

Brendan O’Neill on COP28: “Revenge of the feudalists- environmentalism is an ugly revolt against modernity”.

Moral clarity on evil. Its not what the Pro-Palestinian protests are claiming. Hamas’s savagery would exist with or without Israel- Danielle Kubes report.

This latest report on the Censorship Industrial Complex, Alex Gutentag on Public at Substack. How we are manipulated, propagandized, and lied to by state agencies, the intelligence community, and their media allies (mainstream media).

Probing what went wrong, the liberal abandonment of liberalism.

What freedom of speech entails- Even the defense of the repugnant speech of opponents.

Another affirmation of dualism, ultimate oneness? Music that just “comes from somewhere” (comments of McCartney, Lennon, Dylan, Simon).

Book review- Apocalyptic millennialism. Religious ideas fueling destructive madness today. When will we ever learn? Wendell Krossa

Richard Landes’ research in “Heaven On Earth: The varieties of the millennial experience” offers an excellent overview of apocalyptic millennial movements across human history. He notes that many historians have tried to ignore and dismiss how common apocalyptic millennial movements have been in human history. They deny the reality of apocalyptic millennialism, in part, because they cannot bear the exposure of their cultural heroes as tainted by apocalyptic irrationality- heroes like Jesus, Paul, Constantine, Muhammad, Charlemagne, Francis of Assisi, Newton, Marx, Lenin, Mao, among many others.

Add Stephen Hawking to this list as he embraced apocalyptic lunacy over the last two years of his life (2016-17), along with King Charles, Al Gore, Joe Biden, and so many other politicians across the world, whole reams of celebrities and innumerable scientists today, all enthralled to the latest eruption of apocalyptic madness in “climate alarmism”. Hawking prophesied, in 2016, the end of days would happen in about 1000 years (little green aliens coming to get us). Then the next year he dropped the date to the apocalypse as just 100 years out (contemporary green visions of the end). He forgot that the tale of Chicken Little was a fable and not real life. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Note the reposting below of revised articles on “Patterns in alarmism movements” and the destructive outcomes. This is to encourage- “learn more, fear less”. And to counter the totalitarian’s formula- Fear=control.

Some intro notes re the reposted articles below…

Below in the repost of revised comment on “Patterns in alarmism movement” I noted that we have had the alternatives to liberate us from the endless cycles of crowd madness and violence that are incited by the bad ideas that we have inherited, ideas that validate our worst impulses. We have known about the better alternatives for millennia. So there is no excuse for enduring these endless cycles of hellish barbarity that keep erupting in the modern era. Unfortunately though, the better alternatives have been buried in our religious traditions and are now also buried by our ideological belief systems that have embraced the same old inhumane themes of our primitive past.

And while the influence and destructive outcomes of bad religious ideas are most graphically expressed in eruptions of violence such as the Oct.7 attack on Israel, do not dismiss the far worse influence and outcomes (more widespread) of the same basic complex of bad ideas- i.e. the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” set of ideas. The influence and outcomes of this complex create far more harm through the “secular/ideological” versions like climate alarmism.

Just one example of outcomes- Note the death totals worldwide from cold mortality (Lancet study) as related to things like fuel poverty, as related to the anti-fossil fuels crusade that inflates energy costs and impacts the poorest people the most. Where are media on such issues? Where is that virtue-signalling proclamation of concern for human suffering? (Source: Past issues of “Net Zero Watch” newsletter of the Global Warming Policy Forum, among other sources.)

Another…

Part of the Declinism ideology that dominates narratives today is the belief of declinists that the modern embrace of rational science has resulted in the loss of a mythical way of viewing nature and life, and that has been a mistake that must be corrected by reviving and re-embracing the mythical view of reality. The restoration of a mythical way of viewing life is considered to be vital to reconnecting with nature and reviving our “noble savage past”, when people were believed to have been more pure, strong, and authentically in tune with nature. This longing for a restoration of mythical thought helps to understand the “post-truth” element of modern thinking. (Detail in Arthur Herman’s “The Idea of Decline in Western History”, among other sources.)

Ah Michael, Bjorn… What are you guys doing??? Get the new narrative right, or what’s the point? Wendell Krossa

I appreciate Michael Shellenberger and his colleagues along with others like Bjorn Lomborg, muchly so, for their exposure of the “Censorship Industrial Complex”, anti-alarmism, and robust defense of free speech. They are engaging and fulfilling the hero’s quest on these issues. Hence, I regularly post articles by them on this site. Go Michael, go. Go Bjorn, go.

But I have a quibble with Shellenberger and Lomborg over an issue that is critical to public meta-narratives. While they try to calm public nerves that there is no looming apocalypse, they then pivot to affirm the core of the climate alarmism narrative that CO2 is a threat that has to be confronted and dealt with somehow. They, and many others doing the same, are plain wrong on this affirmation that action must be taken against CO2.

They need to heed atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen and William Happer on the physics of CO2 and the fact that the warming influence of CO2 is now “saturated” (a physics term) and that more CO2 in the atmosphere will contribute very little to any further possible warming (now after an ongoing 20-year “pause in warming” we are still uncertain if climate will warm or cool over the next decades, see Javier Vinos reports at Wattsupwiththat.com).

Conclusion from the best evidence so far- There is no “climate emergency” and we do not need to “do something to stop climate change”. Most important, there is no good scientific reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies, a crusade that is ruining Western societies with state-created obstructions to fossil fuel energy development that inflates energy prices and consequently inflates all the basic products (fossil fuel derivatives) essential to our societies. Add the excess burden from the subsidies for unworkable renewables.

On a related note….

Jennifer Marohasy attended the recent “Alliance for Responsible Citizenship” (ARC) conference in London and posted several reports on the conference, noting that climate experts like Richard Lindzen were not permitted to speak.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/11/04/in-denial-about-the-science-part-2-arc-in-london/

Bob Brinsmead said that the conference leaders “suppressed the voices of ‘sceptics’ such as William Happer, Richard Lindzen, and Patrick Moore who are the ones who hold the key to a clear counter climate narrative – namely, that CO2 is not a harmful pollutant but of enormous benefit to support a healthy and more prosperous environment”.

Jordan Peterson, a lead conference organizer, needs to heed Marohasy’s complaints if he really wants to create a new narrative for humanity that properly and actually frees us from the current apocalypticism of climate alarmism and the destructive outcomes of its salvationism (“save the world”). You go, Jennifer. Read the rest of the opening comment here

This from co2coalition.org newsletter of Nov.20, 2023- “CO2 Coalition Director and Nobel Laureate (Physics) John Clauser traveled to Baltimore this past week to speak at a press conference on climate. He began his presentation with the exclamation: “Great news! There is no climate crisis!… Much as it may upset many people, my message is the planet is not in peril.”

Section topics:

(1) An anti-religion site? Nah. Just pointing out that conditional religion cannot and will not communicate the true unconditional nature of deity to humanity. An unconditional God spells the end of all conditional religion.

(2) Comedians are the cutting-edge defenders of freedom. The comedic genius of Jeselnik and others.

(3) Eruptions of hate and violence, and the long-term solutions- Go to the root ideas in narratives that incite and validate our worst impulses (the “evil triad”).

(4) Goal of site- Slay the monster, liberate people from primal fears, promote a liberation at the depths of human consciousness/subconscious.

(5) Reposting of the list of the worst ideas that we have inherited and the 18 alternative themes for a new narrative. Transforming human consciousness at the deepest level.

(6) Some thoughts on dying and the “annoyance” of death (Australian actor Sam Neill’s term).

(7) And another excellent one from Michael Shellenberger- “Why Democrats Became The Totalitarians They Warned Us About: How did the Left go from defending the free speech rights of neo-Nazis to demanding censorship, falsely accusing their opponents of being fascists, and seeking their incarceration?”

Other comments below:

The religious validation of horror; More on comedians as cutting-edge advocates for freedom; Lying in service to a noble cause or righteous battle; Violence producing revulsion and consequent impetus to reform in fellow group members; And more on the real battle of good against evil… and much more.

It will never end, until… Wendell Krossa

This site has long argued that the problem of violence between differing groups of people will continue to erupt in societies until you go to the deepest roots behind such violence- notably the bad ideas that incite such bad behavior, the beliefs that validate the violent domination and destruction of those we consider our “enemies”.

This site advocates for a change at the core of human thought that will involve a thorough transformation of the most fundamental themes that shape human narratives and consequently influence our outlooks, emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior.

The recent Hamas attack was just another festering sore that broke out on a larger body of corruption, just another in an endless historical stream of such eruptions of violence, all fueled by a fundamentally similar complex of bad ideas/themes- mental pathologies that validate tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others. Read the rest of the opening comment here

New comment below– Did Einstein’s actual TOE (Theory of Everything) posit love as the fundamental force or reality? A ‘purported’ letter to a daughter named “Lieserl”. Also more on the root problem of bad ideas inciting and validating bad behavior. Further, today’s eruption of tribalism and the potent counter to tribalism based on human oneness; NDEs affirming the central theme of Historical Jesus; and how to keep AI (Artificial Intelligence) free of tribal, partisan bias- program it with Classic Liberal principles. Comment on issues of our time and those fundamental human questions that arise from our primal impulse for meaning.

Re the debate over the purported letter of Einstein to his daughter Lieserl- It matters not who wrote that, much like Bob Brinsmead argues that it matters not who wrote some of the material attributed to Historical Jesus. That material (i.e. “love your enemy… love one another”) is self-validating as good, right, and true. It’s the content that matters, not who stated it. And an Akkadian father urged his son to “love his enemy” 2,000 years before Jesus did. Others also, no doubt, got this unconditional ethic right just by responding to the intuitions of their own human spirit and consciousness.

The Akkadian father’s statement to his son: “Do not return evil to your adversary; requite with kindness the one who does evil to you, maintain justice for your enemy, be friendly to your enemy. Give food to eat, beer to drink, grant what is requested, provide for and treat with honor. At this one’s god takes pleasure.”

Section topics:

(1) Becoming “woke” on climate, as in properly and fully informed, notably on the “physics of CO2” as presented by atmospheric physicists like Richard Lindzen, William Happer and others (co2coalition.org). Also, be informed on the complexity of climate, and the natural factors that are the main influence on climate change- i.e. not CO2 but factors like “meridional transport”- as detailed by Javier Vinos in his excellent reports on “Sun-Climate Effect: Winter Gatekeeper hypothesis” (at Wattsupwiththat.com). The basic physics of CO2 presents no rational, scientific need to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies.

(2) The hardest saying of all- “Love your enemy”- but most liberating and transforming. It takes us to new heights of courageous mature humanity, to new reaches of true heroism in the real battle of good against evil that takes place in every human heart.

(3) Good balance of concerns from Michael Shellenberger and Co. on maintaining our humanity in the face of evil by affirming the humane treatment of all.

(4) Toying with “blasphemy” in order to achieve liberation from bad ideas. This relates to my project re the Christ myth of Paul that has buried the core insights of Historical Jesus that God was a non-retaliatory, unconditional deity. Paul’s Christ has buried those critical insights of Historical Jesus. “Buried”? Yes, as per the comments of Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy that the “diamonds/pearls” of Historical Jesus were buried by Paul’s Christology.

(5) More on the pathology of apocalyptic and its destructive outcomes in life. Apocalyptic has always been “the most violent and destructive idea in history” (Arthur Mendel, “Vision and Violence”). How so? Fear=control. Watch how this primitive and destructive mythology is playing out today in the latest eruption of apocalyptic- the “profoundly religious” climate alarmism crusade and its salvation scheme of decarbonization that is ruining societies.

(6) Theological points: The role of the Near-Death Experience movement in the long history of human “spirituality”. The main discovery of the NDE movement affirms the stunning theological insight of Jesus on God as non-retaliatory, inexpressibly transcendent unconditional love. This is about understanding the role of the ‘metaphysical’ in human meaning. An unconditional God poses the greatest threat to highly conditional religious traditions. No religion has ever presented this liberating insight on the true nature of deity to humanity.

Also- See the article by Michael Barone below– “The Tom and Daisy Buchanans North of Richmond”. It illustrates the research on the “psychopathology of Left-wing authoritarianism” where people present themselves as compassionate and caring toward some oppressed population but engage policies/practises that destroy the lives of the very people that they claim compassion toward. Barone notes the “vast carelessness” of those who arrogantly claim to know what is best for all others and will use state coercion to push their destructive policies on others, to control others. The outcomes, now evident across our societies, have been horrifically destructive. Such left-wing compassion has nothing to do with Classic Liberalism or liberal democracy. While often identifying as “liberal”, Woke Progressivism has become “highly illiberal”, even totalitarian.

And… Good comment from Elon Musk during his interview with Joe Rogan (episode 2054 of JRE on Spotify). Musk said that the left has gone so far left now on many issues that anyone to the right of that extremism is smeared as “right-wing” (dog whistle for “racist, fascist, white supremacist extremist, threat to democracy,…” etc.), even fellow leftists and moderates. Much like the black folks, and Asians, also Hispanics, who disagreed with Woke Progressivism and were smeared as “racist, the faces of white supremacy”.

As Rogan guest Edie Bravo said recently, commenting on the “censorship industrial complex” and related issues pushed by the Left, “What crazy world are we living in today?” Others, like Glen Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Michael Shellenberger, have noted the “Great Switcheroo” that took place over the past decade where Classic Liberalism has been abandoned by US liberals and is today being defended and promoted more by conservatives. But even more-so, says Greenwald, the more critical divide to be aware of is not between right and left, but between powerholding elites and average citizens.

One more… See posts to a member of a discussion group who was arguing for the materialist theory that the brain produces consciousness, that the meat in our heads produces mind and the wonder of the human self. Sheesh, eh.

Well, one more… Some comment on the Israel/Hamas situation (use of force in defense- legitimate distinctions that matter). Distinctions like lawful war vs war crimes, protecting vs attacking civilians, proportionality, etc. All critical to our primary responsibility to “maintain our humanity in the face of evil”. Also, a good one from Michael Shellenberger on why liberals have abandoned freedom of speech.

An affirmation of the essential goodness of being human, Wendell Krossa (Themes for a new narrative) Read the rest of the opening comment here

Section topics:

(1) The best time ever to be alive (report on basic evidence of progress- Humanprogress.org).

(2) IDF soldier, “I was always taught to be human first.”

(3) What does “love your enemy” mean in the face of evil.

(4) The primary responsibility to maintain our humanity at all times, and especially when confronted with the savagery of others.

(5) The muddled thinking of Western intellectuals (inability to make fundamental distinctions between the civilians in Gaza and the indefensible Hamas terrorists).

(6) Psychologists Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo on theological beliefs (ideas of God) that incite violence in people. Point? Go to the fundamental beliefs/ideas behind eruptions of hate and violence, notably the animal-like features in humanity’s highest ideal and authority- deity- the features of tribalism, domination, punitive destruction.

(7) Climate alarmism updates (there is no “climate crisis”).

(8) More on the real battle of good against evil (Solzhenitsyn’s point that the real battle of good against evil runs down the center of every human heart).

(10) “I wouldn’t fall for it”. “Good people” oblivious to their support of mass-death movements. Don’t deny the power of bad ideas to deform human consciousness and life.

And much more…

Further on New comment below:

A reposting of the “evil triad” and the real battle of good against evil that takes place inside each of us.

Also, some insights to counter the tribal impulse that has erupted with such intensity today, notably, emphasizing humanity’s fundamental “oneness” as a potent counter to tribalism. Humanity’s oneness means that harm done to others is harm done to oneself.

And then, again, some metaphysical speculation (“spiritual” stuff) to help cope with the hell on earth that too many people experience during their life journey. Explaining, understanding, and affirming hope in a better future.

Site project: Basically, to tell people that its going to be alright, ultimately, for everyone. We are all safe in love, in the end. It’s a “Daddy” thing, reassuring the kids. There is no ultimate monster. In the end, we all return to our true home in an inexpressibly wondrous Love. This is critical to our full understanding of reality and life, to fully informing the meaning and purpose impulses in human consciousness. Read the rest of the opening comment here

These quotes from below…

Love your enemy transforms the very core of human systems of meaning- i.e. our ideas of deity, as our highest ideal and authority. Love of enemy transforms that core ideal entirely.

Unfortunately, that transformed ideal has still not been embraced anywhere in world religions or other human systems of thought or belief. Unconditional deity has still not been permitted to express its consciousness-transforming influence on people. In fact, world religions have buried that great discovery under endless religious conditions.

Paul most egregiously buried it in his highly conditional Christ myth. There is no “love your enemy” God in Paul’s letters. Note, for example, the wrathful deity of Romans demanding the ultimate condition- i.e. the condition of the bloody sacrifice of a cosmic godman to pay for sin- and then threatening ultimate destruction for any who refuse to believe Paul’s Christ myth. Hence, Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s statements that the “diamonds/pearls” of Historical Jesus were buried by Paul’s Christology that dominates the New Testament (the “product of inferior minds”).

“Q Wisdom Sayings” scholar James Robinson got it right that a “love your enemy God”, a non-retaliatory, unconditional deity, was “Jesus’ greatest contribution to the history of human ideas”. That was the very center and core of the teaching of Historical Jesus, his main theme or message. His gospel. As Robinson notes, it was a stunning new break-through in theology that was rejected a generation later by Paul and his Christian movement. Paul retreated back to the retaliatory, conditional deity of all previous primitive mythologies.

See Paul’s direct confrontation and rejection of Jesus’ non-retaliatory God in Romans 12:17-20. Paul retreats to a retaliatory “eye for eye” God in re-affirming his theology as- “Leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord”.

In the Jesus Seminar book “The Five Gospels”, they point to this issue of a fundamental contradiction between core messages- i.e. that it is entirely contradictory to present Jesus stating “love your enemy” in Matthew 5 (the ultimate statement of love of an enemy), then a few chapters later (Ch.11) claim that he stated that those refusing his miracles and message were condemned to “outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth” (i.e. hell- the ultimate statement of hatred of an enemy). That is an irreconcilable contradiction to claim the same person said such entirely contradictory things.

This contradiction in fundamental messages, between Jesus and Paul, is at the heart of Christianity. No amount of endless defensive apologetics can paper over this basic contradiction between core theologies and messages in the New Testament. Its about the contradiction between non-retaliation and retaliation, non-violence and violence, unconditional and highly conditional, anti-sacrifice and pro-sacrifice, among other issues. Detail in sections and articles below…

Section topics:

(1) “There is no climate emergency”- the conclusion of over 1600 leading climate scientists in the “World Climate Declaration”.

Quote from article summary posted below: “There’s no climate emergency. And the alarmist messaging pushed by global elites is purely political. That’s what 1,609 scientists and informed professionals stated when they signed the Global Climate Intelligence Group’s “World Climate Declaration.”

(2) Some of the highest achievements in life are ethical/moral/spiritual. “Love your enemy” embodies the single most significant human achievement of all. “Love your enemy” takes us to the very heart of what it means to be authentically human, how we achieve human maturity, how we fulfill the hero’s quest and win the inner battle against our inherited monster, our inner enemy that is those inherited impulses to tribal animosity and exclusion of differing others, to domination of others, and to vengeful, punitive destruction of differing, offending others.

“Love your enemy” is the core ethic of the unconditional spirit, the authentically human spirit. Love your enemy offers the most potent solution to end “eye for eye” cycles of vengeance, prevent violence, and shift societies toward a more peaceful future and hence promote human progress toward the better future that we all want. Love your enemy is how we overcome the evil triad of (1) tribal exclusion of differing others (by full inclusion of all), (2) domination of others (by honoring the freedom and self-determination of all others), and (3) punitive destruction of offending others (by unlimited forgiveness and restorative justice).

That this ethic actually works at a societal level- Note that Nelson Mandela’s embrace of “love of enemy” guided his struggle to overcome his African National Congress colleague’s impulse to more aggressively confront their former oppressors. The millions of young South African men who wanted Mandela to lead them in taking vengeance on their oppressors could have erupted into bloody civil war in South Africa around the same time that Serbia and Rwanda rejected love of enemy and descended into the horrific violence of eye for eye vengeance. See “Mandela’s Way” by Richard Stengel. Mandela’s response to his former oppressors was not some form of pacifist “turn the other cheek”. He established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights abuses and hold offenders responsible, but also as a restorative justice response to heal the country.

(3) To embrace of the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” complex of primitive myths is to embrace of the most destructive ideas in history. Evaluate your own worldview to see if these themes are still present and working the varied forms of psychopathology noted by psychologists Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo in articles below (see “Cruel God, Kind God” by Lotufo).

(4) Kip Hansen on the fact that cold kills 10 times more people every year than warmth does. This fact renders the alarmist crusade over the mild warming of the past century, absurdly irrational and fraudulent. Where are the news media on cold as the real threat to life? We are still in the coldest period of our Holocene interglacial and on a long-term cooling trend since the end of the Holocene Optimum some 6000 years ago. All life would benefit from the much warmer climate that was the average over the past 500 million years- i.e. 3 to 6 degrees C warmer than today.

(5) The endless repetition of the same old damaging myths. This site notes the historical descent of primitive ideas from ancient mythology, then to world religions, and now embraced in “secular ideologies”, even science.

(6) History’s single most profound insight- “Love your enemy because God does”. This “ethic based on similar theology”, or “behavior based on similar belief”, presents the best of human insight into the nature of ultimate reality- deity. “Love of enemy” takes love to its absolute height in deity as humanity’s highest ideal and authority, to then inspire, guide, and validate authentically human behavior.

(7) Another on the real battle of life- i.e. the inner struggle against the evil triad of our inherited animal impulses to tribal exclusion, domination, and destruction of differing others. This inner battle includes the battle against the inherited ideas that validate our worst impulses, ideas that still dominate our narratives. Unconditional is the potent weapon to win the battle, to slay the monster/enemy inside us. Embracing unconditional love as our highest ideal overturns the worst ideas of the old mythical, religious meta-narratives that we have inherited.

(8) “Superlatives” to get the point across- Deity as no conditions love is about transcendent reality. Something infinitely and inexpressibly better than the best that we can ever imagine with our material brains limited by 3-dimensions and informed by 5 senses.

(9) Paul’s rejection of the unconditional message of Historical Jesus, and his rejection of the unconditional God of Jesus, resulted in the single greatest dissonance in religious history. It left Christianity with the most egregious contradiction in the history of thought/belief at the very heart of the religion and its holy book- the Bible, notably in the New Testament. Paul buried the Jesus insight regarding an unconditional God under his highly conditional Christ myth and that became the highly conditional atonement gospel of Christianity as we know it, a denial of the core message of Historical Jesus. That is a great belief contradiction in the extreme that has resulted in the major cognitive dissonance/disconnect that is lodged at the heart of Christianity.

The messages of Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christian “Jesus Christ” are two entirely different and opposite things.

(10) Jordan Peterson and Christine Brophy (different articles) on “the psychology of Left-wing authoritarianism” as compared with “Right wing authoritarianism”.

(11) Joe Rogan and Bill Maher on the pathology of Woke extremism.

(12) Incarceration, de-carceration- criminal justice issues and data facts.

(13) And some further comment on my “evil triad” of the inherited animal impulses to tribal exclusion, domination of others, and punitive destruction of differing others.

(14) Comment on the natural human fear of death and the human longing for continued existence, negative and positive arguments.

And much more…. Read the rest of the opening comment here