The Unconditional Human Spirit

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

So also Justin Trudeau stated years ago that of all countries he admired China’s dictatorship the most because they could get things done quickly. Like father, like son. So he replicates his Dad’s fanboy admiration of Castro and Mao.

https://public.substack.com/p/brazil-should-terrify-you

“Brazil Should Terrify You: What’s happening here isn’t an isolated event”, MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, APR 13, 2024

“Just a day and a half ago, it seemed like things were calming in Brazil. The Folha de Sao Paulo, the New York Times of Brazil, editorialized against censorship. The head of the Brazilian Bar Association gave a strong statement in support of freedom of expression. And the President of Brazil’s Supreme Court said the conflict between Brazil and X, formerly known as Twitter, was over. “People talk a big game but don’t act on their words,” he said.

“All of that has once again changed. Yesterday, Brazil’s President Lula called for criminalizing lies. Given that everybody lies, Lula is proposing to give the government the power to arrest anyone he wants. Thousands of Workers Party activists took to X yesterday to demand that I be arrested for things I said during my testimony before the Brazilian Senate. And today, the head of X in Brazil announced he had quit, fearing for his safety.

“I am not afraid for myself. As I said on X a few days ago, I fear neither the devil nor de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice rapidly turning himself into Brazil’s dictator. I am taking all necessary precautions to ensure that I can leave Brazil safely and without being arrested. You can help by sharing this video and spreading the word about what is happening here.

“And yet Brazil terrifies me nonetheless. I love this country and its people and fear that they are on the cusp of totalitarianism. A significant share of the Left wants to incarcerate their political enemies. Respected Brazilian journalists say with a straight face that the government must engage in mass censorship in order to protect democracy. Brazil is everything that George Orwell feared and worse. The Brazilian government appears to view “1984” not as a dystopian future to avoid but as an instruction manual for building a new future.

“I might be less worried if Brazil were a small and irrelevant country, but it’s not. Brazil is the largest and most important nation in Latin America. Just this week, top Brazilian government representatives were in China talking about how China, one of the most totalitarian nations in the world, is a model for Brazil. Brazil is an inspiration for European totalitarians who have weaponized government intelligence agencies to spread disinformation about their political enemies and are implementing a censorship system to control the entire Internet.

“The most terrifying part of all of this is the marriage of psychopathic government leaders like Lula and de Moraes with totalitarian activists and voters. Governments have successfully brainwashed a significant percentage of the population into supporting mass censorship. Young adults raised on social media are today more intolerant than the students in China’s Cultural Revolution in China who denounced their teachers and sent them off to work camps to be tortured.

“At the same time, people with a mentality no different from the people who ran the Stasi and the Gestapo are in charge of intelligence agencies in Europe and the United States.

“Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives renewed legislation that gives the US government the right to spy on Americans suspected of collaborating with foreign governments. The result will be McCarthyism on steroids. The FBI will be able to spy on any American citizen who dares to criticize the war in Ukraine. The US government will label people who oppose endless wars in Eurasia as “political extremists,” ruining their careers, or worse.

“During the rise of Communism and fascism in Europe, many Jews and other persecuted people could flee to the United States. Where will we flee if the United States continues down the road to totalitarianism? Not Europe. Not Brazil. Is any country safe in a world where every movement, transaction, and thought is being monitored?

“I keep waiting for the downward totalitarian spiral to hit bottom, and it never does. I am naturally optimistic, but sometimes, that means I have tended toward wishful thinking. Such wishful thinking is dangerous and irresponsible in moments like this one. So, too, is passivity. Read the rest of the opening comment here

The greatest ever liberation movement is the inner freedom from our animal impulses and the mythical/religious ideas that incite and validate these impulses. Our inner animal is the real monster of life and the inner struggle to conquer that monster/enemy is the true battle of life. These animal passions are summed in the “evil triad” of (1) tribalism (“us versus them” exclusionary thinking), (2) domination of weaker others, and (3) the punitive destruction of differing others. (More below)

This important report from Michael Shellenberger…

https://public.substack.com/p/elon-musk-is-all-that-stands-in-the

“Elon Musk Is All That Stands In The Way Of Totalitarianism: Brazil takes another step toward dictatorship”, Michael Shellenberger, April 8, 2024

“Last night, around 8 p.m. local time in São Paulo, Brazil, Federal Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes announced a criminal investigation into Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, for allegedly spreading disinformation, obstructing justice, and allowing people who De Moraes had banned from social media to freely express their views. De Moraes said he would fine X twenty thousand dollars per day for every banned person Musk allows to speak.

“As such, De Moraes has taken Brazil one step closer to being a dictatorship. What’s more, the events of the last few weeks make clear that Elon Musk is the only thing standing in the way of global totalitarianism. Without free speech, there can be no democracy.

“If X goes down, we must continue to fight. We can continue to communicate through email and other social media platforms, such as Facebook.

“But email is no substitute for social media platforms’ capacity to share information with millions of people. Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, abandoned his principled free speech position in 2020 after three years of relentless pressure from activist NGOs, Democrats, and corporate advertisers. Today, Facebook actively represses the spread of news.

“The mainstream corporate news media have never been more corrupt and totalitarian. With few exceptions, they spread government propaganda as a matter of policy. Nobody demands censorship more than the corporate media, which benefit from governments shutting down their competitors.

“Governments are either not protecting free speech or actively participating in the war upon it.

“Last month, the US Supreme Court held a hearing where justices made clear that they were fine with the US government pressuring social media companies to censor. Last week, the Scottish government implemented a law to crack down on so-called hate speech, including jokes by comedians. In Ireland, the government wants the power to send police into people’s homes to search computers and phones for hate speech. In Canada, the governing Liberal party wants the power to send people to prison for life for things they’ve said. And the European Union has empowered a tiny group of bureaucrats to decide what is true and false and engage in mass censorship.

“All of this is happening at the very same moment that my colleagues and I have revealed that government intelligence organizations are working through NGOs to interfere in elections by spreading disinformation about populist activists and political candidates. In other words, governments are demanding censorship in order to protect their ability to spread disinformation.

“Making matters worse, governments are directly financing corporate news media. The current Brazilian government is spending 30 times more than the previous government on media advertising in order to spread its disinformation.

“I never in my life thought I would live to see the rise of totalitarianism in Western countries. A powerful minority of educated elites around the world are demanding the censorship, persecution, and incarceration of their political enemies. Naturally, they are doing so in the name of saving democracy. I am shocked and embarrassed that I used to call many of these totalitarians friends and allies. The only explanation is that they are in the grip of mass psychosis after years of media propaganda and government disinformation falsely claiming that populist political movements are undemocratic.

“The fact that the future of free speech rests upon the shoulders of a single individual is not something any of us should want. I do not think that this is a responsibility Elon Musk wants. He would be a far richer person had he never bought Twitter. He would also be living a more peaceful life. After Musk bought Twitter, the Biden administration and the Democratic Party declared war on him. Various government agencies filed multiple frivolous lawsuits against Musk and his companies in ways very similar to the war the Brazilian government is waging against X.

“What all of this reveals is that, until Musk bought Twitter, we didn’t really have freedom of expression. The US government felt that it controlled both the corporate news media and social media companies. We saw in the Twitter Files that the FBI orchestrated a disinformation and censorship campaign in order to protect Joe Biden.

“Starting with the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, operatives working for the US Department of Defense and the British Ministry of Defense sought to hide their censorship and disinformation efforts as “cyber security.” After that, the US Department of Homeland Security and the Stanford Internet Observatory engaged in a mass censorship effort around the 2020 elections and Covid.

“It is today clear that intelligence and security agencies have been working together around the world to gain control over social media platforms in order to discredit, prosecute, and incarcerate populist leaders. The evidence is now overwhelming that the FBI and Secret Service are covering up evidence related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot in Washington DC. And there is still much we do not know about the eerily similar riot in Brazil’s capitol on January 8, 2023.

“There is much we need to do to fight back. First, everyone around the world should download a “VPN” to their computers and phones so that they can access the Internet in case governments shut down X. Millions of Chinese use VPNs safely to learn the truth about what is happening in the world. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Note posts below on the varied fronts in the resurging collectivist totalitarianism of today in Western societies.

Here is an important summary of research by Bob Brinsmead on the anti-sacrifice message of Historical Jesus, meaning that Jesus argued against Christology (i.e. the mythology of a cosmic godman sent to make atonement for human sin by offering himself as a blood sacrifice). So who is really the “anti-Christ”? Unfortunately, we received Paul’s Christ-ianity, not Jesus-ianity. We properly honor Jesus by doing what Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy did- make distinctly clear the “diamonds/pearls” of Jesus as contrasted with the larger New Testament context that buries the message of Jesus under Paul’s Christ myth.

https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/

More sage insight from Bob Brinsmead on Historical Jesus research

“Yes ____, some good reasoning here. Some of the miracles and stories in the Bible are no more literally true than the Greek myths which were designed to convey moral and ethical insights. The Bible is written by people like us. It is an expression of a faith journey and the evolving, human view of God – which is sometimes raw, primitive and brutal. Ellens (Faith to Live By) says that God’s behaviour in the OT is sometimes insane as well as sometimes sublime as in end of Micah.

“The priestly view of God (the Priestly author) never says a thing about the mercy of God. The Levitical laws were added to the original law of Moses hundreds of years later, and passed off as the words of Moses, but in reality based more on the old pagan sacrifices for which the later prophets, John the Baptist and Jesus expressed utter contempt and rejection, the same as some of the enlightened Greek thinkers such as Pythagoras. Just as the priestly elite put their rituals into the mouth of Moses, so the elite, educated churchmen did not hesitate to put their apocalyptic world view and their ecclesiology into the mouth of Jesus. Their deceitful construction of history led them to construct two entire NT books in the name of Peter to remake Peter in the image of Paul and more.

Another from Bob:

“Belousek’s book, which I have, is a monumental waste of time because he builds on the premise that Jesus’ death was in some sense a saving event or transaction. He simply tries to re-work a discredited doctrine in the same way as some try to rework the violent Christological imagery of the book of Revelation. When he gets through, he is trying to justify the Christian teaching that in some way the death of Jesus was an atonement. Wendell would say re-working of an old teaching is like putting lipstick on a pig.

“Even Catholic theologians have traditionally rejected Calvin’s substitutionary model for the atonement, and rather than trying to explain in what sense it was an atonement, Catholics have tended to say that it is a mystery – just like the Trinity – and that, after all, might be the best way to close down an argument. What is wrong with the whole box and dice of atonement theology is the stark fact that John the Baptist and Jesus stood in the best tradition of the Hebrew prophets who rejected the entire sacrificial system of the priesthood which they maintained was added to the law of Moses by the “lying priests.”

“And for this stance, some of them, like Isaiah, were put to death by the priesthood. This rejection of animal sacrifice as in way having anything to do with God’s forgiveness persisted among a significant segment of Judaism right down through the four centuries of prophetic silence until the arrival of the prophetic spirit again in the persons of John the Baptist and Jesus, and this was continued by James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem for 32 years after the death of Jesus.

“With John and Jesus, as it was with Isaiah and Micah, forgiveness of sin rested solely on the compassionate justice of God and had nothing to do with either the offering of animal or human sacrifice. When John started to baptize in the Jordan as a ritual for the forgiveness of sins, he was by this rejecting the priestly system of sacrifices at Jerusalem for the remission of sins. Read the rest of the opening comment here

See comments below on the best summary yet of the main issues related to climate change and the link to the movie posted at Wattsupwiththat.com

The human oneness thing again, the struggle against tribalism, Wendell Krossa

Even if multiple-origin theories become more credible (they keep popping up and then disappear), you still have the most critical and common identity markers of all humans on Earth today, the fundamental markers of being human- i.e. human consciousness, human mind, human spirit, and the human self- the foundational realities that mark us all as equal members of the same one human family with the same fundamental identity- human being. We are one family of equals. Get used to it. It is our fundamental reality and identity.

Example of multiple origin theories that regularly pop up:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dna-suggests-modern-humans-emerged-from-several-groups-in-africa-not-one-180982242/

The identity markers that we give so much prominence to, like race, are peripheral in terms of fundamental biological importance. As one scientist said, on the human genome race/color amounts to nothing of anymore importance than a sunburn. It’s the difference between active melanocytes due to ancestors living for millennia in high sunlight areas, versus inactive melanocytes due to millennia of life in low sunlight regions.

Its as if a black person and a white person stated their differences as “You sunburned people… you not sunburned people”. Kinda petty, huh.

“I am you and you are me and we are all together”, paraphrase of John Lennon’s “I am the Walrus”.

The threat to liberal democracy is now coming from within, Wendell Krossa

Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and others have been warning us about a dangerous shift that has occurred as US intelligence agencies have moved from focusing more solely on threats from foreign enemies to now focusing excessively on “domestic threats”, claiming that Americans are functioning as agents of dangerous foreign governments. The agencies now frame many of their own citizens as the agents of dangerous “disinformation and hate speech” thereby validating US government projects to censor, ban, silence, and even criminalize their own citizens.

The new and intensified framing of “domestic threat” is a charge more commonly levelled toward conservative opinions and speech which exposes the ideological bias behind this project. The charge of domestic threat has also been levelled toward fellow liberals who do not zealously support the far-left Woke Progressive narratives that dominate so many social institutions and agencies.

The Twitter Files revelations exposed this new “counter-populism” crusade, promoted by the FBI, CIA, the Democratic party, and coercively pushed on the social media giants (Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc.). Read the rest of the opening comment here

Site briefs:

This site notes the varied fronts that are coming at us today, the differing developments in a resurging collectivism that is very much a continuation of the same old collectivist crusade of the last century. The new fronts for collectivism are reframing the class distinction and dualism between capitalist owners and disenfranchised workers (oppressor/oppressed, victimizer/victimized). Today that dualism of oppressor/oppressed is divided more along racial lines.

Journalists like Glen Greenwald, Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, among many others, keep warning us that this new elite totalitarianism poses a constant threat to our freedom.

This site especially notes what is behind the public fronts of these varied collectivist crusades, whether they present as ideological, social, philosophical, or other. The “what is behind or beneath” as in the primitive mythical/religious themes that persistently dominate human narratives both religious and “secular/ideological”. Historians have shown that primitive religious themes were behind Marxism, Nazism, and now environmentalism. Richard Landes described Marxism as “the subtle alliance of what can be recognized as a modicum of scientific truth with a salvationist religion”, just another apocalyptic millennial crusade like all before it.

He quotes another scholar who noted the resistance of Western intellectuals to acknowledge the fundamentally religious nature of Marxism, “… any attempt to put this totalitarian system in the category of a closed and barbarian theocracy is very often vehemently refused… Everybody who dares to take the Bolshevik world as a religious community is considered a traitor betraying the humanitarian ideals of the modernity of the French Revolution… the proponents of the project of modernity, the distance between the old and the new modern world would shrink too much and the debts to the Christian tradition would become too heavy. Thus, when you treat the Bolsheviks as a millennial sect you are going to betray the project of modernity and treat the Bolsheviks despite their very modern efforts to industrialize backward Russia as a medieval sect of obscure believers”, (p.347, Heaven On Earth).

Western intellectuals refused to acknowledge that their Marxist heroes were essentially religious nutcases of the extreme variety.

On the religious themes shaping these crusades:

Note particularly, the theme of cosmic dualism that validates and promotes tribal dualisms among people as in the collectivist dualism of property or capital owners versus landless, poor commoners. Or the environmental narrative dualism of destructive consumers versus a pure and noble wilderness world. Or the many other dualisms that people embrace related to race/ethnicity, nationality, religion, social classes, gender, and so on.

Ancient and deeply embedded theological ideas (archetypes of subconscious such as Zoroaster’s cosmic divine dualism) influence, shape, and validate our worst inherited impulses to tribalism and the consequent retaliatory treatment of differing others as “enemies”. Cosmic dualism mythology traces deeper roots to the animal impulse to small band mentality and opposition to other small bands as competing “enemies” to be excluded, dominated, or destroyed. Ancient peoples, as their consciousness emerged and developed, and moved by their impulse to meaning, then created ideas, projected out to and embedded in ultimate metaphysical realities, to validate their primitive existence.

This site points to better alternatives such as the insights of Historical Jesus on a stunning new theology of an unconditional deity, insights that provide a better background narrative to affirm modern insights on human oneness, insights that reject primitive tribalism and its destructive outcomes in human civilization. Insights that affirm hope, love, and validate the better responses represented in humane systems of ethics such as Classic Liberalism. Further, evidence-based hope lightens human consciousness and contributes to creating an overall environment in which love can flourish and thereby enhance human peace, creative endeavor, and prosperity. Read the rest of the opening comment here

“Where there is no authentic freedom there is no authentic love”, Bob Brinsmead.

The fundamental features of freedom and love are best expressed in Classic Liberal principles and institutions.

Section topics:

(1) Resurging tribalism and disarming the tribal impulse. Go right to the fundamental underpinnings of ideologies and belief systems. I would point to the Jesus insight on unconditional deity- his “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God” (James Robinson), his greatest contribution to the history of human ideas, an insight rejected 20 years later by Paul as he buried the message of Jesus under his Christ myth.

Jesus advocated unlimited, unconditional forgiveness, full and equal inclusion of all, and the end of tribally-limited love that favored friends over enemies, and true believers over unbelievers. His central message- “Love your enemy because God does”. Be like God. (This site embraces the general outlines of “The search for the Historical Jesus” as in Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s comments that “The diamonds/pearls of Jesus are buried under Paul’s Christology- his “Christian Jesus Christ”.)

(2) Basic features of Classic Liberalism as in things like the decentralization of power (dispersed among free individuals) to protect all against the centralizing of power in collectivism approaches to organizing human societies (i.e. elites controlling society’s resources and decision-making for the “greater or common good”, meaning in actual practise “the good of powerholding elites”). Abandoning the principle of government existing to serve the people.

Collectivism models (Owen’s communalism, Marx’s communism, socialism, and mixed socialism/democratic versions) for organizing human societies are fundamentally anti-freedom (anti-individual freedom- meaning anti-diversity, anti-inclusion, anti-equality), and therefore collectivism experiments have inevitably expressed as anti-human and anti-liberal. Collectivism exhibits a profound distrust of ordinary citizens. It expresses an elitist arrogance that believes that it alone knows what is best for all others and will force its elite vision and policies on all others via centralized state power.

(3) The war on agriculture as the next stage of climate alarmism and the populist pushback against that assault. Elites demonize populism as “right wing extremism” but it is a movement of liberals, independents, and conservatives to take back the freedom of all of us commoners who reject the WEF’s “’Great Reset’ where we will own nothing and be happy eating bugs”.

(4) The Climate movie. At last, the best climate science minds- Lindzen, Happer, Moore, Svensmark, and many more stating clearly that there is no climate crisis and CO2 is not a threat to life. And the mild warming of the last century is not a catastrophe but the best thing happening to life in an abnormally cold world where 10 times more people still die every year from cold than die from warmth.

(5) The responsibility for your ideas/beliefs and their outcomes.

(6) The unconditional treatment of all is not advocacy for pacifism. Love is always responsible, first and foremost, to protect the innocent. Meaning restraint and incarceration of violent people.

And more….

The resurging tribalism that we all fret over today, Wendell Krossa Read the rest of the opening comment here

See below Michael Shellenberger on “The end of the transgender craze”, and Canada’s former chair of the Human Rights Commission on the threat to free speech from Justin Trudeau’s “Online Harms” bill.

This site probes the critical issue of how we maintain our humanity in the face of evil, when enduring hell on earth. Wendell Krossa

There are two sides to this ongoing horror: What Hamas terrorists did Oct.7 and are committed to doing “again and again”- exterminate Israelis. And on the other side, the suffering that Gazans are now undergoing due to the obligation of the Israeli military to rid that area of any further threat from Hamas. That must be done. When people commit themselves to violently exterminate others and will not embrace peaceful solutions or surrender peacefully, then there is no option but to, unfortunately, use force to stop them.

Add that the Gazan population will need to engage some profound changes in their understanding and attitude toward their neighbors as far too many of them have been indoctrinated into supporting Hamas. And there is hope that even though the human spirit can be deformed and suppressed by bad ideas and indoctrination, people, when offered the opportunity, can change their minds and come to their senses again. Some of the young Hamas men captured Oct.7 and interrogated by Israeli military admitted that they “had become animals… doing things no human would do”. They realized that their Hamas leaders had seriously misled them. They evidenced some residual and re-emerging shreds of humanity.

https://matzav.com/captured-hamas-terrorist-admits-we-became-animals-as-he-details-sick-suicide-mission/

Quote from above link:

“The terrorist said, “We became animals. Things that humans do not do.”

“They were explicitly told to “step on the heads of civilians” to “behead them and do whatever they felt like”.” (Others said they were told to slaughter even babies. See for yourself the interviews of these terrorists on YouTube.)

Let’s not avert our eyes from the suffering on all sides. But due to the insane eruption of antisemitism across Western societies and accompanying denial of what happened Oct. 7, more needs to be said about the horrors that were inflicted on young Israeli woman on that day and since. Click the links below and look at these young women’s faces and into their eyes.

Many Jews, during the Holocaust, caught in that eruption of hell on earth, wailed their version of Protest theology- “Where is God?”

The Oct. 7 horror again reminds us of the destructive outcomes of the tribal mentality that denies the fact of human oneness, that all of us are equal members of the same one human family and obligated, most primarily, to love one another. These eruptions of savagery against one another ought to raise questions concerning the ideas that feed such hatred and incite brutality toward differing others, that render people more animal than human.

In the mix of resolving these issues for the long-term future we have to set aside the defensive blaming of “they started it” and begin to probe and understand the deeper roots of such hatred and lust for never-ending vengeance. This has to be done if we are to escape these historically endless cycles of “eye for eye” that blind everyone.

True heroism will arise in those willing to grapple with history’s hardest saying to “Love your enemy” and then courageously initiate breaks in the cycles of eye for eye retaliatory response in order to then take degenerating situations in new directions. That will require those who are willing to tower in stature as maturely human, just as Nelson Mandela exhibited for us recently. People who understand that the real enemy is inside each of us. And the real battle against evil takes place inside us, the war against our inherited animal drives to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of others. Read the rest of the opening comment here

A brief: Climate is changing. CO2 has a warming effect. No one denies these facts. But there is no “climate crisis/emergency”. We do not need to decarbonize our societies. The science on climate does not support that conclusion. Other natural factors show stronger correlations to the natural climate change that we have witnessed over past centuries and millennia and are observing today.

Environmental/climate alarmism is a “profoundly religious crusade”. That is also very true of Marxism and Nazism/Neo-Nazism as well, just as it was true of the many “apocalyptic millennial” crusades across history. This site explores, tries to understand better, and outlines repeatedly the core mythical themes that shape and drive such movements.

See “A Canuck sticking his schnozz in a neighbor’s business” further below in this opening section…

This site is devoted to fighting fear, irrational fear resulting from over-hyped, hysterical levels of alarmism based on narratives that distort the true state of life and coerce frightened people to embrace destructive salvation schemes that “destroy the world to save the world”. Yes, you know what I mean- that psychopathology of themes in the complex of myths known as “lost paradise, decline toward apocalypse, demand for sacrifice, and salvation as purging some ‘evil enemy'”, the very themes that dominate and shape alarmism movements like climate alarmism. (Again, see the good research of historians Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, among others, detailed below)

It is profoundly irresponsible to push such irrational mythical nonsense onto new generations knowing the history of destructive outcomes in lives and societies. After 5 millennia of repetitive embracing of such primitivism have we learned nothing? And you wonder why our worst impulses to tribalism, domination of others, and punitive destruction of differing others, are endlessly revived and validated?

Understand the basic themes of history’s most dominant and influential complex of ideas (also most destructive)- the “lost paradise, decline toward apocalypse, promised redemption (millennial paradise)” complex of themes. This will provide you with more tools for evaluating the narratives that you hear in the public arena. Understanding the “apocalyptic millennial” complex will help you evaluate the basic narrative framework of environmental alarmism/climate alarmism, resurging Marxist collectivism, Neo-Nazism, and more. Add these tools to your personal criteria for evaluating anything you hear or read, to inform your own skepticism, questioning, and challenging of dominant narratives today. Wendell Krossa

Remember the totalitarian formula- “fear=control”. Panic-mongering is the totalitarian’s favorite tool.

“The silent majority are sick of this”, Piers Morgan on Chris Williamson podcast, Feb. 28, 2024

Here Piers Morgan and podcaster Chris Williamson are discussing the possibility that our societies appear to be passing “Peak Woke” as the silent majority are now sick of it and pushing back against the “tyranny of the minority”. Hope springs eternal. As they discuss- Majorities are sick of the Woke movement where everything people enjoy in life is being redefined as evil and corrupting… even to cancelling comedy in a new Puritanism where if you crack a joke at work, you must then be expunged from life. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Section topics:

(1) Probing the roots, the bad behavior and buttressing ideas

(2) Endangerment finding? Huh? WTF? The food of all life, in historically short supply (“our current CO2 starvation era”), is now demonized as the ultimate evil- “pollutant, poison, threatening the end of life”.

(3) Celebrating the benefits of melting ice.

(4) Richard Landes’ quotes on the patterns and outcomes of apocalyptic millennial movements, notably in Marxism, Nazism, environmental alarmism… For example, Disappointment with failure in an apocalyptic/millennial movement, leads the movement’s prophets to turn to the “coercive purification” of totalitarian mega-death crusades. Interesting on the psychopathology of such movements- How claims and proclamations of compassion for the oppressed turn cruel and descend into mass death (the narcissism of authoritarianism).

(5) The military guy’s advice- To solve endless eruptions of violence like ISIS, go to the “ideology” behind such groups. Ideology? No- It’s the “bad religious ideas”, stupid, as in the narrative (a play on Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid”)

(6) That “most profound insight” again, and Paul’s rejection of that, his burying of Jesus under his Christ myth. In our Western tradition we inherited the religion of Paul, the entirely opposite Christ-ianity that buried Jesus-ianity.

(7) The Jesus discovery radically reframes Ultimate Reality and presents the potential to transform narratives and life. A new cohering center for human narratives. It offers the potential for a powerful new liberation movement in the depths of human consciousness/subconscious.

(10) Don’t look down your schnauzer (yes, “snout” in German) on those pre-WW2 Germans. We have all been conditioned to fall for the same “banality of evil”. Its those commonly embraced “bad religious ideas” like apocalyptic millennialism that repeatedly produce mega-death outcomes. And, like many “good people” before us, we stand by and watch the destructive outcomes unfold just as many today are doing with decarbonization ruining societies and lives.

And much more…

As we all observe the varied narratives and movements competing for space and attention in public today- whether DEI, ESG, Woke Progressivism, WEF Great Reset, Woke Racism, and more…. Try to get some sense of the overall bigger background narrative themes, what really lies behind all the varied fronts of contemporary movements. They all point to the core themes of a meta-narrative.

I trace things back from, for example, the climate alarmism movement, to its parent mythology in 19th Century Declinism, and from there to the main Western religions like Christianity that shaped the ideology of apocalyptic Declinism, and further back to the daddy of all Western apocalyptic in Zoroastrian mythology, and then to the earliest versions of the same themes in Sumerian/Egyptian mythologies. Its always the same old, same old descending down through history in an unbroken chain of continuation. Primitivism at its worst. And shame on us that we keep falling for this apocalyptic millennial nonsense… We have the better alternatives. We have had them for millennia. There is no excuse. Read the rest of the opening comment here