The Unconditional Human Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote from Abstract of their report:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further update from Michael Shellenberger- the war on democracy

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

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

Quotes from Shellenberger:

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

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

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

Other comment just below the opening essay:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And more…

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

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

Some sample commentary on this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Section topics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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