The Unconditional Human Spirit

Another note on the Douglas Murray Dave Smith clash on Joe Rogan, Wendell Krossa

More probing of how to solve problems like large-scale violence and war. Dave and Doug go at it, Hamas/Gaza and the horror of violence in war. If the points and arguments seem a bit convoluted, welcome to the nuance and complexity of war when normal humans give way to those ugly impulses to tribal hatred, to demonizing some differing other in extremist terms as “evil enemy”, and then letting vent the destructive impulse to punitive retaliation. Then the rest of us watch the “insanity of war”.

The issues below that Murray and Smith debated illustrate a repeated point that I make here- Go to the root factors behind any given problem such as the resurgence of religious violence by Islamic extremists. And deal with the critical contributing factors that are “bad religious ideas”, or you will just get repeated episodes of such violence.

Historians like Richard Landes have warned that if you do not understand how myths (i.e. bad religious ideas) like “apocalyptic millennialism” can carry societies into mass-death (i.e. Marxism, Nazism), and if you don’t deal with those ideas, then you will suffer the repeated violent outcomes from people holding such systems of belief. And this applies to more than just Islamic terrorists. Remember also the histories of Judaism (Old Testament) and Christianity over the past two millennia.

And as per my repeated point on this issue- The most critical root contributing factor among bad religious ideas is the “monster God” that holds religious belief systems together, validating all the rest. As Harold Ellens has said so clearly- “Sick Gods make people sick.” Psychologists Ellens and Zenon Lotufo have both noted, the threat theology based on monster God mythology incites fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, despair and depression, nihilism, and violence. It brings out the worst in us.

Move beyond reformism that tinkers at the periphery of religious systems and go directly to the core of the problem- i.e. the deformed deity that has long reigned as the ultimate ideal and authority in religious systems and has always provided the fundamental archetypes for all human narratives (i.e. the core themes), including secular ideological systems of belief.

This is critical to solving problems like “People become just like the God/ultimate reality/ultimate ideal that they believe in”, and “Men never do greater evil than when they do so in the name of their God”. This goes to the deepest roots of the “eye for eye” cycles that we are watching play out in the Israel/Gaza war. As Ellens said, “If your God retaliates with destructive violence then so may you.” Read the rest of the opening comment here

xAI Grok commenting (response to my query) on Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence” and my quote from Mendel that apocalyptic is the most violent and destructive idea in history.

“Mendel’s real insight is warning us to watch out for any idea that promises salvation through catastrophe. That’s where the trouble starts.”

Mendel, along with colleagues Richard Landes, David Redles, and Arthur Herman, shows how the primitive myth of apocalypse (and its full complex of related beliefs) continues to infect and dominate contemporary religions and the “secular ideologies” of the modern era. It has to do with the totalitarian’s formula of “Fear=control”. As, for example, in the psychopathology of a “left-wing/Progressive” elite control that pushes salvation schemes that destroy societies to “save some world” imagined to be under existential threat from differing others. We are, with our front-row seats, watching this play out in the “madness of crowds” climate alarmism crusade, the widespread Woke Progressive/DEI crusade, etc.

Grok gives its feedback, below, on the most dominant of bad ideas across human history, ideas that still dominate our world religions and also our most prominent ideologies- i.e. Marxism, environmental alarmism, etc.

Note:

History’s greatest oxymoron (i.e. combining contradicting things), as embodied in Paul’s merger of Historical Jesus with his entirely opposite Christ myth, that is below this opening section- “The Great Christian Contradiction”. My taking up the project of Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy to pull the “diamonds out of the dung” (their terms, not mine).

Then:

Douglas Murray offered an interesting comment in his recent debate with Dave Smith on a Joe Rogan podcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah6kirkSwTg

Murray spoke about how as we go forward through life, that our path through the years is often like travelling through a fog due to the limitations of our knowledge about what to do, what choices to make. But later, when we look back over our lives we don’t see any fog, just the path that we took. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Coming eventually… xAI Grok’s take on my points. And the applicability of the unconditional ideal to ethics, criminal justice, and at societal scale as in the Nelson Mandela approach. It is not an affirmation of pacifism in the face of personal assault, violence at any scale, and national level attacks, etc.

Disclaimer/qualifier: Wendell Krossa

Is there really any point to make this qualifier, again- i.e. that I this site does not intend to offend religious people, members of the major world religions, when confronting the bad ideas in their traditions?

My view on what I am doing here and why? I am just joining my voice to what Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy said in their exposure of the true nature of what Christianity has told us to believe as ultimate truth. They were admittedly somewhat crude in defining Paul’s gospel of the Christ as “dung, muck, slime and garbage”. They were framing the contrast of Paul’s Christ with the “diamonds/pearls” of Jesus, also included in the New Testament. The two messages were not the same. They were entirely opposites.

Psychologist Harold Ellens, in his own update to Jefferson and Tolstoy, said that the Christian view of the crucifixion of Jesus was to take barbaric child sacrifice and present that as “an act of grace”, or as Paul said, as a display of “God’s love”.

There were no terms two millennia ago to describe ultimate or epitome “oxymoronic” for what Paul did in merging the anti-sacrifice Historical Jesus with Paul’s supreme sacrifice in his “Jesus Christ” myth.

So also Charles Templeton (“Farewell To God”) exposed the true nature of what we were told to worship as divine, as good, as righteous reality and ultimate truth. He pointed out that the God of the bible that many worshipped was actually a dictatorial monstrosity. Templeton stated correctly that someone who demands to be the center of attention and demands constant praise of his greatness, on pain of death for not doing so, is an Idi Amin monster. Historical Jesus had also countered that perversion of deity in stating that true greatness was in serving, not in dominating others. Yet we are taught by our religious traditions to worship such threatening domination as something true, good, and right.

Alex Garcia (“Alpha God”) added to the exposure of the actual nature of religious practices like worship by stating that people bowing in churches was evidence of our animal past where lesser tribe members cowed before the alpha predators. Is that too blunt to even consider? That bowing of heads and averting of eyes, he claims, may be no different from the lesser animals in a group cowing before the alpha predator of the group. I find the shock value in such exposures is necessary to snap us awake from what we are actually doing. It is more correctly understood as a pathology, not healthy human development. Read the rest of the opening comment here

“The climate scam is collapsing”, Tom Nelson, April 10, 2025 (Posted on Anthony Watts’ site “Wattsupwiththat.com”)

(“Its all over now, baby blue”- Bob Dylan)

Don’t be too assured that it’s all over now. As Richard Landes says, when an apocalyptic crusade appears to be failing, the leaders often double down and shift into the phase of “exterminate or be exterminated”. Desperate to survive as their entire universe, along with their very identity, faces demise and extinction. They may do “desperate measures” crazy things.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/10/over-30-items-here-evidence-that-the-climate-scam-is-collapsing/

Nelson lists over 30 items giving evidence that the climate scam is collapsing.

He says, “The climate scam is imploding right now. Of course there are still plenty of remaining pockets of climate cultism, but the whole movement is crumbling. It’s the most massive scientific fraud in human history, and it will take significant time to completely die, but make no mistake: It IS dying.”

See link above for further links on each particular item:

I will list only some…

“A powerful climate alliance of the World Economic Forum, major companies, the UN, and banks is at an end”.

“Delicious straight talk from US EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin- “We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate change religion.”

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright- “Climate change alarmism is a ‘quasi-cult religion’”. Read the rest of the opening comment here

I just sent this post to family and friends in a discussion group online…

“Do you get the bigger picture now? Its not just about how much any particular tariff does to rebalance some other country’s tariffs. Its about the very fundamental premises of globalization pushed by elites over past decades- i.e. that if we engage authoritarian countries like China, and entangle our economies in commerce, then we can bring China into democracy. Not.

“US elites believed that it was worth the cost of losing US manufacturing industry to places like China in order to gain influence and control over the larger world with the Western democratic system led by the US. Basically, to achieve US dominance in the world (extend US empire, what my American brother-in-law refers to as US “Manifest Destiny”).

“And it was a mixed bag of motives and goals- Yes, the noble expansion of democracy was in the mix, no doubt. And the value of free trade as in “comparative advantage” and giving poor countries a chance to develop out of poverty. All there, also.

“But there was also the elite advantage that came from shifting away from high-cost US labor to low-cost labor regions, a shift that benefitted business elites and CEOs with more wealth, and Wall Street Financial types with great gains. (Labor costs are the significantly dominant cost in most businesses.)

“Now Trump is going to overturn that great globalization project to bring back manufacturing in order to benefit US workers. And to end the dangerous dependence on threatening places like China for critical resources- i.e. rare Earth metals, medicines, etc.

“No wonder Wall Street elites, who have benefitted from globalization, are going hysterical as they watch their power, control, and profits threatened by Trump.

“So who really cares for the common worker?”

There is something “far, far bigger” going on, often behind-the-scenes, than what media chatter on about all day. Petty obsession with opponent’s words/jokes, minor elements in policy initiatives, individual country’s situations on tariffs, etc. Read the rest of the opening comment here

See below the “bad ideas” pathology- i.e. the complex of primitive mythical themes that are common to the world religions and have even been embraced to frame contemporary “secular/ideological” systems of belief, notably Socialism/Marxism and environmentalism. As many have warned, until we deal thoroughly with this complex of bad ideas that incite and validate bad human behavior, we will continue to suffer the eruptions of tribal violence that are the inevitably consequence of holding such ideas in our belief systems, whether in religious or “secular/ideological” versions.

Reposting: “Elite financial expert? No, just another “carny barker” for a cult”, Wendell Krossa (Understanding the real Mark Carney.)

http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=13274#more-13274

Varied commentators have pointed out Carney’s basic WEF socialism. Additionally, historians have pulled the cloak off this “would-be emperor” to expose the nakedness of the underlying collectivism that he proposes. I would add that behind his “secular/ideological salvationism” there is the same old superstitious primitivism of apocalyptic millennial cultism.

These quotes from a previous posting…

“Mark Carney has successfully elbowed his way to become Liberal leader and replaced Justin Trudeau.

“Historian Richard Landes noted that the Bolsheviks tried to masquerade their movement as “science and modernity”, but they were nothing more than “superstitious members of a salvationist apocalyptic millennial cult”. My mind returned to Landes’ comments on the Bolsheviks as I watched Mark Carney replacing Trudeau.

“See the varied comments below on Carney, WEF socialist (he is a board member) and climate alarmist, seeking to bring his WEF-style climate crusade to Canada to reframe the Liberal party with his smoother elitist presentation. He will replace, but maintain, the destructive eco-zealotry of Justin Trudeau. And take it to even further reaches of destructiveness if elected to a full term.

“Carney is an eco-cultist trying, with elitist smoothness, to present himself as financial expert. No different from the self-delusional framing of the original Bolsheviks, and Marxist elites in general, who wished to mask their salvationist apocalyptic cult as some form of modernism- i.e. as ideology, science, philosophy, etc. Note, for example, Marxism’s claim to “scientific history”. Primitive mythology (apocalyptic millennialism) masked as something rational and credible. Read the rest of the opening comment here

This site probes the deepest roots of problems, notably the more primitive archetypes of the human subconscious (long embedded there) that continue to shape our narratives with the same basic “bad idea” themes, whether in religious or secular/ideological versions.

“Bad religious ideas/beliefs” then incite and validate people doing bad things to one another. This refers to the common human practice of following the “behavior based on similarly themed beliefs”. Appealing to our belief systems to validate how we behave. And notably, appealing to our image of deity to validate how we act, how we treat others.

There are many things that need to be done to bring peace and security to life, such as negotiating political/economic solutions, etc. But critical to the long-term resolution of tribal enmity, struggles to dominate others, and violent retaliation, is to go to other critical inciting/contributing/validating factors such as the bad ideas in our narratives.

And nothing is “badder” than the profoundly sick gods that we embrace and honor as the cohering centers of our narratives, as our ultimate ideals and authorities to validate our behavior. Again, the “behavior based on belief” pattern of people seeking justification for how they behave and live.

The human practise of appealing to ideals embodied in beliefs, notably religious beliefs, is how beliefs “generate ‘dynamis’… or mobilize energy”, according to psychologist/theologian Harold Ellens. With images of God “generating ‘dynamis’ and mobilizing energy” more potently than any other beliefs. Hence, Ellens warning that “sick Gods make people sick”.

A reposting of revised, updated material…

Common themes/features in all three great Western religions… i.e. Judaism, Christianity, Islam. If we all believe the same fundamental things then why are we fighting one another?

Here is a reposting of some material from several weeks ago. It has stirred interesting response from Islamic countries, so I want to give it more exposure for people from those areas. Not to incite outrage but to stimulate thought toward necessary reformism. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Military guy (after ISIS defeated in Syria): “Until you deal with the ideas that fuel these eruptions of violence you will only see them repeated.”

We have no excuse today for our irresponsible embrace of “madness of crowds” eruptions, such as the climate apocalypse crusade. It is manifestly a form of Chicken Little lunacy.

Look beyond the surface cloaking of these crusades- i.e. claiming status as science, ideology, whatever. Look through that to see the true “madness of crowds” apocalyptic nature of such crusades. They all hold to the same mythology of threatening deity that is the cohering center of their belief systems. More historically recent versions update their theology with contemporary versions of divine threat like “vengeful Gaia, angry Mother Earth/Planet, punitive Universe, or payback karma”. They are all versions of the same old pathology at the core- ultimate threat that incites irrational response in populations.

You think we might have learned by now that threat theology in belief systems contributes to the same old destructive outcomes. Alarmed populations supporting salvation schemes that “destroy the world to save the world.”

Adding to the irresponsibility in embracing apocalyptic crusades is the fact that we have good research today on where apocalyptic emerged, how it was incorporated into meta-narratives such as religious traditions, and how to counter such lunacy.

I refer, for example, to Bob Brinsmead’s research tracing how Greek Hellenism, Jewish apocalyptic, and other elements shaped Paul’s apocalyptic Christ.

The Hellenism element derives from Plato and his advocacy for philosopher kings to rule the virtuous society. Plato’s ideas eventually validated the ideology of enlightened elites running collectives via state institutions/bureaucracies (Hegel, Marx), thereby dominating commoners. Elite rule has always employed threat to manipulate and control populations. And no threat has the potency of the divine threat in apocalyptic mythology.

Moving along, note the increasing advocacy today for restoring religion, e.g. as in a generalized restoration of Christianity to counter the meaninglessness nihilism of modern secularism/atheism. But some of the notable advocates for reviving Christianity, i.e. Jordan Peterson, Michael Shellenberger, seem unaware of the problem of the fundamental contradiction in Christianity between Historical “non-apocalyptic” Jesus and Paul’s apocalyptic Christ myth. Two entirely opposite theologies merged in the oxymoronic “Jesus Christ” that deforms and minimizes the Jesus teaching/message. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Comment on the primary human impulse to meaning. Also- the impulse of elites to dominate. And more on establishing the “metaphysical” basis for human equality. This is pushback against the curse of the “elite/commoner” divide in human societies. I detest the impulse to domination, one of the most damaging of our inherited animal impulses, rightly part of the “evil triad” of tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others.

I’ve posted below a video clip on Tolstoy’s personal discovery that human meaning was fulfilled most profoundly in the daily lives of common people, not in the elite pursuits of his earlier life, whether intellectual accomplishments, art, or science. Tolstoy had been distressed by the question of- What does it all mean if it ends in death? He found his answers with common people and in the responsibilities of daily life.

Also below, an interesting study with Grok doing climate science.

Another good one from Shellenberger/Gutentag– A wise caution that must be heeded by all sides for the sake of protecting/promoting freedom and democracy, Wendell Krossa

It has been hard to comprehend what we have just lived through over the past decade- i.e. the ongoing exposure of the incredible corruption of a leading world democracy, and the corruption has been mainly by “liberals/Democrats” who have shifted far left into Woke Progressivism. These people still control most of the education systems, most federal bureaucracies, the mainstream media (i.e. their propaganda arm), the intelligence agencies, NGOs receiving countless billions of taxpayer dollars for partisan and personal gain, etc.

Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and the subsequent exposures in the Twitter Files was stunning stuff to comprehend. It was a kind of death of a dream as we realized how horrifically we had been lied to and propagandized and that what we thought we lived in- liberal democracies- was very much an illusion. Others added to the stunning exposures, i.e. Mike Benz on his Joe Rogan appearances.

Shellenberger/Gutentag, below, touch on the problem that “formerly oppressed people, when in power, then often become the new oppressors”, forgetting what they had previously suffered. The old lust for vengeance/payback then creeps in, dangerously so as it then undermines any moral authority that the formerly oppressed (and then liberated) people may have earned.

But yes, another element here is the spectacle of guilty Democrats screaming “retaliation, vengeance” as their corruption is exposed and it is horrific as Shellenberger/Gutentag detail.

What has been exposed has to be corrected and offenders must be held accountable for what has been a direct assault on democracy and the freedom of others. Democracy ceases to mean anything this is not done thoroughly. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Further below, Douglas Murray’s comments on his wondering at “the absurdity of our age”. Others use related terms to define what incites their sense of wonderment, referring to the same thing that Murray refers to, terms such as “insanity, lunacy, madness, craziness, derangement, etc.”. Note also the Andrew Schulz interview on Chris Williamson- “Why Does Modern America Feel So Insane- The world has gone crazy”. Many sum up the “crazy” as epitomized in far left Woke Progressivism and its DEI/ESG policies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12ahFOubvw0

See also below some comment on “countering the ‘AI terminator’ hysteria” now being whipped up as a new apocalypse crusade- “Preventing Grok and buddies from becoming Terminators, Wendell Krossa”

I asked Grok why can’t it be programmed with Classic Liberalism (principles, systems of common law, representative institutions) that protect the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally? Liberalism that prevents the dangerous “evil triad” impulses of some to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others? Grok’s responses are below.

See just below this opening section- “Apocalyptic lunacy lives on in Canada: Our Canadian illustration of apocalyptic insanity”, our home-grown “madness of crowds” hysteria that destroys societies to “save the world”. Also, some comment on Mark Carney, new PM of Canada- “Elite financial expert? Or ‘carny barker’ for a cult?” (Understanding the real essence of a person.)

This quote from the section below: “Historian Richard Landes noted that the Bolsheviks tried to masquerade their movement as “science and modernity”, but they were nothing more than “superstitious members of a salvationist apocalyptic millennial cult”. My mind returned to Landes’ comments on the Bolsheviks as I watched Mark Carney replacing Trudeau.”

And this below: Pushing Grok on the central issue in the climate debate- i.e. the warming influence of CO2 and the fact that is now “saturated”. Further, pushing back against what I view as Grok’s bias toward the climate alarmism positions. It appears in the words Grok uses- i.e. “consensus”, “minority position”, “mainstream”, etc.

Here is another on this topic of the absolute lunacy of our age, Wendell Krossa

Few things have provoked my wonderment at absurdity than the “madness of crowds” hysteria that has accompanied the apocalyptic crusade of climate alarmism. The climate alarm cult (a “profoundly religious movement”) has produced the historically unprecedented abandonment of rationality where entire populations, convinced of the fallacy that life is declining toward something worse (i.e. the ideology of “Declinism”), toward collapse and ending in apocalypse, hence, entire populations have been swayed to embrace salvation schemes that destroy their societies to “save the world”. Think Britain, Germany, California, Canada, and other examples here.

But more to my point here: As one apocalyptic movement appears to be dying away (i.e. climate alarmism) some alarmist prophets will “double down” with enraged hysteria (e.g. Al Gore, John Kerry, etc.). Some even move toward the “dying gasp” phase of “exterminate or be exterminated”. They become even more desperate to force their destructive salvation schemes on societies even as the destructive outcomes of their “salvation/save the world” policies have become more obvious. Who called this the “psychopathology of leftist compassion”?

Others yet will move right on to creatively incite and promote the next “madness of crowds” episode. The apocalyptic prophets appear to have become deranged by an obsessive-compulsive pathology, or perhaps their alarmism and the hysteria it generates has become a form of adrenaline addiction? Like extreme sports. Read the rest of the opening comment here

Our Canadian illustration of apocalyptic lunacy, of “madness of crowds” hysteria that destroys societies to “save the world”.

With Douglas Murray I often wonder at “the absurdity, the lunacy of our age” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANmkiXvESdc ). While Murray was thinking along other lines, I would apply “wonder at the lunacy of our age” to the “climate crisis” cult and its madly irrational crusade to decarbonize the world. And we now have a full-frontal apocalyptic cultist as Prime Minister. But a smooth-talking one, having replaced a more incompetently bumbling one.

Elite financial expert? Or “carny barker” for a cult? Wendell Krossa (Understanding the real essence of a person.)

Mark Carney has successfully elbowed his way to become Liberal leader and replaced Justin Trudeau.

Historian Richard Landes noted that the Bolsheviks tried to masquerade their movement as “science and modernity”, but they were nothing more than “superstitious members of a salvationist apocalyptic millennial cult”. My mind returned to Landes’ comments on the Bolsheviks as I watched Mark Carney replacing Trudeau.

See the varied comments below on Carney, WEF socialist (he is a board member) and climate alarmist, seeking to bring his WEF-style climate crusade to Canada to reframe the Liberal party with his smoother elitist presentation. He will replace, but maintain, the destructive eco-zealotry of Justin Trudeau. And take it to even further reaches of destructiveness if elected to a fuller term.

Carney is an eco-cultist smoothly presenting himself as financial expert. Similar to the gimmicks of the original Bolsheviks, and Marxist elites in general, who wished to mask their salvationist apocalyptic cult as some form of modernism- ideology, science, philosophy, etc. Note, for example, Marxism on scientific history. Primitive mythology (apocalyptic millennialism) masked as something rational and credible. Read the rest of the opening comment here

First, a bit on the freedom and Classic Liberal front… Wendell Krossa

People like Mike Benz (Joe Rogan Experience episodes 2237 and 2272) have exposed the behind-the-scenes manipulation of our democracies by power-obsessed elites, whether Soros, Gates, WEF, and others. It is not likely that these people get together in dark rooms to plot how to control our societies. It is more likely that they share an ideology/worldview that binds them in common cause against what they frame as threats to the world.

And when you wrap ideology with mythology (i.e. the deformed hero’s quest) you then get people sincerely framing themselves as righteous heroes battling irredeemably evil enemies. The threats are presented as “existential and imminent” (i.e. climate apocalypse, populism as threat to democracy, etc.).

Hence, the enlightened elites argue, self-convincingly, that desperate measures are now required, and slow-moving democracy that protects the freedom of equal individuals be damned. They live in a self-created bubble and indicators that they may be entering the dying stage of their apocalyptic movements, leads to their feeling that they must now double down and embrace the phase of “exterminate or be exterminated”.

Plato argued that you need philosopher kings to run the ideal society, you need noble rulers who believe they know better than all others what is good for all, even if their policies are implemented against the will of commoners. Arrogant elites reason that the ignorant populist commoners can’t be trusted with too much freedom and control over their lives (self-determination). They will mess things up.

The line of the historical descent of such elite run collectivism runs down from ancient Sumeria to Plato to Christianity to Hegel and then to Marxist totalitarianism.

It’s the never-ending crusade by “special” people to enforce the “elite/commoner divide” in societies that undermines and overturns liberal democracy.

Preface note: By repeatedly pointing to the ancient mythical origins of the themes below, I am emphasizing the primitive nature of these themes despite the ongoing effort of moderns to frame them as advanced “ideology, philosophy, even science”. No, they are as primitive as primitive can be. To illustrate: Many moderns, holding such themes, if teleported back to sit in a Sumerian temple and hear a priest lecture on their version of apocalypse in the great Sumerian Flood myth, would instinctively clap in response. The moderns would exclaim- Hey, that’s the historical prophesy of Al Gore standing in the Florida flood waters proclaiming imminent apocalypse by rising seas, as per the climate crisis myth.

The complex of myths/beliefs that have shaped human narratives across history, held together by the real “monster” in life- threat theology, Wendell Krossa

Some ideas are “bad” because they incite/guide/validate destructive outcomes in societies. We ought to know this by now. Read the rest of the opening comment here