By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
I believe people are as they think. The choice we make in the next decade will mold irrevocably the direction of our culture… and the lives of our children.
– Author and theologian Francis A. Schaeffer in 1976
The picture at the top of this article shows one of America’s founding fathers according to Google’s Gemini image generation tool. Pursuant to complaints about the blatant inaccuracy and the ensuing maelstrom of negative press coverage, Google claimed it was “actively working on a fix”. Nonetheless, there remain claims that Google is “not telling the truth” and the company will never give up on its “desire to reshape the world in a specific way”.
Indeed. It appears artificial intelligence, woke relativism, and Orwell’s “two plus two equaling five” are here to stay. And the “memory hole” first conjured by Orwell has increasingly manifested in The Borg’s nearly completed Simulacrum – as misinformation, false flags, and propaganda daily populate our collective screens.
With that in mind, amid the absurdity of Western culture in the twenty-first century, I will often seek credible information and insights where they are more surely found: in the printed past, and by the words of authors and researchers mostly forgotten.
Having written previously on the prescient prognostications of twentieth-century thinkers like C.S. Lewis and Augusto Del Noce, another book was recommended by a commenter in the thread of my last article. The book was said to have predicted the decline of empirical science, the rise of technological science, and a frightening future.
Well, that seemed right up my alley, so to speak, and quite pertinent to today’s headlines. Plus, my local library fortuitously had the book. It was published in 1976, written by the American theologian Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984) and titled: “How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture”.
The book is not a complete chronological history of Western Civilization but, instead, highlights key moments in history that, according to the author, “formed our present culture, and the thinking of the people who brought those moments to pass”.1
In “How Should We Then Live?”, Francis Schaeffer identified a “flow to history and culture” that “has its wellspring in the thoughts of people”. He furthermore defined presuppositions as the world view, or “grid” by which people see the world and with the “grid” positioned upon “that which a person considers to be the truth of what exists.” In turn, these ideological presuppositions have created another “grid” – one for everything that is brought forth into the external world. 2
In order to understand modernity, Schaeffer argued that three lines in history must be traced, namely, philosophy, science, and religion. He claimed science consists of two parts: “…first, the makeup of the physical universe” and, secondly, “the practical application of what it [science] discovers in technology”. Schaeffer claimed the direction of science is set by the “philosophic worldview of the scientist” while religious views determine the direction of “individual lives and of their society”. 3
The book tracks the ideological genealogies of various philosophers and their influence on Western Civilization’s art, music, general culture, and theology. Starting with ancient Rome and then through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, Schaeffer revealed how select presuppositions have formed the ideological foundation for our current Clownworld.
Just as Schaeffer’s book is not an exhaustive historical analysis of Western Civilization, neither is this article a complete summary of Schaeffer’s book. Instead, the purpose of this post is to address specific highlights that, I believe, are important to understand – especially in the pursuit of deconstructing the ideological tenets of modernity and to better withstand the sh*tshow now pervading into our daily existence.
(Note to readers: Approx. 4,300 words ahead = about an 18-minute read)
Shifts in Science, Philosophy, Theology
Schaeffer acknowledged the Scientific Revolution as occurring “almost simultaneously” with the High Renaissance and Reformation periods in history. However, he stopped short of implying these periods caused the rise of modern science. Instead, he believed the foundation for modern science was laid at Oxford College when scholars like Roger Bacon (1214-1294) and Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253) challenged Aristotelian science, and, thus, the teachings of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) regarding Aristotle’s (384-322 BC) “mistakes about natural phenomena”.4
Prior to the rise of modern science beginning with the Italians Copernicus (147-1543) and Vesalius (1514-1564), Schaeffer claimed “medieval science was based on authority rather than observation”; and this was generally true with the Greeks, Arabs, and Chinese, albeit with some “notable exceptions”.4
Naming a veritable “who’s who” of historical scientific luminaries like Galileo (1564-1642), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), and others, Schaeffer pointed out that modern scientists like Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) agreed that “modern science was born out of the Christian world view”; even though Whitehead and Oppenheimer were not known to be Christians.5
According to Schaeffer, the early modern scientists believed the universe to be an open system – that God and man were outside of the “cause-and-effect machine of the cosmos, and therefore they both could influence the machine.”6
But, then, modern science shifted to what Schaeffer termed as “modern modern science” (also called “naturalistic science, or materialistic science”) whereby the existence of everything and all natural causes are claimed to exist within a “total cosmic machine”. 7
According to Schaeffer, those who embrace the ideology of “modern modern science” believe the mechanical laws of cause and effect (within the “closed system” of the universe) apply not only to physics, astronomy and chemistry, but, also, equally to psychology and sociology. However, Schaeffer argued (as paraphrased by me), these believers did not come to their faith according to the findings of science, but, instead, they came to believe as a result of their world view. Or, in Schaeffer’s exact words, they “became naturalistic or materialistic in their presuppositions”.8
Furthermore, Schaeffer traced some early-nineteenth-century German philosophers who preached materialism until their influence was realized “not only in abstract thought but also on the arts and on the state”; which, in turn, led to an acceptance that people “have no freedom of will”. 8
According to Schaeffer:
When people began to think in this way, there was no place for God or for man as man. When psychology and social science were made part of a closed cause-and-effect system, along with physics, astronomy and chemistry, it was not only God who died. Man died. And within this framework love died.
– Schaeffer, Francis A., “How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture”, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976, page 147
Additionally, Schaeffer identified the philosophical influence of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) and his “emphasis on the centrality of the state and the flow of history”. Hegel believed the universe and man’s evolving conscience and understanding unfolded dialectically and that truth and morality were the result of their “synthesis” found in the flow of history”. This belief, Schaeffer claimed, has resulted in the death of truth, as people have traditionally thought of truth, in modern “philosophy, politics, government, and individual morality”.9
Just as German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) claimed “God is dead”, Schaeffer believed Nietzsche fully understood where that ideology would lead: “If God is dead, then everything for which God gives answer and meaning is dead”. Correspondingly, it was Schaeffer’s contention that modern liberal theologians abandoned their faith in a “personal God” thus leaving them exclusively with “the connotation of religious words without context, and the emotion which certain religious words still bring forth”. 10
Consequently, the separation of “highly motivating religious words” from the original content and context of the Bible allowed the words to be used wrongly and toward dire ends:
The words became a banner for men to grab and run with in any arbitrary direction – either shifting sexual morality from its historic Christian position based on the Bible’s and Christ’s teaching, or in legal and political manipulation.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 178
In closing the chapter titled “Modern Philosophy and Modern Theology”, Schaeffer concluded, in part:
Without the infinite-personal God, all a person can do, as Nietzsche points out, is to make “systems”. In today’s speech, we would call them “game plans.” A person can erect some sort of structure, some type of limited frame, in which he lives, shutting himself up in that frame and not looking beyond it. This game… can sound high and noble, such as talking in an idealistic way about the greatest good for the greatest number. Or it can be a scientist concentrating on some small point of science so that he does not have to think of any of the big questions, such as why things exist at all… That is where modern people, building only on themselves, have come, and that is where they are now.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, pages 180-181
Indeed, that is an adequate summation of Agenda 2030, right there.
Modern Fragmentation: The Dichotomy of Reason and Non-Reason
In Schaeffer’s “How Should We Then Live?” he often referenced both [philosophical] pessimism and [philosophical] optimism but without exactly defining them. Obviously, he assumed readers would understand these constructs.
In short, philosophical pessimists consider human existence as being “adverse to living beings, and that life is fundamentally meaningless or without purpose” (also called “absurd” by Schaeffer), and philosophical optimists argue “that the world is the best of all possible worlds or, in ethics, that life is worth living.”
Or another way of separating these two ideological constructs would be to consider the Latin etymology in terms of “pessimal” which means “as bad as it gets” and “optimal” which means “as good as it gets”.
Schaeffer contended that people in Western culture are “surrounded by an almost monolithic consensus” regarding “the same basic dichotomy – in which reason leads to pessimism and all optimism is in the area of non-reason”.11
Schaeffer also correlated modern pessimism with “modern fragmentation” and with the “absurdity” presenting first in philosophy, then through art, music, general culture, and, finally, in theology. He also claimed it spread geographically from Europe to England and then to the U.S. – and socially it spread from the “intellectuals to the educated and then through the mass media to everyone.” Subsequently, modern pessimism spread socially until the “generation gap came into being” because parents “were governed only by a dead tradition” and “acted largely out of habit from the past”. 12
In reading Schaeffer’s views on the modern dichotomy of reason (i.e. logic/truth) vs. non-reason (i.e. experiential fulfillment?), the “generation gap”, tradition, and societal fragmentation: I was perpetually reminded of the writings of Italian professor and philosopher, Augusto Del Noce (1910 – 1989), and, specifically, the following excerpts from my May 2023 post summarizing Del Noce’s book “The Crisis of Modernity”:
A crucial point made by Del Noce is this: “the crisis of the idea of authority is linked with the crisis of the idea of tradition”; and, all throughout his writings, Del Noce considered the idea of tradition as derived from “tradere”, which is to “hand down”.
Just as parents have represented authority in the family, so do professional educators “hand down” knowledge that was… until recently in history… “understood as a process of elevation from the immediate experiences of the spirit to the recognition of the order of values.”
Now, modern teachers have become more “authoritarian” and less “authoritative” as conformity is prioritized in education. Del Noce argued that “participation in the [Christian] Word” allowed for a “communion of the spirits in one same truth” yet, today, the young seek to “emancipate themselves from the burden of the past and use the teacher as an instructor in the methods of liberation”.
….Within the modern church, Del Noce defined the endpoint of the “theological revolution” as the “death of God”; and, in particular, the “death of God the Father in Jesus Christ.”
…..Del Noce labels gnosis in all its variations as a “single metaphysics” and an “anti-Christian philosophy”. Deriving from a fear of the supernatural, the new gnostics seek a “surrogate in ‘experiential alternatives’”
Francis Schaeffer identified a “historical flow” that began intellectually with philosophers such as Rosseau, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, et al; and when these men “lost their hope of a unity of knowledge and a unity of life”, they, in turn, presented a “fragmented concept of reality” that “artists later depicted artistically”. 13
From there, Schaeffer identified many Impressionist and post-Impressionist painters ranging from Monet and Renoir, to Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. He claimed Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) merged the fragmentation of Cezanne with Gauguin’s idea of the noble savage and painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1906-1907), which marked the birth of “modern art”. Schaeffer claimed: “this new technique of fragmentation fits the world view of modern man… a fragmented world and fragmented man.” 14
It’s been said before the works of Pablo Picasso contain truth without logic – “like being inside a dream”. But can such a dichotomy exist in the real world? Just look around. Whether logic is added to lies or reason is subtracted from truth, the results are the same: Clownworld.
In the chapter titled “Modern Art, Music, Literature, and Films”, Schaeffer tracked what he termed “the absurdity of all things” into twentieth-century music, books, and cinema. He furthermore noted the “strange contrast to the airplanes in our airports or slicing through our skies”:
An airplane is carefully formed; it is orderly (and many would also think it beautiful). This is in sharp contrast to the intellectualized art which states that the universe is chance. Why is the airplane carefully formed and orderly…? Simply because an airplane must fit the orderly flow lines of the universe if it is to fly!
Sir Archibald Russell (1904-1995) was the British designer for the Concorde airliner. In a Newsweek: European Edition interview (February 16, 1976) he was asked: “Many people find that the Concorde is a work of art in its design. Did you consider its esthetic appearance when you were designing it?” His answer was, “When one designs an airplane, he must stay as close as possible to the laws of nature. You are really playing with the laws of nature and trying not to offend them. It so happens that our ideas of beauty are those of nature. Every shape and curve of the Concorde is arranged so it will conform with the natural flow as conditioned by the laws of nature.”
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 196
Just as twentieth-century theologians like C.S. Lewis and Augusto Del Noce defined “Scientism” as the totalitarian conception of science, in which science is regarded as the only true from of knowledge, Francis Schaeffer, in 1976, termed such myopia as “sociological science”. His contention was that modern modern science has no “epistemological base… for being sure that what scientists think they observe corresponds to what really exists.”15 He claimed once scientists abandoned the “Christian base”, they made the philosophy of positivism their base for knowing – but the data is subjectively processed through the senses of an observer and according to the bias of the scientists. This means there can be no certainty that scientific observation/data is “not just illusion”.16
This brought to my mind the final words of C.S. Lewis in his 1943 book “The Abolition of Man”… “to ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”
Schaeffer claimed humanists have no base for “knowing” within their own philosophic system and, thus, modern modern science tends to bifurcate into a “high form of technology, often with a goal of increasing affluence” or “sociological science”… whereby “with a weakened certainty about objectivity, people find it easier to come to whatever conclusions they desire for the sociological ends they wish to see attained.”15
In addition, Schaeffer noted how weakened objectivity in science also corresponded with the rise of a sociological media:
This [weakened objectivity] is parallel to a change among the news makers. As their concept of truth becomes more relative, the ideal of objectivity in the news columns in contrast to the editorial pages is increasingly diminished. Thus, the loss of a philosophic base for truth and the certainty of knowing has the practical result of making for a sociological science and a sociological news medium – both available for use by manipulators. And this is especially potent with science because of the almost “religious” belief which people have developed about the objectivity – and thus the certainty – of the results of science.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 200
Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975, a year before ““How Should We Then Live?” was published. But Francis Schaeffer warned us about “manipulators” like Gates and the scientific fork-in-the road separating high forms of technology with the goal of increasing affluence and the psychological, even religious, acceptance of sociological science.
The Gates-funded COVID-19 media manipulation comes to mind; and the correlative rigorous enforcement of arbitrary mandates. Or, in the words of the French philosopher Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities“.
According to Schaeffer:
Modern people, on their basis of reason, see themselves only as machines. But as they move into the area of non-reason and look for their optimism, they find themselves separated from reason and without any human or moral values.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 202
Once again, Schaeffer echoed the predictions of C.S. Lewis. In the final analysis of “The Abolition of Man” (1943), Lewis predicted that a small group of wizards, in the pursuit of power, would perfect psychology and technology to the point they could create a new reality – but the wizards would not be human because they will have erased the age-old system of values that has always constrained humanity across all cultures.
Consequently, Schaeffer identified Materialism as the philosophic base for Marxist-Leninism, and noted that it “gives no basis for the dignity or rights of man”. And yet people are attracted to Marxism “by its constant talk of idealism”. In this sense, according to Schaeffer, Marxist-Leninism is a Christian heresy, because Christianity actually does provide a base for the dignity of man.17
Once the Christian consensus died, Schaeffer identified some of the available alternatives and none of them were optimistic.
Hedonism was one possibility, but a society built on hedonism leads to chaos.
Another possibility is the “absoluteness of the 51-percent vote”:
In the days of a more Christian Culture, a lone individual with the Bible could judge and warn society, regardless of the majority vote, because there was an absolute by which to judge. There was an absolute for both morals and law. But to the extent that the Christian consensus is gone, this absolute is gone as a social force.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 223
Besides the chaos of hedonism or the absoluteness of the 51-percent vote, Schaeffer believed there was only one other alternative left: “one man or an elite, giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes”; and this “simple but profound rule”: If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute. This is because “arbitrary absolutes can be handed down and there is no absolute by which to judge them”.18
It was Schaeffer’s contention that modern modern man destroyed “the base which gave him the possibility of freedoms without chaos” and, thus, Schaeffer saw two effects manifesting as a result of “our loss of meaning and values”:
1.) Societal degeneracy, decadence, depravity, and violence…
and…
2.) Some elite group or person stepping up to offer “arbitrary absolutes” in order to save us from ourselves.
As these manifestations progressed, Schaeffer questioned if men would stand to defend their liberties or, instead, give them up “step by step, inch by inch”; and he (quite accurately, in retrospect) predicted liberties would be forfeited by both young and old, alike, as long as their life-styles were not threatened.19
Manipulation and the New Elite
Similar to his twentieth-century philosophical peers, C.S. Lewis and Augusto Del Noce, Francis Schaeffer foresaw the “coming of an elite, an authoritarian state, to fill the vacuum left by the loss of Christian principles”.20 And, like Lewis and Del Noce, Schaeffer concluded it would not be our father’s (i.e. twentieth-century) form of communism or fascism:
….we must not think naively of the models of Stalin and Hitler. We must think rather of a manipulative authoritarian government. Modern governments have forms of manipulations at their disposal with the world has never known before.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 228
Augusto Del Noce wrote a similar assessment in the 1970’s (that was reprinted in the 2014 compilation of his earlier writings):
..All that people on the right do, essentially, is identify totalitarianism with Stalinism and deny that Communism might undergo a democratic evolution… People on the left evoke the ghost of a Fascist threat… and to some kind of ill-defined “American imperialism”… There are also centrists who want to oppose all forms of totalitarianism, both Communist and Fascist. What utterly escapes all three positions is the new totalitarian reality that is taking shape.”
– Del Noce, Augusto. “The Crisis of Modernity”, trans. Carlo Lancellotti, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014 , pgs. 95-96
Francis Schaeffer additionally addressed technocratic totalitarianism by referencing methods and theories of manipulation, psychological techniques, biological science, and media influence; starting with Sigmund Freud’s psychological determinism, B.F. Skinner’s sociological determinism (through conditioning), and Francis Crick’s chemical/genetic determinism. At the same time, Schaeffer pointed out that researchers like Skinner, as an example, could not live “on the basis of his own system” and that he lived “inconsistently on the memory of Christian values for which his system has no place.”21
Certainly, if he were alive today, Schaeffer would vehemently disagree that humans are merely “hackable animals” as claimed by the modern secular humanist, and World Economic Forum adviser, Yuval Noah Harari.
Unfortunately, however, Schaeffer did concede that modern determinism has yielded two practical results: First, people “have opened themselves to being treated as machines and treating other people as machines. And, secondly, every theory of determinism “has carried with it a method of [psychological, sociological, chemical] manipulation.22
Furthermore, now that “man no longer sees himself as qualitatively different from non-man” (i.e. a hackable animal), Schaeffer added: “on the basis of nature there is no way man can derive the ought from the is.” 23 And “once people accept this mentality, it is much easier to impose arbitrary absolutes.” 24
And that, it would appear, my friends, is how sh*t happens.
Just as Schaeffer identified sociological science, he also identified sociological law, and sociological news. He predicted an elite class would increasingly use mass media as a “grid” by which to present their world view. In so doing, they would utilize “news organizations, newspapers, news magazines, wire services, and news broadcasts that have the ability to generate news.” In short, these would become “news makers” so that whatever appears in them becomes the news.25
Schaeffer also foresaw the malevolent use of “high-speed computers”, ever-expanding “information storage”, and a “manipulative authoritarian government” coming “from the administrative side or from the legislative side”, or through what could become known as “the imperial judiciary” 26:
…As the memory of if the Christian consensus which gave us freedom within the biblical form increasingly is forgotten, a manipulating authoritarianism will tend to fill the vacuum.
The central message of biblical Christianity is the possibility of men and women approaching God through the work of Christ. But the message also has secondary results, among them the unusual and wide freedoms which biblical Christianity gave to countries where it supplied the consensus. When these freedoms are separated from the Christian base, however, they become a force of destruction leading to chaos. When this happens, as it has today, then to quote [American moral and social philosopher] Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), “When freedom destroys order… the yearning for order will destroy freedom.”
At that point, the words left or right will make no difference. They are only two roads to the same end. There is no difference between an authoritarian government from the right or the left: the results are the same. An elite, an authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go on to chaos. And most people will accept it – from the desire for personal peace and affluence, from apathy, and from the yearning for order to assure the functioning of some political system, business, and the affairs of daily life.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 245
How Should We Then Live?
Ironically, “How Should We Then Live?” was published in 1976… the very same year that I marched in a bicentennial parade and Peter Finch, playing Howard Beale, told us to shut off our televisions in the Oscar-nominated film “Network”.
Yet, even back then, Francis Schaeffer predicted America’s future thusly: Economic collapse, war, societal violence / terrorism, global wealth redistribution, and shortages of food and natural resources:
Overwhelming pressures are being brought to bear on people who have no absolutes, but only have the impoverished values of personal peace and prosperity. The pressures are progressively preparing modern people to accept a manipulative, authoritarian government.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 246
Schaeffer also claimed the “men in Western Governments” did not understand that “freedom without chaos” was NOT a “magic formula” that could be imported to any nation. This is because “freedom without chaos” derived from a Christian base and it could not be separated from its roots.27 As a result, Schaeffer predicted a forthcoming “tyranny of the majority” in the United Nations and its chartered organizations, particularly, “in the midst of the winds of political change.” He claimed: “When the [Christian] principles are gone, there remains only expediency at any price.” 28
Schaeffer warned that freedom would disintegrate as “the memory of the Christian base” grew “ever dimmer”.28 And, eerily, it almost seems as if Schaeffer was envisioning the emergence of CBDCs, digital ID, and the proposed WHO pandemic treaty, when he asked this question:
Without the base for right and wrong, but only a concept of synthesis, pragmatism, and utilitarianism, what will not be given up, both inside of nations or in foreign affairs, for the sake of immediate peace and affluence?
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, pages 251-252
In Schaeffer’s last chapter, entitled “The Alternatives”, he quoted the Bible and, specifically, Paul the Apostle’s Letter to the Romans (chapter 1) – but without exactly identifying it as such. Instead he attributed the words as coming from a Jew who became a Christian writing to those in Rome; and citing the failure of Greek and Roman ideologies to perceive the uniqueness of man amid the existence and form of the universe. Personally, I found Schaeffer’s clarifications in the brackets (below) to be interesting from both a phenomenological and ontological perspective, respectively:
The retribution of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known of God is evident within them [that is, the uniqueness of man in contrast to non-man], for God made it evident to them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived by the things that are made [that is, the existence of the universe and its form], even his eternal power and divinity; so that they are without excuse.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 253
Addressing Christians directly, Schaeffer claimed “humanistic thinking” accepts the following dichotomy: The separation of [philosophical] optimism about meaning and values from reason. And, once this separation is accepted, whatever an individual inserts into the area of non-reason is “incidental”.29
According to Schaeffer:
… God exists… that he has not been silent but has spoken to people in the Bible and through Christ was the basis for the return to a more fully biblical Christianity in the days of the Reformers. It was a message of the possibility that people could return to God on the basis of the death of Christ alone. But with it came many other realities, including form and freedom in the culture and society built on that more biblical Christianity. The freedom brought forth was titanic, and yet, with the forms given in the Scripture, the freedoms did not lead to chaos.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, page 253
At the beginning of “How Should We Then Live?”, Schaeffer contended that “no totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions”. This is why, he claims, Christians were fed to wild beasts in Ancient Rome: “The Christians had that absolute in God’s revelation… an absolute universal standard by which to judge…”30
Then, at the close of his book, Schaeffer admonished Christians not to fall prey to humanistic thinking (which he also labels as existential methodology), and, instead, he advises to hold fast to “the value system, and the meaning system, and the ‘religious matters’ given in the Bible”. In so doing, the “real absolute” will be maintained “by which to help, or by which to judge, the culture, state, and society.” Furthermore, he exhorts Christians to know and “to act upon that world view so as to influence society in all its parts…” and to “resist authoritarian government in all its forms”. Accordingly, Schaeffer said the following statement was one to memorize: “To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.”31
And that concludes my review of the 1976 book “How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture”, by Francis A. Schaeffer.
What then will be decided? Isn’t that always the most important question?
References:
1. Schaeffer, Francis A.. “How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture”, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976 , page 17.
2. Ibid., page 19
3. Ibid., page 20
4. Ibid., pages 130-131
5. Ibid., page 132
6. Ibid., page 146
7. Ibid., pages 146-147
8. Ibid., page 147
9. Ibid., pages 162-163
10. Ibid., page 178
11. Ibid., page 182
12. Ibid., pages 182-183
13. Ibid., page 190
14. Ibid., pages 184-187
15. Ibid., pages 199-200
16. Ibid., pages 198-199
17. Ibid., page 215
18. Ibid., page 224
19. Ibid., pages 226-227
20. Ibid., page 228
21. Ibid., page 229
22. Ibid., page 230
23. Ibid., page 237
24. Ibid., page 238
25. Ibid., pages 242-243
26. Ibid., pages 244-245
27. Ibid., page 249
28. Ibid., page 250
29. Ibid., page 255
30. Ibid., page 26
31. Ibid., pages 256-257
When a clown moves into the palace, he doesn’t become king. The palace becomes a circus.
– Turkish Proverb
Good quote, Ice.
Also… another note to readers: I had saved this as a draft and was still making adjustments before Jim posted it. It’s a little longer article, so I figured it would be a weekend post
Anyway, WordPress changed the formatting of the References so all of them are numbered +1 higher. For posterity and accuracy, here they are corrected below.
(Jim, if you would, I’d appreciate it if you could replace the above references with these below instead. Thank you in advance)
References:
1. Schaeffer, Francis A.. “How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture”, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976 , page 17.
2. Ibid., page 19
3. Ibid., page 20
4. Ibid., pages 130-131
5. Ibid., page 132
6. Ibid., page 146
7. Ibid., pages 146-147
8. Ibid., page 147
9. Ibid., pages 162-163
10. Ibid., page 178
11. Ibid., page 182
12. Ibid., pages 182-183
13. Ibid., page 190
14. Ibid., pages 184-187
15. Ibid., pages 199-200
16. Ibid., pages 198-199
17. Ibid., page 215
18. Ibid., page 224
19. Ibid., pages 226-227
20. Ibid., page 228
21. Ibid., page 229
22. Ibid., page 230
23. Ibid., page 237
24. Ibid., page 238
25. Ibid., pages 242-243
26. Ibid., pages 244-245
27. Ibid., page 249
28. Ibid., page 250
29. Ibid., page 255
30. Ibid., page 26
31. Ibid., pages 256-257
https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/ibid/
What Does Ibid. Mean? | Citation Examples
Published on May 6, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan. Revised on May 23, 2022.
Ibid. is an abbreviation of the Latin “ibidem,” meaning “in the same place.”
It’s used in citations to quickly cite a source that you’ve already cited in full in a previous footnote or endnote. This directs the reader to the previous citation.
Example: Ibid. in a Chicago footnote
C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), 22.
Ibid.
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-could-help-save-endangered-crested-ibis
Such sexy talk, proper citations and everything. Oooo. Not joking. Auntie loves it. Thank you, sir.
That’s good, but the best leader would be someone who teaches people to lead themselves.
“What then will be decided” is a good question, and the answer depends on what individuals will decide.
I’m still hoping for divine intervention.
It is said sometimes your better off a slave, or the alternative could be worse. maybe the worse is yet to come.
We HAVE divine intervention, Jesus Christ.
What kind of God would want his believers to expect a welfare system from the great beyond? Any God worth his holy relics would want heroes and decent people who would act on behalf of preserving life and creation. Therefore embodying a part in our ancestral Gods.
While the Abrahamic God would have us sitting on our hands while his chosen people continue their 4000 year history of committing genocide and destroying nations. The Old Testament justifies genocide in the same language the Talmud justifies murder to this day.
I see zero evidence that “Our Father in Heaven” that Jesus spoke of is the same as the Yahweh of the Old Testament. Of course I expect a lot of Christians will immediately attempt to “educate” me on my error. I would only add that centuries of theologians and translators have been massaging the texts, their history, and their meanings in order to create some plausible sounding justification for sticking the two books together. Any objective reading can only lead to one of two conclusions:
1) Yahweh suffered a mental and ethical breakdown from 4000BC to 30AD or so, and then miraculously recovered, or
2) Yahweh and the Father of Jesus are two different entities
An interesting point and interpretation which has been proposed more than once. However, the God depicted in the Bible still promises the death of one third of life, the enslavement of one third of mankind, the poisoning of one third of air, land, and water. Other name brands of Abrahamic religion promise the same, and Communism works to facilitate these ends. Jesus is to come bringing not peace, but a sword. I would like to think people of the West can do and be better than following the most popular name brand Eastern cult. Just because the Bible is the #1 best selling book, does not mean the message is delivered by divine epiphany. It just means the Bible is more mainstream narrative.
Explain how divine intervention has ever helped anyone outside of that Byzantintine tome, the bible?
Yeah right, lol!
Show me one single instanceif Jesus inteveding on the behalf of mankind, outside of the tome containing his “record”.
Anyone know of a single occurance of God intervening to help even one human outside the bible “record”?
I’m still hoping for divine intervention.
Yep.
Religion.
It causes some people to violently kill others, who were convinced waiting for God to save them is a brilliant plan, and a public show of faith, right before the violent ones kills the waiting ones, who will continue waiting as they are slaughtered.
The religious are the source of both those of violence, and those of deference.
Romans 12:18 KJB… “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
Preacher Man, just glad you did not mention the Greek word ‘oikonomia’ on this rainy Friday evening.
Going to need a whole lot Grace and Truth in the coming stormy days, in fact my hope is now resting with Christ up in the heavenlies far above this clown world so to speak.
‘For the law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.’
John 1:17
And we are not under it! Thank you Father!
Romans 6:14-15 KJB… “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.”
True, but without being convicted by the law, what use is then grace by faith?
Indeed, sir!
Romans 3:20 KJB… “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
Rubbish. Jesus lived and died by the law. The disciples and apostles condemned Paul for in Acts for teaching that the law was no longer valid.
The Jews certainly wanted him dead.
They wrote the story him in the story that way didn’t they.
They basically “crucified” him to give him street cred. The guys on the stakes?
All criminals.
Point man Jesus?
Just a tale woven by the story tellers to give the amha’aratz hope, as they are shit all over hy the storytellers.
Just like today.
Same storytellers, shitting on the same maleducated dirt people, using the same 1600 year old tome.
Why do you keep quoting some guy called Paul instead of Jesus? Jesus said that we are very much under the law and that not one jot or tittle shall be removed from it. And he never mentioned grace.
Because Jesus sent Paul to the gentile nations just like he sent Moses to the Jews.
Jesus sent Saul nowhere.
The conversion story was to justify the rename.
In the bible, several characters change their names to hide their reputations.
Abram.
Sarai.
Jacob.
Paul.
All changed their names in attempts to distance themselves from their own selfish acts.
Abram and Sarai=ran profitable “she’s my sister/she’s my wife scam”
Jacob ripped off his own brother with the help of his duplicitous mom.
Honor you father indeed, lying, thieving sinner Jacob, oops I mean Israel.
Saul had to change his name, well, because he had allegedly been assisting in the arrest and execution of believers.
Not one tittie!
Over-slurred at a Vegas dinner show “I’ll bet you there are 57 breasts on stage right now!”
lol… Atheists are not known for honesty, but more so for statism and mass murder.
Ashley Anderson
1.0 out of 5 stars Too many incorrect sources.
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2005
Though the author has claimed to have extensively researched his sources, many are flat out false. I happened to be lucky enough to own many of the books and even the encyclopedia edition the author uses as some of his sources. When looking up his quotes for myself, they simply were not there. Not on the page he lists and not even in the actual source. Not sure if he purposely was trying to deceive or he just did not check out his sources thoroughly (if he had been quoting a previous author who cited incorrect sources, for example).
Steven Anderson
1.0 out of 5 stars A complete fraud for the politically driven echo chamber of Christian hatred
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2016
Where to start,this book is a compilation of the fertile imagination of the author, and out right fraud. That’s right,outright fraud. There is no controversial material in this book, the pope quotes by the author are fraudulent, so are the so called references he gives that can not be found, and do not exist except in the imagination of the author.
Atheists will love this sort of nonsensical, fact-less trash,it is a complete fraud, it has no real truth but will be taken as gospel by those who are confirmed Christian haters. This is a classic example of having no evidence to support a personal belief so one just makes it up to justify a personal echo chamber of thought
This book is a product of circular reasoning by the author, and not worth the paper it is printed on.
3 people found this helpful
Why do so many see nothing beyond Christianity versus Satanism, Christianity versus Communism, Christianity versus Atheism? When each and every one of these narratives are controlled by Jews. Western Man must write his own script if he is save the day. The good book describes a 4000 year history of genocide and the destruction of nations following the migrations of Yahweh/Jehovah’s chosen people. Does Christianity not prescribe Armageddon and one world government? The very intentions of the Jewish elite and their Goyim puppets. Those who are truly spiritual would not wait for a spiritual welfare office from the great beyond to do what decent people ought to do for themselves.
If the law of Godis just, the enforcement must be by DEI hires.
Why did God, on record, not apply his “law” evenly?
The God of the bible went back on his own word, and his own covenant which he demanded the Hebrews take and oath to.
The God of the bible?
Did not keep his word in the bible.
Simply because he was just a tribal god.
I don’t speak Greek, it’s Greek to me.
Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.
Thomas Aquinas
My faith is identical to that of the Apostle Paul whom the Lord Jesus Christ sent to us Gentiles. Deny this and confusion will be your epitaph…
Do you pray to Paul, too ?
Do you follow the word of Paul, Mark, Luke, and Matthew, or did Jesus actually pen any books?
Jesus instructs believers today to follow Paul.
John 13:20 KJB… “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.”
Romans 1:1 KJB… “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,”
1 Corinthians 1:1 KJB… “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,”
2 Corinthians 1:1 KJB… “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia:”
Galatians 1:1 KJB… “Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)”
Ephesians 1:1 KJB… “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:”
Philippians 1:1 KJB… “Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:”
Colossians 1:1 KJB… “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother,”
1 Thessalonians 1:1 KJB… “Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
2 Thessalonians 1:1 KJB… “Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:”
1 Timothy 1:1 KJB… “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope;”
2 Timothy 1:1 KJB… “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,”
Titus 1:1 KJB… “Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;”
Philemon 1:1 KJB… “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer,”
The Holy Spirit inspired man called by Jesus Christ, sent to the Gentile nations, wrote more doctrine than any other “new testament” figure.
1 Corinthians 4:16 KJB… “Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.”
1 Corinthians 11:1 KJB… “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”
Only the mentally and emotionally deficient believe the bible.
Jesus=Dimestore Gilgamesh
“Jesus instructs believers today to follow Paul.”
One character in a tome tells you to listen to another character in the same tome.
Using a book as proof to support claims made inside that same book used to be called circular reasoning.
Go play with men in robes. That’s right up your alley.
Paul never met Jesus and did not know his teachings. Why not follow Jesus? Why do you need an intermediary of doubtful origins instead of the real thing?
Never met Jesus?
Acts 9:4-5 KJB… “And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”
Galatians 1:11-12 KJB… “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Saul , the very embodiment of the total system guy of his time / highly educated / officer of the State essentially ,does a sudden about face like that, you gotta take notice right ? its like The Grinch or Mr Scrooge and their miraculous changes of heart . Lol .
You’d think folks would take notice, but so few do; and many revile him. Men love their religion and Paul takes it away, placing everything of the love and mercy of the Lord Christ.
They never ran false flags and psyops in ancient days.
It was forbidden by the rule that someday thousands of years later, dupes could believe that religious and political leaders were more honest…because…it was olden tymes.
Don’t ask me, but that is literally the logic.
Even though everyone admits the bible was assembled by politicians in the 4th century, for some absurd reason people mistake the longevity of the lies as proof of their truthiness.
For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
So Jesus converts can get in by invitation and 3.5 years of training…
OR
By using terror attack and instantaneous instantaneous knowledge by force.
Questions:
If all the teachings of Jesus can be obtained instantly through a terrifying experience, why waste three and half years preaching?
Why the two conversion methods?
Well, when you get down to it, it’s one conversion method, and one coercion method.
God loves us so much, he allows us to choose.
Except when he doesnt.
What happens to free will when we are being coerced?
Jonah had no free will either.
I’m sure I will think of others.
My question to a bible believers is this:
If, inside the bible it says “Do not place your trust in the nobles or sons of man, to whom no salvation belongs.” how can you trust the bible at all?
Even if the bible claims it was “written by men, as they were borne along by god’s spirit” it doesn’t change the fact that the bible was literally written and assembled by men.
Yeah, that is a rough one.
________
Of course these were not ordinary men.
Politicians and oligarchs decided on the collation of books into the bible.
Maybe that is why they made damn sure to include, confessions, tithing 10%, obeying the secular authorities, and paying your taxes honestly.
That’s MY war. Every damned day!
Yep. Bad news (for me) is that every time I look inside to see just how much “as much as lieth within me” is; I keep finding fewer and fewer reserves.
Sam is now doing a two-year prison sentence for publishing stickers that said “It’s Okay to Be White”.
There is a war being waged against you, White people.
gab.com/Corvid1984
How do you know when your country is in the grip of judeo globalist tyranny?
When brown rapists and murderers get a slapped wrist for their heinous crimes, and the natives receive 2 years in the slammer for printing stickers that say ‘It’s okay to be White’
Claiming it’s a “judeo (sic) globalist tyranny” makes your contribution suspect.
In the 1930s, people were getting thrown into prison for writing things that were accepted as historically and factually true, but racially provocative. And I’m not talking about Germany.
Yeh, things are bad. But blaming everything from the disposal failure this morning, to the Titanic sinking last century on the Jews is just going to make things worse. Governments were corrupt and oppressive long before God regathered the nation of Israel in 1948. It’s a cycle that has been going on for thousands of years.
Are people really blaming them for the disposal failure?
That’s hyperbole, isn’t it?
All you have to do is read the comments on this site to see the Jews blamed for all of the world’s problems.
Is it a cohencidence they, Joos, happen to be there, seemingly always at the forefront of these intractable worldly problems? Zelensky; Netanyahu, Jacob R0tscheild and fam; half of Zhou Bai Din’s cabinet; Henry K1ss1nger; Wall Streeters galore; V Nuland; Hollyweird….etc and ad nauseum.
It’s amazing that such a supposedly small percentage of the population manages to weasel their way into everything. I’m surprised they don’t just have a conveyor belt running politicians and celebrities to their Wall.
Damn those royal families in England! It’s amazing that such a supposedly small percentage of the population manages to weasel their way into everything. I’m surprised they don’t just have a conveyor belt running politicians and celebrities to their palaces.
Conclusion: Small groups of people with common interests, common traditions, and common purpose — especially when combined with massive overrepresentation in businesses that create money from nothing — can easily bribe and promote themselves into positions of power.
its the zionist joos! Why all the discussion. they need to be chased from our republic or caged like animals. Set all the animals free and we can use the zoos across the country to contain these nasty murderous bastards. Or we can be nice and watch our republic burn to hell like texas.
you all been jerry garciad….your deadheads!
The Jews would have no power over us, had not the collective us abandoned the faith in Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus was a Jew, you do realize that, don’t you? And he never created a new religion. He was born, lived and died an orthodox Jew.
Jesus is an invented character based on former savior “gods”, created with the sole purpose of duping the proles, by giving them a false hope for the future. A psyop so succesful, that millions of dummies are still victims of it today.
Persecution of the Jewish people has always been a final indicator of collapse. We are witnessing this persecution right now as we watch America and the world financial system collapse.
Persecution of the Jewish people
Is the excuse for the destruction.
That’s why they are prompting people to speak out against them.
Once you do that?
To them?
It is taken as a real potentially fatal assault.
Then, they feel justified in killing you.
That is how the plan has always worked.
They lure you into attacking them so they can kill you with a clean conscience.
Oh?
You doubt me?
See the book of Esther.
When you speak out against jews, expect to get the “Haman Treatment”
Yes, and if you find yourself in conflict with the Jews, you need to ask your why God has brought you to this point in your life. It may be that you are also about to get the Haman treatment.
Steer clear of manufactured controversy.
Funny. Of the hundreds of books that I have squirreled away in boxes to read by the time I die, this is the one I picked up last week to read next, seemingly random. Nothing is completely random though. I am hoping it will teach me how I should then live.
Svarga, since you have expressed your love of reading and knowledge of books on here before I’m making this request in reply to you. I’d appreciate responces from any TBP’ers who have something to offer.
My 13 year old grandaughter in in a residential facility for an eating disorder. She’s graduated from in-patient to the residential section. This request is for book recomendations. Since she has limited acces to her phone I feel if she is exposed to books theres a chance she could become a reader.
Her situation was that she wasn’t eating. My son said that when she did eat she felt that her face would get fat.
Thanks in advance.
Praying for your granddaughter and your family. “Reviving Ophelia” by Mary Pipher, PhD is a classic for teens with eating disorders. It may be too clinical for her but offer insights to you.
Thanks Little Mouse. I should have clarified that I hope to get her to enjoy reading no matter the subject. But if she found hidden lessons in certain books that would be a bonus.
Ben Lurken,
My daughters have been avid readers since childhood. They have suggested these books for your 13 year old grandaughter:
Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Thank you APD and your daughters as well.
Charlotte’s Web.
It’s a spell breaker and I never knew a kid who didn’t love it.
Thanks HSF
“Schaeffer claimed humanists have no base for “knowing” within their own philosophic system and, thus, modern modern science tends to bifurcate into a “high form of technology, often with a goal of increasing affluence” or “sociological science”… whereby “with a weakened certainty about objectivity, people find it easier to come to whatever conclusions they desire for the sociological ends they wish to see attained.”15
The Spanish Inquisition lasted 300 years.
All over Europe in the day, the clergy promised eternal fire should a person defy the church and, of course, its clergy.
One does not wonder why fearing God’s wrath holds such sway in the Christian world. Behave like you oughta, according to the priest’s/pastor’s interpretation, or you are gonna get it good and hard. Oh, but there is another side to God. He loves us. You must abide. Love is the answer. Sure a little force in there, but overlook that for the greater good.
Still one wonders about where personal integrity would come from without Christianity’s metaphors. He died for your sins, so you can be saved. From Hell. Can’t really prove all that, but doubt it at your own everlasting peril.
The physicist, Thomas Campbell, in his book, “My Big Toe,” has a different view in his Theory of Everything (TOE). Let your experiments lead you to truth. He has no beliefs, just evidence. He has concluded that indeed Love is what the Universe is all about. How strange is that for a person who began his search for what is at a time when he thought Christianity was not at all relevant to what he was looking into. We are here to learn what to do and not to do. We are here to increase the quality of our consciousness. There is no punishment, just plenty of opportunity to fail. And when we are serious about right living we become a “person of interest” and get some help along the way. Seems like you get lucky at just the right times. Ever experience a “coincidence” that is so preposterous that statistically it could never happen ever?
Can you give up your beliefs and still lead a life of integrity free of the fear at the heart of religion?
We do not need to believe anything when we embrace willingly, fearlessly, freely by “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Krishnamurti: Truth is a pathless land. You are the world.
Of what worth is belief when you can see directly what is? Belief is in reality a barrier to seeing what is.
The inquisition should have never ended, because once the earnest defense of Church dogma ceased, the hierarchy of the church was converged and fell under the influence of Satan.
Once you understand the Inquisition was an operation to root out Satanic influence in the church and was not concerned with secular society, you’ll no longer feel compelled to post inane gibberish like your comment above.
Characters of the Inquisition
William Thomas Walsh
https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=EA38F2EF47476809CB09789AFB19428B
So satan is more powerful than God according to you. Reeeeeeeeeeee!
The influence of evil is real and it is the duty of all Christians to be on guard against it , especially the clergy.
Flash, here is an excerpt taken from a commenter on Walsh’s whitewash book:
Walsh makes utterly ridiculous excuses for the inherent wickedness of the medieval Catholic Church by couching its monumental crimes in euphemistic terms, such as “historical context,” “providing stability,” “fair trial,” and other such nonsense. No amount of revisionism will change the fact that century after century under the sanctimonious premise of “defending their faith against heretics,” the Inquisitors created a hell on Earth. Even if they delivered only one “lost soul” (rather than thousands upon thousands) to a burning stake in accordance with the narrow judgments of their own equally insane belief system, who gave these petty hypocrites the power of life and death over others? God?
A violent mind is not a religious mind. And no matter how sophisticated institutionalized piety may have become after evolving through the ages, it still cannot touch the purity of life directly. Sadly, it seems that so-called “religious” thought will forever try. “CHARACTERS OF THE INQUISITION” unintentionally reveals this simple reality.
Until you read the book and take into account the tumultuous times of intrigue and subterfuge the Church existed in you cant’ know whether this review is accurate or not…also take into account that conversos inside the church destroyed most of the meticulous records of the Inquisition and one must ask themselves why, why and what were they trying to hide. ..more reviews here.
Walsh has other history books, in particular , Isabella of Spain and Phillip II which puts this violent era of chaos in perspective and will help in understanding the historical good and bad event and policies of the Catholic Church.
https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=D981C1329EC86A7E9BAE05E65AE3028B
https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=1889B28539B7506D637C3D5605BFD2A0
BTW . I am not a Catholic nor do I want to become one, but became interested in the Church via reading obscure history like Walsh’s work , thus arrived at the conclusion that Reformation was a money-lender psyop which shattered Church unity into’ 22,000 fragments. This was the beginning of muh feelz design your own churchianity faith and the beginning of the loss of the total spiritual based faith, not to mention , debt slavery for all, which indoctrinated and ignorant fags like to call muh capitalism.
Philip II: (1527-1598)
William Thomas Walsh
“It did not occur to the kings that if the money-lenders ever got
power enough, if they ever got from under the public-spirited
repression of the Church, they would destroy their own masters.
Kings were not generally as far-sighted as money-changers, and
much less so than priests. This is not to deny that clerics sometimes
condoned usury and profited by it, or that some kings repressed it.
Human affairs are never so simple as that. But there was a line of
cleavage: the Church on one side hostile to usury, the kings
compelled to make use of it on the other.
As the moral influence of the Church was weakened in the
political and economic spheres, in consequence of a series of
calamities for which she was not to blame—the Black Death, the
papal exile at Avignon, the Great Schism, the return of paganism
with the Renaissance—usury began to accumulate wealth and to
organize its influence. With canny insight it threw its influence, by
and large, against the power of Church and State, supporting now
one, now the other, until, by a see-saw process, it succeeded in
weakening both.
It early identified itself with the forces of heresy in religion and
liberalism in politics, until Protestantism at last gave money-lending a certificate of respectability, until a Lord Bacon could write a serious defense of it, and Harrison (in Holinshed) must chronicle the capitulation of the new Protestant England to “usury, a trade brought in by the Jews, but now perfectly practised almost by every
Christian, and so commonly that he is accompted but for a fool that
doth lend his money for nothing.”5 ”
This from a scholarly journal:
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/expecting-spanish-inquisition-economic-backwardness-and-religious-persecution
In our recent paper (Drelichman et al. 2021), we investigate the effect of one of history’s longest-running and most intrusive forms of religious persecution. The Spanish Inquisition was founded in 1478 and operated until 1834. It aimed to root out all manners of heresy, from crypto-Judaism to sorcery, from blasphemy to sodomy, from the possession of forbidden books to hiding a wanted person, and a whole range of other behaviours and beliefs in between. It persecuted tens of thousands of Spaniards and foreigners, handing out sentences ranging from mild punishments like imprisonment to spectacular public executions. It had the rank of Crown ministry – notably independent from the ecclesiastical hierarchy – and financed its operations from the fines and confiscations it imposed.
Denunciations were the fuel on which the Inquisition ran. Neighbours, business partners, family members, and local notables were essential to identify potential targets. Those accused of major heresies were often subjected to torture. The modus operandi of the Inquisition created strong incentives to limit social interactions to a close circle of friends and family; its focus on persecuting new ideas and its incentive to persecute wealthy citizens to self-finance discouraged entrepreneurship, education, and innovation.
That’s just what fanatics like flash would do today if they were allowed to.
The Church did a lot of good in the Americas, too. Lotta Catholics now, strangely enough after all the slavery, resource plundering, and cultural destruction. All good work for the greater good, right?
You’re overflowing with Christian love. Reeeeeeeee!
Regardless of what sins and evils people commit in the name of God, in the current year we all have unprecedented access to the Word of God in the Holy Bible. Our faith as Christians should only be examined by the standards in that book, not by the wicked actions of past and present heretics.
Time to wakey wakey!
Give it a rest asshole…everyone has seen your bullshit offering now.
“He’ll send you to hell….but he LOVES YOU!
He loves you and he needs MONEYYYY!
He’s all powerful and all knowing, but somehow can’t handle money.”
George carlin.
What a bunch of fools you all are!
Nah , tis you lingering at the shallow end of the pool . We all ,either send ourselves, or not ,to hell . God doesn’t need money , thats Joel Ooooosteen that( or whomever televangitard / false prophet you prefer) you and George are confusing God with . I thoroughly enjoyed Carlin( Lenny Bruce 2.0 ) myself in my time of youthful indescretion, but looking back as I have now “put away childish things ” its all just cleverly constructed rhetorical simple straw man junk that just doesn’t pass the smell test in retrospect . Grow up !!!! Clever is not Wise, clever in fact is usually used in the service of a deciever .
You must be careful about confusing Catholicism with Christianity. 2 very different things. Christians come to God the Father through Jesus His Son. Catholics believe that Mary intercedes to Jesus. Totally unbiblical. Catholics believe they can lose their salvation if they sin and don’t do enough good works to make up for it. They even believe they can pay money to absolve themselves of sins. Christians believe the Bible which says that our most righteous works are as filthy rags and that only the blood of Jesus Christ shed only Calvary can pay for our sins. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the head of the Church but Catholics believe that the Pope is infallible and that he is the head of the church.
You can’t force a person to believe something that they don’t want to believe. You can present the evidence for Jesus dying on the cross, but unless God Himself touches a person with His Holy Spirit, a person will never be changed. And God won’t touch a person to change and convert them unless they are one of His own elect, chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. And No, God doesn’t love everybody. Just because some false teacher tells you that everybody is going to heaven because God loves everybody, or just because some false teacher with religious credentials says that God needs your money, that doesn’t make it so. The Bible says that there would be lots of false teachers in the last days before the return of the Lord.
The would be no Christianity, dipshit, if Catholics hadn’t defended it against all mortal and spiritual threats with blood, steal , faith and wealth for 1500 years before the money lenders sold the idea of do-it-yourself churchianity via the influence of money and print. The Judaized Protestants have been on the slippery slope to a bastardized faith sans the spiritual every since, but at least they’ve still got their debt servitude to believe in …er..I mean muh capitalism.
It took the Europeans 1100 years to figure out the bible scam.
The fractured church was the splitting up of the religious monopoly.
The bible has always been a propaganda command and control book.
Exceptionally effective lie for it to still be weaving its magic over the billions of institutionalized minds.
Sadly, they haven’t figured out the jewish scam, because they still follow the same principles (secular humanism, for instance). They just don’t believe the bible stories anymore.
The Bible says that wisdom is too high for a fool.
Oh but now that the Europeans have gotten that whole business sorted out things are really lookin up for them eh ? sarcasm ////off .
Those who hate the Jews also hate the Bible. And they are also dishonest and untrustworthy in every way.
Roman Catholicism has probably murdered more of the saints than Islam and Communism put together. And there was no Pope until 350 AD. Catholicism kept the Scriptures chained to the altar in Latin so nobody could read it for themselves and then when Tyndale printed it for the common man to read, the Catholics burned him at the stake. They would have done the same to Luther if a friend hadn’t warned him to escape.
Absolutely correct, Jay.
What is the point of Grace if it doesn’t bring forth good works then ? In my naive understanding I think God is all about producing Godly Love so that while I would agree that a lot of what people may consider ” good works “or loving your fellow man really isnt ,in the final analysis , it still doesn’t preclude the purpose and or possiblity of good works being the intentional outcome of Grace . Plenty to be critical of when it cones to catholicism , not arguing otherwise , just questioning your theology a bit on that specific but you asserted . It doesnt make sense to me ?
Ephesians 2:8-10
“We are His workmanship, created for good works in Christ.”
Except “God” is a fiction of your imagination.
Look at the fruitcakes of christendom.
Look at the nutcases of atheism wearing black robes and shooting up churches on Sunday morning. Sure, the police or an armed member sometimes gets them before they can kill too many, but sometimes nobody is there that can stop the servants of the devil from doing his work.
Why isn’t everyone just ignoring this AI bullshit?. Its so stupid! Another distraction for the normies to get riled up over. Ignore it all don’t use any of that bullshit.
Yes, its idiotic, BUT…it is already being used prolifically, and it is being used against us. We cannot ignore such a powerful weapon.
It isn’t just the image generator that has a problem. The interactive text portion of Google’s AI also fabricates output. Check out what Matt Taibbi experienced playing around with their system at the link below. If I were him, I think I’d be suing their asses
https://www.racket.news/p/i-wrote-what-googles-ai-powered-libel?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1042&post_id=142134059&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=9atnc&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The problem is that A.I. won’t ignore us.
The problem is that the people who will embrace A.I .wont ignore us .Its them we are going to have to contend with . We wont be able to completely ignore that .
More powerful than your god, Right?
The Bible says, “ You shall call His Name Emmanuel, for He shall save His people from their sins.” It doesn’t say that God will save everybody from everything.
The AI is named Emmanuel?
El is short for ba’al
The bible says a lot of bullshit!
“A fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.”
Somebody’s ready for Spengler.
In the days of a more Christian Culture, a lone individual with the Bible could judge and warn society, regardless of the majority vote, because there was an absolute by which to judge. There was an absolute for both morals and law. But to the extent that the Christian consensus is gone, this absolute is gone as a social force.
If there was a Christian Culture where there existed an absolute in both morals and law, why would there be a need for a lone individual to judge and warn society? Clearly there isn’t an absolute for both morals and laws regardless of what belief, ideology or political system the consensus exists under.
Or in the words of another philosopher,If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?
Does it depend on your defintion of ‘need’?
https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/on-stupidity?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2FOn%2520Stupidity&utm_medium=reader2
HSF,
I only took one Intro to Philosophy class in college, but… subject to checking my notes…. I believe Schaeffer placed Spengler in the “God is dead” genealogy and chronologically positioned between Nietzsche and Heidegger. Which was sort of ironic because both Spengler and Schaeffer believed societies declined as they lost their religious vigor – plus, even Lutherans like Hitler were said to have been influenced by Spengler.
And, unless I am mistaken, the final philosopher you referenced existed in No Country For Old Men😉
Here’s the thing, the people (masses, proles, NPC’s, whatever) haven’t lost their religious vigor, far from it we are living in the midst of a religious revival akin to the movement America experienced during the Great Awakening. All of the behaviors, habits and structures are virtually the same as those of the Catholic Church, only tweaked for the times. Instead of receiving the host, they take the vax, instead of the rites being administered by clergy, they are done by physicians, those who believe are part of the congregation, those who don’t are apostates, etc., etc.
God isn’t dead, God is. The problem, as it has always been with man, rests in our recognition of the Creator, not in our application of faith. All of those people who now accept the absurdities of the modern era are living in a constant desire to be one with God with an equal fervor, albeit misdirected. I think- no proof of course- that Schaeffer, a lifelong academic who lived in a kind of ascetic isolation, misidentified the problem. It isn’t the particulars of religious observance, but in the response of our calling.
Everything is cyclical. From freedom to bondage, bondage to freedom. There is no stopping it, no way to relocate yourself on the timeline, there is only the capacity to recognize the system, designed as it was by something greater than any philosopher’s ability to fully comprehend. Through a glass darkly and all that jazz.
I think C.S. Lewis nailed it in The Problem of Pain. Some things people just can’t grok. And in the same way the cleansing fires of Soddom, or the watery grave of Noah’s time appeared as cataclysmic to those it consumed, there was a purpose in it.
And here we are.
Schaeffer asks how should we then live? and the answer is right there in the question itself- as we are called to.
Strange as it may seem, we were made for these times.
Hardscrabble,
As always, my online brother, you make some very astute points.
As you know, I often post these articles to see what comes back…especially comments like yours. And I got an email response on this post, as well, from a commenter who no longer posts here (but you would remember him) and he said: “Stop writing about old guys from 1976 and start saying f*ck you!!!” [to The Borg]
Lol
But, even so, when writers from the past (like Lewis & Del Noce) identify and analyze ideological constructs (beliefs) and predict what will happen… and it does, indeed, happen… well… there are valid answers there to be explored, in my opinion.
Therefore, in so doing, I’ve come to the realization that the string that can collapse Clownworld’s tangled ball, so to speak, is to point out the breach between reason and belief.
Accordingly, a skeleton key may be found embedded into my above article by searching for the word “dichotomy” – and with its culmination as follows:
It seems the old adage still applies: If ya don’t stand for something, you will fall for something else.
So… deciding what to stand on is an important decision.
And, with that in mind, I wanted to honor Schaeffer’s work, the commenter cz for recomending it to me, and the readers for whatever the words may be worth to them.
In that sense, then, perhaps I was impelled (called?) to post this one; and for such a time as this.
Thank you again for posting your perspectives. I appreciate ya, very much👍
Uncola and Hardscrabble
I’m putting the finishing touches on an article that has a few things to say about these issues. Rather than a lengthy comment on Doug’s article and Hardscrabble’s comment, I’ll put the article up in a few days. I barely have time to say what I want to say once, much less repeat myself.
Looking forward to it, Robert
I’ve come to the conclusion our present circumstance can only be remedied with a Gordian Knot solution.
Are these statements about Hitler and Spengler from Schaeffer, or other things you have read?
Those statements are from my off-the-cuff recollections of what I have read about Spengler. That Nietzche influenced Spengler and Spengler influenced Hitler.
TBP is an interactive brain enlarger in real time and Spengler has been mentioned and quoted here before. So I read up on him at some point.
For brevity, I did not record all of Schaeffer’s mentions of specific names and genealogies for philosophy, art, or religion But I do seem to recall a passing reference to Spengler and even in relation to Hitler, but I am not too sure. And, unfortunately, I’ve returned the book to the library. But I believe what I am looking for would be in pages 174 to 181 of the book and, now I want to go back to the library and see for sure.
Del Noce also discussed two specific genealogies/lines of philosophy – one through Descartes to Nietzsche (and into the Frankfurt School and post-modernism) and another through Aristotle to John Locke (and constitutional law). The former viewed reality as coinciding with (will-to) power (what Del Noce called “pure unrealism”) and the latter as “ordered more toward values”.
So, it may have been Del Noce who mentioned Spengler too
Alrighty, I’ll look into it (Schaeffer not del noce). I wish I had a library here with actual books.
Afaik, Hitler wasn’t into Spengler. Whether he was into Nietzsche is also debatable. Hitler was not a Lutheran. He was a Catholic first, and not discernably anything later. At least officially.
I don’t know anything about del Noce, but from a few quick searches, what he says about Nietzsche makes no sense at all. It’s like arguments about strawmen that I haven’t heard except from leftist college students or cliff notes.
Hitler was a Lutheran and loved Luther’s book ‘The Jews & Their Lies’.
Hitler was influenced by Spengler;
https://www.vqronline.org/essay/spengler-and-third-reich
Anon,
You have dismissed the writings of Del Noce as strawman arguments and cliff notes after some quick online searches? Lol
I am now reading what you wrote last year.
I was giving my first impression. There is already more bad philosophy, history, or religion than I could ever read, so I am cautious about anything that doesn’t have an immediate ring of truth to it. Sure, that means I miss things.
For instance, I can see from a criticism that in The Problem of Atheism he rejects certain views that I think are fundamental and relatively obvious. Do I really want to read 536 pages just find out if that is the case?
I get it Anon. No need to explain. If I wanted to maintain my presuppositions, it would be much easier to label another’s life’s work as a strawman or cliff notes😉
They’re not presuppositions, it took me many years to get here.
PS, yes, I know how my worldview plays into it. But if his basic assumptions are things I worked out over and over to the contrary, at some point only a tard doesn’t dismiss them.
Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law.
Then I will follow The Living GOD…and NOW…it’s “lawful”.
The whole of the Satanic “law”. People know about 666, without understanding the meaning. The number 6 is one short of the complete number of 7. In 7 days God created the Heavens and the Earth. On the 6th day he created man. There are three 6s in there. 3 is the divine number of the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) who is Holy, Holy, Holy.
Satan in his pride and arrogance wanted to take God’s place. He wants to be God. So you could say Satan worships Me, Myself, and I. Unholy, unholy, unholy, six, six, six.
Carbon 12
6 protons
6 neutrons
6 electrons
666 – the building block of life itself. But in a satanic inversion, like we are living within today, the building block of life is the great enemy to be overthrown. This is what the Great Reset is – it is the satanic inversion out in the open, it is the war on humanity through a proxy war on carbon. And you are the carbon they want to eliminate.
Good one!
You usually say such heretical things, but here you are not wrong. I will only rejoice whoever gets in passed that crossed shape gate. I get belligerent out of love.
The satanic inversion was denying the godship of, in, and maintaining all life.
We are gods.
wtaf?
If a man achieves objective consciousness he and those like him will agree on everything.
I think the words ” to the extent that ” are key here , where you are in varying levels or degrees of “success ” depending on where you are at percentage wise with regard to adherants to ” do unto others as you would have them do unto you ” . If I became transformed into a dangerous and evil man I would want you or whomever ( rhetoricall ) to punch my ticket out of a spirit of love for my victims rather than a spirit of hatred for my state of emnity .Just like if I became rabid. I think Christians don’t know how to kill in the spirit of love anymore when it is neccasary, and sometimes it is neccasary .
Hardscrabble, the way to solve this is to go back to the source code:
“For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves”
Does this not imply that all the knowledge of the creator can be discerned by studying creation?
And if this is true, then it is alternate pathway to “following” the example of Jesus.
Which implies, working in harmony with natural law is the same as following jesus.
Which implies Jesus is A way, but not the only way.
I’m having a hard time making sense of this. Maybe because Schaeffer was a christian talking about very un-christian topics. Maybe because of some of the wiki-ish definitions? I dunno.
Probably because you are stupid.
drunk, ackshually
But seriously, I got to about Nietzsche and pessimism and started to wonder wtf I’m reading. I’ll try again tomorrow.
I agree. It’s riddled with contradictions. Claiming Christianity is some antidote to totalitarianism is laughable given its history. That and the fact it’s got little to do with anything Jesus actually said.
Maybe give” Mere Christianity ” a whirl sometime ? Perhaps your presuppositions about what or how ALL Christians think are in fact the byproduct of your own subjectivity ?But then perhaps so are mine , although as I have said before ( not that you either should ,would or did read what I said , I mean who the fuck am I anyway ? ) my world view does seem to ” dovetail ” quite nicely with the actual world , funny that . Best damn thing I’ve read in weeks , easily ( Uncola’s article ).
Let’s start with “judge not lest you be judged”. How’s that going? Though I guess it would help if ‘christians’ had the vaguest understanding of what it actually means.
Judgement is the exclusive purview of The Lord , ultimately ( lol ) but we can have and excersise “discernment ” ,” Just walk away Rene’ ” if you can when something is not for you , and if they wont let you just walk away ,well then ” there is a time for every purpose under heaven ” if you catch my drift . In your esoteric study of Jesus you allude to the unconscious walkers ( I like that ) , where as in mine they are in a hypnotic state .where the entire world can be described as hypnotic ,because of the people in it and their constant manipulative mind games and so on . Ones non emotional reaction to the various different emotions elicited ( guilt, hatred and so on ) by the mind gamer’s is a start and even cross references into Buddhist thinking . We are called to live “In the world but not of the world “? .And yes it is difficult , and no I am not a perfect -practitioner by any stretch so that I am not fully in an objective state of mind 24/7 /365 but I am convinced I am at least trying to get on the right path .
Thanks Simplicus, it sounds to me like you are on the right path. There are very few who achieve crystalised objective consciousness. But nothing is wasted and all work on yourself accumulates. Through grace His Endlessness grants us the occasional glimpse of what is possible to give us the strength to continue the struggle.
To not judge means to not ‘relate’. It’s not about morals or a set of rules. It’s about being; not needing to label what you see. This is the meaning of the Adam and Eve myth. By choosing knowledge over being man was separated from God. When I look out the window in the morning I try not to ‘judge’ what I see; decide if it will rain, or be too hot or cold, or if it is a nicer day than yesterday. The day just is. If people look at their lives they will find they ‘relate’ to everything.
The highest state possible for man is to be
Yes, a hypnotic state is as good a way to describe the normal state of man as any. Reacting mechanically to external stimuli, controlled by events. cheers
In the immortal words of Krishnamurti: “Do not compare.”
It means that you will be judged by the same metric you judge others by, but to not judge is to not discern right from wrong , which is how we come to this dark point of total degeneracy in our time. So , in effect, when you make a judgement call, make sure your are on sound biblical footing. Tolerance is not a Christian virtue.
“By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matthew 7:17).
“Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them” (Ephesians 5:11 )
5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7: 5 )
“Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly” (John 7:24).
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone “? Well that pretty well covers everybody in my Book , myself definitely included . What I can do is judge the sin instead of the sinner and sometimes I may have to utter the words ” may God have mercy upon your soul ” when I find myself in that situation where there is indeed ” a time to kill “, but not motivated by the spirit of resentment toward the transgressor , rather motivated by the spirit of love for the transgressed . Because it is the resentment of “what is” that is a subtle avenue of approach for the enemy to develop an inroad into my soul . Resentment . This is how I have it worked out Flash , and because of Free will I am the only person that can work anything out for myself ( hopefully with the aid of my assumed or perhaps imagined “open line” to God on The Throne ) . Of course I both insist that I am right and at the same time dont insist it , because as I already stated who’s mind can I to sort all this business out but my own honestly ?The ” experts “perhaps? ( not ) But then I’d still have to use my own mind to qualify the veracity of their thinking wouldnt I ? Lol postmoderism/ subjectivism would have us examining the very faculty by which we examine anything at all in the first instance ( I dont have any of that kind of blind faith and yet I have come to what would seem like miraculous conclusions about the origins of our existence , that there is intent behind all of it ). No wonder we are looking into what appears to be the funhouse mirror ( because of the disorted nature by which it reflects reality ) of what we have “colloquill”y come to refer to as “Clown World “. Whelp , my computer time is up here at the asylum , thanks for the back and forth bruh . Reeeeeeee!!!out //I respect your defense and adherance to ortho Christianity , makes sense that the entropic effects of, well ,anything being co-opted for use by the enemy would render the Faith ” not what it used to be” compared to its original unmolested state . We see it everywhere . Beyond that I am no Book Scholar by any stretch , I am not really capable of operating in that way ( high comprehension / low retention/ A.D.D .I suppose ?) so I have found other ways . Not that I haven’t read anything , but beyond a certain point it doesnt seem to add value to my understanding of things .
It means that you should not judge. You should embrace equanimity. That the whole concept of good and evil takes you further from the Kingdom of God. That the world does not need labels. That you must strive to be
Or, could it be the contradictions are between Christianity and Churchianity?
Or did he?
So some drivel about following laws invented by the alleged apostle Paul is the answer? Laughable. ‘Christians” (whatever that means) resisting authority?? Gimme a break, the protestant ‘christianity’ he talks about is all about authority. Their God is the biggest tyrant of all.
The fact your fellow citizens are asleep as they walk the streets is an opportunity for those who wish to awaken. Only so much consciousness is available so the fewer people you have to share it with the easier it is to accumulate. And it’s not as though anyone is missing out….. the average citizen doesn’t want their share.
Give thanks for the ignorance which surrounds you.
Voltara,
It’s a book review. I’m guessing you’re not going to read Schaeffer’s book then?
I’m sorry, Doug. My comment sounds dismissive of your work. I appreciate your effort in producing the article which has led to an interesting series of comments. I get so frustrated with ‘Christians’ obsession with the pronouncements of Paul while ignoring the genius of Jesus.
No, I wouldn’t read the book. I’ve read about him in the past, an intellectual curiosity only.
I have studied the teaching of Jesus long and hard in an esoteric school, which describes itself as ‘Christian’. And what I have come to understand, and the truths I now KNOW are entirely different from anything you’ll hear in a church this Sunday.
One must work on oneself to know the truth. You must find what Jesus called the ‘Kingdom of God’, which is here and now, within you. A different state of consciousness which is our true birthright. Not some magical place in the clouds you visit when you die. When you find this place all truths are revealed. While amongst the unconscious masses all discussion of what should be or will be or what is hoped to be is wasted effort. Or worse, think Tower of Babel. Unconscious intellectualism is a construct of mud and slime attempting to reach an imaginary heaven.
My comment above is genuine, PRACTICAL advice. The great mass of humanity will always remain unconscious according to universal law. So a large-scale society that is based on truth and understanding is impossible. You can only work on yourself, and that work can be energised by the lack of consciousness of your fellow citizens.
Thanks again for your work for us.
No need to apologize at all. Your comments on this thread have been thought-provoking
Jesus when asked by the crowd when they would get to the Kingdom, He said, “The kingdom of God in within you.” Now this is according to Thomas, whose gospel the biblical scholars do not include in the current favorite Bibles. Gnostic. Too bad, so sad. The poor Bible has so many “fixes” a person can hardly trust it anymore than Constantine himself who put clerics to death if they did not agree to his version of the “agreed upon” version that we now take as gospel.
None so blind…
Scripture tells us that all know there is God. One has to deceive themselves to be an atheist. Great meme.
Usually the atheist is just angry at God, because the atheist doesn’t know anything about God. The secondary problem is the Bible is full of stumbling blocks for the unbeliever. We do not elect ourselves to have faith or to be saved. We know 2 of the means by which God drags us to faith are hearing the Gospel and the sacraments, particularly baptism.
Indeed, the Bible is a stumbling block to unbelievers. But that stumbling block must be dealt with in order for unbelievers to be saved. So that’s a good thing. Unless God has chosen to save someone and written their name in The Lambs Book of Life, from before the foundation of the world, the Holy Spirit of God will never touch them and they can do nothing else except continue in their self deception. The Bible says that there is none righteous, no not one. There is none who seek after God. It is not our nature to seek God until He touches us with His Holy Spirit. Just like any other marriage. If God does not choose you, He will not touch you and change you. And you cannot and will not change yourself because you were born a fallen sinner. There’s nothing any of us can do to change ourselves. Only God can do that.
Predestination then huh ?Its a complicated issue that I only have a thru the glass dimly kinda idea about muhself . Its not that He preordained who would and wouldn’t so much as He knows the end already cuz He’s really not constrained temporally . The beginning thru the end is all in the ever present now for Him , something I cannot really comprehend .
Predestination is pretty easy to understand once you recognize that God is in control and man just thinks that man is in control. And God even made most of mankind to believe that they are in control.
But God does not deceive so that doesn’t work for me Jay
The Bible says that God will send them strong delusion that they may believe a lie.
I think certainly that God , if he is that really really Big God that I have in mind ,that “uncaused cause “or” prime mover ” that from ,everything has its beginning ( thats a pretty big God lol ) would have had to have been Lucifer’s Creator ,so in that respect to my thinking ( whom else’s thinking can I use after all ? ) you are correct Jay . Also from my attempt at understanding ,there is sound logical / theological footing for this of which I will not here and now beat its dead horse by going over yet again . Suffice to say , ya got no choice , well , ya got no choice( free will ) . Lucifer was not an unforced error on his part because operating outside of any of our temporal limitations ,we’d either be left with the conclusion that he somehow screwed up ( dope !!) ,or ,that he is in fact not a loving God , neither of which fits for me anyway because it just doesn’t add up to pure ” good “/” logos “either way .
Sunmary : you cant force Love from someone ,so for it to be of the authentic variety there has to be an alternative . I wont go on , I feel as though I am starting to abuse that poor deceased pony again .I’m sure everyone here who is in the God Camp has probably already come to similar conclusions .
Love originates from God and the Bible says, “We love God because He first loved us.” But love is a gift from God. It is not something man came up with or something man can produce. “He that loveth not does not know God.” So both ends of the equation begin and end with God and man contributes nothing. He can’t, because man has nothing unless God gives it to him.
But , another big Butt , we must have some contribution to make in the big pic cuz “God don’t make no junk “( they actually had posters that said this when I was a lad in public school ) . Lol seriously though . He cant simultaniously create something for His divine purpose and have that something be irrelavant ? That don’t pass the stink test either IMHO. Give us a dang break , we we’re created in His image for His divine purpose so all this filthy rag talk falls a bit flat for me anyway . I am something of a heretic though so not a system guy . Consider the source .
What do you have that God didn’t give you?
The question is about man’s contribution and Gods reason for creating us ,not about the fact that everything ,us included ,has its origins in and or thru Him . Apparently we are critical ingredient to His plan . Again , I think his plan is the creation of Love in the Godly sense of the word ( not gonna go into a long lengthy description of what I assume you probably already know about that ) . He could just Love Himself I suppose ?, but I think he has chosen to try something grander in the scheme of things . Just me ,and I’m just telling you honestly what I think for what its worth . Its possible you could get me to think otherwise if you present me with something I find compelling enough to change my mind . In the end its got to be logically consistent ,to the extent that my ability to employ logic can ” grok “it . Love is actually a logical premise as much as on the surface of the debate it might seem not to be so .
Yes, that must be it. God decided to try something new because He isn’t sure how it will all work out. So he thought, hey, I’ll try this thing called love and make something that I’m not in control of, that way I’ll know it’s real love, because I’m not in control of it.
Sounds kinda suspect to me, considering that God knows everything and gives us our next heartbeat and brainwave.
For those who really think it’s a novel idea to do something great and not really be in control of it, how about getting on an airplane sometime with a pilot who just has a printed certificate but is really not in control of the airplane? That would be exciting and interesting. I mean, he can’t really say the airplane flew if he controlled it. Right?
Finding fancy ways of rejecting love as the ultimate underlying premise behind God and our relationship with him and our fellow man really makes you look “Shuper Shmart “bruh .
It’s not about you or me. It’s about Who God is and His attributes. Coming up with our own ideas about Who God is and remaking Him after some false image made up by society rather than affirming His actual attributes as stated in the Bible is a wrong way street.
I disagree that its entirely ” not about you and me ” though , and it is my right to do so . Perhaps if you think about what I’m getting at you’ll see that we do have a purpose in all of it . You see , I have such a Huge God that for me I just know we are not some screw up of His . And granted I probably have some off the wall ideas in contrast to “Churchianity “as Uncola termed it but as God is my witness I am just following the dictates of my my moral conscience and logic with regard to how I have my theology worked out . Could I be wrong ? Certainly . But its the best conception I can form of Him .Take it or leave it .
The bible says a lot of crap for the dummies to believe in.
The Bible says a lot of things that if you understand and encapsulate into the way you live you will be a better , more fullfilled person ,at peace with your part in things come what may . Thats how it works for me , I am sorry that it doesn’t work that way for you Anon . Sincerely .
The Bible is Gods Holy Word and those who do not respect it as such are hopeless fools beyond help.
If God is in control, then there is no such thing as sin.
Unless you are saying god makes people sin.
But that is impossible for sin is not doing gods will.
Yeah, you got a fucked up philosophy with that government issued tome The Bible.
The Bible. Assembled by the fourth century version of politicians.
And people still bow to it.
Here is clownworld trying to explain the bible tome creation:
“Determining the canon was a process conducted first by Jewish rabbis and scholars and later by early Christians. Ultimately, it was God who decided what books belonged in the biblical canon. A book of Scripture belonged in the canon from the moment God inspired its writing. It was simply a matter of God’s convincing His human followers which books should be included in the Bible.”
https://www.gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html
__________
The bible was assembled by chews as a method to rule over and live as parasites off the gentiles. The purpose? Make them a little less disgusting and give them a guilt complex along with the delusions of “we get the good life when we are dead” idiocy.
This along with the “confess your crimes, pay your taxes and obey the world rulers” should lock up this centuries old religion scam.
Keep on the path brother.
You might one day exit the tunnel of blind faith to see the allegorical daylight.
So, what’s our game plan? I’m down for a lot at this stage in the game.
lol…
Without the infinite-personal God, all a person can do, as Nietzsche points out, is to make “systems”. In today’s speech, we would call them “game plans.” A person can erect some sort of structure, some type of limited frame, in which he lives, shutting himself up in that frame and not looking beyond it. This game… can sound high and noble, such as talking in an idealistic way about the greatest good for the greatest number. Or it can be a scientist concentrating on some small point of science so that he does not have to think of any of the big questions, such as why things exist at all… That is where modern people, building only on themselves, have come, and that is where they are now.
– Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?”, pages 180-181
Note that I quantified with “our.” I have my own gameplan. It’s a simple one. I want to know what we should be pondering because the “wait and see” plan hasn’t been working so far.
This will be bad news for a lot of the ” shuper shmart “folks on here . Love is the ultimate end product that The Father has in His mind for us . I know ? How simple and corny is that right ?And yet there it is . I’m out , goin up to see the river rage after all this rain .
Serious question. What do you mean by ‘love’?
” A genuine desire for the well being of others” to put it as succinctly as possible . But, and its a huge Butt , the more you consider it the more you realize it is a very counter intuitive notion ,specially in light of contemporary ideas about it . I’m hoping you’ll understand that and not straw man the thing .Which is its own kind of compliment .
What do you mean by “well being?” Would spanking your child count if it’s for his own good? Could the one doing the spanking, with doing good on his mind, be an imbecile? Speaking of politicians, do they not do things for the benefit of their voters’ well-being? Are they not “genuine” in their efforts to do good?
Is love a feeling? You seem to think so because you insert “desire” in your definition. Millions, maybe billions, of songs are about the love feeling. In the western genre in particular the songs are often about the sorrow of losing love. Those feelings belong to the singers. Thwarted desire. What’s love got to do with it? “When I die just take me back to Texas ’cause that’s the closest place to Heaven as I’ve ever been.”
What I am getting at is that being genuine with concern for the well being of others is fraught with so much complexity that even our own “Flash” could not untangle it. So much depends upon who is doing the loving and how love is defined.
Is love a thought then, if it’s not a feeling? Uh oh, thought is even more treacherous than feeling. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Look to government worker initiatives for evidence.
So, if love is not a feeling nor a thought, what is left?
Well, there is divine love. I suppose. Maybe love is like oxygen and is all around but invisible and you only miss it when it’s gone? Still, like oxygen, love powers everything. How do you define that?
Feelings
Feelings, nothing more than feelings
Trying to forget my feelings of love
Teardrops rolling down on my face
Trying to forget my feelings of love
Feelings, for all my life I’ll feel it
I wish I’ve never met you, girl
You’ll never come again
Feelings, wo-o-o feelings
Wo-o-o, feel you
Again in my arms
Feelings, feelings like I’ve never lost you
And feelings like i’ve never have you
Again in my heart
Feelings, for all my life I’ll feel it
I wish I’ve never met you, girl
You’ll never come again
Feelings, feelings like I’ve never lost you
And feelings like i’ve never have you
Again in my life
Feelings, wo-o-o feelings
Wo-o-o, feelings
Again in my arms
Feelings, wo-o-o feelings
Wo-o-o feelings
Wo-o-o
And unfortunately you have just totally straw manned my position because I not only psychologically projected my own assumption that someone reading this comment on this website would know what specifically I mean by love but also that they would act in all sincerity and good faith rather than take the straw man root/ the low road , in some ” gotcha ” attempt to ” win ” some argument, in their mind anyway . Well that’s dissapointing my friend I have to say . NO ! Read up on the four loves of Greek antiquity . Spare the rod spoil the child and so on . Screwed up people don’t want what is good for them by definition , they want to be enabled and ” loving “them to them and you means going along with ultimately destructive behavior . This stuff is just too tedious in its obviousness at this point .
What exactly didn’t you get about ” counter intuitive to today’s goofy ideas about what love is ? Geez ?
We are not addressing just dysfunctional people when we are trying to say what love is or is not. It is a feeling or not. Is it a thought? Is it divine? What? Your straw man accusation is a straw man argument, so you are guilty of what you protest. Can we be serious or not? Did you not take upon yourself to answer the question of what love is? Can we find out what it is together or just run around charging each other with hypocrisy?
Love is an action not a feeling , see that’s where people get screwed up on their idea of it . I’d like to elaborate but I’ve got to be rested in mind and body when I do and right now I’m decidely not ( work wears me out both mentally and physically and I just got home ) . I’ve written a lot about the different sick forms/ ideas of love that people have and have likened them in certain instances where it fit to Munchhausen by proxy syndrome for instance .Maybe let you mind elaborate / riff on that a while . Or the simple observation that making someone weaker and more entitled is that kind of ” it was good for me ” lol , kinda love ya know,” look at all I’ve done for you ” , no ,all they did was make the person weaker , sicker , retarded their development basically .
When you love someone, you will wash their dirty socks free of charge.
Sans a higher purpose than materialism, God . i.e., optimism providing a stable and eternal framework based on trust, justice and liberty aka Logos, the absurd , i.e. pessimism built on the debauchery and debasement of all good and wholesome beauty becomes our natural state.
Clown world is just so tiresome.
e.g
+1000…What an excellent read Unc. I would even go as far to say this is your best and most profound essay to date.
As C.R. Hallpike has noted in his book Do We Need God To Be Good? , sans God life there is no liberty, justice or inalienable rights ; we’re just base animals fighting, in a vast arena, wherein only the most bold and brutal survive.
Are we there , yet?
“The State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class: a priestly class, an aristocratic class, a bourgeois class. And finally, when all the other classes have exhausted themselves, the State then becomes the patrimony of the bureaucratic class… But in the People’s State of Marx there will be, we are told, no privileged class at all….but there will be a government and, note this well, an extremely complex government. This government will not content itself with administering and governing the masses politically, as all governments do today. It will also administer the masses economically, concentrating in the hands of the State the production and division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, and finally the application of capital to production by the only banker – the State. All that will demand an immense knowledge and many heads “overflowing with brains” in this government. It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant, and elitist of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and counterfeit scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge, and an immense ignorant majority. And then, woe unto the mass of ignorant ones!
Such a regime will not fail to arouse very considerable discontent in the masses of the people, and in order to keep them in check, the “enlightened” and “liberating” government of Mr. Marx will have need of a not less considerable armed force. For the government must be strong, says Engels, to maintain order among these millions of illiterates whose mighty uprising would be capable of destroying and overthrowing everything, even a government “overflowing with brains.”
Mikhail Bakunin 1872
Excerpted from On the International Workingmen’s Association and Karl Marx
Wow….. just awesome!!! I have sent this article/link on to those of my peers who are ….. hmmm, the ones who are able to comprehend…. LOL! Nice work!
Thank you for this review, Uncola. It started slow for me and I was apprehensive I was going to strongly disagree with a lot of it. Not that disagreement is bad, but I like to walk away with something new and useful in my understanding and this delivered. Really, I find anything outside of a Christian world view to be useless and so this essay articulated ideas that make sense.
In a recent interview with Ynet News (“It’s hard to build peace; but living without peace is an absolute nightmare”, 28 November 2014), Pope Francis spoke out quite candidly about the bond that ties every Christians to the Jewish people. It’s not the first time he’s expressed this view. In his first papal letter sent to bishops the world over in November 2013, Pope Francis wrote, “We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for ‘the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable’ (Romans 11:29).”
It was, however, during his recent interview with Ynet News that he articulated a simple truth, something that’s often simply overlooked: “Jesus was born and died a Jew”.
It’s an interesting angle – the fact that our faith is so unmistakably interwoven, so clearly flowing from the things so many today see as simply Jewish. Because that’s our foundation, our heritage.
Which is why I agree, no, why I applaud Pope Francis’s words, “One of the reasons I’m here is to remind the Christian world that our roots are in Judaism. In every Christian, there is a Jew; and you can’t be a true Christian if you don’t recognize your Jewish roots. And I think interfaith dialogue must place an emphasis on the inseparable connection between the religions, on the fact that Christianity grew from within Judaism.”
Source: https://www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com/israelnews/in-every-christian-there-is-a-jew/
But, like it or not, the Messianic movement exists – warts and all – and Gentile believers must choose whether to help their Jewish brothers and sisters to grow in the faith or whether to stand on the sidelines and carp. The present writer favours the first option and sees three challenges that Messianic Jews must face if the movement is to flourish and grow.
The Messianic movement may be standing on the threshold of its finest hour. If today’s Jewish disciples of Yeshua are willing to take on the challenges of breaking forth more light and truth from God’s Word, of integrating with their fellow Jews without compromising the gospel and of reaching out to bless the nations, they may once again become God’s instrument for turning the world upside down.
Source: http://fromthetopcom.blogspot.com/2012/03/blessed-and-blessing-messianic-movement.html
There is no such thing as a Christian worldview, for (((their fathers’))) sakes, i.e. personal interests. And what are the nonnegotiable characteristic personal interests of the chosen ones? Same as it ever was.
Wiki says: “The video was directed by Byrne and Toni Basil and choreographed by Basil. They studied archive footage of religious rituals from around the world, including footage of evangelists, African tribes, Japanese sects and people in trances, for Byrne to incorporate into his performance.”
Francis Schaeffer is probably far too deep to hold the 10 second attention span of the average American who has been conditioned to watch several hundred TV commercials each day and scan thousands on the internet. The big takeaway from this article on Schaeffer is that a totalitarian government cannot and will not tolerate people who have absolute values by which to judge the actions of the state. We can argue freewill and predestination all day, but at the end of the day, all governments become corrupt and fall under the weight of their own corruption, usually about the time they reach totalitarian status and crush the dissenting voices that would hold them accountable when those voice are oppressed to the point where they must speak out or take action. That’s because it was a part of Gods plan for all men to be born sinners and for only a few to repent and speak out against the majority who don’t care about God because they are not among His elect and chosen. Therefore they allow and enable corrupt governments to become totalitarian and collapse. This is the cycle of life on earth until the Lord Himself returns as the savior and ruler of all the universe.
Schaeffer has 2 major books and film series, both of which I have seen.
The other series is called “What Ever Happened to the Human Race?”
Funny how booger-eatin’, bedwettin’ fags who deny the existence of , are also also the very ones who hate our Creator. lol.
Funny how indoctrinated, god fearing bible thumpers, are unable to use their brains, and see that the bible is a scam and that a truly loving god could not have created the hell hole that we live in.
Joel 2:10 The earth shall quake before them;
the heavens shall tremble:
the sun and the moon shall be dark,
and the stars shall withdraw their shining:
11 and the Lord shall utter his voice before his army:
for his camp is very great:
for he is strong that executeth his word:
for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible;
and who can abide it?
12 Therefore also now, saith the Lord,
turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting,
and with weeping, and with mourning:
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” Max Planck
29 Legendary Scientists Came Together in the “Most Intelligent Photo” Ever Taken
from 1927
They were unanimous in their conclusion that consciousness is fundamental.
Each person is a unit of consciousness, as a part of the greater consciousness system that might be called the Source. Unlike the God so many people believe in, the Source doesn’t punish people for their failures and it’s aim is to reduce entropy. Humans help with that. If entropy is on the increase, everything in the Universe collapses. Humans have free will with the ability to increase the quality of their consciousness, which decreases entropy. We get millions opportunities to do that and so long as we don’t do that, we repeat experiences until we do.
See Thomas Campbell. His book is “My Theory of Everything” or “My Big Toe.” This physicist is in complete accord with all those Noble Prize winners in the photo above. All of the great questions in physics are answered here. He has numerous YouTube videos.
Also, Harold Purcell in his book “Thinking and Destiny” we find that consciousness is that which creates nature.
Rose Wilder Lane: “As water judges a swimmer’s rightness in swimming, God judges a man’s rightness in living.”
Once the rules for living are set down, “God” has no reason to interfere in man’s relationship to man or nature. The water tells the swimmer what to do and the better he learns from the water, the better is his life.
Good stuff, Bigfoot, absolutely agree.
Remarkable, don’t you think, how many physicists come round to believing in a Creator?
As far as I understand the general belief amongst quantum theorists these days is that the act of observation collapses the standing probability wave into physical reality.
Your last paragraph is a beauty! The idea that God is like our politicians -one who can defy his own laws – is a delusion. God began the process which created the universe and its laws and then watched it unfold. If God were to change the laws of the universe at will He would make a nonsense of His own creation. If only mainstream religions could grasp this idea!
What ? Gods not gonna change the rules of the game mid competition just so i can feel good about being bad or rail against ” what is ” ?!? WTF ?!!! Sarcasm off ///
Yes, thanks, Voltara. One of the terrifically informative aspects of our reality as being a construct, a simulation, lies in the nature of our “natural” constants. There’s a lot of them and they are refined often to eight or more decimal places. One after another. What could that mean?! When if any one of them did not integrate with all the rest of them, the whole system would fall apart, shouts out to us that someone or something experimented until all those constants worked together. Think about that for five minutes and you cannot other than conclude we here on earth are avatars of our consciousness, which is eternal and a little, tiny part of the greater consciousness system one might call the Source.
Got a brain do ya? Maybe not! It only gets visible when your skull is opened up. Otherwise it is, well, nothing, nothing at all but a thought you think comes from it but doesn’t. Your head is an antenna.
This shit is so funny. And we humans are so deluded!
The old burlesque joke has been my way of unpacking this understanding . The man goes into the Doctors office and says ” it hurts when I do this ” aaand the Doctor replies ” well then stop doing that ” Lol . Great Stuff Bigfoot , hey do you have a winter place down along the Tahuya somewhere cuz I think I saw your footprints in the mud along the river bank down by my music studio ?yuk yuk .Oh yeah Dyer , Flashes ortho pal , has a very strong apologetic position which is very similar to your thought precedes creation position , whereby thought is entirely metaphysical in nature ( ya cant sense it with the normal senses yet we know it exists ) and acts on the creation cuz we think before we do obviously . which is simple enough on the surface( duh ) but which implications on further contemplation kind of prove in my opinion that there is more to the picture than meets the eye . But we already know that , I’m just trying to break stuff down to its most intellectually acessable state so we can go ( duh , thats just obvious when thought of on that level ) . Its actually huge !!!
Yes, those were my footprints. I’m everywhere man!
As for “thought” being metaphysical, I don’t think so! “Seeing” (insight/understanding) is metaphysical. Thinking about what we see is physical. Thought is actually a problem for us. We come up with all kinds of explanations for what happens in life, thinking that these thought explanations are the real deal. The “I think therefore I am” is horsepucky. It’s “I am therefore I think.” The etymological meaning of “intelligence” is “to read between the lines.” So, it’s insight that is meaningful, not mere thinking, hence the question that so often is asked of a problem person, “What were you thinking?!”
Well, what happens when you don’t think? Things get quiet and there then is room for something else to come to you. Thinking gets in the way of understanding. Thinking is good for when you are “fixin” stuff, but connecting the dots of the metaphysical is a whole other ballgame. Indeed, thinking gets in the way of that.
I agree with some of that but not all . I’ve really overdone myself here today so I’m out .
I see your point Bigfoot , I should have qualified what I was saying a bit . Abstract thought, might be another way to describe the kind of thinking you are referring to or I was alluding to . Yeah ” the new idea ” , insight , intuition , inspiration . Where dose it come from exactly ? you could grind away with your internal dialogue till the cows come home and it wont bear that kind of fruit . I get it , meditation ( shutting off the internal dialogue and just achieving an inner quiet is key to staying centered , present , whatever . ” Be Still And Know ” bro . still think you are missing the point about human thought and the metaphysical reality acting on the physical reality but that’s just me , and some other really smart mo fo’s .
“Google AI says that these are our Founding Fathers…”
Oops, wrong planet.
Wakanda , un obtainium ….
New name suggestions for google:
1. Niggoogle.
2. Wakandoogle
3. YTSBGone
4. NappyGoog
5. Googger
Sheniquagoog
Niggle
The irony, of course, is that it is the Protestant “Reformers” of the 16th Century who kicked off the relentless descent into Clown World. Western Civilization is Catholic or it is nothing.
How many pro-claimers of reason and philosophy had these points in mind?
– The number of intelligent and capable people within a population remains flat or barely linear progressive, while the number of ignorant and idiotic people climbs exponentially
– Population can double at a increasingly accelerated speed
– Disease and plague are temporarily stalled by modern medicine and clean societal conditions, which will inevitably invert to previous time eras (Spanish flu, black plague, etc..)
– People are incapable of dying quickly, in other words: people will cling to even the most horrendous pains/ideals of life, by the instinct of self survival. People do not have to be smart in order to survive in times of plenty
– Populations have to expand once they reach their saturated thresholds, which will force conflicts through displacement
– Desertification is the unspoken norm of human societal development, mainly due to the water diversion methods that are used to grow crops, which in turn leech the soil
– We all live on separated continents, that act as larger Easter islands. If locust cannot find anything else to eat, then they must eat each other. Cannibalism is a widespread phenomenon that we don’t like to admit, and societal cannibalism seen in people’s everyday lifestyles
– All systems are efficient to their means, so if the nastiest D-bag people are celebrated by the masses, then we must live in the times (or have a rollover effect from the recent past) that proliferates these sorts of people. You cannot blame genetics if D-bag _X_ D-bag is the only option you give most people to form their future with. Parasites love stagnated systems where all change is slowed to form a controlled means, usually within the control of the parasites themselves
– If you do not have a nationality to defend ‘your people’, in order to wall off the ‘outsiders’, then all progress you make within your society will be raided and stolen by people outside of your society, the ‘foreigners’ or ‘outsiders’, the ‘them’ to the ‘us’ of our collective society. Thus if you cannot provide improving conditions for every benefactor of your efforts, then conditions must steadily decline everywhere to match the strain of the burdened resources
– Meritocracy and dissolution are the only defense a people can have from a self-proliferating bureaucracy. Any empire burdened with inefficient bureaucracies must collapse or decline appropriately, which is why empires can never last long: they create more problems than solutions
– If everyone is allowed to be called a intellect or above average, than certainly intelligence can no longer be a defining or meaningful trait, so other less profitable traits must take the center stage in the selection of competition, namely self-proliferation (manipulating your way to the top of a social political pyramid, such as politicians and influencers) or cannibalistic displacement (Communism, Bolsheviks, Socialist agendas like ‘equity and inclusion’)
– The industrial revolution allowed manufacturing to dramatically increase, but also replaced the energy obtained with the forced slave labor of people. We will most likely collapse back into a efficient agrarian society, but there are always inefficiencies to root out when a systems shifts in form, and many of those inefficiencies can be painful and/or deadly
– No centralized system of power has fallen gracefully in the history of mankind, with the sole exceptions of decentralized expanding systems (American revolution, colonization of the western frontier)
– The territory of fallen empires usually becomes part of the expanding frontier of new, developing empires. When a people are invaded: either the men are killed and the women/children are integrated, or people combine their language and culture to form cooperative economic ties
– Nothing has to make sense if you replace logic with psychological arguments. No plan can fail if foresight is lacking. If a people can be made impatient and illiterate, than history can no longer determine future outcomes
– The destruction of a country by military means cannot be known, except by those who experience it. Military defeats are only real for nations which have to endure the consequences. If you can never lose, then why would you ever stop gambling, even when the odds are never in your favor?
– The main trait that separates us from the other animals is the ability of intelligent communication. But if language is never used to make people think, then how intelligent can it really be? If you want people dumbed down, then making language a reference point in all contexts, rather than a means of elaborating thought, is a very deadly method
– The human brain is a fragile and experimental organ, the wrong allocation or compartmentalization of resources can have dire consequences. If you poison the population through common place items, then certainly you will break some fragile objects, and ruin lives in the process
– Civilization requires cooperation, and cooperation requires benefits. High risk must entail larger, immediate rewards, and low risk entails smaller rewards distributed over time. When cooperation requires higher risk for smaller rewards, then the benefits no longer have value, and cooperation stops
The Renaissance coincided with the expulsion of the self appointed “chosen” tribe from Europe. Multiculturalism is their weapon of choice, and is turning the West into a burning garbage dump.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/a_way_out_of_all_the_chaos.html
Meanwhile at the Grade Opening of Six Flags in Atlanta
https://www.newsweek.com/six-flags-over-georgia-stormed-unruly-crowd-police-shooting-opening-1875339
I fixed the Loseweek article for you:
What We Know:
About 500 to 600 people [niggers] were “running through the park and fighting,” the Cobb County Police Department said in a statement provided to Newsweek.
Videos posted on social media showed young people [niggers] running through the park, one group [of niggers] kicking someone on the ground and people [niggers] fleeing in a panic as multiple gunshots go off.
https://www.newsweek.com/six-flags-over-georgia-stormed-unruly-crowd-police-shooting-opening-1875339
Your solution is to direct more people to submit to one of their three fabricated [and partly erroneous] religious organizations?
Getting more people to agree with your God delusion is as helpful as convincing more people to become athiests.
Why?
Because all you believers in the traditional religions refuse to see that the religious organizations flip the truth on you and turn you into servants instead of persons with agency.
They invented the big three religions.
The same three religions billions are willing to kill each other over.
If you believe one of those three?
They own your mind.
Period.
Store up treasures in “heaven” [your brain] where thieves can not steal.
Within ten years the human species will be on its way to extinction. It will be replace by hybrid interfacing, there is no stopping it. Above all else, remain human. It won’t be easy, it will indeed be the greatest challenge man has ever embarked upon. How then shall we live? With purpose, humanity and faith that the gospel of Chris is real and we are human. Let no man deceive you, the ghost in the machine will be those who sold their souls to live as gods..
YIKES FOLKS!!! “TRUTH” IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HIDE…UNDERSTAND???
GOOGLE DISPLAYED THE “TRUTH” ABOUT HUMANITY’S ORIGINS!
DOESN’T THIS PLANETS GOVERNMENTS LOOK LIKE A “CIRCUS” TODAY?!?