Oh BTW, If you comment saying you agree or in defense of me, etc. THankyou. Sadly I probably won't "like" your comment unless you say something really unique or detailed... because the Algorithm semi-sorts by popularity and I save my boosts for comments I want to have back and forth and discussion upon... that I want the comment space to be for philosophical discussion, not just an echo chamber.
But especially works like this where I'm very plainly not making friends and will lose follower and income, those expressions of support/agreement do mean a lot to me.
A devoutly Christian friend asked me to read the novel The Shack (2007) about how a father learns to forgive the man who kidnapped, raped and tortured and killed his. 7 year old daughter. The protagonist is invited by God to go spend the weekend in the little hut where the crime occurred, where he encounters all 3 persons of the Trinity. At one point of course he asks God: why did you let this happen? The reply is, “i was with your daughter through it all.”
IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE COMFORTING?
This book was wildly popular. The dad does forgive, and returns to his wife who had already done so. It made me so furiously angry.
Its like pulling teeth to just point and say “this is what your books say”, “this is what your priests and spiritualists preach”, “This is what 90% of your coreligionists believe”
Just read the wikipedia synopsis, and oh my skibidi
"Mack's family leaves to visit relatives and he goes alone to the shack, unsure of what he will see there. He arrives and initially finds nothing, but as he is leaving, the shack and its surroundings are supernaturally transformed into a lush and inviting scene. He enters the shack and encounters manifestations of the three persons of the *Trinity: God the Father takes the form of an African American woman who calls herself Elousia and Papa; God the Son, Jesus, is a Middle Eastern carpenter; and the Holy Spirit physically manifests as an Asian woman named Sarayu."*
Yes and I just read the author wrote it as a Christmas present for his children. Ei yii yii. Oh there’s so much father I could go down this path….i think the Devil is making me do it…..
You have diagnosed a condition plaguing Western societies that was perhaps best described by the Greeks — acedia (“lack of caring”). It was translated to a capital sin of spiritual malaise in medieval theology and literature (Dante tackles it as “sloth”). Now it expresses the profound existential weariness, and aversion to meaning, that we see exhibited in a host of troubling symptoms. Perhaps the French term “avoir le cafard” (“to have the cockroach”) is even more apt than acedia — “cafard” was historically used in military or colonial contexts to describe a state of moral collapse, listlessness, brooding despair, and melancholic apathy. Douglas Porch, in his history of the French Foreign Legion, noted that “cafard” was so feared it was treated as a kind of unofficial pathology. Which leads to the underlying disease: indifference. Nicolas Gomez Davila said: "Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference towards the unique values which created it."
very accurate, the girl who was raped in Sweden and subsequently murdered her rapist one of her associates received life, go rape and murder children it's cultural differences but take revenge and the state loses it's shit, you are going to love your enemies or government is going to come for you and everyone knows it. It's created a system of terror against hero's because feminism and low T men hate them.
Your desire to cast Christianity as the great enemy keeps running aground on the shores of ignorance. You decry the sexual abuse of children while ignoring the fact that such sexual exploitation was common and accepted throughout the ancient world and promoted by Roman empire itself. It was only the rise of Christianity that caused such behavior to be criminalized throughout the Roman Empire.
Similarly you act like the boomers and the hippie movement are the purest expression of Christianity while leaving aside the fact that the hippie movement largely saw itself as a revolution against Christian mores and more importantly, the Christian sexual ethic. "Free love" is not compatible with Christian sexuality. The Boomers rejected the Christianity of their parents' generation (Gary Plauche is an excellent example of thr generation before the Boomers).
And for two millenia Christians saw no contradiction between Christ's admonition to forgive wrong doers, and the execution, imprisonment, etc of rapists, murderers and other evil doers. Yet you pretend that the current progressive left wing "tolerance" stance espoused by globo homo (which hates Christianity far more than you do) is the only Christian perspective. Somehow overlooking it for the historical aberration that it is.
Nice try, but the reasons Christians saw no contradiction between forgiving wrong doers and punishment for crimes is because of Romans 13:4 ("be afraid if you do wrong because government does not bear the sword for nothing. It is God’s servant to administer punishment on the person who does wrong".)
In turns out they understood their own scriptures much better than you.
Jesus telling you to love your enemies does not mean that you can't inflict justice on your child's rapist. Quite the opposite in fact, love requires they be restrained from hurting any others.
So we have writings from early Christians like John Chrysostom (349-407 AD) who say:
"Do not take revenge yourselves, beloved, but allow the Lord to avenge you. For He says, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay' (Romans 12:19). But this does not forbid magistrates from punishing the wicked; rather, it forbids private hatred."
(Homily on Romans 12:19)
Anybody calling for anything other than justice for child rapists isn't following Christian doctrine. And you can forgive your child's rapist while also ensuring they are imprisoned/executed. As has historically been done for over a thousand years of Christian civilization.
"Vengeance is mine" is an order from the king forbidding vendetta.
To allow *just* justice is to allow the legitimate authority to deliver it - it may be the state, or it may be the aggrieved party. True law is redress of damage.
I would agree with this text even if I was still a christian.
To be honest, this passivity in face of violence and other stituations was one of my main problems with christianity since ever, ‘cause this simply doesn’t work in practical life.
A lot of evil people never gets punished but the “confort” christianity offer is always after death. And if you died there is nothing more? the evil doers went unpunished.
I watched several people trying to give different interpretations or context to these text, but there’s not much anything else to interpret from this.
"And yet no violence is committed… No vast purging. No reckoning to end all reckonings…"
I see this kind of thing all the time in boomer far-right circles. "How come everyone is a coward but me, I'm so brave to pound my chest on the internet but everyone else is a coward because no one acts! Did I mention I'm so brave even though I don't act either, because I'm the guy who points out that no one else acts?"
Instead of asking why no one else acts, why don't you ask yourself why you don't act? I don't mean this as any kind of accusation or even an incitement to act, I mean this literally. Ask yourself, and ponder the answer. If you understand why you don't act, you'll be better able to understand why others do not.
For the most part, everyone doesn't act because because they believe everyone else isn't going to act. Hence the chest pounding, they think they are brave enough to act if only someone else goes first... but of course no one wants to go first, to be that penguin who first jumps into the orca-infested waters. They want to be the penguin safely back in the flock, not the first and not the last.
The key to getting over this hump is leadership, which is what we lack, not bravery or foresight. This is why our enemy doesn't care about the truth getting out, they care about keeping leaders in check. This is why every leader of ours is controlled opposition, and above a certain level of organization always will be.
This has nothing to do with Christianity or paganism or whatever other nonsense people are peddling. It's basic human nature, which can be overcome by various tools provided for within most religions, or be suppressed with those tools provided for within most religions.
B) I'm not asking you to act I'm asking you to pre-commit to the idea that those who do act are heroes and higher status than you and should be praised and toasted and little boys told to be like them and little girls told to want to marry people like them.
If everyone was pounding their chest.. We'd have no problem, instead we have every single mother, grandmother, father, brother, friend, and kinsman precommitted to denouncing their own brother if he dared to fight for decency and happened to get caught.
The failure to celebrate heroes and avengers and toast them and erect monuments and demand politicians praise them and toast them to get elected... is ENTIRELY the fault of Christianity, as I argue, which you would have known if you had read the piece which you didn't because you commented less than 10 minutes after it was posted.
You are reifying religions as if they were a real thing that had an existence outside of human belief.
Christianity used to be pro-war, which is why it was adopted by the Byzantine Empire. Then when it became convenient for those in charge to make people obedient, Chr was turned into a slave religion, except where it was convenient for it not to be. Just as paganism would have been. Actually as paganism has become in some cases. There are plenty of libtards who identify as pagan and think paganism means they can be faggots and cowards.
Religion is whatever people make of it. It isn't some magic bullet where all you have to do is get X% of the population to genuflect towards a wooden idol instead of a cross and suddenly the world changes around you.
Figure out what needs to be done, do it, then let people afterwards figure out how that is a new religion or how it is really in line with the old religion. Whatever floats the boat of people who need some kind of external justification for doing what is right.
Memes have a life and logic all their own... You think Athena has survived this long changing only slightly in 3000 years... Getting incorporated into stain-glass windows at universities and military academies...
Because she has no logic and reality of her own? Because she is not a complex concept as multivariable, detailed, complex, and solid as any philosophy, narrative, proof, or technique?
Gods, ghosts, and monsters are quite real... Their nature just isn't always as they appear.
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
Matthew 10:34-36
"He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment." The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords." "That’s enough!" he replied."
Luke 22:36-38
Also see St. Thomas Aquinas on Christian Just War theory in his Summa Theologica, which also uses Old Testament sources to determine when a war is moral.
It would be more correct to write the rest of the gospels and not just what you selectively like. Because Jesus' message in these words is not the condemnation of people but the overthrow of the system of oppression of people through love, truth, and self-sacrifice. So I quote to you the evangelical words of Matthew and John in the original Greek writing of the Bible!!!
Aquinas was a theologian, not an Evangelist. In this regard, I would have many examples to give you from the Orthodox patristic theology of peace. In any case If you cannot interpret the Bible, it is better to ask for help than to expose yourself.
As I said in the first line, "You are reifying religions as if they were a real thing that had an existence outside of human belief."
There is no correct interpretation, only useful interpretations. Which is why every religion has contradictory statements, allowing the wise to pick and choose what is needed for the moment so the not-wise will feel like they are doing the right thing, not just the practical thing.
I highly recommend the book "Darwin's Cathedral" to help understand this perspective.
All bullshit. He told them to go and buy swords, then kept them hanging with "trust the plan." Eventually when it was long past time to use them and they had nothing left to lose, they finally take action. And what does jesus do? He admonishes them for using the swords he told them to buy and surrenders to the authorities.
Deliberately frustrating your own men in order to whet their zeal is *maybe* the act of a warmongering warlord. It's proven to continually enhance soldier's lust for battle in real military units. They want nothing more than to present their commander with a fait accompli and a mea culpa.
Maybe the difference here is between protestant christianity and catholicism. Catholics are pretty martial *in their faith specifically.* Protestants can be martial in worldly terms, but in spiritual terms their practice is often laxidasical, consensus-driven, normative. More like a parliament than a parade review. And remember that to serve in parliament while also oxcupying an odfice of profit and trust is seen as treasonous and one of the highest levels of perfidy in Anglo parliamentary custom.
You are dumb. You aren't even arguing against what I'm saying, because you don't understand what I'm saying. Hint: if you are making a theological argument, you are not relevant to what I'm saying.
Excellent piece … but … to me, the collapse of Christianity and of discipline and punishment is less-attributable to Christianity, itself, than it is to women’s suffrage and the superior place we have decided women should occupy. IMO the weaponization of empathy and compassion drove the collapse of strong defense of the West from its enemies, not the other way ‘round. Eve and Pandora were female for a reason.
Awesome observation AS! The 'girls" ( bless their hearts) just can't help screwing things up! Is why 'Eve' was Eve and Pandora was Pandora!
"The Pandora myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world, according to which, Pandora opened a jar (pithos; commonly referred to as "Pandora's box") releasing all the evils of humanity. It has been argued that Hesiod's interpretation of Pandora's story went on to influence both Jewish and Christian theology and so perpetuated her bad reputation into the Renaissance. Later poets, dramatists, painters and sculptors made her their subject."
Yup. For millennia of pre-literate societies, mythology was how they taught about the world. And each of these separate societies - Greek/Toman, Jewish and N European (Brunhilde) - each reached and taught the same conclusion. Then Western Civ rose for millennia w/out suffrage.. then one century back, women decided - and men voted for them to be - enfranchised; to participate in policy, to participate in government - which is fundamentally force - when no female ever was selected by nature to rule or use or understand force. The female of every species has been selected for a million years for fertility. Women’s suffrage is the worst mistake the West has ever made, and probably an existential one.
"... no female ever was selected by nature to rule or use or understand force."
Well ... Boadicea, Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great, the Empress Cici, Margaret Thatcher -- are the ones that come immediately to mind. Over the long years of history, there have been a few women, a very few, who have earned their way to positions of power.
What has changed in the last half century is mediocre women being put into positions of power simply because they are women, not because they are capable and the best person for the job. The empirical evidence is overwhelming -- the world has not become a better or more peaceful place in our current gynocracy. It is difficult to see how we are going to fix that problem -- short of societal collapse.
While I agree with your conclusion, I stand by my statement re: evolution. A few anecdotes don’t override that. Females have been selected for their primary purpose: the ability to produce offspring. If one or two across the ages have wielded force, cool. But nature has never selected them for that. Which is why those you cite, IIRC, are childless…
Only Joan of Arc was definitely childless. Boadicea may have had two daughters (there really aren't great records for her). All of the others had 2 or 3 kids who survived to adulthood.
I know what you’ve written here is entirely correct; but I still struggle with it. I read Bonhoeffer a long time ago bc I struggled with it.
I’ve personally “allowed,” a lot of garbage to go on that I witnessed at church bc I thought it was easier for me to endure it than it would be to endure what would happen if said something about it— which felt like “tattling,” to me. For example, older men and their “hug-chasing,” from me as a teenager was something they could get away with bc it appeared to be “just a friendly hug,” when they would press me against themselves and not easily let me go. Was I going to destroy their marriage and families bc I accused them of fondling? Was I going to put myself in a place where I had to “convince,” other people that I wasn’t lying, and have them attack ME for attacking this “righteous man,” and father they all loved?” Ultimately, I stopped going to church altogether in order to avoid the feeling of being hunted and groped— even though that meant I wouldn’t get to see my friends.
I guess I’m at a place now where I see the “love and pray for your enemies,” thing as a “sowing and reaping” thing. Like, when we love and pray for our enemies, we are somehow making room for grace for ourselves bc we are no better than “them;” we ARE “them.”
But then— at times, this same god of the Bible (we’re supposed to emulate) also calls for ruthless destruction and murders from the hands of his followers. Seems like we kinda have to be prepared for either action depending on the circumstances we’re faced with. Just one response -either violence or forgiveness- never fits every scenario, and even then, those two options aren’t mutually exclusive. Can’t we forgive AND end someone’s life at the same time.
I couldn't stop writing, so I published my response. I think there is a Christian response, but so many have been psychologically subdued. Christians founded this country. Christians fought in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and every war since.
My take is that your essay correctly addresses most of the problem but lays too much at the feet of the make-believe Hippie Christmas Jesus, which the Church has set up as God to be worshiped. Just follow Jesus and you'll be happy all the day. Jesus wants you to have a wonderful life! Jesus is your boyfriend, your co-pilot, your CEO, basically your own personal Genie to give you the American Dream.
They long ago left the masculine carpenter who made disciples of fishermen who then turned the world upside down. There is much wrong in the modern Protestant Church. I and my family don't attend anymore. It's spiritually and morally bankrupt---and greedy.
With the right leader, I think a militant Christian contingent could be rallied. I think we are all too comfortable, myself included. Great article.
Having grown up in a Church and even baptized as a teen, the milquetoast posturing of rank-and-file Christians and their leadership revolted me and it is what drove me from their clutches as I entered my 20s.
A faith that says the most heinous and vile child-abusers, murderers and YOU are all equal as “sinners” … and that mumbling the right words of contrition grants those scum access to the same heavenly redemption as any civilian, is a slap in the face of decency.
This is a slap that Christians of all denominations and levels of seniority willingly embrace - and even worse, Christians will scold those with normal human instincts of revulsion at such posturing as being insufficiently “Christ-like.”
A heaven populated by “repentant” murderers and child-abusers who happen to mumble the correct incantations before their deaths is not worth entering.
A tour de force documenting the fundamental force behind most problems today. There is an irony at the heart of modern secular societies, which is that they have become so throughly Christian they have no need for the Church. The most insidious aspects of Christianity became unquestionable and obfuscated under liberal rhetoric following WWII. A totalizing destruction ushered in the retreat to the only parts of myth left untouched by demythologization spurred on by the Enlightenment and the atom bomb, the stochastic terrorism that is Christian morality. If one watches enough videos about Christian deconstruction, the common through line is that Christianity is not living up to its internal promises. The Church as an institution is not sufficiently anti-racist, Christianity has wedded itself to "fascism" via its influence on Conservatives, ideas of non judgment does not extend to LGBT issues, etc. Those who have deconstructed Christianity in such a manner have become more Christian than the exoteric portion of the religion. Like the Boomers mentioned in your article, they see Christianity more truly than ten thousand eCrusaders. Holding head fast to the core teachings of the New Testament and carrying them into how they view the world. Orginal Sin becomes centered on bigotry with the Tree of Knowledge being replaced by the Gate of Auschwitz. A thousand little Nicholas Eymerichs existing to counter the new heresies of this very Christian age. For a decade, the Right has been decrying philosophers (often without reading them) whose impact largely only extends to continental philosophy departments. They have ignore a far most consequential influence on the Post WWII West, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His conceptions of religionless Christianity, costly grace, and the church existing for others explain the pivot to self destruction which characterizes this epoch of history. There is no solving the problems we are facing until Christianity is toppled. Its true form is feeding the third world to bursting, migration assistance, antiracism, pacifism, self-denial, erasure of all differences, and in sum suicidal empathy.
Oh BTW, If you comment saying you agree or in defense of me, etc. THankyou. Sadly I probably won't "like" your comment unless you say something really unique or detailed... because the Algorithm semi-sorts by popularity and I save my boosts for comments I want to have back and forth and discussion upon... that I want the comment space to be for philosophical discussion, not just an echo chamber.
But especially works like this where I'm very plainly not making friends and will lose follower and income, those expressions of support/agreement do mean a lot to me.
A devoutly Christian friend asked me to read the novel The Shack (2007) about how a father learns to forgive the man who kidnapped, raped and tortured and killed his. 7 year old daughter. The protagonist is invited by God to go spend the weekend in the little hut where the crime occurred, where he encounters all 3 persons of the Trinity. At one point of course he asks God: why did you let this happen? The reply is, “i was with your daughter through it all.”
IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE COMFORTING?
This book was wildly popular. The dad does forgive, and returns to his wife who had already done so. It made me so furiously angry.
That’s horrifying
I should track it down and review it...
Its like pulling teeth to just point and say “this is what your books say”, “this is what your priests and spiritualists preach”, “This is what 90% of your coreligionists believe”
Just looked it up...
It was a New York times #1 bestseller...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shack_(Young_novel)
Pretty sure it's a movie too.
Just read the wikipedia synopsis, and oh my skibidi
"Mack's family leaves to visit relatives and he goes alone to the shack, unsure of what he will see there. He arrives and initially finds nothing, but as he is leaving, the shack and its surroundings are supernaturally transformed into a lush and inviting scene. He enters the shack and encounters manifestations of the three persons of the *Trinity: God the Father takes the form of an African American woman who calls herself Elousia and Papa; God the Son, Jesus, is a Middle Eastern carpenter; and the Holy Spirit physically manifests as an Asian woman named Sarayu."*
Yes and I just read the author wrote it as a Christmas present for his children. Ei yii yii. Oh there’s so much father I could go down this path….i think the Devil is making me do it…..
I never read The Shack. I wasn't sure what it was about just that it was New Agey claptrap. Glad I skipped it.
A Complete Masterpiece.
Fuck all these commenter saying "I beg to differ" and fuck even more the "acksually" ones.
You should put this in a book. Substack does not deserve such good writing.
I agree this needs a book treatment. I'm going to post something on my Substack about it.
You have diagnosed a condition plaguing Western societies that was perhaps best described by the Greeks — acedia (“lack of caring”). It was translated to a capital sin of spiritual malaise in medieval theology and literature (Dante tackles it as “sloth”). Now it expresses the profound existential weariness, and aversion to meaning, that we see exhibited in a host of troubling symptoms. Perhaps the French term “avoir le cafard” (“to have the cockroach”) is even more apt than acedia — “cafard” was historically used in military or colonial contexts to describe a state of moral collapse, listlessness, brooding despair, and melancholic apathy. Douglas Porch, in his history of the French Foreign Legion, noted that “cafard” was so feared it was treated as a kind of unofficial pathology. Which leads to the underlying disease: indifference. Nicolas Gomez Davila said: "Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference towards the unique values which created it."
very accurate, the girl who was raped in Sweden and subsequently murdered her rapist one of her associates received life, go rape and murder children it's cultural differences but take revenge and the state loses it's shit, you are going to love your enemies or government is going to come for you and everyone knows it. It's created a system of terror against hero's because feminism and low T men hate them.
“Liberal Democracy is in fact Pedophile Bureaucracy.” - Good line.
Not your best work.
Your desire to cast Christianity as the great enemy keeps running aground on the shores of ignorance. You decry the sexual abuse of children while ignoring the fact that such sexual exploitation was common and accepted throughout the ancient world and promoted by Roman empire itself. It was only the rise of Christianity that caused such behavior to be criminalized throughout the Roman Empire.
Similarly you act like the boomers and the hippie movement are the purest expression of Christianity while leaving aside the fact that the hippie movement largely saw itself as a revolution against Christian mores and more importantly, the Christian sexual ethic. "Free love" is not compatible with Christian sexuality. The Boomers rejected the Christianity of their parents' generation (Gary Plauche is an excellent example of thr generation before the Boomers).
And for two millenia Christians saw no contradiction between Christ's admonition to forgive wrong doers, and the execution, imprisonment, etc of rapists, murderers and other evil doers. Yet you pretend that the current progressive left wing "tolerance" stance espoused by globo homo (which hates Christianity far more than you do) is the only Christian perspective. Somehow overlooking it for the historical aberration that it is.
Nice try, but the reasons Christians saw no contradiction between forgiving wrong doers and punishment for crimes is because of Romans 13:4 ("be afraid if you do wrong because government does not bear the sword for nothing. It is God’s servant to administer punishment on the person who does wrong".)
In turns out they understood their own scriptures much better than you.
Jesus telling you to love your enemies does not mean that you can't inflict justice on your child's rapist. Quite the opposite in fact, love requires they be restrained from hurting any others.
So we have writings from early Christians like John Chrysostom (349-407 AD) who say:
"Do not take revenge yourselves, beloved, but allow the Lord to avenge you. For He says, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay' (Romans 12:19). But this does not forbid magistrates from punishing the wicked; rather, it forbids private hatred."
(Homily on Romans 12:19)
Anybody calling for anything other than justice for child rapists isn't following Christian doctrine. And you can forgive your child's rapist while also ensuring they are imprisoned/executed. As has historically been done for over a thousand years of Christian civilization.
"Vengeance is mine" is an order from the king forbidding vendetta.
To allow *just* justice is to allow the legitimate authority to deliver it - it may be the state, or it may be the aggrieved party. True law is redress of damage.
Seeing the Christian sexual ethic as the most important part of Christianity is exactly why we're in this mess to begin with.
Y'all are too focused on born-again Christians and completely blind to your own daughters being abused.
This is so incredibly good, I'm at a loss for words. Well done, this contains everything I could not get out, yet know to be absolutely true.
It's also the reason I left Christianity to start finding my way to rebuilding my heritage and old ways for me and mine.
Honestly, my thanks.
I would agree with this text even if I was still a christian.
To be honest, this passivity in face of violence and other stituations was one of my main problems with christianity since ever, ‘cause this simply doesn’t work in practical life.
A lot of evil people never gets punished but the “confort” christianity offer is always after death. And if you died there is nothing more? the evil doers went unpunished.
I watched several people trying to give different interpretations or context to these text, but there’s not much anything else to interpret from this.
"And yet no violence is committed… No vast purging. No reckoning to end all reckonings…"
I see this kind of thing all the time in boomer far-right circles. "How come everyone is a coward but me, I'm so brave to pound my chest on the internet but everyone else is a coward because no one acts! Did I mention I'm so brave even though I don't act either, because I'm the guy who points out that no one else acts?"
Instead of asking why no one else acts, why don't you ask yourself why you don't act? I don't mean this as any kind of accusation or even an incitement to act, I mean this literally. Ask yourself, and ponder the answer. If you understand why you don't act, you'll be better able to understand why others do not.
For the most part, everyone doesn't act because because they believe everyone else isn't going to act. Hence the chest pounding, they think they are brave enough to act if only someone else goes first... but of course no one wants to go first, to be that penguin who first jumps into the orca-infested waters. They want to be the penguin safely back in the flock, not the first and not the last.
The key to getting over this hump is leadership, which is what we lack, not bravery or foresight. This is why our enemy doesn't care about the truth getting out, they care about keeping leaders in check. This is why every leader of ours is controlled opposition, and above a certain level of organization always will be.
This has nothing to do with Christianity or paganism or whatever other nonsense people are peddling. It's basic human nature, which can be overcome by various tools provided for within most religions, or be suppressed with those tools provided for within most religions.
A) You don't know i haven't.
B) I'm not asking you to act I'm asking you to pre-commit to the idea that those who do act are heroes and higher status than you and should be praised and toasted and little boys told to be like them and little girls told to want to marry people like them.
If everyone was pounding their chest.. We'd have no problem, instead we have every single mother, grandmother, father, brother, friend, and kinsman precommitted to denouncing their own brother if he dared to fight for decency and happened to get caught.
The failure to celebrate heroes and avengers and toast them and erect monuments and demand politicians praise them and toast them to get elected... is ENTIRELY the fault of Christianity, as I argue, which you would have known if you had read the piece which you didn't because you commented less than 10 minutes after it was posted.
You are reifying religions as if they were a real thing that had an existence outside of human belief.
Christianity used to be pro-war, which is why it was adopted by the Byzantine Empire. Then when it became convenient for those in charge to make people obedient, Chr was turned into a slave religion, except where it was convenient for it not to be. Just as paganism would have been. Actually as paganism has become in some cases. There are plenty of libtards who identify as pagan and think paganism means they can be faggots and cowards.
Religion is whatever people make of it. It isn't some magic bullet where all you have to do is get X% of the population to genuflect towards a wooden idol instead of a cross and suddenly the world changes around you.
Figure out what needs to be done, do it, then let people afterwards figure out how that is a new religion or how it is really in line with the old religion. Whatever floats the boat of people who need some kind of external justification for doing what is right.
Memes have a life and logic all their own... You think Athena has survived this long changing only slightly in 3000 years... Getting incorporated into stain-glass windows at universities and military academies...
Because she has no logic and reality of her own? Because she is not a complex concept as multivariable, detailed, complex, and solid as any philosophy, narrative, proof, or technique?
Gods, ghosts, and monsters are quite real... Their nature just isn't always as they appear.
I met a man who saw Athena in the flesh --
"The End of 18", of fellowship during a violent uprising in Athens.
https://substack.com/@enonh/p-158304179
Do you want to inform us that Christ spoke in favor of war?
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
Matthew 10:34-36
"He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment." The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords." "That’s enough!" he replied."
Luke 22:36-38
Also see St. Thomas Aquinas on Christian Just War theory in his Summa Theologica, which also uses Old Testament sources to determine when a war is moral.
It would be more correct to write the rest of the gospels and not just what you selectively like. Because Jesus' message in these words is not the condemnation of people but the overthrow of the system of oppression of people through love, truth, and self-sacrifice. So I quote to you the evangelical words of Matthew and John in the original Greek writing of the Bible!!!
Ματθ. 5,9 μακάριοι οἱ εἰρηνοποιοί, ὅτι αὐτοὶ υἱοὶ Θεοῦ κληθήσονται.
Ιω. 3,17 οὐ γὰρ ἀπέστειλεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἵνα κρίνῃ τὸν κόσμον, ἀλλ᾿ ἵνα σωθῇ ὁ κόσμος δι᾿ αὐτοῦ.
Ιω. 12,31 νῦν κρίσις ἐστὶ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, νῦν ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου ἐκβληθήσεται ἔξω·
Ιω. 12,32. κἀγὼ ἐὰν ὑψωθῶ ἐκ τῆς γῆς, πάντας ἑλκύσω πρὸς ἐμαυτόν.
Ιω. 14,27 Εἰρήνην ἀφίημι ὑμῖν, εἰρήνην τὴν ἐμὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν· οὐ καθὼς ὁ κόσμος δίδωσιν, ἐγὼ δίδωμι ὑμῖν. μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία μηδὲ δειλιάτω.
Aquinas was a theologian, not an Evangelist. In this regard, I would have many examples to give you from the Orthodox patristic theology of peace. In any case If you cannot interpret the Bible, it is better to ask for help than to expose yourself.
As I said in the first line, "You are reifying religions as if they were a real thing that had an existence outside of human belief."
There is no correct interpretation, only useful interpretations. Which is why every religion has contradictory statements, allowing the wise to pick and choose what is needed for the moment so the not-wise will feel like they are doing the right thing, not just the practical thing.
I highly recommend the book "Darwin's Cathedral" to help understand this perspective.
All bullshit. He told them to go and buy swords, then kept them hanging with "trust the plan." Eventually when it was long past time to use them and they had nothing left to lose, they finally take action. And what does jesus do? He admonishes them for using the swords he told them to buy and surrenders to the authorities.
He's not a warmonger and never was.
Deliberately frustrating your own men in order to whet their zeal is *maybe* the act of a warmongering warlord. It's proven to continually enhance soldier's lust for battle in real military units. They want nothing more than to present their commander with a fait accompli and a mea culpa.
Maybe the difference here is between protestant christianity and catholicism. Catholics are pretty martial *in their faith specifically.* Protestants can be martial in worldly terms, but in spiritual terms their practice is often laxidasical, consensus-driven, normative. More like a parliament than a parade review. And remember that to serve in parliament while also oxcupying an odfice of profit and trust is seen as treasonous and one of the highest levels of perfidy in Anglo parliamentary custom.
You are dumb. You aren't even arguing against what I'm saying, because you don't understand what I'm saying. Hint: if you are making a theological argument, you are not relevant to what I'm saying.
Excellent piece … but … to me, the collapse of Christianity and of discipline and punishment is less-attributable to Christianity, itself, than it is to women’s suffrage and the superior place we have decided women should occupy. IMO the weaponization of empathy and compassion drove the collapse of strong defense of the West from its enemies, not the other way ‘round. Eve and Pandora were female for a reason.
Awesome observation AS! The 'girls" ( bless their hearts) just can't help screwing things up! Is why 'Eve' was Eve and Pandora was Pandora!
"The Pandora myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world, according to which, Pandora opened a jar (pithos; commonly referred to as "Pandora's box") releasing all the evils of humanity. It has been argued that Hesiod's interpretation of Pandora's story went on to influence both Jewish and Christian theology and so perpetuated her bad reputation into the Renaissance. Later poets, dramatists, painters and sculptors made her their subject."
Yup. For millennia of pre-literate societies, mythology was how they taught about the world. And each of these separate societies - Greek/Toman, Jewish and N European (Brunhilde) - each reached and taught the same conclusion. Then Western Civ rose for millennia w/out suffrage.. then one century back, women decided - and men voted for them to be - enfranchised; to participate in policy, to participate in government - which is fundamentally force - when no female ever was selected by nature to rule or use or understand force. The female of every species has been selected for a million years for fertility. Women’s suffrage is the worst mistake the West has ever made, and probably an existential one.
"... no female ever was selected by nature to rule or use or understand force."
Well ... Boadicea, Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great, the Empress Cici, Margaret Thatcher -- are the ones that come immediately to mind. Over the long years of history, there have been a few women, a very few, who have earned their way to positions of power.
What has changed in the last half century is mediocre women being put into positions of power simply because they are women, not because they are capable and the best person for the job. The empirical evidence is overwhelming -- the world has not become a better or more peaceful place in our current gynocracy. It is difficult to see how we are going to fix that problem -- short of societal collapse.
While I agree with your conclusion, I stand by my statement re: evolution. A few anecdotes don’t override that. Females have been selected for their primary purpose: the ability to produce offspring. If one or two across the ages have wielded force, cool. But nature has never selected them for that. Which is why those you cite, IIRC, are childless…
Only Joan of Arc was definitely childless. Boadicea may have had two daughters (there really aren't great records for her). All of the others had 2 or 3 kids who survived to adulthood.
However, you're right about women's purpose.
I know what you’ve written here is entirely correct; but I still struggle with it. I read Bonhoeffer a long time ago bc I struggled with it.
I’ve personally “allowed,” a lot of garbage to go on that I witnessed at church bc I thought it was easier for me to endure it than it would be to endure what would happen if said something about it— which felt like “tattling,” to me. For example, older men and their “hug-chasing,” from me as a teenager was something they could get away with bc it appeared to be “just a friendly hug,” when they would press me against themselves and not easily let me go. Was I going to destroy their marriage and families bc I accused them of fondling? Was I going to put myself in a place where I had to “convince,” other people that I wasn’t lying, and have them attack ME for attacking this “righteous man,” and father they all loved?” Ultimately, I stopped going to church altogether in order to avoid the feeling of being hunted and groped— even though that meant I wouldn’t get to see my friends.
I guess I’m at a place now where I see the “love and pray for your enemies,” thing as a “sowing and reaping” thing. Like, when we love and pray for our enemies, we are somehow making room for grace for ourselves bc we are no better than “them;” we ARE “them.”
But then— at times, this same god of the Bible (we’re supposed to emulate) also calls for ruthless destruction and murders from the hands of his followers. Seems like we kinda have to be prepared for either action depending on the circumstances we’re faced with. Just one response -either violence or forgiveness- never fits every scenario, and even then, those two options aren’t mutually exclusive. Can’t we forgive AND end someone’s life at the same time.
Thank you for remembering Marianne Bachmeier. Indeed worthy of a statue.
I couldn't stop writing, so I published my response. I think there is a Christian response, but so many have been psychologically subdued. Christians founded this country. Christians fought in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and every war since.
My take is that your essay correctly addresses most of the problem but lays too much at the feet of the make-believe Hippie Christmas Jesus, which the Church has set up as God to be worshiped. Just follow Jesus and you'll be happy all the day. Jesus wants you to have a wonderful life! Jesus is your boyfriend, your co-pilot, your CEO, basically your own personal Genie to give you the American Dream.
They long ago left the masculine carpenter who made disciples of fishermen who then turned the world upside down. There is much wrong in the modern Protestant Church. I and my family don't attend anymore. It's spiritually and morally bankrupt---and greedy.
With the right leader, I think a militant Christian contingent could be rallied. I think we are all too comfortable, myself included. Great article.
https://open.substack.com/pub/localvision/p/war-and-vengeance-in-the-21st-century?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Having grown up in a Church and even baptized as a teen, the milquetoast posturing of rank-and-file Christians and their leadership revolted me and it is what drove me from their clutches as I entered my 20s.
A faith that says the most heinous and vile child-abusers, murderers and YOU are all equal as “sinners” … and that mumbling the right words of contrition grants those scum access to the same heavenly redemption as any civilian, is a slap in the face of decency.
This is a slap that Christians of all denominations and levels of seniority willingly embrace - and even worse, Christians will scold those with normal human instincts of revulsion at such posturing as being insufficiently “Christ-like.”
A heaven populated by “repentant” murderers and child-abusers who happen to mumble the correct incantations before their deaths is not worth entering.
A tour de force documenting the fundamental force behind most problems today. There is an irony at the heart of modern secular societies, which is that they have become so throughly Christian they have no need for the Church. The most insidious aspects of Christianity became unquestionable and obfuscated under liberal rhetoric following WWII. A totalizing destruction ushered in the retreat to the only parts of myth left untouched by demythologization spurred on by the Enlightenment and the atom bomb, the stochastic terrorism that is Christian morality. If one watches enough videos about Christian deconstruction, the common through line is that Christianity is not living up to its internal promises. The Church as an institution is not sufficiently anti-racist, Christianity has wedded itself to "fascism" via its influence on Conservatives, ideas of non judgment does not extend to LGBT issues, etc. Those who have deconstructed Christianity in such a manner have become more Christian than the exoteric portion of the religion. Like the Boomers mentioned in your article, they see Christianity more truly than ten thousand eCrusaders. Holding head fast to the core teachings of the New Testament and carrying them into how they view the world. Orginal Sin becomes centered on bigotry with the Tree of Knowledge being replaced by the Gate of Auschwitz. A thousand little Nicholas Eymerichs existing to counter the new heresies of this very Christian age. For a decade, the Right has been decrying philosophers (often without reading them) whose impact largely only extends to continental philosophy departments. They have ignore a far most consequential influence on the Post WWII West, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His conceptions of religionless Christianity, costly grace, and the church existing for others explain the pivot to self destruction which characterizes this epoch of history. There is no solving the problems we are facing until Christianity is toppled. Its true form is feeding the third world to bursting, migration assistance, antiracism, pacifism, self-denial, erasure of all differences, and in sum suicidal empathy.