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Updating The Slogan That Sums Up Our Spiritual Malaise

2/27/2020

A: We need to update that slogan that was part of the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008 and 2009. Though it still concisely sums up the crux of the spiritual malaise we've created in the West, the boss thinks it needs a little refreshing.

B: I couldn't agree more. After all, we've made quite a bit of progress since then. What do you suggest?

A: Well to begin with, the word probably needs to be omitted because, let's face it - we've been very successful at getting people to forget God. Most won't even briefly entertain, let alone deeply consider the probability of God. And we certainly don't want to encourage them to entertain any notions , do we?

B: Quite right! So the new, updated slogan could be - There's no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

A: Yes, yes. That's grand. But let's be honest. We can't have people not worrying. What's the use in that?

B: Yes, that's a good point. How about something like this instead? There's no God, so stop worrying about God and start worrying about other things that we manipulate you into worrying about like climate change, transgenderism, open borders, white nationalism, politics, equality, racism, diversity - and enjoy your life.

A: Not the catchiest slogan, but it addresses the issue at hand adroitly. But enjoy your life? It's too concrete. I mean, we don't really want people to enjoy their lives - we merely want to provide the illusion of enjoyment.

B: You're right. We certainly don't want to be sued for fraud, do we? Besides, people will probably start seeing through the enjoy your life spiel soon anyway. Okay then, what about this? There's no God, so stop worrying about God and start worrying about things that we manipulate into worrying about like climate change, transgenderism, open borders, white nationalism, politics, equality, racism, diversity, etc., and enjoy your life, but not through means that align with God and Reality - because we don't want you to believe that those things really exist - but exclusively through unreal progressive means like expensive, pointless yoga retreats; a variety of novel and casual sexual encounters with people you can treat like objects; working long hours in a mind-numbing, soul-crushing job where you're always in a state of anxiety about getting the sack but ultimately relieved when you survive the month so you can pay the burdensome fifty-year mortgage on your 800 square foot terraced house next to the old sludge pit . . .

A: I like the content, but it's not a slogan! It will never fit on a bus! Slogans are meant to be catchy and concise. They must strike at the essence, not blather on like some awful, racist, sexist Victorian novel. Think harder!

B: You're right of course. What do you think of this? There's no God, so worry a lot, but only enough that you surrender yourself to us, through which you can try to enjoy your life but only through the progressive means we sanction which are limited to the following: pointless casual sexual encounters where everyone involved is reduced to the level of an object of pleasure-

A: Stop! The core of the matter! We need to take this seriously!. Chisel away all that fluff and get right to the point. Make it memorable. Unforgettable. Hard-hitting.

B: There's no God. Start worrying because you probably won't enjoy your life.

A: More sincere, but far too negative to be profound. Try again.

B: There's no God. Only worry.

A: Getting closer, but not quite there yet. Still too bleak. It needs to end with something upbeat!

B: No God; no life. Enjoy!

A: Perfect! But a little too perfect, I'm afraid.

B: So should we go with it or not?

A: I think we should, but let's run it by the boss first.

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Liberalism Has Prevented World War III

2/25/2020

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I consider myself somewhat of an expert in the fine art of crafting lame arguments. Sure, people trip over lines of reasoning all the time, but few do it with the same energy, verve, and gusto I tend to display when I confuse a contention, piss all over a premise, or stumble through a syllogism. Yes, when it comes to garbling argumentation, I got skills.

Yet in the vast cosmos of asinine assertions, I remain an amateur. It pains me to admit it, but its true. Despite my immense talent for confounding a claim, and despite my dogged determination to perplex a point, I must accept that when it comes to lame arguments, I will never, ever be in the same league as the pros out there. As good as I am, try as I might, I will never succeed in being as baffling, befuddling, and bewildering as those who play in the big leagues.

I simply lack the 'it' factor that would propel me to the same heights as those geniuses. Like the ones who believe liberalism is the sole reason the West has not experienced a world war since 1945. These mountains of the mind are quick to point out that nationalism caused World War One, that a combination of nationalism and fascism were to blame for World War Two, and that the blue skies since 1945 are wholly the result of liberalism - a progressive liberalism that is now being threatened by rising nationalism. A menacing nationalism that seeks to end the noble liberal project of erasing all borders and nations so that we can all finally hold hands and sing John Lennon's "Imagine" as we live as one.

You see how good that is? It's a whole other level.

As for me, I just can't shake the idea that the development of the atomic bomb, and, subsequently nuclear weapons, has probably acted as more of a deterrence than liberalism has.

But hey, what do I know?

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Storm at Night

2/25/2020

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Storm at Night - Károly Kisfaludy - 1820

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Being Pro-Sexual Revolution and Being On The Side of Good Are Incompatible

2/24/2020

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"Attitudes are evolving. Folks are more relaxed now. Morals are going out the window. People are waking up to idea that there is no heaven up there. Heaven is down here and sex is the ticket."

These lines appear in my novel, The City of Earthly Desire. In many ways, the novel was my way of grappling with the perniciousness of the sexual revolution. I say grapple because it took me an exceptionally long time to truly grasp the harm and devastation this noxious experiment in social engineering has caused in the past sixty-to-seventy years. By truly grasp I do not mean to imply that I possessed no intuitions about the harmfulness of the sexual revolution, but rather that I tended to view the issue from the same perspective I viewed other potentially detrimental things like alcohol. Simply put, I adopted a libertarian attitude about sex under the assumption that rational adults had the right to determine the course of their own beliefs and actions. I suppose this could be classified as a "whatever floats your boat" approach to the matter; an approach I coupled with "I'll tolerate what you do, as long as you don't push it on me" line of reasoning.

I mention this because I presume this was or perhaps still is the attitude of many people regarding sex. After all, rational adults do have the right to determine their own beliefs and actions - that's the whole point of freedom and free will. And yes, this freedom extends to sex as well. When all is said and done, every individual is free to choose their assumptions, attitudes, and approaches to sex. Here's the rub, though - the rub that took me a long time to fully comprehend: freedom of choice does not entail that any and every choice that is made is a good choice. This is particularly true with sex, where, much to every hedonist's and libertine's chagrin, good choices are restricted and limited.

Sex is a strong motivating force; perhaps the strongest after religion. What the sexual revolution has accomplished is to displace religion as humanity's strongest motivating force, at least at the collective level. And this has been a catastrophe. Among its many purposes, religion served to orient sex in a manner that was aligned to Divine Law and Creation. When this framework fell away, it was akin to opening Pandora's Box - and the chaos that has poured forth from this disastrous decision shows no signs of abating.

Sex today has become a Dostoevskian nightmare world - a nightmare world in which everything is permitted under the pretext of freedom, hedonism, and ironically enough, love. And don't kid yourself, the ultimate logical outcome of the sexual revolution will lead to exactly that - a world where everything is permitted. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Only a few things are considered taboo today. How long before those things stop being taboo? Impossible, you say? I beg to differ. You see, when all notions of the Divine are removed from sex, not only do impossible things suddenly become possible, but the temptation to make those impossible things possible becomes an irresistible force.

At its most fundamental level, sex is sacred, but it is only sacred if it is supported by a belief in the Divine. Without this belief, sex is reduced to nothing more than a vulgar means of attaining physical pleasure (at the very least). This does imply that those who do not believe in the Divine automatically diminish sex. Nor does it suggest that those who believe in the Divine automatically elevate sex to its proper function and role. Nevertheless, without religion, without deep metaphysical assumptions, sex slips into the realm moral relativity, much the way it has in the past sixty or seventy years. This of course brings us right back to religion which established a clear moral framework for sex. That moral framework has been all but vaporized; however, the diminished stature of this moral framework does not mean it has become obsolete. On the contrary, it has never been needed more.

Heaven is not down here. And even if it were, sex is certainly not the ticket - not in the sexual revolution sense anyway. Contrary to popular belief, the sexual revolution has done far more harm than good. And as uncomfortable as it makes things, you simply cannot be pro-sexual revolution and on the side of good. You can't. The two are incompatible. Any attempt to make them compatible is dishonest and delusional.

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Head Colds Are Not Conducive to Blogging; So Here's Some Bach

2/23/2020

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I skipped blogging yesterday due to a head cold. I feel a little better today, but I still don't feel up to writing a post. In light of this, I will leave you with an excellent collection of lute compositions by Bach.

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Scaring the Pants Off Winter

2/21/2020

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Busós - Their boo-shows help scare winter away.

The town of Mohács (pronounced Mo - hatch) is rather significant in Hungarian history. Most notably, it was the site of two fateful battles that basically bookend the Turkish occupation of Hungary from 1541 to 1699.

In the First Battle of Mohács in 1526, Turkish forces decisively crushed the Hungarian army led by King Louis II. This effectively marked the end to the nearly two-century long struggle known as the Hungarian-Ottoman wars, which lasted from 1366 to 1526. The loss at Mohács obliterated the Kingdom of Hungary. In the aftermath, the country was partitioned into three parts, with each falling under the control of a different ruling faction: the Ottomans, the Habsburg Monarchy, and the Principality of Transylvania. Consequently, the First Battle of Mohács is considered one of the most tragic events in Hungarian history; to the point that it has become the base of the expression "More was lost at Mohács", which is commonly employed in response to misfortune. The implication is simple - regardless of the severity of any disappointment or loss one has experienced, it could never be as big a loss as the one experienced at Mohács.

With Hungary conquered after Mohács, the task of resisting the Ottoman advance fell to the Habsburgs who struggled against the Turks from 1526 to 1791. In 1687, the Habsburgs succeeded in driving the Ottomans out of Hungary at the Second Battle of Mohács. The victory marked the end of more than a century-and-a-half of Turkish rule, but also brought about the beginning of over two centuries of Habsburg rule and influence.

Battles aside, Mohács is also famous for its Busójárás (Walk of the Busós - pronounced boo-shows, which is cool because that is essentially what a busó is). This annual festival traditionally marks the end of winter in Hungary. The celebration stems from the Šokci people living in and around the town. The festivities begin at end of the Carnival season (known as Farsang in Hungary), and draw to a close on Shrove Tuesday. The celebration's most famous attraction are the busós themselves who are essentially bogeymen. The busó tradition stretches back to pre-Christian times and there are two explanations for its origins (taken from Wikipedia):

According to the most popular legend, during the Ottoman times of the territory, people from Mohács fled the town, and started living in the nearby swamps and woods to avoid Ottoman (Turkish) troops. One night, while they were sitting and talking around the fire, an old Šokac man appeared suddenly from nowhere, and said to them: "Don't be afraid, your lives will soon turn to good and you'll return to your homes. Until that time, prepare for the battle, carve various weapons and scary masks for yourselves, and wait for a stormy night when a masked knight will come to you." He disappeared as suddenly as he arrived. The refugees followed his orders, and some days later, on a stormy night, the knight arrived. He ordered them to put on their masks and go back to Mohács, making as much noise as possible. They followed his lead. The Turks were so frightened by the noise, the masks, and the storm in the night, that they thought demons were attacking them, and they ran away from the town before sunrise.

In the older, less popular story, the busós are scaring away not the Turks, but winter itself.

I have only heard the older, less popular story myself. Hence, if current weather conditions are any guide, it appears the busós' boo-shows have succeeded in scaring the pants off winter. I expect an early spring in Hungary this year.

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Do You Choose To Be A Sheep Or A Goat?

2/20/2020

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Bruce Charlton has written an incisive examination of the choice all of us must make in our mortal lives. Utilizing the sheep and goats parable, Dr. Charlton gets right to the fundamental essence of the matter at hand - we are at a point in history when, one way or the other, you will have to make a choice, and that choosing not to decide also qualifies as a choice. So, what do you want to be - a sheep or a goat?

Why is the Western world getting worse; why is materialistic-Leftism triumphant; why are we being incrementally crushed by the imposition of totalitarian bureaucracy? What meaning can such experiences have for us, in terms of God's plan of creation?

My assumption is that God's motive for creation is love, and that a major aim is to enable people to choose to join with God in the 'project' of loving creation. So, the hope is that some people will choose to learn from their experiences to make the choice of Heaven.

Since Heaven is a place of love, only those who can love can dwell there - or indeed would want to dwell there. An analogy is a loving family; because that is the ultimate basis of Heaven - God's family. For those who love the loving family, it is the best possible situation - but for those incapable of love or who reject love, the family is an abhorrent situation: oppressive and boring.

Another assumption is that Men are free agents, and God does not know who has capacity for love or who will make the ultimate choice that love is primary. Therefore such matters can only be decided by experience. In other words, who wants and who does not want love is something that emerges as creation proceeds - creation is a situation of testing and development, during which each person's attitude to love becomes apparent.

More exactly, each person is brought to a point of decision, from which is determined whether he is a sheep - who chooses Heaven, or a goat - who rejects Heaven. Of course, such a decision can be and is often deferred, but the point of decision is at least when Heaven is chosen permanently.

It seems that resurrection into Heaven - made possible through Jesus Christ - is an eternal commitment, and the possibility that this commitment to love is eternal is a vital aspect of Heaven.

So there is a sense in which the ongoing processes of God's creation are a means to the end of self-sorting ('assortative partitioning') into sheep and goats: more exactly a means to self-sorting of sheep into Heaven eternally; and goats into some-other-destiny (not Heaven, maybe not eternal).

Let me provide an analogy based upon my thirty-something years of working in universities. The situation of universities became more evil over this time, mainly due to the prgressive introduction of bureaucracy which was also the imposition of leftist-materialist (ultimately anti-Christian; thus anti Truth, Beauty and Virtue) ideology.

In this context of step-wise increase in evil, people reacted variously. Some people disagreed-with and reacted-against bureaucracy; other people saw its evil went along with it for selfish and short term reasons (e.g. careerism); others simply did not regard creeping totalitarianism (towards omni-surveillance and micro-control) as being bad or evil... They liked totalitarianism, materialism, the inversion of morality and truth... they wanted more of it.

People who perceived the evil and repented it correspond to the sheep. These are the people who comprehend and share God's values, and who want to dwell in a situation where such values prevail, which includes being a situation among others that have made an eternal commitment to God's values. Heaven is a place where Men participate with God in the work of loving creation.

Read the rest here.

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A Valid Question

2/20/2020

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"Yes, let's save the earth, but if we have no children or grandchildren, who are we saving it for?"

- taken from Viktor Orbán's State of the Nation Address, February 17, 2020.

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Captivity and Power

2/19/2020

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William James Tychonievich has written an insightful analysis about the nature and limits of the Devil's power - an analysis inspired by the following passage taken from the Book of Mormon:

[Men] are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself (2 Nephi 2:27; emphasis added).

Though I have never read the Book of Mormon, I came to similar conclusions regarding the true nature of freedom and choice; conclusions I recorded in a brief blog post from last April:

You are always free to choose the right thing. The right thought. The right action. That is the only real freedom you possess. It is always simple, but often challenging.

The wrong thing is never simple, but usually easy. When you give in to the wrong thing, it comes from wrong thought and leads to wrong action. The wrong thing is not an exercise in freedom.

There is no choice; only submission.

When you submit to the wrong thing, freedom dissolves and drips through your fingers like melting gold.

You are left with nothing of value. The surrender brands you, and the slavery to which you have submitted shall mark you as one who failed to be free.

My thinking at the time revolved around the notion that a choice for evil was actually a choice for slavery, what William, via Nephi, refers to as captivity. Evil choices tempt through the promise of power. Perhaps some power is obtained after the choice is made, but the constrained and limiting nature of the power one has achieved becomes readily apparent over time. It is power bounded and constrained by captivity. This may appear paradoxical at first, but it actually makes a great deal of sense, as William explains in his post:

Captivity and power. How does that work? Isn't captivity a lack of power?

In the past I always thought that, while the syntax may be a bit infelicitous, the meaning is clear enough. The "power of the devil" refers to the power which the devil himself possesses, while the "captivity of the devil" indicates other people's being in captivity to the devil. Only a tedious grammar pedant (something no one would ever accuse me of being!) would read it any other way.

After giving it some thought, though, I think that there are in fact good reasons, above and beyond over-literalism, for reading this passage as stating that both the devil and those who follow him are in the condition described by the seemingly oxymoronic conjunction "captivity and power."

The logic is simple enough. The devil tempts people to be evil and sinful, and is himself evil and sinful; therefore, whatever condition the devil himself is in, those who fall into his snare will tend toward that same condition. If Being Evil has given the devil great power, we can assume that people can also acquire great power by Being Evil. Likewise, if sin leads to captivity, we can assume that the devil, as the sinner par excellence, is also in a state of captivity. In other words, it doesn't make sense that the very same course of action should lead to power when pursued by the devil but only to captivity when pursued by anyone else.

Against this line of reasoning, there is the possibility that the arch-tempter is not also the arch-sinner -- that, like any reasonably competent pusher, the devil knows better than to get high on his own supply -- that he suckers people into committing sins that he himself isn't stupid enough to commit, thus bringing them into captivity while maintaining his own freedom.

There clearly has to be some truth to this. The devil can't possibly be the exemplar of every vice in the same way that God is arguably the exemplar of every virtue. A slothful devil couldn't be bothered to actually tempt people, for example, while a cowardly one would never have defied God in the first place. One of the litany of names applied to the devil in Revelation 12:9 is "the great," and I think we must concede that there is a sense in which he lives up to that title. If the devil were a mere nogoodnik, a congeries of vices, a contemptible sin-ridden fleabag of a spirit, he would be of no account, and there would be no need for us to so much as take notice of his existence. Fallen angels do not become vermin but dragons, roaring lions seeking whom they may devour.

But for all that, there is also a sense in which the devil is contemptible. As Lehi puts it in the Book of Mormon passage quoted above, "he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself." I think in the end we must insist on the literal aptness of the phrase captivity and power.

To try to get a handle on this, I tried to think of other instances of "captivity and power" occurring together, and the first example that came to mind was the beast of burden. A draft ox is an immensely powerful animal, a ton and a half of pure muscle, but it nevertheless lives in captivity. Or, considering political power rather than muscular strength, we might think of a tyrant, reigning with blood and horror, hated by his people and obeyed out of fear alone. How much freedom does such a man, living under the constant threat of assassination or revolution, really have? What choice does he have to bar himself up in a virtual prison, surrounded by guards? What choice does he have but to rule with conspicuous brutality, lest any show of weakness embolden his enemies? Or, coming closer to our Satanic theme, we might consider anyone who has made a Faustian bargain of the kind reportedly offered to Jesus: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me" (Matthew 4:9). "The captivity and power of the devil": The devil offers power, but only on condition of captivity.

I invite you to read the rest of William's excellent post here.

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Spell Check Is Not Always Your Friend

2/18/2020

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I don't often reflect back upon my high school teaching days in the Bronx, but as I was sitting on the train to work this morning, I inexplicably recalled an inadvertently funny essay a student had handed in - a two-page written report on ancient humans I had assigned for a grade nine world history class.

For the task, I had given my students a list of ancient humans - Homo naledi, Homo floresiensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and so forth - and I asked them to choose one, do the necessary research, and write a report of their findings. I insisted the report be typed, and advised students to proofread and spell check their work before submitting it.

A week later, I began marking the submitted essays. About halfway through the pile of stapled papers, I came across a rather perplexing essay title: The History of Homoerotic Man. Intrigued and bemused, I flipped past the cover page and confronted the following introduction (as best as I can remember, minus the original spelling and grammar errors):

Fossil findings say homoerotic man lived in Africa one or two million years ago. He probably lived in Africa because it was hot. Since it was hot, homoerotic man did not wear clothes, only some animal furs here and there. Homoerotic means upright, so homoerotic man was one of the first to get erect and stay erect. He was also one of the first to walk on two feet. Walking on two feet meant homoerotic could really get around. Homoerotic man liked to hunt and gather berries. He sometimes did this with other homoerotic men. Homoerotic man was also one of the first ancient humans to use tools on a regular basis. Most of his tools were used for hunting, but archeologists think homoerotic man used some of his tools for other things too . . .

Yes, I'm sure he did.

After I recovered from the laughter that had consumed me, I took a moment to consider what had led to this most unfortunate, yet hilarious, history essay. It didn't take me long to figure it out. The kid had spell checked his work as I had instructed him to do, but instead of carefully analyzing the suggestions spell check had made, the student had thoughtlessly agreed to everything by clicking the correct all button.

Word's spell check program had not recognized "Homo erectus man" (I think the kid crammed the terms Upright man and Homo erectus together to come up with that) as a valid term and had suggested homoerotic man as an alternative; and as far as my student was concerned, that was A-okay.

The rest is history.

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