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We Are Too Spiritually Lazy to Feel Bored

3/20/2024

The saying, “The Magyar is much too lazy to be bored,” is worth thinking about. Only the most subtle and active animals are capable of boredom. – A theme for a great poet would be God’s boredom on the seventh day of creation.

The above ranks among my favorite Nietzsche aphorisms, and living in Hungary for nearly a decade has only increased my fondness for it.

I suppose it has much to do with my Hungarian cultural background — not my ethnic background, though, which is German, but Nietzsche was also German, so there is that.

Although the average Hungarian is far too lazy to be bored, I have never thought of God as lazy. Quite the opposite. I believe God remained active even on the seventh day — albeit in a subtle way.

Still, I can’t shake the feeling that God is capable of boredom, at least when it comes to Man.

He is waiting for us to answer His call to creativity, and I can’t help but imagine the ennui he experiences when we provide Him with anything and everything but an answer to that call.

We are too spiritually lazy to feel bored.

Now that is worth thinking about. It could also serve as theme for a great poet.

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Our Children and What We Leave Them

3/18/2024

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What kind of world will we leave our children?

Many proclaim this to be the most pressing question of this time and place.

Some counter this question with another.

The most pressing question is not what kind of world we will leave our children but what kind of children we will leave the world.

Both miss the mark.

The question should be more directed towards the kind of children we will leave for eternity.

Yet even that falls short because it neglects to mention that our children will have a tremendous say in whatever we leave them with.

We could leave them an ideal world, and they could still seek death.

Or we could leave them hell, and they could still seek Heaven.

Of course, we all long to leave them the best possible world in which to commit to Heaven, but the best possible world cannot guarantee that commitment. Nor can the worst possible world.

Ultimately, the world we leave them is far less significant than we vehemently assume.

Such is the nature of freedom.

We must believe that God loves our children even more than we do and will always leave paths to salvation open to them regardless of the world we leave them.

And we must believe that our children will recognize these paths and commit to them.

Such is the nature of faith.

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The Dangers of Magnifying and Amplifying False Selves

3/16/2024

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Making oneself familiar with or revisiting William Arkle’s core thoughts concerning the true self and false selves (A Geography of Consciousness) has never been more urgent.

The more the world and the West in particular descend into chaos, the more pressing Arkle’s insights become. I will defer to Dr. Charlton to provide a summary for those unfamiliar with the true self/false selves:

One of William Arkle's core insights is that - in normal, everyday life - people act from a multitude of false selves. The true self, which is of divine origin and potentially able to become a god, is what makes us what we are - but it may be completely buried beneath false selves; the true self may be utterly ineffectual.

These false selves are of many types. Some are the collections of traits - hereditary and socialised - that constitute our 'personality' as described and measured by psychology. Others are that mass of automatic, robotic skills and responses that we learn to deal with the problems of living; including skills like typing or driving, small-talk and routine social interaction.

You can see that false selves are the totality of what a person presents to the world; and usually also everything that a person is aware of in himself, insofar as he is aware of anything. So, our consciousness is not the same thing as our true self, because it may be unaware of the true self, may even deny the reality of any such thing as a true self.

False selves are therefore necessary but a problem, because whenever we make an effort to change ourselves in any way, the probability is that this will be a matter of one or more of the false selves trying to change us in a superficial and false direction.

The last paragraph above is vital. A small but increasing number of people are beginning to sense that they need to change themselves in some way; however, more often than not, the changes they attempt or implement emanate from false selves rather than the true self, entailing that the attempts or implementations take them in false or specious directions that end up maintaining or increasing the distance from the true self.

Discovering and bolstering the true self through consciousness and intuition is predominantly a matter of looking inward and self-observing. Yet this introspection and self-observation do not happen in the vacuum of space or somewhere out there in the ether but within a dynamic and changing world. This is as it should be given that our experience of mortal life in this world is indispensable to the further development of the true self.

The bulk of our false selves are external in their orientation. Some of these are useful and necessary for us to live in this world. Other false selves comprise the ones we intentionally or unintentionally pick up or absorb from our experiences, primarily within the context of society.

Unsurprisingly, most people consider one or more of these entirely socially oriented false selves to be their true selves. The most common expression of this kind of true-self substitution is the full identification with some vocation or other — i.e., I am a doctor; I am a writer — but it can also appear in forms like political affiliations and so forth.

Now, I imagine that these socially/externally oriented false selves serve a purpose in spiritual learning in the same sense that the ethnicity, sex, or nation we are born into serves spiritual learning goals that are of potential benefit to the true self; however, I suspect such externally imposed or socially-acquired false selves can only benefit the true self if we recognize them as false selves. These false selves will not support the true self if they are mistakenly identified as the true self. On the contrary, I suspect such false selves do more to hinder and obstruct the true self than help it, particularly when making changes.

In another post, Dr. Charlton adds the following concerning Arkle’s problem of false selves:

So, a basic problem is that most people, most of the time, do not know their true selves, and are not living from their true selves; but are instead (more or less unconsciously) simply doing and thinking whatever the process of these superficial selves are churning-out.

It is this which makes it counter-productive always to ‘do what comes naturally’ – since what seems ‘natural’ to us in this modern world is very often artificial, inculcated by propaganda or malicious intent, evil, terrorising, despair-inducing…

The last bit about propaganda, malicious intent, evil, terrorizing, and despair-inducing is of the utmost importance in this time and place.

On the one hand, I sense that the growing chaos within the external world may help some people recognize and come to terms with the false selves they have regarded to be their true selves. Some may even draw closer to their true selves during the process.

On the other hand, many people are likely to swap one of their false selves for another or intensify or reinforce the false self with which they most identify and regard as their true selves.

The demonic powers behind the System will continue to use this to their advantage by stimulating, prodding, encouraging, inflaming, stirring, and provoking people to magnify and amplify such false selves.

Such developments offer the demonic powers a veritable win-win situation. The more amplified and magnified the false selves become, the more they hinder the discovery and bolstering of true selves.

The amplification and magnification of false selves parading as true selves will also expand and compound the demonically-motivated chaos and destruction.

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If You Do Not Repent, You Will (Eventually) Relent

3/15/2024

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The spiritual war in mortal life is not about the sinners versus the sinless. If it was, there would be no war of which to speak.

Sinners comprise the side for God and Creation and the side opposed to God and Creation. At its core, the spiritual war in mortal life pits sinners against sinners, including the various sinners (or selves) within the one’s own being, which is and will always remain the spiritual war’s dominant and primary battlefield.

What distinguishes “good” sinners from “bad” sinners? Well, motivation immediately springs to mind, but virtually every incentive, motive, stimuli, reason, ground, or rationale that drives individuals to think and act derives from metaphysical assumptions — from one’s deepest beliefs concerning the very nature of reality.

That does not imply that individuals consciously check every one of their motivations against their assumptions, only that the motivations themselves emanate from the assumptions, regardless of whether individuals are aware of the motivations as emanations of their core assumptions.

Yet even the best motivations for God and Creation perfectly aligned with coherent metaphysical assumptions remain susceptible to various external or internal influences, manipulations, corruptions, flaws, ineptitudes, deficiencies, weaknesses, and so forth.

Motivations can also wane, sour, or reverse, often within a blink of an eye. So, even though motivation can help illuminate which side of the spiritual war a sinner may be on, it is anything but ironclad proof of affiliation.

I posit that repentance is the only meaningful factor that demarcates the “good” sinners from the “bad” sinners. Put another way, the side for God and Creation consists of repentant sinners, while the side against God and Creation is unrepentant.

If we were to follow some conventional interpretations of what repentance is, the repentant side would be filled with mewling, self-flagellating, guilt-ridden masochists perpetually begging God to forgive them — but only after thoroughly punishing them — for the unforgivable sin of existing, while the unrepentant side would brim with people who refuse to give or take a damn (pun very much intended).

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pathetic excuse for a spiritual war.

Another conventional interpretation is that the side for God and Creation is perpetually involved in making this world a better place for everyone, while the side opposed to God and Creation does nothing but disrupt and destroy this world. The bad sinners disrupting and destroying this world refuse to repent because they enjoy disrupting and destroying. On the other hand, the good sinners striving to create a good this-world only need to repent if they advertently or inadvertently slide over to the side of disruption and destruction.

I suppose the spiritual war does or can involve some of these aspects; however, the inherently non-spiritual, this-worldly focus of both sides renders the comprehensiveness of this interpretation moot. The spiritual war certainly encompasses this world, but its primary significance is not limited to this-worldly considerations, at least not in any mundane, material sense.

So, how and why is repentance the demarcation line between the side for and against God and Creation, particularly when the word repent does not appear in any form in the Fourth Gospel?

To help explain this, I defer once again to William James Tychonievich:

It means acknowledging sin as sin. The unrepentant are those who make excuses for themselves, who deny that their sins are sins and are therefore unwilling to give them up. Willingness is all; the flesh is weak, but the spirit must be willing. Daily repentance does not mean daily groveling for forgiveness like a beaten dog; it means reminding oneself what is good and what is evil, what is of God and what is not, and then going on with life, confident in the knowledge that "he that believeth is not condemned."

The matter about acknowledging sin as sin is key, but as William points out in his Repentance, Forgiveness, and Damnation in the Fourth Gospel post, only the Pharisees use the word sinner. Jesus does not refer to anyone as a sinner in the Fourth Gospel, nor does he call for repentance; however, he does speak about sin, but not in the way the Pharisees interpret it.

John the Baptist announces Jesus as the lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world. Does this mean Jesus absolved all the moral crimes and corruptions of all the people of the world? Not quite. As Bruce Charlton notes in one of William's posts:

What does it mean that Jesus would 'take away' sin? Sin seems to mean all the transitory nature of satisfaction in this world, the corruptions, the selfishness, that which contributes to the recurrent sense that life is travail and loss. Jesus will take away Mortality and all its badness, all that we know in our hearts to be intrinsically wrong about life.

Wait a minute! Sin involves the transitory nature of satisfaction with this world! How can that be? Well, to feel satisfaction with this world as it is just is a rejection of what Jesus offers. It is akin to saying that Jesus is unnecessary — that we can ultimately find all we need in this world and require nothing more. It is also a refutation of the Divine purpose of Creation.

Sin is a declaration of satisfaction with this world, of keeping our focus narrowed solely on this-worldly concerns, of prioritizing this-worldly affairs over eternal otherworldly considerations. Jesus does not condemn when he speaks of sin in the Fourth Gospel, but he does refer to sin as an enslaving force that can attach us to this world in ways that are detrimental to salvation.

Jesus does not instruct us to turn our back on the world and reject it outright. We are in the world, and as long as we are in it, we are in it for a reason. Whenever we fail to discern why we are in the world or what our experience in the world means from the perspective of salvation and Heaven, we may become fused to sin, fused to various satisfactions, corruptions, and selfishness that comprise mortal life. Taken far enough, we may even embrace death as a final destination.

Though the Fourth Gospel offers no fire and brimstone condemnations of sin, it does condemn those who love the darkness more than the light Jesus offers and reveals that those who do evil hate the light lest their deeds be reprimanded. Jesus also reveals the reality of Satan as the father of lies who has nothing to do with truth. Thus, the matter of evil boils down to the willing preference of darkness over light.

Returning to the matter of the spiritual war and its repentant and unrepentant sides, I would say the unrepentant side spiritually rejects Jesus’ offer of Heaven in favor of this-worldliness to which they have become enslaved. The repentant side accepts Jesus’ offer of Heaven and expresses a willingness to give up any spiritual enslavement to this worldliness that is incompatible with Heaven. The unrepentant side reject Jesus' offer outright or trick themselves into thinking they have accepted Jesus' offer while remaining entirely engaged with this-world and nothing but this world.

On the flip side, repentance is not disengagement with this world! On the contrary, it represents an awareness of what our engagement in this world should and should not be about. It is as, as William notes in his post on repentance, “reminding oneself what is good and what is evil, what is of God and what is not, and then going on with life, confident in the knowledge that "he that believeth is not condemned."

Such reminding requires discernment — the ability to distinguish light from darkness, and the willingness to spiritually embrace the light and turn away from the darkness even if/when we fail to do so in mortal life.

However, if we cannot spiritually discern, we will not spiritually learn. And if we do not learn spiritually, we will be far more likely to relent to sin than repent it.

We will be far more likely not to believe.

We will be far more likely not to believe in anything beyond this world and will, ultimately, believe in all the wrong things while we are in this world.

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The Unrepented Lies and Deceit of Our Side Are Acceptable and Necessary

3/13/2024

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...because they align with Truth and Reality.

Unlike the unrepented lies and deceit on the other side, the unrepented lies and deceit on our side are driven by good motivations to un-invert evil inversions and return the world to some semblance of Truth and Reality.

Sure, it's not perfect, but this is a fallen world and we are all fallen and flawed creatures.

What matters most is that we actively embrace, harness, and weaponize our flaws and fallenness to lie and deceive in the name of Truth and Reality (unlike the evil other side who embrace, harness, and weaponize their flaws and fallenness in the name of untruth and unreality).

Look, if we want Truth and Reality, we must lie and deceive. There's no other way around it.

So stop philosophizing over it and griping about repentance. Get out there and lie and deceive for the sake of Truth and Reality already. Don't you understand that that is what we are called to do? I mean, Truth and Reality can't and won't lie and deceive on their own. They need our help! So get to it!

And don't worry about having to repent! Just remember, the lies and deceptions you endorse, support, and promote all align with Truth and Reality. They are the good lies and deceptions that prop up Truth and Reality. Without them, Truth and Reality don't stand a chance!

Rest assured, you're on the right side -- the good side. Hence, no need to repent!

Talk about a win-win!

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Please Refrain From Criticizing the Unrepentant Liars and Manipulators on Our Side...

3/13/2024

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... and be grateful that they are putting themselves out there on the front line to lie and manipulate on our behalf.

We should do nothing but support, endorse, and promote their unrepented lies and manipulations because endorsing and promoting the unrepented lies and manipulations of our side is the only way we can realistically counter our enemy's unrepented lies and manipulations.

You see, that's the way the world works. And, no...not all politics in the West is on the wrong side. Far from it.

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Down to the Last Two Squash. Or Is It Squashes?

3/12/2024

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The plum trees in my yard are blossoming, which means it's time to start planning this season’s garden. Last year’s harvest was very successful. Going down to the cellar this afternoon, I noticed we still have two plastic crates of sweet potatoes and two squashes, down from the five crates of sweet potatoes and over twenty squashes we harvested in the fall. In retrospect, I’m surprised our skin didn’t turn orange this winter.

This spring, I will plant far more onions than usual. Unlike the sweet potatoes and squash, the onions we harvest have never made it past Christmas, indicating that I need to up my onion numbers considerably. I also plan to have more corn. The five rows I planted last year turned out very well. The few cobs we froze kept their flavor, so that’s a plus. Swiss chard, lettuce, garlic, and carrots will be new additions. Cantaloupe and watermelon will be scratched.

Otherwise, I’ll probably stick to the usual fare — tomatoes, peppers, beets, radishes, zucchini, snap peas, potatoes (regular and sweet), and cucumbers. Oh, and I may grow something green or leafy especially for the hens and rooster.

But first I must purchase a new rotary tiller; the one I have has peremptorily indicated that it isn't at all interested in helping out in the garden this year. I only hope the lawnmower doesn't follow suit.

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Post-2020 Politics Should Be a No-Brainer for Christians, But...

3/9/2024

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I’ve concluded that these supposedly right-wing, populist, Christian-banner waving Western politicians are far worse and far more dangerous than their explicitly anti-God, foaming-at-the-mouth, woke brethren who infest Western governments.

Worse, because their lies, deceits, and disingenuousness run way deeper. Far more dangerous because they encourage people to continue participating in manipulative and malevolent System politics.

And they achieve all of this by igniting and nurturing false optimism about protecting and defending family values, nationhood, Christianity, and the like.

Many were optimistic during Trump’s presidency. I sometimes expressed optimism about Orbán during that time. Other bloggers were optimistic about things like Brexit.

But that was before 2019-2020.

Serious Christians ought to view 2020 as a line of demarcation revealing what things were and were not worth focusing on going forward.

Politics ranks near the top of things not worth focusing on. Any Christian who thinks otherwise is not thinking deeply enough about happened in 2020.

Moreover, any Christian who adopts “yeah but, no but” rationalizations about “having to be” involved in politics post-2020 has wilfully blinded himself about which side politics-- in the West is on.

And yes, that includes the less-left, lesser-evil varieties of politics.

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Aerial Photos of My Nondescript Village

3/7/2024

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I have often referred to the small village I inhabit in northwestern Hungary near the Austrian border as nondescript, which, in many ways, it is.

All the same, the place possesses a certain charm, particularly when seen from the air against the backdrop of The Little Hungarian Plain, an area of flatland characteristic of this region. I stumbled upon these aerial photos of Fertőendréd taken by a chap called Ferenc Holper back in 2007.

Flat though this region may be, Fertőendréd's residents are privy to remarkable views when they gaze west.

There, stretching out the horizon are the rolling highlands around nearby Sopron and behind those towers the Schneeberg -- the last and most eastern Alpine mountain.

For reasons I cannot fathom, the photographer appears to have showed no interest in looking west and incorporating these prominent background landscape features into his aerial photos.

Or maybe he tried, but the day was not clear enough?

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Wishing Jesus Had Not Ceded the World

3/6/2024

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record how the Devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness for forty days — temptations that Jesus overcame before embarking on his mission. The story does not appear in the Fourth Gospel (more on that later).

Mark only mentions the temptation story in passing. Matthew and Luke describe the three Satanic temptations in some detail — these being turning stones to loaves, absolute earthly power, and achieving authority through miracles.

Had Jesus surrendered to these temptations, He would have gained what Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor defines as “the only three powers on the earth that are capable of eternally vanquishing and ensnaring the consciences of those feeble mutineers, for their happiness — those powers are: miracle, mystery, authority.”

Put another way, if Jesus had succumbed to the Devil’s temptations of miracle, mystery, and authority, He would have become the absolute ruler of the world. Moreover, He could have united the people in peace and kept them well-fed and happy forever. Yet, as the Grand Inquisitor laments to Jesus in the Seville prison cell, “You rejected the first, the second, and the third, and yourself gave the lead in doing so.”

The scorn that Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor heaps upon Jesus for rejecting Satan’s temptations is paralleled only by the old priest’s hostility and candor.

If Jesus had submitted to the temptations, He could have created the perfect System on earth. He could have established a peaceful, hunger-free, happy world in which men did not have to agonize over living up to expectations about love, sin, repentance, and creativity. Men could have meekly surrendered their freedom and bowed before Jesus as Caesar. Christendom would have reigned on earth forever.

No man would ever have to worry about losing his culture, conserving his values, or ensuring the safety and well-being of his grandchildren or his grandchildren’s grandchildren. The System would take care of everything. All men had to do in return was surrender their freedom and bow down eternally before the System and its banners of earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority. Jesus could have guaranteed so much!

Come to think of it, the Grand Inquisitor has a valid point. I mean, what was Jesus thinking when He rejected the three temptations? Did He honestly believe that we mere humans were capable of spiritually overcoming earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority? Did He think we have it in us to live beyond the this-worldly? Did He sincerely trust that we would be motivated to follow Him freely and judge what is good and evil with only Him as a guide? Did He really hold that we would prioritize His speculative other-world over our lives and concerns in this-world? That we would be inspired to repent?

The Grand Inquisitor is right! Jesus thought too highly of us. He expected too much of us. Set the bar too high. He obviously did not understand our this-worldly issues and this-worldly problems. He did not carefully consider things like natural law. He somehow could not comprehend the necessity of this-worldly dominion and power. He was oblivious to what it means to be hungry, scared, disillusioned, alienated, and apathetic. He never understood the allure of desire, sin, covetousness, and selfishness. He did not appreciate the burden of freedom. It is tempting to say that the Truth is not really in Him.

Thankfully, the world brims with grand inquisitors who have taken it upon themselves to correct Christ’s work. Unlike Jesus, these grand inquisitors know who and what we really are. Hence, they can supply what we really need — earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly miracles. Lots of this-worldly miracles, mysteries, and authority for everyone!

In return, all we have to do is surrender our freedom, bow down before them, and surrender our spirit to their anti-spiritual System. It matters little that the System is anti-Christ — that those within the System work for the Dreaded Spirit and not Christ. What matters is that the System understands us, accepts us for who and what we are, and keeps things real by keeping us focused solely on this-world. Freed of our freedom and conscience, we can expend all of our energy on this-worldly pursuits within the spiritual desert of the System.

Yet Jesus did reject the Devil’s temptations. All three of them. He was in the world yet turned His back on Satan’s promises of earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority.

In essence, you could say Jesus ceded the world to Satan. He refused to win the world if winning the world entailed harnessing the power of earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority. His sights were set on something greater, and His mission was to offer that something greater to man.

He knew He could not impose this something bigger or greater on man because to do so would be to harness the banners of mystery, miracle, and authority and deny man’s sacred freedom. Imposing this something bigger and greater would render it to the level of just another System. Man had to accept the offer freely through love and faith rooted beyond this-world.

As noted at the beginning of this post, the temptation story does not appear in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus often refuses to do miracles to prove his identity in the Synoptics, but in John, Jesus frequently performs miracles that reveal his divinity.

However, the motivation behind the miracles of the Fourth Gospel is not the three-powers kind the Synoptics were so wary of. In John, Jesus performs miracles as signs to motivate unbelievers to believe in Him and His other-worldly offer of Heaven.

Whenever the specter of the three powers rose to taint His signs, Jesus desisted and quickly withdrew, as demonstrated by his actions after He had fed the 5000 (John 6:14 KJV):

14 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.

15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.

Every time Jesus encountered the temptation to become the king of the world, He ceded the world.

Every time.

So, forgive me if it appears that my Romantic Christianity dissuades me from becoming involved in your pressing, three-powers, this-worldly cause of reconciling Nature with Christianity, re-imposing Christendom so that Christians can have territory, participating in anti-Christ politics for the sake of your children and their this-worldly future, yearning for a pugnacious Christian leader we can all bow down to, or dreaming of strong Christian community that makes you feel safe and secure.

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