Francis Berger
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Using Hanlon's Razor To Slit Our Own Throats

5/19/2020

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As a greater portion of the West slowly emerges from stringent lockdown measures and staggers into a world of confusing and seemingly pointless social restrictions, I find I am still pondering the very same question I began to ponder just days before the lockdown went into effect:

Why do most people fail to recognize the underlying evil motivations fueling the draconian measures that have been imposed upon them during the birdemic? 

Many possible explanations exist, but in my mind they all find root in the metaphysical. That is, modern man is largely incapable of recognizing true evil because he has acquired an extremely flawed and limited conception of the fundamental nature of reality. His conception of the relationships between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality have become blurred and confused. Through the conscious and willing rejection of God and Divine Creation, modern people have essentially lost the plot of reality and have become very much like the captives in Plato's cave allegory - mesmerized into believing the outlines of projected shadows mark the limits of all known reality.

By rejecting God, modern people have also rejected belief in supernatural evil, which is entirely understandable - for it makes no sense to believe in the existence of the devil if belief in God is refuted. Thus, for modern people evil becomes a purely material phenomenon that can only be explained by material factors such as nature, chemistry, psychology, sociology and the like.

At first glance, this range of criteria appears fairly wide-ranging, but it is actually quite restrictive, which might help explain why modern people harbor such narrow and incomplete definitions of evil. Dr. Bruce Charlton has written much about these narrow definitions of evil and argues that moderns ironically appear to recognize Luciferic evil (driven by lower emotions like rage, lust, envy, greed and characterized by murder and violence), but are utterly blind to Ahrimanic evil (cold, calculating, faceless, bureaucratic malevolence characterized by committees, management structures, micro-managing and micro-surveillance).  

I fully agree with Dr. Charlton's assessment. If the lockdown has proven anything, it has proven this - most contemporary people truly are blind to cold machinations of bureaucratic evil.

But how did this come to be?

Perhaps a partial explanation can be found in Hanlon's Razor - a philosophical aphorism that posits the following: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." In other words, any interpretation of malevolence might actually be nothing more than a misinterpretation of stupidity and incompetence.

Applying Hanlon's Razor to the unprecedented measures authorities around the world imposed upon their respective populations in response to the birdemic results in the following line of thinking: "Sure, it looks like it might have been done with malevolent intentions, but it is more likely just a case of ignorant and misguided politicians, experts, and policymakers scrambling to make hard decisions based on incomplete and inaccurate data and projection models."

Now, Hanlon's Razor can be a useful tool in discerning mere incompetence - to do the opposite, to assume malice to be the root of all actions and decisions is to veer into the dark realm of paranoia - but the swiftness with which modern people embrace Hanlon's Razor to explain away obvious cases of malicious intent and action leads back to the limited comprehension modern people have of the fundamental nature of reality. 

That the line separating good from evil runs through the heart of every man was one of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's most famous observations. Modern people appear enamored by this idea, but for all the wrong reasons. Misinterpreting the wisdom inherent in Solzhenitsyn's insight, contemporary people simply accept the impossibility of pure good and evil. Yes, some people are more good than others; and others are more 'evil'; but no individual person is truly good or evil. Basically, humans are nothing more than fleshy, animated yin-yang symbols; and even the most 'evil' human possesses some attributes of good (racists, bigots, phobes, and the like excepted). 

No person is wholly good or evil. That's a fact. A truth. But if it's not anchored in the proper context, this truth can easily be misapplied. Put another way, modern people view Solzhenitsyn's observation as a 'get out of jail free card' - as a means through which to explain away the presence of human evil. Lacking all religious tools to judge, weigh, and assess the presence of human evil, modern people merely shrug and say "I have it in me to do it, too."

Yet once again, the actual definitions of evil here are likely extremely narrow and limited to the Luciferic conceptions of evil mentioned above. Moderns basically equate Luciferic evil in humanity with stupidity and incompetence, where the greatest blunder is not the actual committal of immorality or crime, but the stupidity and incompetence that allowed one to be caught in the act.

But what about Ahrimanic evil?

Modern people often employ Hanlon's Razor when criticizing or lambasting their elected political officials. Malice is rarely addressed, at least through officially-sanctioned channels, and nearly all seemingly malevolent actions and decisions are peremptorily written off as stupidity or incompetence. 

But there is more to it than that. Much more. Meandering speculations about Hanlon's Razor aside, I sense modern people do not recognize Ahrimanic evil as evil for the simple reason that most sincerely view bureaucracy as a force for good. Modern people know bureaucracies - organizations, committees, political bodies, corporate boards, etc. - are crammed with flawed, fleshy yin yangs who are often tempted to commit 'bad deeds', but they do not believe that this makes the forms of bureaucracy evil in of themselves (for example, think of those who steadfastly defend abstractions like democracy).

The only notion of heaven most modern Westerners are willing to consider is a temporal one. Contemporary bureaucratic structures, policies, and frameworks are the only means through which this temporal heaven can be established. What does this temporal heaven, this worldly utopia comprise? A greener planet. Universal basic income. Increased international cooperation leading to eventual one-world governance. And so forth. Any threat to this vision of material heaven must be dealt with swiftly and severely, and it must be dealt with swiftly and severely exclusively through bureaucratic means. 

Modern people do not recognize Ahrimanic evil as evil because they wholeheartedly believe that Ahriman is a force for good. The rejection of God and Divine Creation leaves no other option. Heaven on earth will not build itself. Such a goal requires an intricate network of plans, committees, management, data, laws, rules, regulations and everything else Ahriman comprises. And any perception of malice in this great project will be attributed to stupidity and incompetence. After all, how could those who strive to build heaven on earth possibly possess 'real' malice or be 'really' evil? 

Well, if one rejects all belief in supernatural evil, then those who strive to help build heaven on earth can't really be malicious at all. At worst, they are stupid. Or incompetent. Or both.

​But evil? To most modern people, the very notion is incomprehensible. 

Note added: Creating heaven on earth also entails guaranteeing certain 'inalienable' human rights, most of which are blatant moral inversions that are in direct opposition to the Divine. Ahriman serves to endorse, legislate, and enforce these inversions, the bulk of which modern people no longer even recognize as such. Modern people also genuinely believe bureaucratic structures sincerely care about the well-being of all individual people. Merely mentioning that this is not the case strikes most modern people as anathema. 
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Realization

5/18/2020

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Once I learned life coaches were not only real but also in demand, the little hope I harbored for our faltering civilization vanished like toilet paper during a panic-driven, lockdown shopping spree. 
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Resisting the Fire of Temptation

5/17/2020

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I have reached the reluctant conclusion that good weather equals bad blogging. 

The Ice Saints and Cold Sofia brought some unseasonably cooler temperatures to Hungary earlier this week, but the weather has bounced back in the last couple of days, which means I have spent most of my time outside finishing my chicken coop or going for long walks with the family. As great as the fine spring weather has been for my outdoor activities, it has been anything but conducive to my blogging. Well, life involves trade offs at times, I guess. 

In any case, while I was plastering the coop today, an old Bruce Springsteen song inexplicably filtered into my thoughts. I've never really been a huge fan of "The Boss." Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike his music. In fact, I know many of his tunes and would never think of turning the radio dial if he happened to pop up on the airwaves. Yet I have never purchased any of his albums or ever had any particular interest in him or his music beyond the mere pleasure of happenstance.

"I'm on Fire" was the song that came to mind as I was working outside today. The tune is a short, salacious confession of libidinous lust for another man's woman - a real no-no as far as Christian morality goes. Of course, nearly every rock and/or pop song ever written is an affront on Christian morality in some regard. Merely mentioning that Springsteen's lewd little number addresses something sinful seems superfluous, to say the least. As is readily apparent, the lyrics themselves offer nothing redeeming.


Hey little girl, is your daddy home?
Did he go away and leave you all alone? Mhmm
I got a bad desire

Oh oh oh, I'm on fire

Tell me now, baby, is he good to you?
And can he do to you the things that I do? Oh no
I can take you higher

Oh oh oh, I'm on fire

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull
At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the middle of my head

Only you can cool my desire 


Like nearly every rock and pop songwriter that has ever existed, Springsteen forgoes Dante's wind imagery from Inferno and chooses instead to capture the essence of sexual lust and indecent desire through the use of trusty old (and worn) fire imagery. In fact, whenever I hear "I'm on Fire", I can't help but think of the Doors "Light My Fire" with Springsteen's song basically elaborating on the state of lusty desire that consumes a person once they have given into the spark of temptation. Put another way, "I'm on Fire" is just another take on  Elvis Presley's "Burning Love", or Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire", or Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire" complete with allusions to losing self-control, burning, and the brain being set aflame.

​Of course, the other songs mentioned above are merely about the spark of sexual attraction and being consumed by the subsequent passion the spark ignites, presumably for a woman who is both single and available. Springsteen's song, on the other hand, is about a "bad desire" - licentious attraction to a married woman.

Why am I going on about all of this? Well, as I was working in the yard today, I happened to also remember the video for this song. Though the song itself offers nothing redeeming, the video - surprisingly - does. I'm not sure if the video was Springsteen's idea or someone else's, but I feel the decision to pair this brief visual narrative of resisting the temptation of lust the song communicates was not only a good one, but also perhaps a somewhat brave one.
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Our Atomized Future?

5/15/2020

7 Comments

 
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Students playing outside at a nursery school in France. Note the chalk boxes meant to enforce social distancing drawn around each individual student. Students are not permitted to leave the boundaries of their respective boxes.

​This has to be one of the saddest and most infuriating images I have ever seen. Cruelty. That's what this is. I mean what's the point of even allowing the kids back if they are forced to endure this?

​Still think the System is merely corrupted?
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The Feast of The Ice Saints

5/14/2020

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My father always reminded me of the arrival of the Ice Saints every May 12, 13, and 14 as I was growing up. The Ice Saints are St. Pancras, St. Servatius, and St. Boniface and their feast days fall on the three aforementioned dates. The saints in question are referred to as the Ice Saints because their feast days tend to coincide with a brief spell of unseasonably cold weather, often resulting in frost. Of course, I grew up in Canada; so having the three frigid saints show up in mid-May would not be considered unusual, but in Hungary, where the folklore surrounding the Feast of the Ice Saints is still very much alive and active, cold weather and frost in mid-May is akin to a national catastrophe. 

Though my father always referred to Ice Saints when I was a kid, I had more or less forgotten about them for the better part of two decades, and they did not bob back to the surface of my life until I moved to Hungary about five years ago. Needless to say, Hungarians agonize over the arrival of the Ice Saints every year. And who can blame them? Spring starts early in this part of the world. By mid-April, winter is but a distant memory and nearly everything is in full bloom. Regardless, most Hungarians simply refuse to plant frost-sensitive vegetables or flowers in their garden until the Ice Saints have come and gone.

This year I made a point of focusing on the weather as the Feast of the Ice Saints began. May 11 was a warm and balmy day with temperatures in the mid-twenties (Celsius). I spent the better part of the afternoon outside working on my chicken coop wearing only a pair of shorts, sweat dripping liberally from my brow. Then, at around six in the evening, a strong wind began to blow, signaling the arrival of a cold front. The next morning, May 12, it was a crisp four degrees Celsius. Though it warmed up a little over the course of the day, the temperature barely broke double digits. May 13 also proved to be unseasonable cool. As for today - well, the morning was cool (5 degrees), but the day warmed up nicely as it progressed. Nevertheless, the forecast is calling for cooler temperatures until the weekend. 

The Ice Saints did not succeed in casting a sheen of frost on anything this year, but they did manage to drop the temperature in Hungary significantly, which makes me wonder if there is more to the Ice Saints than just mere folklore.

In any event, the Feast of the Ice Saints inspired me to think about the past, about those centuries when everyone - from the richest lord to the humblest peasant - knew the feast day of practically every saint in existence, not just the dreaded Ice Saints. Though it seems like trivial knowledge to a modern mind, I can't help but feel that waking up innately knowing which saint was being celebrated on a particular day made life richer and more meaningful. 
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It's Not Only God Men Have Forgotten

5/12/2020

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When contemplating the root cause of all the catastrophes that had occurred in the twentieth century, Alexander Solzhenitsyn emphatically stated that it all came down to men forgetting God. Solzhenitsyn's well-known statement garnered a great deal of attention, but otherwise had little effect on modern people who, upon hearing the prophet's words, merely nodded their heads and then continued barrelling headlong into atheistic, hedonistic materialism.

The twentieth century is now history, and as we inch farther into the early decades of the twenty-first century, it is becoming readily apparent that modern people have not only forgotten God, but have also forgotten about the existence of metaphysical evil.

Failing to remember God renders life meaningless. Losing sight of metaphysical evil casts people into utter bewilderment and confusion, especially in times of 'crisis'.   

Don't believe me? Stop and take a look around. 


Note added: By metaphysical evil, I am not specifically referring to Leibniz's conception, which Voltaire roundly criticized, but rather to the existence of supernatural evil that is unrepentantly and purposefully opposed to God's will and creation. In light of this, supernatural evil may have been a better choice than metaphysical evil. Supernatural evil works to turn people against God's will and creation for the purpose of soul damnation. Modern people find the existence of such forces laughable and tend to callously dismiss any notion of evil operating at the supernatural level, which helps to explain why they rarely recognize true evil and even more rarely manage to 'make sense' of it whenever they do detect it or become aware of it. 
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Sincere Hope or Crafty Soft Pedaling?

5/11/2020

8 Comments

 
The Hungarian government has been running this public relations clip for a week or two now. The clip is worth watching for the beautifully-shot Hungarian landmarks it contains, and you don't need to understand the lyrics of the accompanying song to get the overall message the authorities are conveying. The title of the clip is "We're taking care of each other, and it'll succeed!"

Here's the million-dollar question though - is the ray of hope the government is broadcasting daily sincere? Or is it merely soft pedaling? 

I'll let you decide for yourself. What do you think? 
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A Work In Progress Requires a Meaningful Why

5/10/2020

6 Comments

 
I have neglected this blog a little as of late - partly because I have been spending the majority of my free time on my chicken coop renovation project, but mostly because my interest and inspiration for blogging has been waning over the past two or three weeks. More about that later; for now, let's focus on a current work in progress - the chicken coop.

As you can see from this previously posted photo, the building was in quite a ramshackle state when I began the project: broken windows, a rickety door, non-existent plaster, deteriorating brick work, and a leaky roof to boot.  
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I fixed the roof first and then proceeded to reinforced the brick walls. My original intention was to simply replaster the exterior brick, but I soon discovered that the walls were not straight, neither horizontally nor vertically. The middle of the front wall around the windows was particularly troublesome; it bulged out gently like the belly of a woman in her fifth month of pregnancy. Hiding the bulge would have required several coats of plaster, which also entails a great deal of drying time waiting for the plaster to set between coats. In the end I decided to forgo this option and chose instead to cover the building exterior with 4 cm polystyrene insulation (essentially styrofoam).

This proved to be a far more costly option (and a seemingly pointless one at that because the building will not be heated in any meaningful way in the future), but I feel the extra expense will be worth it, both for aesthetic and practical reasons. From a practical perspective, it is far easier to 'straighten' out wayward walls with polystyrene than with plaster. In addition to this, the polystyrene will not crumble from the brick the way plaster might (at least not with the silicon-based 'plaster' I will eventually apply to the exterior of the building). In this sense, the outer shell will be far more durable and weather-resistant. Not only that, but it will be far more aesthetically-pleasing as well. Yeah, I know this is just a chicken coop, but since I'm going to have to look at it every day for the rest of my life, I want to ensure it becomes somewhat pleasant to look at. 

Anyway, I finished putting up the foam and the light plaster coat yesterday, which means I am at about the midway point of the project; otherwise known as the work in progress stage. 
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I am pleased with the result thus far. The only other major alteration I have had to make are the window sizes. As I mentioned above, the former windows were broken (and rotted through). I didn't want to spend money buying new or used windows. Luckily, I have quite a few old windows, but none matched the sizes of the windows that needed to be replaced. Consequently, I selected two smaller windows and bricked up the openings on the building a bit. So, things are progressing well on the chicken coop front, but I still have a great deal of work ahead of me. Regardless, I estimate I should be done in a week or two (depending on the weather and the amount of 'real work' I receive from my job in the meantime). 

As I've been renovating the coop, I've been thinking a lot about the nature of mortal life as a work in progress and about how the notion of progression only becomes meaningful beyond the scope of a materialist worldview. Materialists lay great emphasis on the importance of progress, development, and improvement, but I have yet to encounter a convincing argument as to why. Sure there's power and excellence and evolution and pleasure and the life force and all of that, but none it satisfactorily provides a sound reason for the why. Why should we aim to develop or improve? What sort of development or improvement is truly meaningful?

The why of a work in progress only makes sense if one believes in the spiritual - in transcendence and immanence. The why of a work in progress only becomes evident if one views this mortal life as a segment of a long, extended journey of learning toward a worthy spiritual objective. 

People have essentially lost the understanding that we are, at the core, spiritual works in progress, and that our brief time in this world is a crucial part of that progression. Most moderns fervently work on materially improving and developing themselves, which is a noble thing in itself, but without the proper spiritual understanding, purely material improvements and developments end up being nothing more than stillborn babies. In other words, a great deal of time, effort, and sacrifice is invested into material goals; but the neglect of the spiritual basically renders these goals lifeless when they are finally achieved. 

When I began working on my chicken coop, I imagined what it must have looked it like when it was originally constructed. I visualized the old owners putting it together, working on it diligently, and marveling at it with satisfaction when they completed it. It must have been a great little building, and it must have served the previous owners well for decades. Yet if the people who originally built the coop did so purely out of materialist motivations, whatever benefit they received from it through the years remained firmly rooted in the material; and when they died, they could not take the fruit of their labor with them. As for the fruit itself, it feel into a state of slow decay and would have eventually collapsed if no one else came along to repair and restore it. 

As I look back over what I have written thus far in this I sense I am entering the realm of the ridiculous as I wax philosophically over the spiritual implications of the most banal of objects - a chicken coop - but I am building up to a larger point, albeit it in a somewhat unfocused and meandering fashion. This larger point remains affixed to the inconvenient why for which materialists can provide nothing but flimsy explanations. My chicken coop project certainly has no pressing material objectives. I do not plan on purchasing chickens in the near future; nor do I require extra storage space outside the house. In reality, I didn't really need to fix up the old building at all, not even for aesthetic reasons because very few people outside my family ever set foot into the yard. Hence, the why for my renovation project must have been rooted in something beyond material concerns. 

I often follow the same line of thinking when contemplating my writing on this blog. I initially launched this space as part of a rather lame, poorly thought-out (and even more poorly executed) effort to bring attention to the novel I wrote eight years ago. Needless to say, I succeeded in garnering practically no attention for the book. Consequently, I could see no real or practical reason to maintain a blog; and I more or less didn't for the better part of four or five years. Simply put, I could see no justifiable why for the blog.  

Nevertheless, about two years ago I experienced a sudden and inexplicable inspiration to begin blogging on a regular basis. Unlike my initial attempts so many years ago, my chief motivations for blogging were not promotion or marketing, but rather merely thinking aloud and sharing ideas, mostly about spiritual matters. I still occasionally published promotional-type posts at the beginning of this second blogging attempt, but as the months passed by, these dissipated. Instead I wrote about topics I held to be important; fittingly enough, most of these topics tended to touch upon that inconvenient but crucial why.

I don't know where I found or continue to find the audacity to blog about spiritual matters. I am anything but a wild-eyed mystic. Conversely, I hold no official, recognized qualifications in the field. As is the case with most things in my life, I would say my spiritual expertise is unremarkable. In other words, I'm just a regular guy scribbling thoughts in an effort to remain focused on the why, partly because I believe the word why should be the driving motivation for mortal life, and partly because so few others appear to share this belief. 

Like the chicken coop, the why of this blog is not fueled by material considerations. Yes, I advertise my book on the site, but otherwise I do not seek nor do I derive material compensation for my writing here. I don't maintain a paysite or ask for tips or seek monthly subscription fees of any sort. I am not saying this out of the need to virtue signal, and I am not taking a swipe at bloggers who do seek money from their readers. I am merely pointing out that I do not harbor any incentive to make money from this blog. Nor am I particularly interested in becoming 'famous.' If money and fame were my driving ambitions, I would spend my time writing cheap porn novels for the Amazon market or crafting daily blog posts about Donald Trump, the evil democrats, or Pewdiepie or something. 

In essence, this blog is part of the work in progress that is my mortal life. As is the case with all works in progress, the clarity of why needs to be maintained to ensure completion. Without this clarity, the work may stop progressing with the proper focus in mind. At worst, the project may be abandoned altogether. A big part of this work in progress involves thinking aloud and sharing ideas with that small, scattered collection of others I have been fortunate enough to encounter; those individuals - readers and bloggers alike - who also keep their minds and souls firmly focused on why. For lack of a better expression, I would refer to this as 'spiritual commerce' - the non-financial acquiring, selling, and sharing of spiritual 'goods' for the benefit of all works in progress. In this sense, my obscure little blog plays a key role in the spiritual marketplace (at least for me). 

And this, above all else, is what keeps me blogging - even when the interest in doing so wanes, as it has these past few weeks. You see, like the chicken coop I'm currently renovating, I won't be able to take my blog with me when my work in this mortal life ends - but I believe I will be able to take all the learning, knowledge, communication, love, and discovery I experienced in maintaining this blog with me, and that all of this will serve me well once my work in progress here reaches its eventual end.  

And it also helps bury that pesky why, once and for all. 
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The Road To Hell Is Paved With Bad Intentions Masked As Good Ones

5/8/2020

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Everyone has heard the old adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The logic behind the saying implies that although most projects, directives, initiatives, and action begin with good intentions, the good intentions ultimately end up creating bad outcomes, usually in the form of unintended consequences, unforeseen side effects, or incompetence in performance of said good intentions.

Judging by comments and discussions I have come across on blogs in the past month or so, most people assume the axiom to be true, particularly in reference to the birdemic. Regardless, the very notion of good intentions leading to hell has never made much sense to me; not even when I offhandedly used the expression myself in the past. 

A good way to test the soundness of any axiom is to reverse it or consider it from the opposite perspective. If the road to hell truly is paved with good intentions, then this implies that the road to heaven must be paved with bad intentions. In other words, if hell is a guaranteed outcome of good intentions, then we should simply abandon good intentions altogether and focus instead on bad ones in the hope that these would lead us to somewhere other than hell. 


Saying good intentions eventually lead to hell essentially amounts to little more than a materialistic cop out, one based on wrong assumptions about what defines good as good and bad as bad. Let's reduce these definitions to their simplest possible forms: good is anything and everything aligned with God and Creation; bad is anything and everything that is unaligned or misaligned with, or directly opposed to God and Creation. It really is that basic. 

No good intention completely aligned with God and Creation can ever end in hell. Not one. Sure, the intention might not yield the expected result, or it may create perceived unintended side effects, or the action the intention inspired might fall short, but none of these outcomes, regardless of how negative they appear, can be interpreted as hell. Spiritual learning forms the core of our mortal lives in this world; thus, any 'unsuccessful' result of a wholly good intention, one aligned with God and Creation, must be understood as an opportunity for learning. As such, its general direction, movement, and potential is geared toward heaven rather than hell. 

On the flipside, 'good' intentions not aligned with God and Creation are bad by default through the elementary error of failing to account for basic metaphysical realities. For instance, many modern people regard twentieth-century communism as a prime example of good intentions leading to hell. Although most modern people are averse to communist methods and means, they are, at the same time, sympathetic to the 'good' intentions that drove communist murder and terror. That is, modern people regard things like equality and social justice as inherently 'good' things that would make the world a better, fairer place. Unsurprisingly, modern people do not question the 'goodness' of these failed good intentions, despite the hellish results. Instead, they tend to view the good intention failures as learning opportunities, very much the same way serious Christians view the outcomes of good intentions as learning opportunities. 

But here's the catch - 'good' intentions like the ones that inspired communism were never good - they only appeared to be good. And they only appear good once God and Creation - once Truth, Beauty, and Virtue - are taken out of the equation. Reinsert God and Creation into the mix, and the badness of well intentioned socio-political-economic movements and philosophies are immediately exposed. Yet modern materialists vehemently refuse to take Truth, Beauty, and Virtue into consideration when estimating the morality and virtue of their good intent. As long as materialists believe in a good outside of God and Creation, they will be incapable of learning. As a result, their intentions are fueled by Lies, Ugliness, and Vice; that is, the motivations can never achieve their desired objectives because they are always pointing in the wrong direction, right from the very beginning. 

Good intentions aligned with Truth, Beauty, and Virtue are always aimed at the proper objective - and that objective is ultimately heaven. It makes little difference if the intentions do not create the expected outcomes or achieve the desired objective at the temporal level. What matters is that the intentions move us closer to heaven spiritually. All serious Christians know heaven is not to be found and cannot be found on earth. Simply believing it can be is a grave sin. Thus, a perceived temporal failure will always result in spiritual success if the intention driving the intent was sincerely good.

Materialist good intentions are never aligned with Truth, Beauty, and Virtue and are always aimed at a bad objective. Of course, material motivations may contain flecks of Truth, Beauty, and Virtue, but at their core, they align with Lies, Ugliness, and Vice. Unlike Christians, materialists believe they can create heaven on earth. In fact, they not only believe this to be true, but also believe it to be man's duty on earth to do so. This sinful attempt to create heaven on earth rests at the core of all materialist 'good' intentions. By perpetually attempting to do the impossible for the sake of their noble motivations, materialists all but ensure that every single one of their good intentions will inevitable create hellish conditions on earth. 

Materialist 'good' intentions automatically preclude any chance of spiritual gain. What spiritual gain can be had if one's intentions oppose God and Creation? In addition, they also preclude any chance at real learning. Materialists will never surrender their misguided 'good' intentions to create heaven on earth, regardless of how many disastrous attempts it takes. Consequently, every pursuit of heaven based on their 'good' intentions will indeed inevitably lead to one place and one place only, but the final destination is not a result of 'good intentions', but rather the result of bad intentions masquerading as good ones.    
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Gold

5/7/2020

1 Comment

 
If religion does not bristle with vitality, it is not religion. If you cannot sense God burning within you, igniting fury and fervor in your soul, then you are not with God. If you experience nothing but blandness and banality in your life, then you are not alive. If your spirituality stops at timid, non-offensive contemplation, then you are spiritless. 

Real religion can no longer provide refuge for the weak and the tired; the limp and lifeless; the feeble and flat.

Real religion demands passionate intensity. Aggressive solemnity. Energy. Enthusiasm. Fearlessness. Danger. Real religion is cosmic fire. A binary orbit. Two stars dancing in the heavens, drawing ever closer to each other. The dancing stars meet and light up the sky. The blinding flash fades, but the evidence of the contact remains.

Gold. 

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