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Obsolete Historical Questions

10/5/2021

When I was a university student, I took an English course called "Literature in Crisis" which focused primarily on literature that emerged from the twentieth-century catastrophes of Nazism and Communism. The reading list was anything but "light" and included works like Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago", Borowski's "This Way For the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen", Kosinski's "The Painted Bird", Grass's "The Tin Drum", and Levi's "Moments of Reprieve" among others.

The structure of the course was common and straightforward. We would read an assigned book, listen to the prof's thoughts, and then discuss the work as a group. These group talks invariably ended up concentrating on why and how questions.

Why didn't people living during these horrific times rise up to stop the evil?

Why didn't people resist?

How could average people allow themselves to be lulled into active complacency with obvious evil?

How did common, everyday people cope with the knowledge that they were active participants in such horrors?

How could people be so easily fooled by obvious lies?

How could they not see what was happening around them?

How could they live with themselves?

Why didn't more people fight against the evil?

And so on and so forth . . .

During these discussions, I intently observed the faces of my fellow students. In their eyes I could see that they believed they would have acted differently - that they would have fought the Bolsheviks with their bare hands - that they would have risked their lives to hide Jews in basements - that they would have cut holes in the fences around the concentration camps - that they would have assassinated Hitler and Stalin were they given the opportunity to do so.

And the thing is, they believed it. They were so sure of their own principles and values. They were so sure that they would never have behaved in the way people had behaved under the Nazis and the Soviets. They would have been different. They would have stood up. They would have resisted evil. They would have remained on the right side.

I sometimes wonder what those ex-fellow students of mine are doing now . . .

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Lies Have No Future

10/5/2021

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The old adage a "lie takes care of the present, but it has no future" sprung to mind today. As is the case with most proverbs and sayings, it stems from obscure origins. Some attribute the maxim to Croft M. Pentz; others attach it to that most prolific and profound of thinkers, Anonymous. Whatever the case, the adage contains a hard kernel of truth.

Manipulation is the center of any lie. When a lie "takes care" of the present, it is basically manipulating the present away from truth and reality and engineering a false present in its place. The false present of a lie is not the real present, but a manufactured present posing as the real present. That is what is being "taken care of".

Sustaining, overseeing, and managing the "fake reality" of the lie inevitably necessitates more lies, all of which work to expand the original lie and remove it even further from truth of the real present.

The energy and effort required to maintain the fabricated present prevents the formation of any real future. The lie is able to move forward in time, but since it has separated itself from the truth it has no chance at a real future in time-yet-to-come. Instead, the fake reality of the present gets locked into a perpetual-motion, feedback- loop cycle that never goes anywhere, but sinks forever deeper into the pit of its own absurd contrivances.

And that is essentially where our world is today - locked into lies that have "taken care" of the present by successfully removing virtually everyone and everything from truth and reality, and, consequently,removing virtually everyone and everything from the prospect of a real future.

When the Father of Lies rebelled against God and Creation, he rejected reality and truth and imprisoned himself in a fabricated perpetual present from which he finds it impossible to "escape" into the future.

The Father of Lies refuses to do the things that would provide him with a future. As a result, he has no future of which to speak. Unsurprisingly, he despises and resents all who may still have a future before them. He knows the Truth is the only real present. Moreover, he also knows the Truth is eternal. The Truth extends into the real past and is the only authentic future.

The Dreaded Spirit works to deny this authentic future by convincing souls to willingly restrict confine themselves to the deception of his phony present where all will end up like him - future-less.

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We Are Spiritual and Social Beings

10/3/2021

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At best, society is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, we depend upon it in a somewhat servile manner. Social influences, suggestions, and manipulations obscure and distort religious beliefs, moral values, and our grasp of truth. On the other hand, society plays a major role in dissemination of religious beliefs, moral values, and our grasp of truth.

At its base, society is the interactions and relations between people. We do not enter this world as isolated spiritual beings, and with rare exceptions, do not live out our lives as isolated spiritual beings.

During our time in this world we are also fundamentally social beings. The acquisition and dissemination of knowledge forms the core our social interactions and communities, both of which play key roles our spiritual learning in this world.

In times of high "spiritual community", the family forms the nucleus of society. The spiritual communion, communication, and communicability formed within the family extend beyond the family through its members who seek and form interactions and relations with other families and individuals. A shared understanding emerges - truth is not meant to serve society. Instead, society is meant to serve truth

The quantity and quality of human social relations depends very much on the spiritual state of man. If the spiritual state of man is firm and solid, society tends to be firm and solid. If the spiritual state of man is yielding and disintegrating, society also tends to yield and disintegrate. As society breaks down, so does the quality and quantity of knowledge at the collective level. People stop serving truth and expect truth to serve them.

We live in a time and place when the spiritual state of man is at an unprecedented low. This is readily reflected in our collapsing societies. Though man is by nature a social being in mortal life (and beyond!), he has entered a phase of spiritual isolation in this world. At best, society and its purpose of shared knowledge and truth-serving has retracted back to the level of the family. At worst, it resides within the souls of the secluded and the shunned.

The prospects for the establishment of genuine large-scale spiritual community in this world are extremely low at the moment. At the same time, the establishment of spiritual truth-serving and knowledge sharing at the individual, family, and micro-community level have rarely been better.

Nurture those interactions and relations once you have sorted out your intention to serve truth. And if you have no relations to nurture, then seek them out using discernment as your guide. A state of prolonged spiritual isolation - though endurable, perhaps even beneficial for some - is a virtual death sentence for most.

The destruction of society - the banning and elimination of practically all authentic and meaningful interactions and relations between people is deliberate and methodical. Those on the side against God and Creation know that we are spiritual beings. They also know that a great deal of the learning we are meant to do in this world depends upon our relations and interactions with others as spiritual beings rather than as things.

Any society that emerges after our current one destroys itself must be built up from a high degree of spiritual community where the individuals involved live the reality of serving truth.

And if no such society emerges, the rare relations between people who recognize each other as spiritual beings will glow like cinders - and these cinders will forever threaten to combust the darkness.

Note added: I believe heaven is synonymous with spiritual community (in the truest sense).

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System Christianity Keeps Digging Itself Deeper into None Are Safe Until All Are Safe

10/2/2021

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This is "beating a dead horse" territory, but for whatever it's worth (slightly edited, bold added):

The General Decree signed by Cardinal Parolin, regarding the implementation of the previous Ordinance of the President of the Pontifical Commission of the Vatican City State of September 18, comes into force on October 1, 2021. The decree outlines the rules to be observe for entry into the Vatican in order to prevent possible infections from the birdemic.

All employees of the Roman Curia and related institutions are required to possess the documentation indicated by the Ordinance, i.e. the peck certificate, the so-called green pass, or a certification of negativity to the birdemic virus, issued in Italy following a rapid molecular or antigenic test, with the frequency indicated by the Directorate of Health and Hygiene of the Governorate of the Vatican City State. The costs relating to the test are not borne by the Entity.

The measure extends to external collaborators and to those who for any other reason carry out activities at the same bodies, to the staff of external companies and to all visitors and users. 'Besides the checks carried out by the Gendarmeria Corps of Vatican City State, each Entity is required to verify compliance with the requirements, establishing the operating procedures for organizing these checks and identifying the persons in charge of ascertaining and reporting violations.

Employees not in possession of the necessary certifications cannot access the workplace and must be considered unduly absent. For the entire duration of absence, the employee will not be paid, but this will not affect social security, welfare deductions and family allowance.

No peck? No pass? No earthly bread for you!

I suspect it's only a matter of time before peck passes will be required to attend church services.

One side note; Christians who believe this sort of thing is limited to Rome are deceiving themselves. Other churches have also unequivocally pledged allegiance to the global diktat.

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Divine Humanity - A Justification of Man

10/2/2021

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"Many have written their justification of God, their theodicy, but the time has come to write a justification of man, an anthropodicy." - Nicholas Berdyaev

In Self-knowledge, Berdyaev observed that he could only accept and experience Christianity as a religion of Godmanhood.

To Berdyaev, Godmanhood entails the understanding that "not only man needs God, but God also needs man." This understanding is not rooted in any notion of replacing God with man or man with God, but rather on the "radical" belief that the eternal divinity of man is godlike. The Christian tradition asserts God as the Creator; Berdyaev postulates that man is also a creator possessing inherent supernatural potential.

The idea that God needs man as much as man needs God contains within it the very meaning of creativity, which is joint action between God and man. God is both father and Creator; man is a co-creating child.

Thus worshiping and glorifying God demands continuing the work of the Father. And the way man continues the work of the Father is through creativity.

Man's creativity is an essential part of God's activity. The transformation of the world is carried out by man, not God - but it can only be carried out by man if he works from his Divine Self and works in accordance to the Divine Plan.

Once he learns this, man will know that is he not a means, but an end. And he will understand that creativity is not a choice between good and evil, but his creation of good and evil.

That is how human power becomes Divine Power.

If man were utterly insignificant and irrelevant to God's activity, the side opposed to God and Creation would not work so diligently to obscure and destroy all that is divine in man.

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