Francis Berger
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The Double Sin of Despair Over the System

4/20/2020

4 Comments

 
The first sin is simply the sin of despair. For any serious Christian, the mere notion of despair should be anathema. After all, how could any serious Christian ever lose hope in the example of Christ? Above all else, the Resurrection is a testament against hopelessness. When Jesus defeated death, he proved, beyond all doubt, that we have nothing to fear or feel hopeless about, neither in this world nor in life everlasting. The trials and tribulations of this world cannot destroy the next world if we follow His example and believe on Him. 

The second sin is the nurturing of hope for a System that is inherently antithetical to God - that is, diametrically opposed to Truth, Beauty, and Virtue. The System is not only anti-Good, it has been meticulously engineered to actively wage war against the Good. Any experienced beneficial side effects of the System are either remnants from an earlier time (when the System itself may have been less inherently evil) or purely material by-products that offer nothing above the level of physical comfort, convenience, or pleasure.

To lose hope over a System that was designed to generate perpetual hopelessness, a System whose sole purpose in the past century (at least) has been to deny and destroy the Truth at every possible turn is akin to a Gulag prisoner losing hope in the proper, effective functioning of the Gulag that tortures him and keeps him captive.

The manner in which the System is faltering or collapsing (take your pick) is not something we should be celebrating or embracing. By the same token, it is also not something we should be resisting or despairing over. The System should have faltered or collapsed decades, nay centuries ago, but this development should have been achieved through our own willed decision to turn away from the System and establish a new mode of Being.

Yet we resisted and rejected that much needed shift of consciousness every time the opportunity to take it up arose. Instead of committing to this much-needed and, at times, sorely overdue consciousness shift we chose instead to double-down on our hope in the System. What we are experiencing now is an epic case of reaping what we have sown. Rather than despair, we should be feeling sorrow and shame - sorrow and shame that we collectively ever allowed ourselves to become materially-enslaved to such evil.

The faltering or total collapse of the System will undoubtedly generate much discomfort, hardship, and pain . . . perhaps even death. It is difficult and unsettling to consider what may await us all - our family, friends, loved ones, and the countless people we don't know - as the System continues to crumble, but we must never forget that all hope in the System is fundamentally sinful and misguided. The System was designed to abandon us. The System was designed to work against us. Hope in the System is, at best, hope invested in totalitarian, bureaucratic tyranny; at worse, it is hope invested in something even more sinister. 

Any feeling of despair over the System is a declaration of the victory of evil. Hope, faith, and love are crucial in the here and now, but we should remain vigilant about where we place our hope, faith, and love.

God is a loving Creator. He will never abandon you. He will never work against you. He will arrange the material world in such a way that it becomes what each of us needs to nurture our continued spiritual growth and development. Our continued spiritual growth and development may not necessarily entail our continued material growth and development. This is a difficult pill to swallow for some Christians, but swallowed it must be.

God will never abandon us. God will never work against us. We must remember not to abandon or work against Him. In fact, the time has come to take up the cause our ancestors neglected to take up and begin working with Him creatively. That requires a total shift in consciousness, but that is what is needed, now more than ever. 

Note added: Any feeling of despair, especially despair for the System, must be repented. We are all bound to taste despair in the weeks and months ahead. Having said that, it is one thing to taste despair and repent it; it is quite another thing to taste despair and then voluntarily feast on it. 
4 Comments
Epimetheus
4/21/2020 14:24:09

Compulsive self-destructive behavior is deeply troubling and despair-inducing - it interferes with the certainty of Christ's promise, at least in my case. No amount of anguished repentance seems to lead to better behavior.

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Ingemar
4/22/2020 06:28:34

Months ago, I watched a documentary by a young woman who is a very-non-mainstream Christian. Even though she had some odd beliefs, she said something very trenchant:

"Hoping for a Savior to save America is like hoping for a Savior to save Babylon."

I've been giving some thought lately to what will happen once the Lockdown ends. At the very minimum, there is no going back to status quo ante bellum (and yes, this is very much a spirituales bello). The forces of Evil have shown they can crush the entire system pitifully easily. However, their ability to do so was not something that could have happened without SEVERAL GENERATIONS worth of setup. Evil first had to sever the relationship between God and man, then devise a system of truth to hold above God, which promises goods greater than those God promises, then through this system deliver "gifts" that satisfy the depth and breadth of man's concupiscence. I distinguish between your uppercase System and this lower system because the latter is subservient to the former. The greater System is the whole of the world we are living in today and the subsidiary system is science.

Since you follow Bruce Charlton, you know that he has written extensively on the corruption of real science. I haven't read that corpus in any depth, but what made me realize that "science" is not an incorrupt body is my brief stint in academia. I saw two postdocs discuss their work. Postdoc B asked postdoc A about the posters he published (as first author) to which he hastily replied, "It's all b*llsh*t." Mind you, this was not some obscure institute I was working in, but one that housed TWO Nobel Laureates. Science for many in the ground level is about scrounging to find just enough novel minutiae to win ever-diminishing sources of grant funding. In other words, it had suffered the worst form of professionalization.

Combine this with the "reproducibility crisis" (over half of "landmark" studies that proved such-and-such treatments for cancer work have NOT been able to be replicated) and science has a serious credibility issue. Yet science has excellent marketing, if the "I F______ Love Science" crowd and Neil de Grasse Tyson fans can show. But one thing that all the most devoted cultists of science have in common is their rabid hatred of God. I recall in my undergrad days a biochemistry course where the professor in the first just had to say, "I do not rely on dogma like a priest, but in science".

Why do I bring this all up? It is because the rationale for keeping us trapped like laboratory mice in our own homes is the diktat of scientists. Science and mass media is a horrific combination as the latter does not have the discipline to accurately report as the former does. This marriage in hell is enforcing a narrative that if you go outside and stand close to someone, you will infect them (and kill them).

But let's get back to the professionalization of science. In America, the two physicians most responsible for this technocratic despotism are Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx--both have a history with the AIDS epidemic and both (incorrectly) spun doomsday stories about how the entire country will contract and die of that disease. Both of them (and the W.H.O.) are firmly in the pocket of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation--a fake charity that is dedicated to the covert eradication of billions of human beings through poisoned vaccines.

If the System and the system don't fall, humanity is liable to fall to its predation again and again. That's why we MUST fight it and we MUST risk everything to do so. Over the past month, I've been steeling myself for the very real possibility that I would lose everything and everyone I love to oppose Evil; I can already see that my relatives have been ensorcelled by the birdemic propaganda despite my efforts to wake them up. If I didn't believe in Jesus Christ, I wouldn't know what to do and probably be induced to despair as well.

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Francis Berger
4/22/2020 10:31:17

@ Ingemar - I agree with Bruce's assessment of science - "not even trying." Science has been utterly corrupted. I mean, what can we make of a system that goes along with the PC notion that a biological male can make himself female through the simple act of declaration?

I work in academia at the moment - all I can tell you is this is - nearly everything I encounter there is bullshit. Most of the research I see deals with climate change models - some extending to a century and beyond. If the birdemic crisis has revealed anything it is this - models are mostly worthless.

Even uncorrupted science can provide no real basis for life. Because of its focus on materialism, reductionism, positivism, etc, science cannot answer "why" questions. Only religion can do that. Without religion, there is no "why." Without a "why", people go crazy.

As for Jesus saving America, I think the person you mention has a valid point. Jesus showed no interest in saving Judea. Why would anyone think he would be interesting in saving America, or any other nation for that matter? Yes, God has a vested interest in communities and nations, etc., but salvation doesn't happen at a national level. How could it? It has to be freely and actively chosen at the level of the individual.

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tim s
4/23/2020 14:44:30

You are so right. God bless you. I pray for strength, as always, and guidance, to do the right thing.

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