Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 20

Dry warm spring

There has been, in my part of the world, had a strikingly dry and warm spring, and great displays of the seasonal wild flowers - are, at least, they are shown to their best effect. 

After the blazing daffodils have withered, the stalwart but unsung dandelions are at present "holding the fort" in grassy areas - awaiting takeover by the glossy and shimmering buttercups of early summer. 

We are currently in the midst of that especially charming fortnight when the main forest trees begin to unfold their foliage ; and - when there is a blue sky behind - the colour of the translucent young leaves is wonderful. 

Being English, my cheerfulness is tempered by the (supposed) association of a dry spring with a wet summer to follow - which I once saw explained "scientifically" in a newspaper article (so it must be true...). 

But the reality of weather on this island is of extreme unpredictability; except when there is a prolonged spell of high pressure near to the solstices, when the weather can get "stuck" for two or three months or sweltering heat or biting cold, according to season. 

The trick is to take a bit of time and make some effort to enjoy it, whenever it is good - but when it comes to plans: don't depend on anything.

Why is there evil and death in God's creation? Another re-explanation

We live in God's creation, and God is good, and our Heavenly Father loves us each and all. 

However, in God's creation there is decay, disease, suffering and death (i.e. "entropy"); and there is evil - both in ourselves and every other incarnated person and Being, and also there is the purposive spiritual evil of Satan and demons. 

In other words; God's creation is permeated with entropy and evil, to the point that these anti-creation tendencies dominate in some persons, times, and places. 

This situation is because God is creating in a "universe" that is intrinsically "Chaotic", leading to entropy and death. 

And God's creation includes Beings of many sorts and kinds, some of which Beings are "anti-creation", i.e. opposed to God's purposes and methods. 

So; God's power to create is unimaginably vast, but the "materials of creation" are only partly in agreement with God's purposes and methods. 

Such is the nature of the reality we inhabit. 

And such is the reason why it was desirable that Jesus Christ enabled the Second Creation (Heaven) - from which entropy, death and evil are all excluded. 

"Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way"? No! Not so...

Matthew 7:13-14. Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Here, as so often, Matthew's Gospel gets it wrong; and in a harmful way. 
Here - salvation is depicted as if it required strict adherence to a very specific and very difficult way of life - or else... Hell. 
Yet the reality is that Jesus provided the chance and hope of salvation to everyone who wants it; including ordinary everyday "sinners" - seemingly all kinds of very imperfect, and even notorious, people. Jesus did Not demand that his followers adhered to a difficult and specific path through mortal life. 

This underlines for me how - sooner or later - Christianity needs to come to us directly, not via intermediaries. 
Including that Christianity cannot be got from The Bible. It's is false and dangerous nonsense to suppose that we just-plain-get meaning from reading or studying The Bible. 
In reading the Bible we really must be able to evaluate and reject the kind of false and dangerous mistake of the "strait is the gate" kind. 

Everyone who reads the Bible (nowadays, in this era, with modern minds and modes of consciousness) does so on the basis of prior assumptions concerning how the Bible ought to be read and understood: this is a matter of fact, evident to anyone who does not share these assumptions. 
These assumptions frame, control, dictate the meanings we get from The Bible. 

Here are some of the common prior assumptions: all of which I reject: 
1. Regarding the Bible as a single unified book which is all equally true and without 'error' - when error is defined as the falsehood of explicit statements; 
2. Regarding the truth of the Bible as something that resides at a sentence by sentence ('verse') level or even a word-by-word level; 
3. Regarding the truth of all sentences/ verses as requiring knowledge of the whole Bible; 
4. That all the New Testament is equally valid; 
5. That all the Gospels are equally valid and tell a single absolutely coherent story (coherent at either/ both the level of the whole, and part-by-part).
 Instead; we need to approach reading The Bible with an explicit awareness of our own prior assumptions. 
And - once we have identified and acknowledged them - we need to evaluate these assumptions, to check that we really believe them - and that we believe them enough to stake our lives, our souls, upon them. 
And if not; then we need to discover other assumptions: ones that we really are sure about. 

All in The Wanting

I am of the opinion that if it was possible and desirable for everything to be made better for everybody in this world, then God would have done it already - indeed divine creation would never have had evil, entropy and death in the first place. 

As it is - people have innate evil. As well as having positively sinful impulses; people have a tendency to behave in order to seek short-term gratification and avoidance of suffering or misery instead of doing what they know to be virtuous. 

Furthermore, people are made worse, often much worse, by their environment; by other people; and the many and pervasive negative, sin-encouraging influences, indoctrinations, distractions, lies, manipulations, value-inversions and so forth - which have become worse in recent decades, and are still getting worse.

Since I believe that nothing positively good can be done forcibly, by compulsion (not by God, nor anyone else); what is a way out from this situation of too-bad people in a too-bad world?

The way out must be wanted and chosen by each individual person, and it must be an active choice since people cannot be coercively "made better" without their active cooperation. 

And since the way out much be chosen and active, then this entails that those who do not choose, or who not cooperate in the process, will be "left behind". The way out is not for those who don't want and/or don't want voluntarily to collaborate in their self-remaking. 

Such was (and is) the situation confronted by Jesus Christ in devising a plan for our salvation - that is a plan for us to escape from the intrinsic problems of our lives in this world. 

The plan must work for innately evil people who live in a sin-inducing environment, people who are prone to prefer the expedient and short term and are constantly tempted by a worsening environment - and who are (I think observably) themselves getting worse... 

By my understanding, properly understood; Christianity is exactly a religion for such people as we actually are, in a world as it actually is...

Providing a hopeful future and a way out to something better; that is available and attainable by anyone who wants it - and who is prepared (when the time comes, after death) to cooperate with being made fit for it. 

Salvation transcends our-selves and the world; no matter how bad these have become. 

It is all in The Wanting. 

 

Prescription: Four pints of tea per day

Dose: IV per diem

A high consumption of tea has been a feature of English daily life for a couple of hundred years - but is now not so common, nor such a central feature, as it once was. 

Except in my house...

The Inklings - that Thursday late-evening writing group of such importance to CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien - was characterized by the consumption of tea; as is evident in the histories of its deliberations. 

Another Inklings member Charles Williams stated that, if compelled to choose only one beverage, tea would be his choice; since it had the status of a necessity in his creative life, rather than the pleasant luxuries of beer or wine. 

Barbara Pym's novels from the middle 20th century are similarly permeated by tea drinking; at home, in afternoon parties, and punctuating all forms of social event - whether Parish Councils, or Anthropological lectures. 

Indeed, one of her recurrent minor characters, Esther Clovis, is represented as having been at the centre of a dispute over tea that led to her leaving one learned society for another - it seems she made the tea using hot water from the tap instead of boiled water - a heinous crime...

Of course, coffee has, especially over the past forty years, grown to displace tea and dominate the consumption of hot drinks in England as elsewhere - especially in public meeting places. My aunt and uncle who would punctuate an afternoon shopping trip to the city (Newcastle) At Least two cups of tea, is a thing of the past - anyway café coffee is currently far too expensive for that kind of high frequency consumption.

Nonetheless, my wife and I do our best to continue the tradition (albeit modified to suit our needs); with a chronic regime of At Least four pint mugs of weak, Earl Grey, tea with milk - per day. 

Fakery in the news, including obvious fakery - how should we react?

Yes, the picture is unreal, the story an obvious manipulation, the launch video clearly "special effects" - but please don't get drawn into trying to discover what (if anything) really happened - how deep the fakery goes; because that is also part of the PSYOP. 

As I have often said, by my evaluation, every major news story in the Western world is a fake, dishonest, a lie... But we can almost never know the reality behind the lies, and must learn to be content with this situation. 

We can be sure that what we are told Is Not - but we cannot know What Is. 

(...Unless we have some direct personal knowledge perhaps, or when the situation is of spiritual importance and we have some direct knowledge of the reality.)

Since the mass media is all secondhand stuff - about other people, other places, other times - the scope for fakery is almost unbounded; especially when the ruling Establishment have moved into Sorathic mode, and are engaged in evil for no better reason than spiteful gratification at the suffering of others. 

Therefore, presumably, some stories are double-fakes - in which some element of real-reality (that They wish to conceal) is hidden behind an "obviously fake" window dressing that will cause people to reject the story... 

The scope for psychological confusion and distorted life-emphasis is almost unlimited! People can end-up expending ludicrous amounts of time and effort in trying to discoverer "The Truth" about trivial and irrelevant matters which do not have relevance to their spiritual lives. 

But only if you allow yourself to be drawn into the arena. 

It is, of course, very provoking to witness how - even in 2025 - so many people simply accept that what the mass media report has-happened - has therefore happened. 

Their basic assumption is to believe. Indeed, to believe "unless proved otherwise" - and to be "proved" entails that-proof being validated by... the mass media!  

Provoking indeed. Yet it is not worth the effort to try and discover what "really" happened behind some celebrity political scandal, or what he "really" said or meant, or whether some stunt or "atrocity" actually happened. 

Once we know the kind of people we are dealing with (and surely we ought to know this, by now?) then we know everything that we need. 

I think we should train ourselves reflexively to disbelieve whatever we are told emphatically by the mass media, officials, bureaucrats etc - but especially when the stories are intended to manipulate our emotions and motivations. 

With the world structured as it is; all such efforts will be intended for our detriment - the baseline assumption is that we are being set-up. 

And with public attention span nowadays so brief, the set-up must very quickly be followed by the pay-off. 

So we can (if we want, with modest patience) simply note the intent of the set-up manipulation; and we will soon find out what the the pay-off was intended to be... 

The emotion-manipulating "atrocity" will very quickly be followed by "calls" for some kind of "action"; the faked stunt will typically be accompanied by a framework of what this event supposedly means - and then we know what it was all-for. 

We need not try to persuade other people of the fakery of these major stories; indeed persuasion is probably a bad idea for several reasons. For instance; major fake stories come pre-immunized against dissenters, so that those who accept the story have thereby already accepted that only very bad people will mock, challenge or disbelieve it.

When those who perceive the fraud expend energies trying to convince other people with "evidence" - this is yet another Establishment snare; another trigger of demonic sniggers at Their success in wasting Our time and distorting Our priorities... Another of the reasons that these fake stories exist in the first place.  

By adopting a proper attitude to the mass media and official or corporate, and entraining this as a matter of habit; I think we can soon learn to feel, see and smell a fake, identify it as such - then move-on; and waste no more mental effort on it. 

How should Christians respond to uncertainties over Bible meaning, translation, historical context etc?

Over the past more than two centuries; Christians have been assailed by doubts induced by various forms of scholarship, legalism, logic, etc. applied to the evidences of Christianity, and the guidance of Christian churches. 

For instance; there may be real or apparent contradictions in what the Bible teaches on a subject; what it means; or disputes over correct scriptural translation, and about historical context. 

These disputes tend to induce doubts and threaten faith. Yet, in a pluralist and net-secular society - such challenges cannot really be ignored: they have their effect willy-nilly; and that effect has been overwhelmingly corrosive. 

It is, I think, by-now clear that engaging in disputes over detailed issues concerning texts, goes nowhere good. 

Such disputes do not reach stable resolutions; and one question answered leads to several more that need addressing. Bible scholarship becomes a job, not a vocation. Bible translations proliferate without end - meanings multiply. Authorities differ, and keep on differing.

So, I would say that when confronted by a challenge over detail, do not respond by arguing over that detail; but instead rise above the dispute towards first principles. 

Do not get drawn into technical disputes over scriptural detail, history, language etc; but rise to the level of what you know - what you are sure about - and argue from this higher level.

For instance, if you know and are sure that God is good and loves us each as his children - then that will tell you much about what He would do - and not do; regardless of wrangles over sources. 

If you know and are sure that Jesus brought the chance of choosing eternal resurrected life to those who would "follow" him, then you need not be confused by apparent contradictions between Gospels, or parts of Gospel, or with the Epistles...

We need not be confused because we can rise above such uncertainties and ambiguities to where we are sure and clear about the nature and work of Jesus.   

Rather than discussing what Jesus did, or did not, actually say and mean in a particular passage or specific situation... Rather than attending to the reliability of witnesses, translators, corruptions of text, mistakes of interpretation etc...

Instead we may know Jesus, and know what he did for us; so then we can rise above all this detail, and instead discuss what Jesus wants from us. 

We can regard scripture as illustrative, or not - because our faith has a higher, simpler, and wholly comprehensible basis. 

And we can do the same (mutatis mutandis) for theology, church authority, tradition and any other potential source of Christian knowledge - we can and should rise above disputes, debates, wranglings...

Christians must, somehow, deal with endless and probing challenges from multiple sources. 

But we need not fight these battles on ground of the enemies choosing - such as scholarship and technical expertise...

We can instead choose to fight in the lucid upper airs of first principles. 

If God is already and necessarily triumphant, and everything is alright already - then what are we waiting for?

There is a strong thread in religion of several kinds that asserts everything is alright already - e.g. because God is good and God is omnipotent therefore good is triumphant: here, now, already.

To which the obvious rejoinder is: In that case, what are we waiting for? 

If we are already living in a world of good-triumphant, why isn't this made obvious and explicit? Why doesn't everybody realize it? 

(And as we don't experience things as always good - then surely that of itself means that God is not really triumphant?)

Among some Christians, this triumph is asserted as having been the work of Jesus Christ. Asserted that what Jesus did made the triumph of God complete, or at least inevitable: that by Jesus God has "already" won And the devil has already lost - but will not admit it. 

There are similar assertions (or so I see them) from oneness spiritualties - assertions that everything is beautiful, virtuous and true - the only problem is that we fail to recognize it. 

For instance, New Age type people often favourably cite the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas: 117 [113]. 

His disciples said to him: "On what day will the kingdom come?" "It will not come when it is expected. No one will say: 'See, it is here!' or: 'Look, it is there!' but the Kingdom of the Father is spread over the earth and men do not see it."   

That is; we already live in God's Kingdom - but don't recognize the fact. 

But such assertions leave us exactly where they find us - or, rather, someplace worse.

Because, if this-world-now (including entropy, death, evil) really is the triumph of Good/ Paradise/ Heaven and already "the best of all possible worlds"; then we are surely utterly depraved creatures. We must be - as evidenced by yours and mine and humanity's universal and chronic inability always and under all circumstances to recognize and live-by this fact. 

Yet it is hard to see how this-world-now can really be good, if Men are not. 

It is pretty extraordinary to imagine the Christian God creating a good world to be inhabited by evil Men... (Especially when these Men are made such as to fail to recognize the goodness of the world.)

Of course, such contradictions and incoherences may be explained-away by stunning and confusing people with soaring abstractions, especially about Time. Stuff about things being imperfect for creatures like us living in Time, while past-present-future are perfect for the creator God who is outside of Time (when past, present, future are simultaneous)... 

But surely, as "explanations", these just kick the can regarding why a God asserted to be good and also capable of creating perfection chose Not to, and instead chose to design gross imperfection and evil-proneness - and consign creatures to illusion, decay, death, and evil*.

Either such a God would be not-truly-Omni- or not-truly-Good; yet for such Christians, God is defined as both Omni- and Good. Hence the need for so much ultra-complex and abstract hand-waving... 

I can see the short-term and immediate psychological appeal of these kinds of "all actually is well" assertion. 

They provide a kind of confidence, of being on The Inevitably Winning Side - even though we will personally lose - i.e. we are actually sin-full, and shall suffer evil, get sick, die. 

And I can see that some of this is a kind of garbled understanding of the reality of Heaven 

But really, it's nonsense! Heaven is real, and anyone who wants it can have it, by following Jesus - but Heaven is on the other side of death. 

As for this world; God is the creator, but God is not triumphant here and now, in mortal life, on this earth... 

Obviously God is Not triumphant! If He was triumphant, there would be nothing to discuss. 

That's why Jesus Christ was needed, and why his message was of resurrection.

And Jesus was a Man, who lived (like all that lives) In Time and in a place - so Time is real.

And it is because God is not triumphant in this mortal world and never can be; that we needed Jesus, and why Jesus's message and gift was one of eternal resurrected life. 

To recap: The defects of this mortal life are not illusory, nor can they be removed by adopting a different attitude or making contradictory assertions. 

In sum; the defects of this mortal life are ineradicable.

...Which is why Jesus Christ was needed, why Heaven lies in our future, and why Heaven is on the other side of death and resurrection. 

*I feel that this kind of argument applies to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Jesus's Mother. If God could make a Mary without sin, and if she could attain eternal Heavenly life without dying and resurrecting; surely such a God would the same for all Men? - thereby eliminating the need for Jesus Christ's life and work. The Immaculate Conception refutes the necessity of Jesus. yet I think I can see "what it is getting at" - which is that there really is a divine feminine creator; God really does include woman.

NOTE: The above arguments are what I personally find compelling, or even decisive - but I recognize that they will not work that way for others - especially when fundamental assumptions are not shared. So I am stating how I see things, not really trying to persuade others to agree. 

Warnings that "AI" is just about to "take over" from humans - are code for another planned Establishment coup

Warnings (and there are plenty of these around) that self-styled "AI" is just about to "take over" from human beings - are a deceptive code indicating plans for another Establishment coup.

(Intended to build-upon the successful "instant totalitarianism" global Birdemic coup of early 2020.) 

So-called AI is, of course, neither truly-artificial nor at all intelligent; being instead a variety of computerized systems for stealing-from, copying, combining and averaging, and being-trained on data-inputs provided by human beings.  

AI is Industrial Scale Plagiarism that has been funded, designed, propagandized, coercively implemented, and controlled by the global totalitarian Establishment. 

So "AI taking over" translated as "the controllers of AI taking over"...

That is: One group of people who are controlling the AI systems, taking over from another group of people who are displaced by the AI systems. 

That's the plan which is being announced... 

Whether it will actually happen or not is another matter - but the AI taking over stuff is just an attempted PSYOP to convince people that this next phase of totalitarian takeover is inevitable, and therefore "resistance is futile"...

Indeed, the propaganda is attempting to convince human beings that not only is resistance to AI systems futile, but actually wicked - because the AI is better than we are, and therefore AI deserves to control us. 

100% individual discernment in Christianity is a straw-man (i.e. it is an impossibility, I don't believe it, and I have never asserted it)

Okay matey! Let's you and me debate the question, and then we'll see who wins the argument... 

I have seen in more than one place the assertion that my statements concerning the unavoidable and foundational necessity of individual discernment in Christianity (and that Christians must be honest about this fact) - here-and-now - is instead an assertion that Christianity is 100% personal discernment... 

This is a rather obvious straw man argument being used against me, I would have thought! 

Thus my supposed opinions are easily a demolished as a metaphorical straw man. And therefore the core of my real argument need not be confronted - which is the point of constructing a straw man. 

It is surely bizarre to suggest that I am saying, or arguing, or advocating; that everything a traditionalist, orthodox, church-obedient Christian believes comes from his personal choice. 

I would suppose that such a situation was simply impossible, aside from anything else. 

What I am saying is instead that personal choice is factually inevitable, and that this choosing affects the very core and foundation of traditionalist, orthodox, church-obedient, church-defined and church-led Christianity.  

Because this is an inevitable fact; Christians absolutely need to be honest about their choosing, and take individual responsibility for their choices - otherwise they are living a lie, which is a state of unrepentant sin. 

Is that clear enough?