Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 50
October 7, 2024
The importance of our-selves, as individual persons, for The World - is a plain fact
All our explanations and schemes of value (including morality) are about people in general. There is intense interest in politics, nations, society, and group categories such the The Poor, Women, (some) Races, The Environment; or about abstractions such as Health, Equity, Sustainability...
This creates an insoluble problem about the individual person - according to our explanatory schemes, his value seems negligible, he seems to be valid only as a group member, or insofar as he contributes to some abstract goal.
When the individual takes an individual stance, regards himself as significant on a cosmic scale of things; this seems to be selfishness, pride, greed, or a pathological paranoia...
We are culturally only comfortable when people assert and live-by their own insignificance.
Yet Of Course the individual personal is significant - and all other significance is derivative of the importance of individual Beings and their relations.
Our difficulties with this are artefactual, self-created by false ideas: the difficulties are due to wrong and evil assumptions.
Of Course the individual is significant in the Big Picture, indeed at the level of the Cosmos.
To say this is not insane arrogance but plain Christianity!
If each individual person were not significant, then God would not have created individual persons.
The salvation of one person is clearly of the greatest importance to Jesus.
To believe in the insignificance of the individual is not modesty, it is not humility; but it is instead an abandonment of responsibility. We are born-into this world (as babies, as young children) knowing that we are significant. That confidence is innate because God-given.
It is therefore a demonic snare to deny our significance to The World; just as it is another demonic snare to strive to impose our-selves upon The World.
Our personal importance for The World is a fact that does not require any action to make real - what matters is what we do about the fact.
October 6, 2024
The Legend of Lucifer
The legend has it that Lucifer* was the "brightest" of angels, and/yet the first to "fall"... What does this mean?
It might mean that - of the pre-mortal spiritual Beings - Lucifer was the "highest". But highest in what? I would say consciousness. And higher meaning most God-like, most like The Creator.
The legend would then mean that the Being with most God-like consciousness (i.e. Lucifer) was the first Being to oppose God's creative plans.
Consciousness, awareness, agency, freedom... These are divine attributes; but do not bring with them a commitment to Good - Good being a commitment to Love, to divine creation based upon love.
Men of the modern world are on the one hand higher in consciousness than Men of the past - capable of greater agency and freedom; on the other hand Men are more evil Now than they were.
An analogy is children and adults - adults are (on average) higher in consciousness than children, and also adults are (on average) more evil than children.
Goodness is a choice, and those Beings higher in consciousness must choose evil - but the point is that they must choose; which is why they so often choose wrong. Children, on the other hand, are born with considerable innate goodness (spiritual connections, realism, common sense) and this makes them more spontaneously, passively, unconsciously good.
So perhaps Lucifer was the first angel who was capable of conscious and active choice, and needed to decide whether to commit to love and join-with the divine plan of salvation - but as a matter of fact chose to reject and oppose it.
Modern Men are similar to this primal situation in that (probably due to our pre-mortal natures) we seem to have been incarnated wit the tendency to attain higher (literally more God-lie) consciousness than Men of the past; and/but this brings with it the necessity of conscious, active and personal choice with respect to fundamental matters that less-conscious Men of the past simply accepted without awareness.
The majority of Modern men seem to have replicated the basic choice of Lucifer; but they could have done otherwise, just as Lucifer could have done otherwise.
Our world is full of Men who are "higher" in terms of awareness, agency, freedom and other divine attributes; yet choose to use these divine attributes to reject God's creative project.
Higher consciousness is intrinsically Good - it is growing-up, it is God-like - it is a direction God desires than Men should move.
We are more adult, grown-up in terms of consciousness; but like most adults this does not make us "better" morally (and in terms of values generally) than the less-conscious children we once were.
Our situation is that (in essence) we need consciously and freely to choose what (less conscious, less free) young children are born with innately and "automatically".
The adult is potentially better (i.e. more God-like) than a child, exactly because he is able to choose, indeed must choose - and is more responsible.
This could be expressed that God wants "colleagues" in divine creation, co-creators, or grown-up brothers and sisters - because thus may creation best be expanded and enriched. And creation "works" by Love - it is Love that harmonizes creation, and Love that ensures the direction of creation is Good.
So there is consciousness and there is Love - and the challenge (which seems most to have been failed) is for Men (as many Men as possible) to choose Love as the fundamental principle, to choose divine creation, to choose to ally with God.
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*"Lucifer" was probably the original Devil, the first leader of the anti-God faction; but I suspect he no longer holds that position. That "job" is perpetually contested, and has perhaps had several or many occupants.
War is graft, government aid for war victims is graft... All government expenditure is graft (considered at one level)
Celebrity charities are graft - all charities are graft (from the top, by motivation).
Celebrity (and political) autobiographies, lectures, and public appearances are bribes.
Honours and prizes and awards are bribes.
...These are some of the more-or-less legal ways that the demonically-controlled, destructively evil Beings control the bureaucratic, managerial and intellectual classes.
Totalitarian control of attitudes, thinking and behaviour are mostly done by such positive incentives; because they work.
Fear of negative sanctions such as destruction of status, sacking, fining, prison, violence, torment, and murder - are real and necessary, but are a back-stop.
War is graft, government aid for war victims is graft, .. All government expenditure is graft (at one level)
Celebrity charities are graft - all charities are graft (from the top, by motivation).
Celebrity (and political) autobiographies, lectures, and public appearances are bribes.
Honours and prizes and awards are bribes.
...These are some of the more-or-less legal ways that the demonically-controlled, destructively evil Beings control the bureaucratic, managerial and intellectual classes.
Totalitarian control of attitudes, thinking and behaviour are mostly done by such positive incentives; because they work.
Fear of negative sanctions such as destruction of status, sacking, fining, prison, violence, torment, and murder - are real and necessary, but are a back-stop.
Western civilization swinging from the rafters - while lashing-out at its neighbours
"Take your eye off Western Civilization for just a moment and it will be swinging from the rafters with its own belt around its neck..."
But West Civ has now become much worse than "merely" killing itself.
Going back - The West started from the later 1960s by "Not even trying" to sustain itself - it was profligate, neglectful, careless - addicted to luxuries and distractions.
Then actively suicidal strategies emerged that spread throughout the entire bureaucracy, media and social institutions; until they are nowadays a universal propaganda sustained by many laws and many more regulations supported by significant societal pressure.
Since the early new millennium - evident with the policy of funding chaos and facilitating genocide in the Middle East with the subversive violence of the self-styled "Arab Spring" - the dying West has become more and more gratuitously aggressive.
The suicidal hanging man of Western Civilization is lashing-out in its death throes - trying to harm as many people as possible before it finally expires.
The objects of Western aggression have spread from at first attacking old national enemies (seeding disorder, funding the ideologies of own more-rapid suicide).
Then to through attacking national "allies" (by forcing them to adopt suicidal policies, sabotaging their economies and societies; and lately engineering them to fight to the death with old enemy nations).
And just in the past days we have seen (with the recent Hurricane response in the US) Western nations beginning actively to destroy its own citizens.
Thus: It began with it being dangerous to be an enemy of West Civ; developed into being more dangerous to be a friend of the West; and we are now entering the stage where it will be most dangerous actually to be the West.
(At this rate, the mass of Western people might actually begin to notice what is going-on!)
So, Western Civilization is now the prime enemy of The West. And, as with so many tyrannies of the past - the most dangerous situation of all will soon be to be a member of the Western ruling class.
The higher the position someone has attained in the Western System (the closer to the centre of power), the more likely he will be singled-out for an early and nasty end.
Because when The System is possessed by spiteful and destructive evil - "paranoia" is rational.
In a society where "dog eats dog", everybody is playing the same destructive game: spitefulness is regarded as pre-emptive necessity.
The main personal threat to leadership class members comes from those nearest and with most power.
Do unto others what they would otherwise do unto you - so make sure you do it first...
I said dog eat dog; but the reality (at the level of Western leadership) is becoming more and more like a pack of mad dogs biting and tearing each other. Each dog feels fully justified, because - after all - each dog is in the middle of a pack of mad dogs!
The situation would be hopeless if the world really was as the mad dogs believe it.
But, very fortunately, it is not; and there is a whole other unrecognized realm of reality...
Access to that world is not via any of the societal institutions that are complicit in Mad Dog World; but the entrance (which is not secret) may be found in the heart of every Man.
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NOTE: I have hidden comments and suspended commenting for the time being, since commenting has largely dried-up; and the current arrangement waste my time. They may return later.
October 5, 2024
"I shall believe it when..."
Supposing somebody was thinking about what he should believe - rather than conforming to what he perceived to be his aspirant peer group - except when it was expedient (i.e. when it breaking the rules benefit him, and he thought could get away with it).
Suppose such a person was thinking about what he should believe, and there was a genuine possibility that he would afterward believe what he had concluded as a result of thinking.
I think he has two basic options.
The first and usual option is that he will believe a thing he has concluded when, and only when, he has been able to convince "other people" of it.
He will try to convince someone else, and then he will believe it.
By "other people" I mean, whoever he regards it as vital to convince. For a scientist, it might be the other scientists in his field, for a bureaucrat or priest it might be some sufficient number of other priests, or perhaps one or more who have authority over him.
In other words, a thinking person's conclusions are, and can only ever be, tentative; and contingent upon the acceptance of his conclusions.
His own belief is therefore fundamentally dependent upon the beliefs of others - in a way that is ultimately and essentially the same as the beliefs of someone who accepts his beliefs passively (often unconsciously) from his particular social milieu.
And this is the great bulk of public discourse about fundamental matters - even of the better sort. It is conducted among people who are all trying to convince each other, and who are each waiting upon the outcome before making their own commitment.
The alternative is to be someone who will believe a thing when he has convinced himself; even when nobody else in the world believes it.
Of course, it is usual that such a person can find someone else (somewhere, at some time and place) who also believes what he has convinced himself is true - or maybe he will be able to convince one of his peers or contemporaries.
And this is reassuring, and encouraging for him - but the point is that the agreement of "other people" is not essential. "Other people" do not matter ultimately to what he believes. .
This autonomy of belief covers a multitude of possibilities, because different people are differentially convinced by different kinds of thinking.
Some people are psychotically-delusional in their thinking - and their convictions arise from reasoning that is unique because pathological - some kind of delirium or dementia, perhaps; when the stream of thinking is dislocated.
Others are very easily self-convinced, and very difficult to dislodge from conviction by subsequent experience - or, more exactly, such persons adhere unthinkingly and unswervingly to the conclusions reached in any brief moments during which they actually were thinking for themselves.
But autonomy of belief is also the characteristic of genius; and indeed autonomy of belief is a necessary component of genius.
And when the times and circumstances are so corrupted and so evil that all Men are called upon be a genius of their own most fundamental convictions - on pain of otherwise becoming assimilated to the general state of corruption and evil...
Well then it behoves all Men to ensure that the procedure by which they become personally convinced of some belief, is such as to satisfy his own best possible understanding of truth, beauty and virtue.
(He must do this for himself, and from himself; because otherwise he is merely accepting somebody else's standards. Even if he does accept somebody else's standards as fundamental for himself, then this needs to be done on exactly the same basis.)
October 2, 2024
Bad life advice (and if not, then what?)
Social and mass media seem to consist largely of bad advice on how to think, behave, live... And the appetite for such advice seems insatiable.
Yet we must live! And negative advice (about what Not to do) is useless unless embedded in a positive stance.
It strikes me as facile, because true, to strike down any positive agenda. On the other hand; unconscious, unthinking, spontaneity is also impossible - and would-be mystics of that kind are essentially fraudulent.
Also... Any words (or images - or perceptions) that purport to be helpful, must be understood and interpreted - meaning they don't tell us anything specific.
Yet we Must live; and if Not, then What?
It seems, therefore, that we are compelled to seek Good life advice on what we can know directly (without perceptions or concepts) and for ourselves.
There is nowhere else to turn - if we are explicitly honest with ourselves.
For Christians this is not, or should not be, a problem.
October 1, 2024
The deceptiveness of common sense, intelligent amelioration
Perhaps the commonest form of argument about morality and values generally, is to address some problem (real or made up) on the basis of practical, common sense "realism" - with the aim of ameliorating the problem: improving, albeit not eliminating the problem.
From this perspective, there is always work to be done, because the world is full of problems, and these are always urgent.
Yet when we think of fundamental realities, these problems are insoluble, being ultimately due to entropy or evil.
No matter how much amelioration of bad health is accomplished, this is an antropic world so there will be disease, disability, degeneration and death. These may be delayed or improved, but that's all. The problem will remain.
The same applies to evil (so long as the nature of evil is genuinely understood). Sin (unalignment with divine creation) is everywhere, in all Beings, most of the time and ineradicable.
And pseudo-solutions abound and confuse, because any real answer must include ourselves, our selves.
Replacing Men with Supermen, or robots, or computer programmes - not only fails to address entropy and evil, but doesn't even ameliorate; because to replace one Being with another doesn't solve the first Being's problem.
Such considerations fill me with awe and gratitude for the gifts of Jesus Christ. His offer of resurrected eternal Heavenly life is, apparently, the one and only answer to the fundamental problems.
September 30, 2024
How is the metaphysical incoherence of atheism maintained?
Atheism is so upfront and in-your-face incoherent, and it incoherence is so fundamental (at the metaphysical level, with basic assumptions concerning reality, in contradiction) that it is surprising that atheism can be maintained for a lifetime, and even across generations.
But I understand how it works, because I was myself an atheist for over 30 years, and I remember how the contradictions were dealt with.
The basic problem comes out with values; with truth, beauty and virtue (by whatever definition) - and in explaining why values are significant.
Life is all about one thing being better than another, or at least preferable to another; and atheism can give no reason - indeed asserts there is no reason. Except that Every atheist, Especially the most outspoken atheists (i.e. the kind who argue it is Better to be an atheist - and who assume that reasoned argument is better than blank assertion or blind faith!) asserts values, and that his own preferences are significant.
How can this be tolerable? Why don't peoples, heads explode?
Probably because metaphysical incoherence is so normal as to be universal- in all religions and ideologies. Humans are structured to live among self contradictions, even when these are noticed - which is not often.
So people - including atheists - firstly don't notice their incoherence; because they get distracted easily - especially by focusing on the immediate and changing situation of interpersonal interactions. These seem overwhelming, and urgent - so urgent and vital that anything else ought to be postponed, indefinitely...
And then there is negative stuff. People focus on what is negative in others' beliefs; and easily ignore the insanity of getting morally outraged from the basis of an explicit insistence that the universe, human life and their own lives have no purpose or meaning.
Life proceeds at a level where unconscious and spontaneous biological vitality is shaped and directed by social circumstances. From that situation, social assurance and expectations that there Are meanings and life Does have purpose, are sufficient here-and-now.
The details are set aside as something that "must be" okay, because otherwise "people" would not act as if they were OK.
The whole thing is taken On Trust, because people do not trust themselves; and they don't trust themselves for good reasons - whereas (as social beings in a society) they automatically and by default trust vague notions of other people's judgement and motivations.
This is just how people are.
And for much of human history it did not seem to matter much, but now it does matter.
Now we live in a society and world where ultimate assumptions of no-purpose and no-meaning are built into social explanations and functioning; and where the consequent endemic state of demotivation and perplexed confusion have rendered almost-everybody helpless in the face of evil manipulation.
Whole nations/ races/ religions (and other groupings such as age, sex and sexuality) of many millions of people have been set up to fear, resent and annihilate each other.
And because of actual-atheism rooted in ultimate deference to societal assumptions (and which renders modern religious identifications irrelevant because ineffectual), they have zero basis for noticing or understanding - let alone resisting - what is being done to them.
We now need to change the terms of evaluation from trust to responsibility.
The proper question is whether we take personal responsibility for our fundamental assumptions and convictions; or else refuse to do this in favour of entrusting our lives, our souls, our own mortal situation in this world - to some external "authority".
Conscious will versus intuition?
It seems generally accepted that we change by conscious will; and indeed I would regard this as the distinctive destiny of Men of this "modern" age.
Yet it is from our intuition, from primary- or heart-thinking, that we experience divine guidance - from our inner nature as children of God and from the Holy Ghost.
This means that even our best intentioned schemes and plans (eg for moral reform, or to forward some intellectual or creative project); can be wrong for us personally, here and now. Wrong because not the thing needful.
Therefore will is essential and the agent of positive change, yet will must (to be truly good) be subordinate to intuition - both today and tomorrow.
We cannot live by formula (if we want to live by divine destiny) - and we cannot (also should not) live passively by unconscious and spontaneous instinct.
What we are supposed to do is live by Conscious Instinct - but its not easy, because disrupted by error, ignorance and sin.
Hence life as trial and experiment, repentance and renewal.
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