Tag Archives: Christianity

You’re Not Saved by Being a Christian, You’re Saved by Being YOU: The lie of collective salvation

Christian fallacy, collectivism, collectivist metaphysics, individualism vs collectivism, Metaphysics, Uncategorized, , , ,

In the Christian Church, I don’t care which denomination—it doesnt matter, they all share the same foundational metaphysics—what does it mean to be saved?

Now, you might think that this question is a prologue to a deep and meaningful disquisition of Christian soteriology. However, I can assure you that this is quite uneccesary…for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the vast majority of Christians find such a thing completely useless (and couldn’t even begin to comprehend it even if they wanted to…which they don’t). They fancy themselves far too divinely enlightened and practical (they are in fact neither) in their theology to bother with something quite this abstract. In this case, then, I will answer the question according to the “enlightened” and “practical” faith of the Christain church:

It means to believe in Jesus.

But that seems awfully vague, and it is, so we must press a little.

What does it mean, exactly, to believe in Jesus?

It means to renounce your sins and vow to obey God’s moral commands. It is a commitment to reject your “natural” self—your “pre-salvation” you—and to be “born again”.

Now, here is where the whole thing goes off the rails, wheels flying wildly in all directions. Because here we get into the metaphysics of it…though most Christians, to their own folly, don’t even recognize the word. And this is why discussing soteriology with Christians is a complete waste of time. The whole religion dissolves into mysticism; and “faith’ becomes an antonym to “reason” and “sensibility”. Interestingly enough, and sadly, this is also where Christianity goes completely extra-biblical…or anti-bibilcal, really. In other words, there is little to nothing of Christ in any of the Christian ideas one would normally associate with salvation .

The root assumption behind salvation in Christian theology (or rather, ideology) is that the “born-again” you is both fundamentally different from and fundamentally the same as the the “natural you”. And it is this metaphysical contradiction which undermines the faith, and reduces it to either quaint novelty (as in the Amish or Mennonites), anodyne and stultifying cynicism (“middle America” mainline churches)  or mendacious, civilization-wrecking autocracy (Augustine, Luther, Calvin); and all degrees within and among these. You see, the “old you” by dint of birth is unable to please God due to the pervasive wickedness which is a function of your base existence, period. In other words, the very fact that you are is why you are evil and cannot please God naturally. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” the Chruch perversly and irrationally interprets to mean that the very birth of men condemns them to fall under God’s wrath. Man’s “original sin” is that he is born at all. You qua you—you as existant—is evil incarnate.

Of course Christians will take issue with my use of the world “interpret”, claiming that they are simply declaring what the Bible “plainly states”. But this comes from the false belief that what is written in the Bible is somehow immune from interpretation—that somehow the Bible is a closed system of meaning. That it’s a truth in and of itself and thus outside of man, and therefore it is a truth that man must be “enlightened to”, as opposed to something written specifically for him and from him and speaking to his particular existential frame of reference.

This is mystic nonsense—an iteration of Christianity’s pagan-gnostic roots. The Bible is written in language, and as such it is necessarily interpreted by those who posses the innate ability and inherent reference to give it meaning: man. Christians do not simply “declare” the Bible, despite what they may think and claim, they interpret it. And they do so badly.

So, prior to salvation you can do no good thing because of your fundamental depravity. Now, I understand Christians will object to this, arguing that, on the contrary, you can do good but that you have a “tendency” to “trend” (by which they mean inexorably) toward evil; however, this claim does not suffer rational scrutiny. You see, according to the metaphysics, man’s evil is not at root a function of what he does but what he is. And since what he is is evil, then all he does is evil by definition, no matter how “good” it may appear. Because man’s nature is utterly fallen, and “fallen” is the place from which all men are categorically spawned, there is no moral difference between the man who runs an orphanage and the man who burns one down. Both men are equally evil in root nature, both men require salvation in equal measure. and thus what they do must be morally valued equally. Ethics always follow metaphysics, and actions are valued by essence, NOT the other way around.

Man’s existential evil makes him unable to be good, which means that he cannot choose Christ…for such a choice, even if made by him, would necessarily be meaningless. Absolute Evil cannot conjoin with the perfect Good of God’s Son, no matter how much it wants or chooses to. A mystic conversion is the only “solution” to the existential conundrum in which man finds himself. Hence the get-out-of-reason-free cards of election and predestination. God arbitrarily—as far as man is concerned—chooses those who shall choose Him…and if this seems like good old fashioned contradiction, that’s because it is. So don’t waste your time trying to make sense of it. Those who are saved thus become “new creatures”, no longer defined by their collective existential depravity, but by their collective identity as “God’s chosen”. In other words, it has nothing to do with what a man chooses, individually, to do or not do, according to his own singular reference and volition of “I’ or “me”; no, his new identity in Christ is merely a function of some mystical and mysterious conversion from existential “evil” to existential “good”.

In as much as man’s “evil” has nothing to do with what he thinks about himself or does for himself from himself, but everything to do with simply what he is at root…his evil, thus, is in a sense “outside” of him. He has no choice in it…his choice is irrelevant. Everything he does is evil, no matter what it is, because he IS evil. And likewise his “new nature” in Christ—that is, it has nothing to do with him. What he chooses or thinks, in and of his own individual Self, is irrelevant to God’s determining power. Man is a bystander to both his damnation (from brith) and his salvation (from “new birth”). In this sense then, his salvation is collective, NOT individual. It is an Ideal into which he is gang-pressed, not a choice he makes for and from himself. The proof of his salvation is his membership in the Church; and the Church is the collective institution which is given the authority by God to manifest the salvation Ideal upon the earth.

So what does this mean post-salvation for the new Christian? They have been chosen…they are saved, no longer totally depraved, right? No longer victims of their natural, sinister, sinful selves. They are free…free to choose and do good, right?

Well, yes and no, and thus we have more of the same contradiction which undermines all rationality within Christianity. The same rational inconsistencies which plague pre-salvation man and his election unto and into Christ following him to salvation. Man is saved in spite of himself…he does not actually choose Christ because this requires a natural and innate ability to recognize good, to choose it, and to follow through with it, and this ability he does not have because he IS Evil. And this being the case, by what means or power can man, now saved, recognize and do any good thing? By the same power which saved him, of course—that is, God’s grace. Which of course, like salvation itself, has nothing fundamentally to do with man qua man. By ”God’s grace” Christians mean God’s absolute, all-pervasive power over all of Creation, to determine it to its inevitable divine conclusion. So the “good” that the saved man is, and the “good” he recognizes and obeys are an essence and action which are not really of him at all. In short, it’s fair to say that post-salvation man is still just as vile and wicked as he was pre-salvation. Nothing has changed but semantics. Man is not “changed”, but rather, “covered”, which is as close a euphemism as you can get I supppose.

When we are talking metaphysics…when we are talking about the very root essence of a thing, this essence is utter and absolute. It is not transmutable; it is not transient; it is fundamental. It is the infinite core of what a thing IS, by which it exists in reality in the first place. What a thing is existentially is that immutable core from which it exists, period. And thus “this” cannot become “that”. If man is evil, existentially, before salvation, then he is likewise evil, existentially, after. And there is no argument one can make to the contrary which is not ultaimtely going to be punted into the cosmic abyss of “God’s mystery”. There is no means except the surrendering of one’s sense where one can reasonably declare that Absolute A becomes Absolute B.

And Christians know this, at least on some level, which is why they insist that even the saved can still commit sin. You get sin from where? Sin nature. Otherwise, it’s not sin, its just bad or immoral action. To describe an act of sin is to describe the act according to a nature that pervades man at his very root. Christianity recognizes that man’s immutable sin nature follows him into his salvation, which is why the church encourages the laity to “preach the Gospel to themselves every day”. Even Christians need to be reminded how they can do no good thing, and to recognize salvation as a life of “grace”, not individual and volitonal moral living, as though man is capable of such a thing. Try being a Christian and taking credit for any moral or rational choice, and proclaiming that you thus justly earn the reward of such a choice. You will be patently and shamelessly accused of rank heresy on the spot…of ignoring or being blind to God’s grace. Though, to be fair, they may say it nicely. But keep it up and see what happens. Christians have short patience for rejections of “grace”.

Christians never dawdle in reminding each other that it is foolish pride for them to consider the idea that they, at any time, pre or post-salvation, possess any inherent ability to do any good thing. Indeed, the mark of a false Christian is one who believes that he is somehow  good in himself. He is not. He is evil. His salvation was God’s mysterious grace, and likewise whatever good he does or befalls him after salvation is entirely a product of that same grace. Man’s nature never fundamentally changes. He is saved entirely in spite of himself, and likewise his salvation is “worked out” in spite of himself. In other words, there is nothing of You qua You that has anything at all to do with why God chose to save you, and how God manifests this salvation in your life. You qua You—the “I” of “My Self”—is utterly evil, and thus must be completely sidelined before, during, and after salvation.

So back to our original question: What does it mean to be saved?

Well, the real answer is that it means nothing for YOU, because YOU are nothing. You qua You—You, the Individual—are exchanged for the collective Ideal of what it means to be “Christian”. “Christian” is a collective. “You” are now an indistinguishable component of the Church, which is the physical incarnation of the Ideal. “You” have been aborted by the metaphysics. Only the Collective matters.

This is salvation.

And this is a lie.

END

 

Argument From Authority: the Christian’s go-to move

Authority, Christian fallacy, Metaphysics, morality, , , , , , , ,

Last week I had a heady discussion/debate with a friend of mine at the home-school cooperative my children attend.  Beginning with some marginally interesting/relevant social issues, in particular the NFL kneeling-for-the-anthem controversy, and then proceeding in due course to the meatier topics of Christian theology and doctrine, it went on for well-over an hour.  Happily, we found ourselves in agreement about a great many things.  It was turning out to be quite the satisfying and encouraging yarn.

Or so it seemed.

In reality, I suppose it was no real shock to discover that we actually had nothing in common, theologically speaking.  Since my full-on commitment to heterodoxy seven years ago, I have had these sorts of conversations with Christians—99% of whom are orthodox—many, many times.  And they ALWAYS end the same way.  Always, always, always.  Without fail; without distinction; without caveat; without ambiguity; without doubt.

Any theology/doctrine discussion, given enough time, will eventually terminate at metaphysics: the nature of reality; the nature of man.  And once we get down to metaphysics, there are really only two directions you can go:  Reason or Mystery.  That is, do we define man according to an innate existential ability to apprehend Truth, make moral distinctions, and then choose good over evil (or vice versa); or do we define him as merely an epiphenomenon…his consciousness and his will merely an illusion, purely a function of some great, transcendent determinative Force, which we may define as God (or the gods, or the Universal Mind, or Natural Law/Evolution, and so on)?  In other words, can man truly KNOW by what means and to what measure he exists, and can he be certain of what is true and what is not, and from that what is good and what is not, and from that CHOOSE on his own behalf to manifest his existence in a way that is utterly and objectively REAL? Or is Truth infinitely beyond him, because he is not, at essence, himself, but a direct function of some Ultimate Power which controls all things, as all things are, in fact, an absolute function of this Power, Itself.

I don’t expect it will come as any surprise to learn that my friend ultimately appeals to mystery metaphysics.  He is, after all, a consummately orthodox Christian, whereas I have rejected orthodoxy on the grounds that it indeed projects this very brand of metaphysics.  I have rejected the idea that real knowledge is the knowledge that one cannot ever actually know.  And any definition of God which makes everything fundamentally an extension of Himself by hermeneutically wrecking the distinctions between Him and the iterations of His creation, is at root an appeal to Nothing as the root of Truth.  Because if everything IS God, then we cannot ever actually know what God is…because we cannot tell what He is not.  It’s like when we are told that nothing happens which God does not allow.  If this is true, then human choice is impossible for obvious reasons.  And if human choice is impossible, then knowledge is meaningless, which makes “knowledge” itself a contradiction in terms, and thus makes it impossible to KNOW God.  Which means you cannot declare that nothing happens which God does not allow.  Because…who is God?  Shrug.  That’s a mystery.

Now, this is all interesting and is all well and good, but it’s not really the point of this article.  The point of the article is to examine the way in which my friend defended a particular metaphysical assertion towards the end of our discussion.  I questioned the veracity of his claim that man was “fallen” and that God did not consider any “unregenerate” person’s actions to be moral, regardless of whether or not they WERE, in fact, moral. In other words, my friend conceded that man is born with the innate capacity to apprehend Truth and is therefore capable of making moral choices, but that as far as God is concerned, ALL the choices of those who have not confessed Christ as Savior are evil choices.

I demured, saying that if God decides that what is moral is in fact immoral, then he has contradicted Himself by contradicting reason.  How can God value Himself as Good whilst at the same time denouncing man’s good choices—whether he is “unregenerate” or not—as being fundamentally evil?  No God worth his name would conflate evil with good and then have the audacity and lack of self-awareness enough to simultaneously proclaim Himself a MORAL being,  Furthermore, if ALL of man’s choices are evil, then man can never be in a position to accept Christ as Savior, because THAT choice is, to Christians, the apogee of moral action.  God must choose FOR man.

So…let me get this straight.  God must choose Himself, BY (or OF) Himself (that is, from His own will), and somehow this means that man, who has absolutely nothing to do with THAT Choice can now make choices that God now considers to be moral?

Er…

I’m sorry, but this kind of theology is madness, and doesn’t come within a thousand miles of reasonable.  It’s magical thinking…the stuff of children’s fairy tales and old wives tales and superstition.

And yet, what did my friend say in reply?

Exactly what you’d expect.

”But, that’s Bible.”

And that, my friends, is called an argument from authority.  And it is the Christian’s go-to move whenever they find themselves backed into a theological corner.  Always.

You see, it doesn’t matter that the idea is completely devoid of reason, and that it is impossible to explain because how do explain a square circle?  How do you convince someone with words that black is simultaneously white or that up is down or that a bird is a cloud?  You don’t.  Because there are no words for such a task.  Words are the audible expression of ideas, which can only exist if contradiction is excluded from the process of formulating the concepts which are connected together to form those ideas.  If A is NOT distinct from B then neither can be said to exist.  Man cannot express “tree” if “tree” also means “shoe”.

Once Authority has been injected into the discussion, then there IS NO LONGER any discussion because words have become entirely meaningless.  You accept what the Bible says because it’s the Bible and because it’s the Bible you accept what it says.  This is a tautology, and it specifically falls under the category of “argument from authority”.

You see, the argument from authority removes any “why?” from the equation.  There is NO “WHY?” because Authority is FORCE, absolutely, and therefore becomes its own “why?”.  To ask why is to assume you have the right to have something explained to you…but that explanation has been punted entirely out of the realm of Truth.  You OBEY, you don’t ask questions.

So what my friend did, and I like to think unwittingly, is completely nullify the hour of discussion that preceded his declaration that what is an utterly ridiculous, impossible, and intellectually treasonous description of man’s metaphysical state is nevertheless true because the Bible says it.

Well, A, no the Bible doesn’t say it…YOU say it.  I know the Bible, and I can assure you that it makes no such assertion, period.  Full stop.  THAT foolish and evil metaphysic has been smuggled into the pages of the Bible by the gnostic paganist roots of the Augustine/Luther/Calvin theological death cult.  And B, according to your very own admission, the Bible cannot actually say anything because clearly words don’t matter.  The Bible is force, and therefore is not obligated to EXPLAIN a damn thing to you or me or anyone else.  The Bible is nothing more than an idol or a talisman which demands your categorical obedience under threat of terrible punishment.  So how dare you deign to attempt to explain it to me.  How dare you decide that it SAYS something…as if the Sword “says” anything other than “obey or die”.  As if meaning matters.

And this…was sad.  The whole conversation was a bust, I believe.  His declaration was a tacit admission that he has no real interest in what he says he believes, let alone in convincing me of its rational and intellectual integrity.  The point of Christianity is to force the world to obey, nothing more.  Which in actual fact makes its theological apologetics of no more relevance nor interest than any old random jumble of words.  The entirety of Christian orthodoxy has been reduced to mere mouth noises.

So the next time someone says “But, it’s Bible”, take a glance upwards.  See up there?  That’s where you’ll find the guillotine dangling when the political conclusions of that statement are finally realized.

END

 

Christianity and Communism are the Same Thing

Authority, , , , ,

It is an unfortunate and uncomfortable truth that Christianity, since at least the days of Augustine, and Communism, with all of its insipid incarnations, are philosophically and structurally identical. Both have an absolute Ideal to which all people are not only obligated, but of which all people are an absolute function. In Christianity this Ideal is God. In Communism this Ideal is the Working Class…or the People. Now of course in America’s incarnation of Communism, which is more ostensibly of the social type, the Ideal is Diversity, or Social Justice. Of course any person who is even remotely honest with himself  understands that these are simply euphemisms for anti-white racism and (usually white, heterosexual, cisgendered) anti-male sexism. Both have an absolute Authority which exists to force compliance to the Ideal, which means that the Authority possesses the absolute legal right to commit violence against anyone it deems to be in violation of the moral and metaphysical tenets of the Ideal, and which exists as the Ideal’s physical and practical incarnation. In Christianity this Authority is the priesthood class, which also includes typically protestant officials like pastors and various deacons and even “home/care group” leaders. And in Communism this Authority is the Party. Within the Authority is a hierarchy of power which culminates at the top with a single official ultimately wielding the sum and substance of the entire panoply of the power of the Authority. In Christianity this can be the Pope or the Head/Lead Pastor, depending on which denomination is under consideration. And in Communism the top of the Authority pyramid is occupied by the General Secretary, or the Chancellor, or the Fuhrer, or the President, etcetera, etcetera. Both share a common enemy which is given various names at various times in various contexts to whip up popular frenzy against this enemy. However, at root the enemy is simply the individual: he who either implicitly or explicitly believes himself to be a function of himself: to possess himself, and to be the sole vessel which carries the existential (or metaphysical) means and reasons to manifest himself upon his environment–that is, by himself, for himself, and to himself–and who ultimately believes that he alone does, and that he alone may rightly, OWN himself.

God’s Categorical Knowledge is Both Irrelevant and Impossible for Humanity to Know and Claim

Epistemology, Metaphysics, , , , , , , , ,

God knows everything because He is God.

This translates logically to: God = the knowledge of everything.

Said another way: He is God because He knows everything. Only one agent can know everything, and it is by virtue of BEING that agent that all is known. God’s knowledge is not acquired…it is a function of his nature. Omniscience cannot be separated from the very essence of God…His God-ness. Therefore it follows, again, that not only does He know everything because He is God, He is God, because He knows everything. This is a fundamental truth–an axiomatic statement regarding the very foundational natural essence of God–held by all of Christian orthodoxy, and even most non-orthodox factions.

Conversely, man does not know everything. And why does he not know everything? Because he hasn’t yet acquired all knowledge? No. It is proclaimed by orthodoxy that, just as omniscience is a function of God’s nature–that is, a function of being what He is–ABSOLUTE INCOMPLETE knowledge is a function of being man. What man knows will always be incomplete no matter how much he learns because his incomplete knowledge is a function not of what he knows or doesn’t know by virtue of what he has sought to learn or information to which he has been exposed, but of what he IS.  Man does not and cannot know everything because he is man. Thus, we have the following maxim:

Man = the incomplete knowledge of everything.

Man does not know everything because he is man. One agent (or one collection of agents of the same nature–humanity) does not know everything. That agent is man. So, in the same way we declare that man does not know everything because he is Man, we can also declare that He is man because he does not know everything.

*

God = absolute knowledge. Or, God = the possession of absolute knowledge.

Now, ostensibly that sounds pretty reasonable. No red flags are necessarily immediately raised. But look at what happens when we state the logical existential/epistemological corollary of this maxim:

Man = incompleteness of knowledge.  Or, Man = the possession of absolute incomplete knowledge.

See the contradiction? You cannot possess an absolute amount of what is absolutely not absolute. Or said another way, you cannot completely possess that which is incomplete. Or even more concisely, there is no such thing as a complete incomplete.

And yet this is the very pointed logical error the vast majority of Christians and other religious people commit constantly. It is a false assertion that is not supported by the Bible, nor reason. And even worse, it leads to the perpetual undervaluing of human beings which in turn has led, and will surely continue to lead, to the to manipulation and abuse, even outright slavery and murder, of millions, even billions, of innocent people.

Since man is the possessor of absolute incomplete knowledge (which makes his knowledge fundamentally “insufficient” when we apply this epistemology to morality and ethics), it is impossible for him to claim that God knows everything. But here is where it gets even more interesting. In the same way, it is impossible for God to claim that man does NOT know everything. This is because the metaphysical/epistemological frames of reference of God and man are mutually exclusive. Absolute complete knowledge is utterly and infinitely exclusive of absolutely incomplete knowledge, and vice versa. God wouldn’t and couldn’t know–by definition–what a state of incomplete knowledge looks like in order to claim that it exists and is true.  And man wouldn’t and couldn’t know–by definition–what a state of complete knowledge looks like in order to claim it exists and is true. The reason for both of these axioms is that according to the presumptions undergirding the concept of omniscience, knowledge is not a function of learning–it is not a function of possessing an ABILITY to know–but a function of BEING; the static axiom of the root existence of the agent IS the full sum and substance of the KNOWLEDGE of that agent. You see, the folly is in the fusion of metaphysics and epistemology…what man is BECOMES what man knows, and the same is true for God. Knowledge is inexorably fused to that which does the knowing. This is a shocking bastardization of philosophy; not to mention a strangling of reason.

What it does, ultimately, is eradicat the relevancy of knowledge by destroying the agent which does the knowing. By fusing metaphysics with epistemology both are eliminated. Knowledge has no meaning nor purpose–it is ossified in pointlessness–because what man and God are as agents who are ABLE to know but in essence fully distinct from that knowledge, is erased.

In other words, the moral and volitional agent–God, man–is removed, and thus we make the concept of “knowing” irrelevant, since there can thus be no agent to know anything.

One final nail in the coffin of the perfectly absurd notion of divine omniscience:

If we claim that God knows everything, then this must of course include the fact that man does not know everything. Or rather, God knows the incomplete knowledge of man.

Hmm…that doesn’t sound quite right, does it?

What man knows becomes by definition a part of the “everything” that God knows. So then man’s categorical incomplete knowledge–his absolute LACK of knowledge–becomes a part of God’s complete knowledge.

Ummmm…no. This has ceased to make any sense whatsoever. It’s not even ostensibly rational. We aren’t within a hundred miles of even convincing  sophism at this point.

If we say that God has an absolutely complete knowledge which includes the knowledge of man’s absolutely incomplete knowledge (his “completely incomplete” knowledge), we have attempted to integrate an absolute negative–NOT knowing–with an absolute positive–knowing. Which is a contradiction.

But wait. It gets even better. And by “better”, I mean “more egregious”.

If God’s absolutely complete knowledge is a part of the absolutely incomplete knowledge of man, to the point where man can say with confidence that “God knows everything”, then God’s absolutely complete knowledge becomes part of man’s absolutely incomplete knowledge.  We have attempted to integrate an absolute positive–knowing–with an absolute negative–NOT knowing. So we’ve committed the same logical blunder, only this time with a level arrogance that only the rationally challenged, “humble”, orthodoxy-devoted, “doctrinally sound” followers of God, seem to possess. The idea that a lowly, totally depraved, wholly unrighteousness and violence-worshipping human worm can make some sort of claim as to what GOD knows is the very hypocrisy, presumption, and rebellion of which these people regularly accuse everyone else.

It is a staggeringly offensive doctrine, is my point.

At any rate, the entire idea of omniscience is stillborn. It cannot survive its birth because its mother is contradiction.

The conclusion then of the claim of divine omniscience is clear:  it is a rational failure.  It cannot be true.  There is no way that man can know that God knows everything and thus claim that God knows everything. I hope that I have sufficiently explained why doing this is a lie.

 

The Christian Does Not Die, He Becomes Death: Spiritual Marxism masquerading as the Christian orthodox ideal, Part 17

Calvinism/Philosophy, Metaphysics, , , , ,

Discussion Questions:

1.  Have you ever felt like you had insight and clarity into someone else’s poor decision?  Did you say anything?  How did it turn out?

(Community:  Your pathway to progress, pp. 35. North Point Ministries, 2008)

Let’s examine the profound and irrational assumptions/presumptions which form the philosophical roots of this “discussion” question (one of three we will examine), according to the spurious standard of today’s “doctrinally sound” Christian church.  Remember that in this series of articles on spiritual Marxism, using North Point Ministries’ small group booklet as my reference, we have been examining the doctrinal premises–and their ideological spawn–of today’s neo-Calvinist, neo-Reformed church movement, which is quickly becoming, or has become, the Christian movement of the 21st century in America, in general.

What is presented in this essay is based upon the philosophical ideals underwriting Christianity today, some of which we have  discussed in the Spiritual Marxism series already.  However, I believe that it is possible to read this essay without having read the previous ones and not be too terribly confused.  As usual, my penchant for verbosity tends to fill in most of the informational gaps which might otherwise be present in the essay of a more concise writer.

*

Here again is the discussion question:

Have you ever felt like you had insight and clarity into someone else’s poor decision? Did you say anything?  How did it turn out?

What we must understand with respect to the collectivism implicit in Christianity today, particularly of the neo-Reformed/neo-Calvinist type, is that, for these spiritual Marxists, the Group understands the existential context of the individual better than he or she does, at any given moment, and with respect to any issue, and any situation.  This is because “Group”, as I’ve explained before, is the primary metaphysic.  The irreducible ontological state of existence for any human being is not the Self, but the Collective. The individual is a direct function of the group with which he or she affiliates, not the other way around.  The key to existence then is finding the “right”, or the “True” group, and affiliating yourself with it, after which, through the epistemological enlightenment of the group (understanding how you know what you can know), you come to realize that YOU never actually had anything to do with joining, or finding, the group after all.  You became affiliated with the group, not by choice, but because you were determined into it…for determinism is, in fact, the only possible causal source of everything within a universe where Group, or Collective, is the sum and substance of all there is.

In Christianity today, the “Church” is the only ACTUAL, legitimate thing. It is All in All.  And “God” is its essence…which is merely the same thing as saying God IS the Group, the Group is God.  There is no relevant difference.  And what this means–and is the whole point of fabricating a Collectivist metaphysic in the first place–is that those who claim the divine mandate to rule the group, which is correlated to their special revelation/enlightenment, means that they, and no one else, (because God works through them, alone) possess an infinite Authority over everyone else.  This literally enslaves ALL of mankind to the subjective whims of a single person or small group of people, forever and absolutely.  And that, like I said, is precisely what all of the heady-sounding doctrine is all about.

So…back to the determinism which drove you into the “loving” arms of your Collective–the One, True Collective which governs and controls all things via its oneness to the Primary Consciousness.  Or, in this case “God” (and I use “God” in quotes, incidentally, because by no means should we think that these despots in any way have any actual affiliation with the real God…for He forbids such a thing I am convinced, and has nothing, I submit, to do with them in ANY measure according to their doctrine, which denies His truth as thoroughly as it denies yours and mine):

The “Group” as represented by that transcendent and infinite and immaterial Consciousness realized its Will upon your life, and you, helpless to resist because you have no actual will of your own, complied. Therefore, the answer to the question now begged–“What is the TRUE group, as opposed to one of the panoply of impostors?”–is simple:  The Group to which you were determined MUST be the True Group, otherwise you could not be counted among it.  See, since only the True Group has the True Consciousness which can determine all things, you could only ever have chosen to join to the Group to which you now belong.  There was no choice, you might say.  Otherwise, you would not have chosen it.

It is a tautology, you see.  The proof that you were determined to the group is that you chose it.  You chose because you were determined, and you were determined because you chose.  “A is A” is not a law of identity in this instance, it is a tautology, and this is a great example.  Whatever you chose to do you did because you were determined to choose it.  Choice and determinism are equivalent.  Another way of putting it is that choice is A and determinism is A.  A is A.  The Law of Identity is satisfied. Which is, incidentally, why so many smart people fall for this kind of thinking.  (Incidentally, the ease with which Aristotle’s Law of Identity can be conformed to the collectivist metaphysic by applying it to abstract concepts (actions) which are necessarily a function of material objects (concrete existence) is startling.  It is a strong argument for doubting the rationality and veracity of that Law.)

I understand the massive cognitive dissonance that is endemic to this ideology, and the need to suspend disbelief in order to make the rational leap from the discussion question to its answer.  Nevertheless, once we concede, as Christianity today does, that the metaphysical primary is not the Individual, but the Collective–the Group–we understand that this is the only possible answer which is consistent with the premise.

*

In Christianity, the Consciousness of the Group is “God”, naturally, and it is His “Sovereign Will” which “controls all things”.  It is “God” then to whom the fleshly incarnations of Himself, the Pastors (and the lesser deities, the Small Group Leaders) appeal, in order to physically and psychologically compel the unwashed masses into “right thinking” and “right behavior”.  Therefore, God compelled you into the Small Group at North Point Ministries (or whatever other neo-Marxist spiritual trap into which you may have fallen), to be instructed and ultimately governed (forced) in the ways of the One True Collective (the “Church”) by those who claim the authority to do so.  And since those who claim this authority are God’s proxies, which makes them God to you, or God qua God, for all relevant intents and purposes, the answer to this discussion question leveled at us above, “Have you ever felt like you  had insight and clarity into someone else’s poor decision?”, is…

Yes.  And no.  As a group member, yes.  As an individual whose depravity only allows him to view reality from the singularity of Self, no.  I am divine, but I am also wicked.  I am aware, and I am also blind.

Let’s break it down.

Yes, of course.  Of course you’ve felt like you had insight and clarity into someone else’s poor decision. And, as corollary to this, of course you’ve been the one to make a poor decision, and thus have had to defer your will and your mind to another person.  Maybe even the person upon which you are now, ironically, passing judgement even as he simultaneously passes judgement upon you.

This ostensibly contradictory answer is utterly demanded by the acceptance of the Group AS Self metaphysic.  As a member of the one True Group you’ve been given the divine perception afforded to everyone who understands his or her nature as entirely a function of the Church, which really means the Authority of the Pastors and their representatives, the subordinate, lesser deities, which include the Small Group Leaders.  Because you have absorbed the explications, explanations, and presumptions of “Sound Doctrine”, you have the divine, unmitigated, and inerrant authority, bestowed by spiritual osmosis,  to pronounce judgement upon anyone, anywhere, at any time, for anything which does not comply forthrightly with said doctrine, regardless of the presence of contexts or circumstances which you could not possibly understand, and may confidently declare the perpetrator utterly ignorant, morally bankrupt, and insane, worthy of all manner of death and destruction.  The slightest disagreement or inconsistency with what you know must be the infallible “Word of God” simply by being a “Church Member” invites you to offer a thoroughly justified condemnation on behalf of the Group, and a demand (disguised as “counsel”, or “advice”) that thinking and behavior be brought to heel..or else.

(As an aside, please realize that understanding of the “Word of God” doesn’t have anything to do with understanding qua understanding at all.  It merely means that one can, if even in the most remedial of ways, parrot back the presumptions, assertions, premises, axioms, and maxims to which he or she pledges fealty as function of their affiliation with the True Collective.)

In other words, because you go to True Church–one approved by the doctrinal standards of “orthodoxy” (whatever that means)–you know everything.  As the Group knows, you also know.

On the flip side, however, you, being an unremitting and unrepentant sinner by nature, categorically depraved and infinitely insufficient to any moral thing, act, or idea, abstract or concrete, you MUST sin, and sin perpetually, because the very fact that you possess an awareness of SELF, as an individual, demands that the entirely of your observance of the entirety of your existence is false.  And more than false, it is the very archetype of evil.  You can do no good thing; you can think no good thing; you can see, hear, and speak no good thing.  Because you ARE, according to the Fall of Man who is Perpetually Falling, no good thing, and absolutely so.

Thus, in equal measure as the enlightened one, bringing the all-seeing eye of the “Church” to bear upon your fellow man to level judgement and command repentance and recompense, you are also the Sinner.  The Evil One.  The one who will make mistakes, because he IS the mistake.  Therefore, as you give your unsolicited rebukes, condemnations, warnings, exhortations, demands, and absolutes to your fellow man, so you will prostrate yourself before his.

Because according to the extremely loose logic of “sound doctrine”, rooted in the Ethical (moral) primary of “Total Depravity” and the metaphysical primary of Existence through Church Membership, the only real purpose of the discussion question at the top of this essay is to promote the following ideal:

You can judge others, but you cannot judge yourself.  Your awareness proves efficacious only when it is applied to the existence of another; but it is utterly incapable of serving you, because you qua you do not possess by nature the existential sufficiency to awareness.  That is, to Truth.

And this eventually distills down into this very evil premise:

You can be the Group, but you cannot be yourself.  And this is because what a seemingly innocuous and innocent little book on small groups is desperately and yet so surreptitiously demanding is that you accept the ideal that you are Evil Self AND Perfect Group, and the paradoxical distinction denies you a reality of your own, which makes you dependent upon that of the Church leadership.  You have insight, and you lack it.  You speak truth to sin, and you wickedly deny sin.  You receive the truth with grace, and you stubbornly resist and worship Satan.  You are both the dark and the light.  The Is and the Is not.  You are Individual inside Collective.

And now, at last, we arrive at the real answer to the question above.  The only one that matters…and they know it.  It’s not about groups, its not about church, its not about God. It’s about control.  The control which flows from a fabricated reality they create for everyone else.  A reality which convinces you that…

You are you and you are not you.

You are an existential contradiction.  A positive added to a negative.  A zero sum.  A blank.  An infinite everything with a nature of infinite nothingness.  In other words…

You’re worse than dead.  You are Death.

 

Christian Tyranny: The Ben Carson Presidency

Calvinism/Philosophy, Metaphysics, , , , ,

When it comes to the governing of any given society, discussions of  “government”, its structure and purpose, are always an appeal to authority. Keep this in mind.  It is axiomatic.

According to both the religious and secular collectivists (people who assume that man is most fully and truly represented in existence by groups, as opposed to individually) human depravity is the moral essence of man’s ontological state (ontology = the nature of being).  In other words, at the metaphysical level (the level of existence), man is depravity.  And what depravity is, is the idea that man, for some reason or another, depending on the ideological context (e.g. religious versus economic (e.g. Marxism)) MUST be governed by an outside authority in order to ensure his survival.

(As an aside, it should be understood that the contextual reasons for man’s depravity are ultimately immaterial.  For the functional conclusion of this ideology is always the same, no matter who holds it or why:  the death of the individual–the death of Self.)

Man must be governed by representatives of the collective abstraction (which, again, can vary depending on the ideological context: the State versus the Church, for example).  Because absent government, due to the individual’s inherent depravity, man is doomed to an anarchist orgy of sin and death.  Individually, it is assumed, human beings lack the sufficiency to “rational” and “organized” existence, thus they are determined to exist immorally, and ultimately, futilely without the forced coercion of government, which has been established by “providence” (and what constitutes “providence” again depends on the ideological context) to organize existence FOR, not FROM, mankind.

As I said in the opening sentence of this article, Government appeals to authority.  But authority appeals to force; and it is only by force that a man depraved–a man inadequate by nature to existence–can survive.  But before we go any further with this thought, allow me to discuss just briefly this idea of “existence”, because it is always to the end of man’s “rational” existence that collectivist ideologues push the notion of survival by, of, and to government.  By advocating their collectivist metaphysic, they explain that they are merely conceding the reality of existence.  Though masked as an objective metaphysic itself–which it isn’t–“Existence” becomes itself an ideology; it becomes a byword for the moral end of the abstract ideal to which they, by force of government, seek compel humanity. In other words, they need to force you INTO your existence.  In and of yourself, you, being entirely depraved and insufficient to life, cannot exist.  “Existence” also, you will notice, is a euphemism for “reality”.  Reality IS existence, and force is required to manifest both for the individual.

“Existence” is always the subjective abstraction to which every collectivist ideology claims to derive its reason, or rationale.  That is, individual human existence qua existence is ironically the reason man must be forced , through violence or deception or threats into Self-denial…into the collective authority’s idea  of what it means for the individual to BE.  And this is consistent with the ubiquitous and common appeal in all collectivist ideologies to the “reality outside of man”–and there is some variety of this notion in almost everything, from Marxism, to Objectivism, to scientific empiricism, and so on.  What this functionally means is that the individual can only truly exist by rejecting what he is told is the fallacy of  his own, individual and singular existential context…that is, the reality of Self, which they always claim is, at its root, subjective.  In other words, the individual is told, ironically, that he only really exists by accepting the idea that he doesn’t actually exist at all.

By this (backwards) logic, even man’s very birth can only occur under the auspices of the collectivist system (e.g. the “laws of physics/nature”) or society (e.g. the Workers Utopia; economic egalitarianism; the Church Body).  This presumes that such a collectivist system or society must have existence prior to the birth of human beings.  Of course, this is an impossible scenario because without the existence of the human being, there is absent the necessary frame of reference by which the collective could be organized or structured in the first place.

What all of this means is that man survives at the pleasure of the Collective, and in geopolitical terms, we refer to the Collective as the State.  And by the State, what we mean, practically speaking, is the Government; or, more specifically, the human Authorities which are the fleshly incarnation of the Collective Will.  And this means that individuals are obliged to serve the State for their own “good”…for their own existence, not the other way around.

For a man like Ben Carson, who professes to a belief in the sovereign (read, deterministic) Will of God, how is the State defined?  What is Government?  What is its role and purpose?  Its not particularly difficult to figure out.  Naturally, the Government is an institution established by God to enforce His Will, collectively.  And by that I mean, of course, upon society.  The Church, on the other hand, though intimately tied to the Government, is that institution–ruled by its own specific incarnate Authority of the Divine Will–which establishes the governing principles, interpreted from the Holy Texts (“God’s Word”) by divinely enlightened priests, which the State’s Authority (e.g. President Carson) will, through the establishment of specific “secular” law, level upon society through violence and threats of violence by its monopoly of force.

Ben Carson says that he “follows the doors God opens”.  This means that if he happens to become President, it is, according to his doctrine, because God wants it that way.  God determined him into the Presidency.  Any effort on his part or the part of the voters is entirely tangential, and ultimately irrelevant.  And what is it that God wants him to do then?  Does He want Carson to govern as though it is his duty to ensure the right of the individual to exist as though what God wants is NOT the individual’s obligation?

Of course not.  This is completely at odds with what Carson believes will have thrust him into the Presidency in the first place.  It is contrary to his entire existential belief system.  It is, for him, an impossible consideration.  It is an idea which simply cannot hold any efficacy.  It cannot possibly be true.  The idea of an individual’s Self determinism is utterly exclusive of Carson’s metaphysical premise: that man is a function of God’s Will. Period.  For Carson, “individual” existence is an affront to the “truth” of DIVINE REALITY.

Carson’s duty as President is for him to function as a direct extension of God’s sovereign and determining Will.  That idea is a function of his doctrine; and that doctrine assumes the metaphysic of man’s natural depravity.  And that means that man will be sacrificed to the State.  Because Carson does not and cannot make the existential, functional, practical, or moral distinction between the people, the government, and God’s Will.  “God’s Will” becomes the entirety of his metaphysics…and by that I mean it is the nature of ALL existence.  Therefore, there is no room for human beings–for individuals.  There is only the antagonism of God by the individual’s claim, either conscious or as a behavioral byproduct of his “depravity”,  to possess a separate, distinct existence of his own, and the requisite, perpetual, and  violent conflict which this claim demands.  And this means, when all the sophism and rhetoric is cleared away, that Ben Carson’s job as President is this, and this alone:  the subjugation of the individual for the purpose of eradicating the existential and moral affront which the individual’s presence presents to God’s Sovereignty.  Only the abstraction of “God’s Will” is Truth.  Only the abstraction of his “Sovereign Purpose” has a right to BE.  The individual presents a direct challenge to God because he lays claim to his own existence.  But this anomalous existence is one of depravity and insufficiency.  Therefore it must be governed, and that’s what Ben Carson will do.

But always remember that within the collectivist mindset, which is Carson’s mindset I submit, Government is Authority and Authority is Force. To govern the individual is to compel his life in service to the collective abstraction. That is, to govern the individual, according to the collectivist metaphysic, is to destroy him.

How Does The Totally Depraved Person “Invite” or “Permit” the Counsel of the Divine Pastoral Authority?: Spiritual Marxism Masquerading as the Christian Orthodox Ideal, Part 16

General Philosophy, Metaphysics, , , , , , , , ,

“Or maybe you’ve watched a friend make an ill-advised purchasing decision.  It’s amazing how we can have such clear insight into the poor choices of our friends and family members.  If you’re connected to other people, there’s a good chance somebody has equally clear insight into implications of the decisions you’re faced with.  The only way to benefit from their clear thinking–the only way to avoid the deceitfulness of sin–is to invite their input…

We must understand that solid commitments and deep convictions just aren’t enough…  Who, outside of your family, has permission to talk to you and challenge you, if need be, about the things going on in your life?  Who’s close enough to warn you if you begin to drift?”

(Community:  Your pathway to progress, pp. 33, 34. North Point Ministries, 2008)

Notice the irony implicit in the use of these words…the ones I’ve put into bold print above:  “invite”, “permission”.

Do you see it?

Not yet?  Okay, let me give you another hint.

“–the only way to avoid the deceitfulness of sin–is to invite their input.”

Do you see it now?

Well, certainly some of you do.  For those of you who do not, don’t feel bad.  It’s really not a measure of your perceptive capabilities, nor your intellect.  It’s more a measure of how these spiritual Marxists excel at deception, which is the modern currency with which they buy their followers.  It has taken me years to develop my skills at spotting the fly in the ointment from a mile away, and your erudition will develop as well, in due time.  And once you see it…well, you will not be able to un-see it.  You will be called a skeptic, a doubter, a conspiracy theorist, overreacting, presumptive, and paranoid.  But what you’ll really be is smart.  What you’ll really be is someone who they can no longer exploit in service to there own interminable worldly appetites.

Notice the incongruent and contradictory relationship between a metaphysic which declares that you are, at the very fundamental root of your nature–your being, your existential seed–utterly insufficient to existence to the point where if you are not fully integrated into the Christian Marxist hive (the “church”) you can make no claim to existence at all, nor to the idea that you must “invite” or “give permission” to the collective (“the body”; “the nation”, the “race”, the “tribe”, the “people”, the “workers”…but in this case, specifically, the divine proxy known as the “small group”, which answers directly to the North Point Ministry autocracy known as the Pastorate, ruled by the Protestant Pope, the “Senior Pastor”).

Understand that you cannot make a claim that any one in possession of a “sinful nature”, which is the full sum and substance of his existence, has any natural right to invite people who MUST intervene in order to compel integration to the the group for that person’s “own good” (remember, according to the text I quoted, other people (the collective) inserting themselves into your life is the ONLY way to avoid the deceitfulness of sin).

Here’s a thought:  In order for one to give permission to the group to perform the daily ritual of intervention one must possess the inherent intellectual and psychological faculties necessary to determine truth from fiction, and good from evil.  But notice also how impossible this must be for someone whose nature is TOTALLY Depraved.  Who functions, above all else, always and entirely according to a “sin nature” which is utterly destructive to the individual, to the point where any rational “existence” by such an entirely debauched individual is fully impossible.

You see, since your depravity is infinite and absolute, there is no way to define SELF as somehow distinct from it.  This being the case, there can be no one who is capable of of the kind of intellectual and psychological attributes necessary to discern reality enough in order to make an invitation or to give permission to anything, or anyone, regarding any doctrine whatsoever.  Since you are entirely a function of your depravity, you must be blind to whatever “benevolent” reality North Point Ministries is so arrogantly and deceptively and so fucking blithely asking you to choose to “invite” into your life.   And this is because you, being entirely a function of your absolute depravity, cannot be distinct from it. Which means there is no way for you to discern reality at all, in order to make a value judgement concerning which group you “invite” to speak to you, and to ensure your safe travels upon the road of righteousness…a road which you must inevitably miss unless you “invite” the collective’s leadership to lead (force) you upon it.  But to be able to invite–to be able to give permission–is to be able to see the road to salvation for yourself.  But it is clear by the appeals to the metaphysic of man’s total depravity that this is simply not possible.  According to the doctrine of Total Depravity, and the adherence to the idea of the abject Fall of Man, and the categorical acceptance of man’s Original Sin which thus MUST determine man to self-destruction in the form of infinite and interminable torment in hell fire, man is no more inherently capable of seeing the road to salvation than he is of flying to the moon by flapping his arms.  In which case to “invite” the Small Group to come along and assist him in traversing it is obviously and demonstrably impossible.

Make no mistake then, the words “invite” and “permission” are simply there as tools used by these tyrants to diffuse skepticism.  To deceive people into thinking that there is some kind of cooperation being effected here.  This is the kind of conscious and intentional deception these evil institutions use to coerce otherwise intelligent men and women into surrendering the entirety of their lives and resources to the wolves who in past centuries and in past societies would have skipped the sophism and propaganda altogether and simply used threats of violence to compel people into the pews, and murdered those who refused or dissented.

*

“To invite their input”.

Listen, diplomatic terms like “invite” imply that one by natural right has full possession of his life and property.  Indeed, it implies that the only means by which anyone can legitimately seek to influence you–and the purposes and promises and objectives you have set for yourself by your own ideas and your own volition as an autonomous, fully sentient and fully competent agent–is to seek your permission; to entreat your invitation.  And this not by sophism or by deceit, but by appealing to your sense of Self…that is, by appealing to the idea that what they are proposing is that which brings value to the realization of your own existence, in a way which ultimately benefits YOU.  And by YOU–by Self–I mean one who is fully capable to his or her own existence, by nature, and thus possesses fully the means by which to discern fact from fiction, and therefore good from evil; one who employs reason as a means by which to promote the Self, which is the only rational context of existence, and that promoting Self, then, is the very definition of morality.

A casual examination of the doctrines of Protestant Orthodoxy reveals that this definition of Self utterly incompatible with the religion.  There is simply no fucking way any professing Protestant in good standing can with a straight face describe man’s Self the way I have done so above.  The metaphysic of man as an agent fully aware of himself, fully in possession of epistemological faculties resulting in a right and good discernment of truth, could not be further from the metaphysic of Christianity today, which makes no pretense of any notion of man which does not fully condemn him to abject self-annihilation to the point of rendering man fully non-existent even upon his birth, due to his categorical and singular fusion with the abstractions of “depravity”, “evil”, “fallen”, “insufficient”, “unable”, and “unholy”. In other words, the metaphysical presumptions endemic and categorical in Christianity today (and every day since Augustine, for that matter), which guide the entirety of the doctrinal cannon espoused in churches across the globe scream in bloodcurdling fashion a contradiction to the notion that anyone has any right, or any rational, psychological, or intellectual means, to “invite” or “give permission”.

I mean, the absurdity of it all makes one question whether or not he is awake or still in bed dreaming.

Nevertheless, this is what is touted.  And this is what people accept as reasonable.  This is what Christians pass off as “truth”.

God help us.

Look, it’s very simple.  The church today all but announces with every worship song and in every sermon in every church in America that you have no motherfucking right to self ownership. And that the sum and substance of all evil is to be found in the presumption that man is somehow an actual sentient and fully capable agent, fully divested with and fully sufficient to self ownership and thus possesses the necessary right to his own life…to do with it what he or she pleases in whatever fashion he or she decides, and that since in the name of rational consistency, ALL men and women must have this very same natural right, there can be no such thing as the idea that rationally and morally working out one’s existence can somehow violate the right of another human being to manifest his or her own existence; and that this, and nothing else, is the rational means to both individual existence, and the co-existence of individuals with other individuals.

No.  The church today will die, literally and figuratively, upon this hill:  that existence is fully a function of a metaphysic contrary to self-ownership and the sufficiency to one’s own existence, and that without the FORCE (the violent coercion) by those men who don title’s such as “Minister” or “Pastor” or “Father” and appoint themselves as divine proxies and then proceed to demand that the laity make no practical distinction between proxy and Deity, there can be no such thing as a human race at all.

So know this:

When they say “invite”, they mean they will invite themselves.

When they say “permission”, they mean they will permit themselves.

They will help themselves to a full portion of your life and property, because that, by their own doctrine, is their divine right.  And whatever you want?  Whatever you decide on your own behalf?

Doesn’t exist.

Your Absolute Dependence Upon Pastoral “Authority” for an Efficacious Rendering of Reality (i.e. Your Sanity): Part FOURTEEN of “Collectivism Masquerading as the Christian Orthodox Ideal”

Calvinism/Philosophy, Epistemology, Metaphysics, , , , , , , , , ,

“Let’s face it; we’re all prone to wander.”  (P. 32, “Community: Your pathway to progress; North Point Ministries, 2008)

Well…no.  This is simply not true.  Useless conjecture; but even worse, it is patently deceptive.

We are not ALL prone to wander.  I could rattle off a half dozen people off the top of my head who I know are not “prone to wander”…whatever that means; I’m guessing here, because they haven’t defined it.

Ah…now that’s telling isn’t it?

Tell you what.  Hold that thought for a sec.

Furthermore, how in the hell is it possible to empirically verify such an assertion?  Did the authors interview every human being on earth both alive and dead to determine if they ever wandered?  And who decides what it means to “wander”?  And by what criteria and what consensus do they decide? And did the subjects they interviewed concede the definition?  And if they did not concede the definition, were they then excluded from the survey?  And if they were not excluded, by what rationale did the researchers decide it was legitimate and consistent with objective research protocol to disregard the opinions of the subjects with respect to the proper definition of terms?  And further, if they WERE excluded, does not that invalidate the initial claim–that “We are ALL prone to wander”–because, if some people are excluded from the survey, is not the hypothesis automatically disqualified on the basis that not ALL people were interviewed?

Also, what makes them the experts on what constitutes “wandering”? I mean, we can probably agree that, say, farming, homesteading, sharecropping, and squatting are pretty obviously not “wandering”.  But what about hunter-gatherer societies? Are they considered wandering? What about military families who move a lot?  Or traveling salesmen, or musicians, or acting troupes, or circuses?  Do they suffer from the blight of wandering as defined by North Point Ministries?  Should we demand they stop being so damn irresponsible and grow roots and put them down?  Or…um…is “wandering” merely a figurative term?

Hm…yes.  I think we may be on to something.

*

You see, once we understand that “wandering” is a euphemism for “sin”, and that only the “orthodox” ecclesiastical authority is allowed to define “sin”, this obviously absurd and impossible-to-substantiate claim (“we are all prone to wander”) is quickly revealed as an important and foundational part of the American Church’s very profitable deception.

Now, I’m sure it has, at this point, not escaped your attention that the author does not define “wander”.  And that, incidentally, is a glaring omission common in reformed literature, since the days of Calvin and Luther…at least.  You see, “sin” is never specifically defined in writings dealing with doctrine; and that’s because sin as a concept must have a fluid definition in order for it to be profitable as a tool of manipulation.  In other words, “sin” is whatever the ecclesiastical authority–(defined as those “standing in the stead of God” to shepherd (compel by violence, threats, or both) your spiritual “walk” (trail of tears))…yes, “sin” is whatever the ecclesiastical authority says it is at any given moment, in any given circumstance.  This way they can control the moral narrative of your life, and by this control the practical fruits of your labor; your existence.  Which is the whole point. The treasure is not in heaven as they have told you, but rather it is the fruit of your labor, and it is meant to flow upward, to the top of the hierarchical pyramid…and this is collectivism 101.  The government (the moral and intellectual supreme authority) of the church, just as it is in Marxist autocracies, is the only agency which really matters.  Said in an ironic way, you exist to NOT exist…that is, you exist to be sacrificed categorically to those who are “called” to ‘lead” you–where “lead” is a euphemism for “possess”.

You see, according to the metaphysic of reformed doctrine, there is no “you” distinct or autonomous from your “sin” (the reformed human metaphysic being, succinctly stated: man IS Evil; or man IS Sin).  Thus, in the process of purging you from your “sin nature”, YOU, the self-aware agent, must also be purged (and your awareness is an illusion at best; however, a self-indulgent lie and proof of your categorical apostasy probably better describes how individual consciousness is perceived by the eldership).  This purging is most effectively accomplished by destroying your cognitive ability to anchor yourself to a rationally consistent conceptual paradigm. And this is done by constantly manipulating the meaning of terms so that you remain in a perpetual state of confusion with regards to apprehending reality; that is, through manipulating concepts by implicitly teaching the constant vacillation of the meaning of words, the ecclesiastical leadership keeps you permanently dependent upon them for your sanity.  A denial of their “authority” is a denial of reality and condemns you to a state of madness from which there can be no salvation.  Of any kind.  Because “salvation” (or “Christ”, or “God”, or “YOU”) cannot have any meaning at all apart from their AUTHORITY.  That is, without them interpreting your life FOR you, you cannot tell which way is up or down.  You are as likely to wind up in hell as in heaven, and it doesn’t matter anyway because there is no functional difference.  It’s all misery because it is all undecipherable, disconnected images combined with sounds and utterances that have no reference in objective reality.   Truly it is psychological abuse and manipulation of the worst kind.  And psychological abuse is the worst kind of hell, because it lives INSIDE you.  There is no escape.  And this is why the American Spiritual Industrial Complex is so insanely profitable.  The threat of hell is, or can be, in a sense, and ironically, the worst kind of hell.  And make no mistake, it is FEAR which drives the payroll.  It is the insertion of a living and active hell into the minds of men which makes men dependent on any half-witted knob who merely claims, with absolutely no appeal to reason whatsoever and none asked for,  to have the “words of eternal life”.

*

Now, a rational definition of “sin” is pretty much that of which any sane person will assume; a definition, incidentally (for all your biblicists), one could easily garner by an honest, unfiltered, and unmolested examination of Scripture:  don’t do things that violate the the sanctity (the right to individual self-ownership) of your neighbor.  Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t covet, don’t blaspheme…pretty straightforward moral standards not unlike those found in a rather significant, but oft ignored (because it’s far too easy, you see), moral code known as the Ten Commandments.  But since ALL of Scripture is merely a function of the Reformed “gospel narrative”, the ability to grasp the true meaning of these moral imperatives eludes you, because you, unlike your Pastor, have not been given the divine enlightenment necessary to determine for yourself what “not-coveting” or “not lying” or “not stealing” really looks like (remember, they must provide the definitions for you, moment by moment by moment, in perpetuity…for this is the only reference for “reality”…for conceptual meaning).  Thus, your pastoral “authority” is forced to interpret the “narrative of reality” for you, because you, having not been called to stand-in-the-stead as they have, and thus having NOT been divinely bequeathed enlightenment (for according to reformed epistemology, truth is not learned but is bestowed) you cannot possibly understand the Ten Commandments because you cannot possibly understand what sin really is because your absolute sin-nature has precluded you from any reference of a rationally consistent reality by which you could interpret “sin” in the first place.  Simply put:  since your consciousness is an illusion, you cannot define anything you claim to see.  Thus, they must define everything for you, according to their pastoral “enlightenment”, and this “enlightenment” is the utterly irrational metaphysical construct of a “gospel-centered” interpretation of ALL reality; which is ironic because such an interpretive lens makes defining “reality” in any rational sense impossible.

It is by no accident that the interpretation of reality always begins and ends with discussions, though no consistent definitions, of “sin”; that is, sin is always a function of the present context; it is always in the NOW, which is why even after salvation we are all still “functional” sinners (active reprobates by nature); sin is NEVER relegated to the past; there is no cure for sin because there is no cure for YOU; your existence IS, and IS NOW, and thus sin is always “with you” because sin IS you. 

This is done to serve the narrative that your sin is perpetual, of course; that there is absolutely no moment of your life which is untainted or untouched by your debauched nature.  If they can convince you that you are always doing wrong simply by breathing, they can convince you that doing right is quite impossible, but only if it is outside of their “covering” of course. Naturally then, and quite logically, being humanity’s “covering” is a highly lucrative position.  And this is why there are so many churches, and so many wealthy churches, with so many very wealthy “shepherds”.

So now you understand why there is no consistent definition of sin, as you might see in the Ten Commandments where morality is referenced to the autonomy and right-to-life and right-to-self-ownership of the self-aware agent (God and Man).  “Sin” is only ever remotely  defined with any specificity when the ecclesiasty perceives a threat–real or imagined–to their authority; their ex post facto ownership of your mind, body, and property.  “How dare you question our beliefs?” They say.  “How dare you question our vision and how dare you impose the temerity of your blindness upon us? Your gossip and your lies and your recalcitrance trail behind you like a cloud of darkness, infecting and corrupting all the wonderful things God is doing in our church family. You are probably not even saved.  In fact, no…you are not saved.  I declare it. And I will rattle my keys under your nose in mockery of your apostasy.” Yes, this is the only time sin is given anything even approximating an objective definition.

And if this sounds too profound to be true…if you are curling your lips and upturning your nose at the absurdity of my assertions, well…then whatever “God-appointed” authority to which you’ve been lending your ear is admittedly doing his or her job with exceeding facility.  You are supposed to think people like me merely polemic.  You are supposed to recoil in fear and wince horror at such suggestions.  You are supposed to blow raspberries at anyone who would dare question the motives of those who have everything to gain from exploiting your love and, even worse, your fears, and who make it a blatant point to reject reason and to offer no further apologetic for their doctrines than “who can ever really understand His ways? [shrug]”.  You are supposed to instinctively reject any possible connection between the doctrines they teach and the destructive outcomes so frequently observed in the American Church (child sexual abuse, financial scandals, sexual harassment and exploitation of women, embarrassing and psyche-demolishing church-splits, heartless and vindictive attitudes towards non-believers, open and unrepentant hypocrisy amongst the leadership, rejections of Christ en masse by former believers…to name just a few).

They’ve been perfecting their approach for thousands of years.  Your knee-jerk rejection to the idea that you could possibly be exploited by these people for their own selfish benefit, either willfully or out of ignorance, is proof that practice has indeed made perfect.  I mean, let’s face it:  you won’t be convinced to jump in front of a train unless someone spends a lot of time practicing the approach necessary to convince you that your life is ultimately beside the point; that the train cannot go where it must go with you in the way…and that being in the way means existing at all.  That is, and ironically, unless you jump directly in front of the speeding train, you cannot help but to hinder its divine mission, which, you have been convinced, is somehow worse for you than rejecting the very life you believe God created and gave you in the first place!

Yes, and thus, like the proverbial frog slowly boiling to death, you sit in the sanctuary and stare at the plexiglass podium and nod at your reformed pastor’s message dutifully, unaware of the grave reality of your condition.  And upon hearing my message you psychologically assume the fetal position, terrified at my hyperbole and paranoia.

You see, for me to declare to some people that their lives matter and that human life matters has become a yarn of madness to them, and sends them into  fits of moral indignation, a sputtering of denial, and compels them to cry aloud “God-hater!” and “Heretic!”.

And when they’ve finished, I confidently proclaim my case rested.

According to the Duggar Girls, Sexually Assaulting Siblings is an Entirely Normal Part of Male Puberty

Calvinism/Philosophy, ,

I watched a bit of the interview of the Duggar daughters last night on the Kelly Files. They said, “He was just curious about girls”.

Umm…what in the hell were these girls told to get them to accept that somehow rank sexual assault is merely a normal product of male puberty? What must these girls think about men?! That all men are designed by God to engage in the most heinous violations of the most innocent of human beings?! What must this do to their own sexual and social development?!

I was a fourteen year old boy. Yes I was “curious” about girls (and “curious” is a euphemism for exactly what you think it’s a euphemism for). No, those girls did not include my sisters. My sisters were gross and had cooties and were annoying as hell and still are for that matter (;-)). And the “girls” I was interested in at 14 were also 14. Well, between 14 and 30. Alright…14 and 50 (some of the older teachers were still kinda hot).

THAT’S normal. And the fact that the Duggar daughters would offer the “it’s just puberty” argument as a means of excusing their brother’s rank sexual deviancy is all you need to know about how sick and twisted this whole affair really is. Someone lied to these girls in order to convince them that the sociopathy to which they were exposed was not only legal, but moral; and thus, in keeping with “God’s perfect design and Will”. And that of course makes any destructive psychological effects these girls may suffer THEIR fault. If they are confused or upset or angry or their own sexual development is arrested it’s because they are “not trusting God”; or “not trusting their parents”, or their pastor, or not believing the Bible, or whatever other lies pass for “sound doctrine” in Christianity today. Their desires for justice and for protection and for healing, however obscure and inarticulate such desires may be in young children, is chalked up to THEIR lack of forgiveness; THEIR unregenerate hearts, which puts them in danger of God’s punishment for THEIR evil assumption that somehow their inherent human total depravity warrants any justice at all; as though unforgiving, grudge-holding reprobates like themselves can expect anything but wrath and condemnation from a God who obviously “allowed” the very thing they claim in their sinful blindness was wrong (insofar as a young child can articulate “wrong”). Since “God controls all things”, according to the Platonist apostasy which passes for Christianity today, then He must at least on some level have been pleased to subject them to their brother’s sexual interlocution. And what does this say about the girls’ lingering doubt about the benevolence of the situation and the innocence of their brother; that it’s all just biology?

It says that if they suffered by the circumstance, clearly they deserved it. God allowed it to show them how evil they are, and how much further they have to go before God can approve them. That in the willful coddling of their own pain God reveals a nature so debauched and so unregenerate that they may never be truly saved.

The Duggar girls explained that mommy and daddy told them that the choice of whether or not to forgive their brother was theirs alone.

Not only is relegating this responsibility to a child who has been sexually assaulted evil and abusive in its own right, CLEARLY these children had no choice at all.

Welcome to the Church. Where there are no innocent victims, not even children; and all victims ex post facto deserve their abuse, and thus the green light is divinely granted for them to be perpetually re-victimized

Part THIRTEEN of: Collectivist (Marxist) Philosophy Masquerading as the Christian Orthodox Ideal

Calvinism/Philosophy, Metaphysics, , , , ,

“Can you remember a time when even though you were really committed to do something, you didn’t do it?  Or have you ever had a strong conviction not to do something and you did it anyway?  We want to stay committed.  We want to stick to our convictions.  But somehow we fall short.  We don’t usually wake up in the morning planning to abandon a commitment or jettison a conviction.  It’s more of a slow drift.  We are tempted to do something we shouldn’t, and then we talk ourselves out of doing it, and then we decide to do it anyway…but just his once.  We are all incredibly adept at self-deception.  We never intend for the “just this once” to become the norm.  But  before we know it, we’ve drifted away from our exercise programs, our diets, our schedules with margin, our budgets, our moral convictions, etc.. It is how affairs begin; it is how honest business men become dishonest; it is how social drinking becomes alcoholism; it is how good dating relationships go places we never intended. “

(p. 32, Community:  Your pathway to progress; North Point Ministries, 2008)

Okay…hmm.  I struggle with this.  I mean, this could be one of two things here.  The first is:  it could be deception based upon a fully committed but inconsistent belief in a false doctrine–total depravity.  The second is:  it could be deception based upon a fully committed and also consistent belief in a false doctrine, total depravity, but stated in a such a way that the author(s) don’t actually say, in so many words, what they really think…because they understand that the plebes–tithers and free laborers–might rightly bristle at and, even worse, question the rational consistency such utter bullshit.

Here’s what I mean.  Now, it’s a bit subtle, I admit.  Well, at least for those in the audience who may not be fully versed in the tactics employed by the neo-Calvinist/neo-Reformed Ministry of Propaganda.  To those of us, like myself, who have a long and comprehensive (and expensive–thanks to falling prey to the false doctrine of Church Tithing) history with the neo-Calvinist movement, it screams at us like an Irish Banshee dancing on trash can lids.

You see, what we have here is the the contradiction of what I call the notion of man’s Dual Metaphysic.  This is the idea that man’s mind and body are somehow rendered absolutely distinct, whilst at the same time those who promote such an idea usually concede that there is no real way of defining just where this distinction is…that is, they cannot actually say where the body ends and the mind begins, and vice versa.  Which of course makes the entire idea completely useless, but we’ll ignore that obvious point for the moment.

This mind/body dichotomy may be more familiar to most of you as that of the spirit/body, but I submit that that’s not a particularly accurate way of looking at it, because what is really being promoted is the idea that man can actually think, and somehow assume upon thing, and yet MUST, according to his nature, do another.  In short, it is the idea that human beings do not act based upon their cognitive assumptions; that human beings do not act according to what they believe.  It is the idea that man can both somehow be aware of what moral actions he should take, and yet be fundamentally insufficient for actually manifesting those actions in reality.

First of all, this is irrational on its face.  If man does not possess the capacity for manifesting moral actions, because his very existence as a human forbids such actions, then he can have no frame of reference for the cognitive assumptions about the morality of doing them.  In other words, if you never–or even more precisely, can never–observe a man leap over a tall building in a single bound because humans simply cannot be reconciled to their environment this way based upon their endemic physical properties, then you cannot possess a rational assumption that man should do such thing; and therefore you cannot rationally chastise yourself or other men for NOT doing such a thing.  You cannot preach moral invective against men for NOT doing an action which is impossible by nature for men to ever observe themselves doing.  That action cannot be a rational component of man’s identity for the simple reason that he cannot do it, and thus he cannot be morally guilty before God or anyone or anything else for not doing what he can’t do by design.  There is no moral, nor actual, tangible, empirical context for an action man cannot take by design, and therefore it is impossible that he should ever cognitively assume he should do it, and thus should want to do it for moral reasons, or any other reason, and thus lament not doing it as though it is some kind of inherent metaphysical flaw.  And further, there is no rational foundation for the possession of knowledge concerning what man should do when he cannot, by his very nature, observe himself ever doing it…because to observe man doing it would destroy the very rational identity of man entirely.

So this message, in fact, cannot be anything but exploitative and psychologically destructive.  It is frankly evil to flagellate and decry and condemn humanity for knowing what they should do and not doing it when knowing it and doing it are mutually exclusive properties at the root metaphysical essence of man, which makes both, in fact, impossible.  You cannot cognitively know that you should do what you cannot physically do as a function of being human.  Period.  Man’s moral beliefs about his behavior cannot be rationally separated from his existential identity…that is, how he observes himself physically and pragmatically reconciled to his environment.  In short, if man should do something, he must possess the inherent ability to do it.  To say man should do something he cannot by his very existence do is nonsense, and even more insane is to seek to punish him for not doing it.  Ideas like these must destroy men in the end, and should be actively ridiculed and avoided.

*

Now, do I need to state the obvious?  Does it really need to be said that not everyone falls off the bandwagon?  Do I really need to remind us that some people have no need to be on the bandwagon at all? And this is because they do not struggle with their convictions or their commitments.  I suppose it would be an utter shock to the archetypes of “divine” enlightenment in the neo-Reformed ecclesiasty to learn that some people can be social drinkers and not and never do become alcoholics.  Would it be straining their credulity to explain that some people remain committed to their exercise programs and do not give in to their “real” desire to lie around in bed all day and have Yodels hoisted up to them in dumb waiters? And it is because this is not, in fact, their real desire at all, but rather their real desire is to remain committed to their exercise program.  A tacit look around my neighborhood on any given day above 40 degrees will reveal the serial joggers in our society’s midst.  I can assure you that these people are not fighting some form of “sin nature” with an all-loving, all-benevolent theo-marxist Reformed church collective encouraging them to conquer their demon of sloth with every “small group” meeting they are required by their “leaders” to attend or face church discipline, not to mention the divine sanction of God as wielded by the Senior Pastor, for the mortal sin of choosing, as a grown-ass adult, to do something else with their own time on a Wednesday night .

I swear, they have turned the church’s small groups into fucking AA; and they treat every person who attends as an addict.

How in the hell do rational and, by all pretenses, sane adults suffer this kind of treatment by men who possess, usually, no greater educational accomplishment in life than a high school diploma and a few years in a Protestant indoctrination camp where the nucleus of the entire experience is to purposefully avoid and overtly demonize any opposing ideas or interpretive methods, and this merely as a means of censuring any examination of their own indefensible assumptions…yes, why on earth do they put up with this?

The answer to that question has everything to do with the prevailing metaphysic in our culture, and frankly, most of the world, and it is a metaphysic that roots man entirely within the abstract “cause and effect” systems invented by men whom all of us are told are experts.  Systems originally invented–if we are being charitable–to promote individual man and to propagate his comfort and success within his environment.

Unfortunately, the altruistic nature of these ideas has long since been corrupted; and for thousands of years individuals have been conditioned to sacrifice their own minds and their own observations and their own conclusions to a select group of priests whom the masses are told possess a special nature, a special sight given to them by God, or nature, or the Cosmos, or whatever Power lay beyond the grasp of the ordinary human being.  And to this day people scarcely stray beyond that line in the sand, beyond which they have been taught since they were little kids is where the baaaaaad things live.  And all of this is founded upon one simple little lie, which is told to you over and over and over again, in both grand and subtle ways, in almost every moment of every day of your life:

Life causes death.

That your very birth has ushered in an endless sea of misery and despair, culminating in an oblivion which is anything but, because there can be no peaceful oblivion from the frame of reference of a life filled with an actual, experiential existence which rejects the individual by its very nature from his very first breath.

And we are trained and indoctrinated to believe that the fact of our birth puts us at odds with our existence, and thus we turn to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who claims through divine insight or special talent that they can mollify and subdue the relentless assault of our very own presence which, if left to ourselves, will certainly overtake us in almost an instant and damn us to that never-ending and infinitely agonizing death which our very life produces.

It’s cute to say this, we think:  The moment you are born you begin to die.  What simple truth.  What insight.  How clever.  And yet this innocent observation belies a deeply destructive philosophy rooted in an impossible contradiction:  that life–that existence–hates itself, and by itself, brings death to itself.  That living, at the very root level, causes dying.  That the reality of YOU demands that you succumb to the idea of NOT YOU ruling your very existence.

In other words, your very existence is a cosmic anomaly.  An irrational epigraph upon the otherwise perfectly mathematical and benevolent cosmic canvas, and only some very special men who possess a nature both at once like yours–so that they can appear sympathetic and co-equal–and also utterly distinct, and infinitely dispensed with a  nature that somehow defies the very death you fear, and possesses the peace of understanding which can only be bestowed by the All-Powerful Consciousness, and never actually learned by the un-chosen masses.

And this is why we fall for these evil ideas.  This is why I, myself, fell for these ideas.  Because they perfectly represent everything all of us have already and accepted about our existence.  We come to the Small Group already keenly aware that our existence despises itself.  That our very presence in the universe means by default painful, wrenching death.  We understand our utter subordination to the Laws of Physics, which demand we must die, as all equations assume man as merely a factor in them, not the creator of them.

We come to the small group already conceding that control is an illusion, and that that which created us, be it nature or God or whatever, loathes our very existence, and that this is verified by the never-ending assault upon our person by time and the environment, and the constant demands that we “volunteer” our property and time to the maintenance of groups and governments which exist to save us from ourselves…that is, the very inevitable death which is a fact of our birth. We come to the collective already conditioned to accept that fear, due to our incongruent and meddling presence in the otherwise ordered perfection of the universe, is the prevailing emotion of a life left our individual existence. We come nursed from infancy upon the idea we do not engage in social collectives because they are an extension of our lives as individuals, and that from this place of individual life we choose–we decide–which groups and which organizations enhance and elevate our individual existence by providing a framework for us to work out our own individual desires and pleasures in a deeper way; but rather the perversion of  this truth which makes group integration a foundational requirement for any modicum of existential efficacy and comfort. We come to the church already baptized into the belief that the group is something which can save us from ourselves…that is, we are submerged in the notion that individually we MUST die, but in the group we somehow have a chance to live.

Of course the irony is that group integration ultimately demands a categorical sacrifice of our individual selves…so either way, death shall find us. We merely assume that the group route to death, rather than allowing death to find us in tormented folly when left to our individual existence, is less overtly painful. But the truth is that it isn’t, because in the group–due to the actual and rational and thus true metaphysical essence of man as an absolute and autonomous SELF–there is inevitably the constant rendering asunder of the individual. It is akin to a collective narcissism, where the “true” self (the individual) is constantly at war with the conceptual, or “false”, self of the group. The pain of death that we all are taught to fear is in fact revealed in perfect form in the collective.  And this is because there is no escaping the reality that YOU are the beginning and end of your existence. And any group which tries to encroach upon that metaphysical reality will inexorably tear at it, unto infinite misery.

You want a law of nature? There it is.

I would like to also mention that  engaging collectives absolutely with the idea that group membership is the panacea to individual shortcomings is the very definition of falling off the bandwagon.  It is the final and utter surrendering of oneself to the futility of one’s own life.  It is the recognition that one has no right to himself because outside of the collective, his mind, no matter how well intentioned, is completely subservient to the painful and destructive whims of his body.  But there is no bandwagon to speak of in the group because in the group there is no ONE who exists to get on it.

*

According to the doctrine of Total Depravity, there can be no aspect of man which is capable of either doing good or apprehending good.  There is no place within man’s metaphysic where man begins and his evil ends, or vice versa.  Thus, there is no rational argument to suggest that any sort of mind/body dichotomy exists.   If man is totally depraved, then his mind and his body are both in equal measure depraved, because the common denominator is MAN.  And man IS evil.  There is nothing he can do, and knowing is likewise doing, that is good.  And this is because he, at the absolute core of his existence, is not himself in any measure, but is rather depravity itself.  Knowledge of good, like manifestations of good, cannot find a repository in man’s essence.  And this of course separates man from God infinitely, and even more alarming, creates an infinity of evil in man which must rival the infinity of good in God.  In other words, man is absolutely evil like God is absolutely good; and in such a case, it, ironically, is impossible to make a moral distinction between the two.  Good becomes no better than evil, and evil becomes no worse than good because both are absolute.

There is no reference for that which is absolute, and so there is no means by which to measure or value it. “Good” and “evil”, “God” and “Man”, cease to have any relevant definition.

And therefore we must understand–and make no mistake about this–that the doctrine of Total Depravity infinitely separates God from His Creation and renders them booth meaningless.  And this is as evil as any idea can get.  Reformation theology is an unmitigated evil which destroys both man and God for the temporary emotional and material profit of a few men who either consciously propagate this debauchery and apostasy for their own wicked objectives, or do it out of ignorance.  In either case it is imperative for all of us to flee it.  And due to its pervasive presence in all of Christian circles today, I would recommend you extricate yourself entirely from all vestiges of the institutional church in general.  Do not abandon Christ, but do abandon those who proceed from formally established collectives in His name.  They are almost categorically up to no good.  Show me their Statements of Faith, and I will prove it to you.

So the question is:  Is the deception presented in the quote which began this essay proceeding from a conscious knowledge of the lack of difference between man’s mind and body; and that it is purposely taught that man can somehow know the good he should do in order to hook potential devotees into accepting the false rationale that their choice to subordinate themselves to the leaders of the collective is somehow logical and reasonable; or do  these proprietors of Christian despotism really believe that the mind/body dichotomy is truth, and that they are promoting some sort of actual good in condemning men to a life-long rejection of themselves in the interest of a vapid abstraction (i.e. the “community”)?

Ultimately I do not think it really  matters.  Whether out of folly or conscious deception it is all evil.  There is, at the end of it all, no excuse for either.  Whether by folly or by conscious purpose, an account must be given by those who promote such destruction…such psychological manipulation and psychological violence.  Because one thing is certain, neither the fool nor the cunning one can deny the observable outcomes of the ideas promoted in this little book, “Community:  Your pathway to progress”, and practiced to disastrous effect.  One only needs to look at the swath of church survivor sites cutting deep and wide paths through the internet to witness the carnage, and to know that at some point ideas, not the individual actions of a few random men implementing them (which, given the utter devotion to collectivist ideas, it is ironic to see how these groups throw individual scapegoats to the wolves when they are called out for their crimes) must bear the responsibility.  However, it should be understood that the men who implement these ideas without remorse or regret do not get a moral pass on their actions, and the evidence denies them the ability to claim ignorance.

So call out the purveyors of collectivism, particularly in the Church, as evil, and implore those who will listen to avoid any association with them and to deny access to their ideas.  For until these collectivists in the church repent of their madness and their destructive devotion to the group, they cannot be engaged as individuals.  Because he who cannot view you as an individual, complete with all the laudable and beautiful attributes of your own unique individuality, cannot himself be seen as anyONE, either.

For he who sees you as nothing is himself nothing to be seen.