Christianity

[Dontaskme]

So my suggestion is that you might want to stop attributing things to me that didn't actually say. And that would be nice...and honest... and that would be good.

You didn't say anything... Only God speaks

You are God.

Oh, you poor soul.

God Dam it, if your belief in the bible is real for you, then you'll know that even God himself wanted to destroy what he had created.

Truth is, you are God, and when you have had enough of all the hurting you inflict upon yourself, only then will you decide or not whether to pull the plug on your self inflicted misery, your reality really is all of your own doing.

You've already informed yourself of your intent, when you wrote the book you called the bible and koran, so it's only when you've had enough of all the hurting, is when you destroy yourself. Only you create what you can destroy, only you can destroy what you create. There is no other you than you, sorry to inform you of this truth.

See here >


''Noah appears in Genesis 5:29 as the son of Lamech and ninth in descent from Adam. ... Noah was instructed to build an ark, and in accordance with God's instructions he took into the ark male and female specimens of all the world's species of animals, from which the stocks might be replenished.''

See, God wanted to destroy what he had created, and why do you think he did that?

He did it because he knew deep down in his heart that what he created really was a fucked up stupid idea.

And that is the truth you refuse to believe.

God tried in vain to think and believe that saving two of each species would make sure the whole of creation could start again, and maybe be better next time...all in vain of course, because history just repeats, it's so dumb and stupid, but it does repeat.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can quoted:

Belinda wrote:
I concede to your right wing point of view that the building of urban churches gave a centre for social life and distribution of charity.

My comment was from my balanced stance that the right wing point of view has merits that should be considered.

[Sculptor]

You have obviously MISSED the POINT. Your definition of 'God' is OBVIOUSLY NOT the one ALL "others" use. What I think you will find is that there is NO one here, in this forum anyway, who disagrees with you that fictional characters do not exist, as real livings things. What this means is that when you use the word 'God', and what you ACTUALLY MEAN is a fictional character, and you say 'God does NOT exist', then NO one even disputes this CLAIM of YOURS.

Unless of course there is someone, which we will wait for.

Why is because I think it is important for all people to avoid self delusions and of benefit for them to unpack the assumptions upon which their belief systems work so that they may be better informed and able to go in to the world with open eyes.

Yet it is you here who is so completely CLOSED, and thus BLINDED that you are NOT YET even able to SEE this Fact. And, hypocritically you are accusing "others" here of NOT SEEING with OPEN eyes.

There is no "fact" stated in the post. Nor have I used this analogy of open eyes.
You are just ranting!

[Janoah]

'The translator is unique in that he avoids any type of personification, or corporeality, with God, often replacing "human-like" characteristics representing God in the original Hebrew with words that convey a more remote and impersonal sense.

And yet, Torah itself is not squeamish about that.

So his objection is merely assumptive...and it's not based on any assumption the Torah makes. Interesting.

The Torah is not a textbook, nor of history, nor physics, nor philosophy.
But the task of the Torah is to educate in the spirit of truth.
The fact that the Torah, using metaphors, allegories and legends, was able to instill in the Jewish people a persistent aversion to the materialization of the One, and even without proof of Aristotle.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Actually, the larger part of nominal "Christendom" is persuaded of some form of Supersessionism. But real Christians, if they have their doctrine straight at all, do not either sever Christian revelation from its Hebrew roots nor gratuitously treat the current State of Israel as a Christian state. Rather, they recognize israel as currently in rebellion against Messiah, but ultimately also the place of Messiah's triumph and rule. They anticipate not the inevitable triumph of secular Israel, nor the annihilation of Israel by its enemies, but the rescue of the obedient element in Israel by Messiah. So for them, as for me, Israel is neither inerrant now nor dispensible anytime.

Is that "Zionism"? Not really. I think the term "Zionism" is ordinarily used for some sort of aspiration that present Israel, secular Israel, has an inexorable triumphant trajectory of it's own, on that has to do with what you call "terrestrial power games." And I don't think any knowledgeable Christian believes that. Certainly, they shouldn't.

Absent Messiah, there is no redemption for Israel...or for anyone else. That's solid Christian theology.

I think that what you write, what you believe, may be a chemically-pure version of what is called Christian Zionism. Here is a Jewish perspective on the same.

Unfortunately (for me) I have just realized in the course of this conversation that it is likely that I cannot *believe in* a Christianity based in these sort of prophecies, which by their nature can never be verified, nor disproven, and which directly lead to paranoid phantasy. But I would not say that Christian or Hebrew prophesy is unreal or irrelevant because, obviously, it has such consequences. As for example the fact that the younger George Bush was a self-described Christian Zionist as have been numerous American presidents. The implications are strange indeed. (Donald Trump of course is a complete *Zionist* and checks all the boxes).

I have thought that perhaps I would study the issue more (I did scan Siser’s Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?) but don’t have the energy to read it carefully).

What does interest me however is the prevalence of different forms of apocalyptic thinking. The greater the uncertainty about the meaning of events, the more that the walls of technology and control machinations seem to be closing in, the more that people who are completely unqualified to assess much of anything at all are given tools to express their views (the social-media phenomena), the more that a desperate hysterical mood seems to become not just fringe but predominant. I do not know what the proper tools are to examine this but I am inclined to refer to CG Jung who always had concern about mass movements driven by unrecognized psychological currents. If what Jung proposed is true, and I think it is, a given individual needs to confront her or his own tendency to be taken in and influenced by the surrounding mass-hysteria.

But this leads to what I am essentially trying to speak about: a Christian spirituality is, first and foremost and also principally, an internal, interior affair. But it should not be an application of a mythology, a mythologized praxis, onto the world itself.(Or is that what in truth it is?) Yet the inevitability of just that taking place is what, exoterically, surrounds so-called Christian belief.

So if what I am saying here (musing out loud since this all makes my mind go fuzzy) Christian belief, as it is carried on today, has deep connections not with balance and the regeneration we agree is essential, but with social madness. Is there a cure? I mean is there a *real* or better way of engaging through Christianity (the texts, the ethics, the ‘belief system’) with a genuine spirit and spiritual potency? And if so what is that?

It makes a great deal of sense, therefore, why people — either average people and of course above-average people — are forced to jettison the entire system. But especially the system that has developed (if one takes the two webpages I presented seriously) as Evangelical Christianity has taken over what *being a Christian* is.

Along thse lines I do recognize that there is a far more sane Christian practice, sort of old-school, that I have encountered in classical Catholicism. (For example Liturgical Prayer, 1922) But the focus is really on a given person’s internal life in relation to Christian (Catholic) liturgy.

I think that people look to a religious-spiritual tradition as a way to recover in themselves something real, valuable, self-transforming but also self-locating. The world, or in any case what is filtered down to us, and from all angles (unless one turned it all off and refused even to look and listen) is all madness. Therefore the only Christianity I can validate is one that self-focuses. And though I do believe (I have learned it in this sense against my own will or against my own prejudice) that the Christian philosophy is very deep and valuable (in comparison broadly to other traditions) I could not deny or invalidate someone’s decision to leave the tradition.

But would the real, true and spiritual Jesus Christ (who we visualize in the world beyond looking down on human affairs) abandon the one that abandons this mad, deranged *Christianity* I am trying to describe? With mad power-brokers playing geo-political war-games. That is logically impossible!

So the entire notion of what Jesus is, and what Christianity means, is necessarily up in the air.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can quoted:

Belinda wrote:
I concede to your right wing point of view that the building of urban churches gave a centre for social life and distribution of charity.

My comment was from my balanced stance that the right wing point of view has merits that should be considered.

It wasn't my comment. My preference would simply be that you restrain the impulse to attribute to me anything I didn't say.

[Immanuel Can]

Unfortunately (for me) I have just realized in the course of this conversation that it is likely that I cannot *believe in* a Christianity based in these sort of prophecies, which by their nature can never be verified, nor disproven,

Actually, they can be both. In fact, it shouldn't even be hard.

There are a host of prophecies in the Old and New Testaments. Some pertain to the future, relative to where we are now, and so what you say is true -- they cannot presently be confirmed or disconfirmed. But not so those the fulfillment of which is already in the past...such as Daniel's prediction of the rise of the empires, or his timing of the death of Messiah. Those are verifiable.

And they're current. They predict, for example, not just the return of Israel but also the political push toward imposing a global world order, the melding and turning-into-numbers of the financial system, an increasing desperation for centralized authority, the rise of not one but a series of global plagues, significant environmental decline...one can see without stretching the imagination much that, at a time when ancient man could hardly be expected to believe these things were possible, the Author behind the Bible knew very well what would be coming eventually.

What should trouble us is not the apocalpytic thinking, but the fact that so much of it is verified as presently coming true.

Time is short. It's time to get our heads straight.

What does interest me however is the prevalence of different forms of apocalyptic thinking. The greater the uncertainty about the meaning of events, the more that the walls of technology and control machinations seem to be closing in, the more that people who are completely unqualified to assess much of anything at all are given tools to express their views (the social-media phenomena), the more that a desperate hysterical mood seems to become not just fringe but predominant. I do not know what the proper tools are to examine this but I am inclined to refer to CG Jung who always had concern about mass movements driven by unrecognized psychological currents. If what Jung proposed is true, and I think it is, a given individual needs to confront her or his own tendency to be taken in and influenced by the surrounding mass-hysteria.

Well, that's just a needle-in-a-haystack problem. It derives from the fact that there is no much information and so many guesses floating around that people become mentally paralyzed and stop searching. But by no means does it imply that there is no truth...it just signals that some people have despaired of locating it.

Apocalyptic thinking doesn't become wrong merely because it's "apocalyptic," or "too negative" anymore than it becomes wrong thereby. Apocalyptic thinking, negative projections of the future, are not even a particularly Christian exclusive. The environmental movement, the neo-gnostics, the globalists,and the technologically nervous are four other groups that are famous for doing practically nothing BUT apocalyptic projections of the future. But these they project not because they know anything, but because threats of a grim future stand to induce mass hysteria and increase their own status and power in the present world.

Christian prophecy is different. It doesn't stand to make any human agency more powerful or important. It projects a future in which human plans of all kinds, including the religious, come to grief...but only so that salvation can come, through God Himself. Compared to the hubris of the former prognostications, Christian prophecies are quite chastened and pride-subduing. However, what makes them either right or wrong is not their moral nature but rather their correspondence (o, if you like, failure to correspond) to the events described.

So far so good, for Christian prophecy. Its rate so far is very high.

But this leads to what I am essentially trying to speak about: a Christian spirituality is, first and foremost and also principally, an internal, interior affair. But it is not an application of a mythology, a mythologized praxis, onto the world itself. Yet the inevitability of just that taking place is what, exoterically, surrounds so-called Christian belief.

No, I don't think so. "Praxis" is a Marxist term, of course; I prefer to just say that Christanity is not mere "spirituality," but rather spirituality plus action. But that action, unlike "praxis" is not political, and it does not aim at controlling others or at mastering the world, the way that Marxist praxis does. The lack of such "praxis" seems to me to be a feature, not a bug, in Christianity: it's a very good thing that it's absent.

So if what I am saying here (musing out loud since this all makes my mind go fuzzy) Christian belief, as it is carried on today, has deep connections not with balance and the regeneration we agree is essential, but with social madness.

I don't see that. You'll need to show me what you mean.

Is there a cure? I mean is there a *real* or better way of engaging through Christianity (the texts, the ethics, the ‘belief system’) with a genuine spirit and spiritual potency? And if so what is that?

Well, yes -- the starting point is believing what Christ said: "My kingdom is not of this world..." (John 18:36) Or as the book of Hebrews puts it, "we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken," (Heb. 12:28) the eternal Kingdom of God, not some human "kingdom" or earthly political hegemony.

It makes a great deal of sense, therefore, why people — either average people and of course above-average people — are forced to jettison the entire system. But especially the system that has developed (if one takes the two webpages I presented seriously) as Evangelical Christianity has taken over what *being a Christian* is.

I don't see the reason for any of this. In the first place, what has the worldly system got to do with Evnagelicalism? Secondly, at least in most secular person's minds, Evangelicalism has not "taken over what being a Christian is" at all. I think most people continue to believe that everything from Catholicism to the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons is some form of "Christian." The hatred of Evangelicals seems to me to be primarily an American phenomenon, something ginned up by their media, mostly.

Along thse lines I do recognize that there is a far more sane Christian practice, sort of old-school, that I have encountered in classical Catholicism. (For example Liturgical Prayer, 1922) But the focus is really on a given person’s internal life in relation to Christian (Catholic) liturgy.

Well, I know some nominal Catholics who are genuinely Christian. But the Catholic clergy and hierarchy is decidedly not, as you can see evidenced in their declarations, which actually defy core precepts of Biblical Christianity. So I don't look to that source as a model for anything actually "Christian."

Therefore the only Christianity I can validate is one that self-focuses.

It begins there, for sure; but it cannot merely stay there and be genuinely Christian. The first Christian critique is of oneself; the second step is to actualize one's convictions in relationships. And you see this very clearly in Christ's words about the two great commandments: number 1, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind; and number 2, love your neighbour as yourself. (Matt. 22:37) The second takes the first out into the world.

But you're right: there's a priority there. You can't really do the second without the first being done first.

And though I do believe (I have learned it in this sense against my own will or against my own prejudice) that the Christian philosophy is very deep and valuable (in comparison broadly to other traditions) I could not deny or invalidate someone’s decision to leave the tradition.

"Tradition's" not the issue. Truth definitely is.

...this mad, deranged *Christianity* I am trying to describe? With mad power-brokers playing geo-political war-games.

If it is what you describe, then it's not Christianity at all. So yes, one can abandon it.

But "mad" "geo-political war-games" are exactly what you're going to get, according to Biblical prophecy. Because what produces them is not Christian theology, but rather mankind's drive toward megalomaniac power games. And you scan see this now...the current wolves who have put their hands on the levers of power are not religious -- of any kind -- at all. They're now all ambitious secularists, aiming at their own versions of utopia, driven by secular ideologies like Socialism, Techgnosticism and Globalism.

Right now, the last thing anybody has to worry about is there being too much apocalyptic prophecy floating around...we should worry instead about the secular present, and whas the anti-relgious power-brokers are up to right now.

[owl of Minerva]

By Alexis Jacobi:

“So the entire notion of what Jesus is, and what Christianity means, is necessarily up in the air.”

………………………………………………………………………………………..

You may find ‘Lost Christianity’ (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2003) by Professor Jacob Needleman interesting and informative.

[Lacewing]

...a desperate hysterical mood seems to become not just fringe but predominant. I do not know what the proper tools are to examine this but I am inclined to refer to CG Jung who always had concern about mass movements driven by unrecognized psychological currents. If what Jung proposed is true, and I think it is, a given individual needs to confront her or his own tendency to be taken in and influenced by the surrounding mass-hysteria.

It appears nearly impossible for intoxicated people to see anything else than what they've tied their identity to. Identity has become such a product... perhaps even a personal religion. Such ramped up madness is so widespread, even overtaking sources and ideologies we might have previously trusted.

So I've wondered if something like the 'hundredth monkey effect' could be the type of phenomenon that moves humankind forward.

'The hundredth monkey effect is a hypothetical phenomenon in which a new behavior or idea is spread rapidly by unexplained means from one group to all related groups once a critical number of members of one group exhibit the new behavior or acknowledge the new idea. The behavior was said to propagate even to groups that are physically separated and have no apparent means of communicating with each other.'

Although that idea was challenged (as everything is), I see a similarity between it and the entanglement theory.

'Entanglement theory in physics holds that, under certain circumstances, seemingly isolated particles are actually connected through space and time. The quantum state of each can be described only in reference to the others. In psychology, minds can be similarly entangled.'

Perhaps NATURE strives for advancement by weeding out the weak and diseased, and humankind's evolvement/survival will come (at the quantum level via our interconnected system) from the transference of healthier/clearer qualities?

As the occurrence of diseased thinking has ramped up, I've noticed an increase of greater awareness in humankind too. People are more naturally and openly sharing greater awareness and conversations of a positive nature. It isn't reflected in the disaster-driven broadcast/social News... but I wonder about the powerful transformative result it might offer us despite ourselves.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You may find ‘Lost Christianity’ (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2003) by Professor Jacob Needleman interesting and informative.

I do have and I did read that book.

[bahman]

• “For God

My question was, is the Christian concept of the One from a philosophical point of view true?
Let's say Aristotle proved that the One, the Primary cause (or first uncaused cause) - is immaterial.

There is no God/creator. I can prove that: Consider the opposite (there is a God). This means that there was a point that there was only God and nothing else since God is the creator of everything. God then creates. The act of creation however needs time since we are going from a state of only God to a state of God and the creation. This means that time has to be created beforehand. This leads to a regress in the creation of time since you need time for the creation of time. Therefore, the act of creation is impossible. Therefore, there is no God.

[Alexis Jacobi]

There are a host of prophecies in the Old and New Testaments. Some pertain to the future, relative to where we are now, and so what you say is true -- they cannot presently be confirmed or disconfirmed. But not so those the fulfillment of which is already in the past...such as Daniel's prediction of the rise of the empires, or his timing of the death of Messiah. Those are verifiable.

I reckon it is fair to say that all prophesy tends to be what people want it to be in their given moment in time. The end of the world and the predicted tribulation has been predicted, and declared, hundreds and possibly thousands of times, but the most important fact is that people take in the idea, the idea works in them, and it induces them to take specific actions in the present. People have been visualizing both crisis and ending in all times. It is actually a component of perception within Christianity. The sense that at any moment, today tomorrow next week, the entire cosmic structure might quake and dissolve contributes to a Christian existential mood. It has also been a primary apologetic tool. Consider the sermons of Wesley.

“To slay the sinner is then the first use of the Law, to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts and convince him that he is dead while he lives; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead to God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins.”

At times of crisis or transition, this is obvious, their insecurity comes to the surface and, as we all must, they apply their *interpretation* to what is going on around them through references to the predicted events. Christian conversion of a mass sort can only take shape when the very structure of the supporting world, the ground one stands on, is doubted.

However, I do not think that anyone with two eyes in their head and a level-headed capacity to see can deny that we are entering a period of time where mechanisms of control (I will not bother to recite from the various dystopian *lists*) have moved from speculative and imagined, to quite real and practicable. So in my own case (to the degree that my own perception has any validity at all, and it might and it might not) it seems to me quite fair to say that *we live in a dangerous time*.

The dystopian outcomes have been predicted -- in the sense that they are riffed on -- in poems, novels and movies, and the notion of degeneration is a common element of perception. In this vein I would mention that it was when I read Robert Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah that I realized that I would need to investigate the right-leaning 'conservative' pole in what I see as a popular dystopian discourse. It is a vision that is not esoteric but rather politically tangible and topical. In contrast to Bork's vision, which is a way of making statements about Sixties radicalism, the Left has its own form of dystopian vision. I had been exposed to the notion that Bork was an extreme right lunatic, but in reality the book is quite good and many elements in it make great sense.

As I said numerous pages back I made a choice a number of years back, and it was to self-consciously (yet I hope with my wits about me) choose to *jump down the rabbit hole*, and by that I do mean what is seen and described as a right-wing rabbit hole. I would not recommend it to someone lacking a sufficient an anchor in their own self, but then I would have to define what I mean by 'anchor'.

What is odd indeed is that the Left and the Radical Left also have their dystopian 'metaphysical dream of the world'.

And they're current. They predict, for example, not just the return of Israel but also the political push toward imposing a global world order, the melding and turning-into-numbers of the financial system, an increasing desperation for centralized authority, the rise of not one but a series of global plagues, significant environmental decline...one can see without stretching the imagination much that, at a time when ancient man could hardly be expected to believe these things were possible, the Author behind the Bible knew very well what would be coming eventually.

There is no way to even think about these things without allowing oneself to fall into some level or other of conspiratorial thinking. But if one is interested in examining Christian Zionism I think it is fair to say that it is the Christian Zionists who 'engineered' the modern return to Israel movement. In any case they had a great deal to do with it. In this it would seem that they are trying to push forward the circumstances that lead to the apocalyptic conflagration.

What should trouble us is not the apocalyptic thinking, but the fact that so much of it is verified as presently coming true.

My own research indicates that we should very much be concerned about apocalyptic/conspiracy thinking. It would be best to study it sociologically and psychologically in order to be able to see the degree to which it has penetrated general thinking, speculation and interpretation.

I do not think that anyone will be able to act against the mass-hysteria that is gathering steam, and if Jung was at all accurate in his predictions will have to manifest at some point or other (because there is no one and nothing to stop it), but this does mean that any given individual still only has her or his 'internal world' where each of us visualize ourselves.

It is in that realm, in that space, that one 'works out one's salvation' (whatever salvation is which has not been defined).

Time is short. It's time to get our heads straight.

But technically it has always been just as short as it is said to be now, and as it appears, or is made to appear. The moment is always the same. There are no worse or better moments.

However, I do agree that 'it is time to get our heads together'. But this statement has to be unpacked. And in times of mass-hysteria (this is my own view of what drives the present in a significant sense) this is all the more difficult, and fraught.

[Age]

Why is because I think it is important for all people to avoid self delusions and of benefit for them to unpack the assumptions upon which their belief systems work so that they may be better informed and able to go in to the world with open eyes.

Yet it is you here who is so completely CLOSED, and thus BLINDED that you are NOT YET even able to SEE this Fact. And, hypocritically you are accusing "others" here of NOT SEEING with OPEN eyes.

There is no "fact" stated in the post. Nor have I used this analogy of open eyes.
You are just ranting!

And you are just 'trying to' DEFLECT from what you have ACTUALLY done and are MISSING.

[Age]

Why is because I think it is important for all people to avoid self delusions and of benefit for them to unpack the assumptions upon which their belief systems work so that they may be better informed and able to go in to the world with open eyes.

Yet it is you here who is so completely CLOSED, and thus BLINDED that you are NOT YET even able to SEE this Fact. And, hypocritically you are accusing "others" here of NOT SEEING with OPEN eyes.

There is no "fact" stated in the post.

The Fact was, and STILL IS, NO one here, in this forum, who even disagrees with you, in regards to what you said and what I POINTED OUT and SHOWED and how it is you who is self-deluded due to the ASSUMPTIONS that you HOLD and SHOW here.

Nor have I used this analogy of open eyes.

Are you AWARE that you ACTUALLY did use the words 'open eyes'?

If yes, then how EXACTLY have you not used the analogy of 'open eyes'?

You are just ranting!

And, I could say the EXACT SAME thing about you. But, saying that does NOT argue NOR counter ANY thing.

Also, just saying what you did here can be SEEN as just ANOTHER WAY to 'try' and DEFLECT from what you were ACTUALLY DOING.

[Immanuel Can]

There are a host of prophecies in the Old and New Testaments. Some pertain to the future, relative to where we are now, and so what you say is true -- they cannot presently be confirmed or disconfirmed. But not so those the fulfillment of which is already in the past...such as Daniel's prediction of the rise of the empires, or his timing of the death of Messiah. Those are verifiable.

I reckon it is fair to say that all prophesy tends to be what people want it to be in their given moment in time.

No, I wouldn't say that was fair.

The deciding factor is not subjective...it's either objectively true or objectively false. The only way a prophecy can "be what people want it to be" is if it's so vague as to describe nothing...like daily horoscopes. If it's at all specific, then a prophecy is simply true or false.

The end of the world and the predicted tribulation has been predicted, and declared, hundreds and possibly thousands of times,

And objectively wrongly.

...but the most important fact is that people take in the idea, the idea works in them, and it induces them to take specific actions in the present.

I think the opposite is true. If a false prophecy induces people to "take specific actions in the present," and then turns out to be false, it's pretty clear that all it's done is deceived people and caused them to calculate badly.

The sense that at any moment, today tomorrow next week, the entire cosmic structure might quake and dissolve contributes to a Christian existential mood.

But I think the jury's still out on that prophecy, isn't it?

Christian conversion of a mass sort can only take shape when the very structure of the supporting world, the ground one stands on, is doubted.

If it's a "mass" conversion, then you can be sure it's not Christian.

However, I do not think that anyone with two eyes in their head and a level-headed capacity to see can deny that we are entering a period of time where mechanisms of control (I will not bother to recite from the various dystopian *lists*) have moved from speculative and imagined, to quite real and practicable. So in my own case (to the degree that my own perception has any validity at all, and it might and it might not) it seems to me quite fair to say that *we live in a dangerous time*.

That's for sure.

The dystopian outcomes have been predicted -- in the sense that they are riffed on -- in poems, novels and movies, and the notion of degeneration is a common element of perception. In this vein I would mention that it was when I read Robert Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah that I realized that I would need to investigate the right-leaning 'conservative' pole in what I see as a popular dystopian discourse. It is a vision that is not esoteric but rather politically tangible and topical. In contrast to Bork's vision, which is a way of making statements about Sixties radicalism, the Left has its own form of dystopian vision. I had been exposed to the notion that Bork was an extreme right lunatic, but in reality the book is quite good and many elements in it make great sense.

I have that book. And Bork is quite right about the '60s.

I checked it out: the "Port Huron Statement" and the other things he talks about are real. And Bork's not the only one to make that case, either.

As I said numerous pages back I made a choice a number of years back, and it was to self-consciously (yet I hope with my wits about me) choose to *jump down the rabbit hole*, and by that I do mean what is seen and described as a right-wing rabbit hole. I would not recommend it to someone lacking a sufficient an anchor in their own self, but then I would have to define what I mean by 'anchor'.

I'm not sure what you mean by "rabbit hole." Ordinarily, that's applied to a situation in which one enters a world where reason doesn't apply, and things go haywire...like Alice in Wonderland. But a trip into the world Bork describes is pretty much a trip from a Wonderland of ignorance to a more solid understanding of Leftism in the '60s.

That's why the term "red pilled" is a much better metaphor: it alludes to the facing of, not the evading of, reality.

What is odd indeed is that the Left and the Radical Left also have their dystopian 'metaphysical dream of the world'.

Yes, they most certainly do. Many of them.

But if one is interested in examining Christian Zionism I think it is fair to say that it is the Christian Zionists who 'engineered' the modern return to Israel movement.

No, I don't think so.

Some may have aided it, but the initiative was from Jewish folks themselves. And you might well also say that Germany gave them a huge push. For after WW2 it became quite clear to many of them, thorough things like the St. Louis debacle, that the larger world had little interest in the lives and welfare of Jews. Their need for a homeland was both urgent and irresistible.

You might say the Nazi's compelled the return to Israel, or that the indifferent nations of the Allies also induced it. But Christian Zionism, if anything, was a late contributor and much smaller than all these things.

In any case they had a great deal to do with it. In this it would seem that they are trying to push forward the circumstances that lead to the apocalyptic conflagration.

Well, no knowledgeable Christian would aim to do that, or think he should.

It is in that realm, in that space, that one 'works out one's salvation' (whatever salvation is which has not been defined).

It is defined Biblically. If anyone lacks a definition, they can always consult there.

Time is short. It's time to get our heads straight.

But technically it has always been just as short as it is said to be now, and as it appears, or is made to appear. The moment is always the same. There are no worse or better moments.

I think that's certainly not going to prove to be the case.

Either way, we'll see, of course.