Category Archives: Atheism

Salvation through politics

How and why this false notion keeps getting enacted

Gary North often wrote that the prevailing faith in Western societies nowadays is in “salvation through politics” or “salvation through the state”.

Nearly 30 years ago, economist Thomas Sowell laid out in his book “The Vision of the Anointed” how this falsehood works in practice. Wikipedia has an entry about that book. It says that in it, Sowell “brands the anointed as promoters of a worldview concocted out of fantasy impervious to any real-world considerations.”

In an interview from 1995 (10 minutes of excerpts from it – the full 25-minute version is here) he outlines his observations.

First, he explains who the “anointed” are: The elites in leading media, universities, law and politics. One could add nowadays: in entertainment. These people believe they know better than most what needs to be done. And thus think themselves entitled to use government force to get these things done.

If an assertion is made that fits the ideas and vision of these people, they demand no evidence. They simply assume it is true and use their many and powerful channels to plant this assertion in the public’s mind.

Regarding the implementation by these people of measures to fight a perceived societal ills Sowell outlines a four-stage pattern – which we could see very clearly in action during the Covid crisis.

1. Crisis: We’re hyped to believe that something is a terrible crisis for which Something Must Be Done. Very often, the thing we are told is causing a crisis has been “getting better for years on end”. But that gets ignored.

2. A solution for this supposed crisis is suggested. The protagonists say: This will lead to beneficial results A. Critics disagree and say it will lead to detrimental results Z.

3. The suggested solution is implemented and almost immediately we get detrimental results Z.

4. Denial phase: The protagonists of the enacted measures deny that they caused Z. Because, they say, there are many factors, there’s complexities, it’s simplistic to blame it on this.

This is what we will see down the line once the media thinks it is safe to no longer suppress the evidence that lockdowns, masks and vaccines did much more harm than good.

This is what we will hear now that “saving the climate” and “supporting Ukraine” is leading to poverty and destitution.

This is what we have been hearing when discussing soaring crime rates.

And so on.

Economists tend to see through this because they are trained to think in terms of cost-benefit analysis and what is called “opportunity cost”: The cost of any action/decision is that it closes the door to other opportunities. What are they, and can we afford to lose them?

Our current elites don’t like that sort of thinking because it questions their beliefs.

Asked whether these people just don’t think their solutions might be detrimental, Sowell says there’s more to it: The solutions always gives these people more power and influence.

That is also something we see time and time again.

Why do people think and act diametrically different?

Jeff Leskovar has some interesting answers

From Jeff Leskovar’s article (from 4th December 2021):

Individuals have three main parameters by which they constrain their decisions: property, time, and social hierarchy. Social hierarchies apparently exist to reduce conflict among individuals as do property rights by allowing individuals to know who should defer to whom with regard to each other and physical objects. An individual’s decisions are delimited by these three dimensions, time (time preference), space (property), and social hierarchy. Social hierarchy exists in the minds of individuals so it is like the imaginary plane in the field of mathematics.. We have the real dimensions of time and space along with the dimension of social hierarchy or status. These control the majority of human behavior in the quest for survival and reproduction.

Time preference and social hierarchy are fundamental to understanding the “why” of human action. Putting social hierarchy front and center is especially useful in political science, since politics is the pursuit of social status, as well because it explains why people seem to fall into two different political groups, the left and the right. This theory explains a long list of behaviors engaged in by the left but not the right. Here are some examples:

  • Declining to debate
  • Engaging in ad hominem or using other logical fallacies if they do attempt to debate
  • Becoming emotional if one disagrees with them
  • Refusing to grant the right of free speech to people they disagree with
  • Refusing to associate with people on the right
  • Unfriending people on social media because of political disagreements
  • Marching in the street
  • Living in big cities

Why do leftist seem to have no curiosity about how they may be wrong or why other people may have different opinions? Why do leftist always assume evil motives on the part of those who disagree with them? Why are leftists so hostile to people who disagree with them? Applying considerations of social hierarchy explains all those leftists behaviors and answers all the above questions.

The answer, in short, is that “leftism” is the modern version of tribal, collective, “follow the herd” (which actually means “follow the leader”) thinking, while everyone else to some extent use their faculty of reason to try to figure out what exactly is going on and act on it for their benefit. Both strategies of action are necessary for survival. But they are mutually exclusive. We can engage in both, but not at the same time.

That means inevitably that, in any given circumstance, those choosing one basic survival-strategy will deem those who at the same time choose the other strategy as either “stupid” or “evil”. “Stupid” because they don’t seem to see the danger they are in, or “evil” because they are endangering others – “knowingly”.

Leskovar doesn’t say this, but I think he implies that the “follow the leader” types are much less inclined to discuss their action than the “let’s think this through rationally” types.

In addition, there is a strong incentive for those close to the top of the hierarchy to prevent others from climbing higher. Thus their incentive is to make everyone else a) follow the leader(s) and b) do things that will make it difficult if not impossible for the leaders to be replaced by others. In other words: Leaders are inclined to enhance and support “follow the leader” type behaviour, which will surprise exactly nobody who stops to think about it.

Leskovar explains:

By making some basic simple assertions about human nature and society and then building logically from these statements we can find explanations for many puzzling features of human society, especially politics. These assertions are the following:

  • “Human society always has a natural hierarchy
  • In any moment of decision for human action there are two different fundamental heuristics that can be used to make that decision. One method of decision making is to observe what everyone else is doing and doing the same. The other is to observe reality and use reason to decide how to act at any given moment. These two ways of decision making are fundamental survival strategies. These can be restated as thinking for yourself versus following the crowd. One uses reason and the other does not.
  • It is a fundamental human drive to seek belonging in the group and to seek to rise in the hierarchy. Human decision makers weigh the potential impact on social status at all points in the decision making process.
  • The strength of that drive for status and social belonging varies among people with some having a low drive and others a high drive for improved status. The status drive seems to intensify in people as they rise in status.
  • It is natural to be disdainful of people of lower status and this natural reaction varies in its intensity among individuals. The amount of disdain correlates with the status drive meaning people with a high status drive are probably more likely to disdain lower status people with more intensity than those with less status greed.
  • People tend to worship those of higher status. The intensity of this varies among individuals and probably intensifies as status increases.
  • Since the pursuit of social status is a zero sum game with all gains in status meaning a relative decrease in status for others, people tend to want to prevent lower status people from achieving higher status. Envy is the emotion that tends to trigger action to prevent others from achieving higher social status.”

Leskovar was given an interview with Tom Woods recently, in which he pointed out something highly interesting (prompted here). Namely that ‘Christianity said to people: “Don’t treat the low-status people badly. They are all equal in the eyes of God.” That could have a big part in explaining the rise of Europe. For a thousand years or more, people at the top of the hierarchy were less likely to oppress low-status people. I think that is now going away, and I think we’re getting the fruits from that from this Covid thing, which was very oppressive.’

The host, Tom Woods, doesn’t explore this aspect further, but the whole interview is worth listening to nonetheless.

Creating Man in Our Own Image

Bionic Mosquito writes about a book titled “Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution”, by Carl R. Trueman.

Excerpts:

Modern culture sees the world as raw material to be shaped by human will.  Trueman sees technology as having played the biggest part in this change.  As noted earlier, is technology to be considered just another necessary but insufficient precondition, or was it the sufficient condition that enabled the ideas of the aforementioned thinkers to be put into effect?

Technology reinforces the idea of “individual.”  In almost every way today we can individualize our experiences – music, news, videos, recreation.  Again, the individual is placed at the center of his reality.  The world is seen simply as “stuff,” to be molded and shaped according to the will of the creator – the modern individual.

We are the ones with power, and we are the ones who give the world significance.

Technology is the addition, the rise of something that gives the individual power and authority.  On the other side is the collapse of traditional external sources of authority and identity.  Trueman offers three examples to demonstrate this reality.

First, the Reformation which fractured the Church in the West.  Institutional unity was lost, and with it the Church’s claims to authority.  Nations could choose the direction of their faith.  Eventually, the choice would be individual – completely upending who had power in the relationship: the priest or the parishioner.

[…]

Religion, family, nation.  Once, the answer to the question “Whom am I?” would have been “I am Carl Trueman, a Christian and the son of John, English by birth.  Today, almost every one of these traditional identity markers is subject of ridicule and derision.

Without these external markers of identity, we turn inward; as Trueman puts it, institutions are no longer authoritative places of formation, but of performance.

Trueman then goes to the loss of sacred order.  Cultures have traditionally justified their moral orders by appealing to traditions rooted in sacred order.  Moral codes have authority because they are grounded in something outside of, or beyond, this immediate world.  God, for example, or natural law, or the Tao, or created order, or the Oracle at Delphi.  You get the idea.

[…]

Arguments based on the authority of God’s law or the idea that human beings are made in the image of God no longer carry any significant weight in a world devoid of the sacred.

Instead we have arguments based on the authority of the inner self – creating myself in my own image.  Using my self as the yardstick by which I measure…myself.

Why has this played out so explosively in the realm of sex?

Once the authorizing of the inner psychological space happened, it was perhaps inevitable that sex would become more and more significant.  Sexual desires are among the most powerful inner feelings that most human beings experience.

The deepest of the inner self, the most powerful feelings of the inner self.  Hence, the most important manner by which one can express his inner self.  Historically it has been moral codes regarding sex that have been the primary focus across most societies.  Therefore, such codes are also the most important codes to kill.

A German prophet

Heinrich Heine's vision of the 20th century conflagration was written in 1834

In his book “Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland” (“On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany) the poet Heinrich Heine (1797 – 1856), a German secular Jew who in his 30s turned to Protestantism, wrote in 1834 (see English translation below):

Das Christentum – und das ist sein schönstes Verdienst – hat jene brutale germanische Kampflust einigermaßen besänftigt, konnte sie jedoch nicht zerstören, und wenn einst der zähmende Talisman, das Kreuz, zerbricht, dann rasselt wieder empor die Wildheit der alten Kämpfer, die unsinnige Berserkerwut, wovon die nordischen Dichter so viel singen und sagen. jener Talisman ist morsch, und kommen wird der Tag, wo er kläglich zusammenbricht; die alten steinernen Götter erheben sich dann aus dem verschollenen Schutt, und reiben sich den tausendjährigen Staub aus den Augen, und Thor mit dem Riesenhammer springt endlich empor und zerschlägt die gotischen Dome. Wenn Ihr dann das Gepolter und Geklirre hört, hütet Euch, Ihr Nachbarskinder, Ihr Franzosen, und mischt Euch nicht in die Geschäfte, die wir zu Hause in Deutschland vollbringen. Es könnte Euch schlecht bekommen. Hütet Euch das Feuer anzufachen, hütet Euch es zu löschen; Ihr könntet Euch leicht an den Flammen die Finger verbrennen. Lächelt nicht über meinen Rat, über den Rat eines Träumers, der Euch vor Kantianern, Fichteanern und Naturphilosophen warnt. Lächelt nicht über den Phantasten, der im Reiche der Erscheinungen dieselbe Revolution erwartet, die im Gebiete des Geistes stattgefunden. Der Gedanke geht der Tat voraus, wie der Blitz dem Donner. Der deutsche Donner ist freilich auch ein Deutscher und ist nicht sehr gelenkig und kommt etwas langsam herangerollt; aber kommen wird er, und wenn Ihr es einst krachen hört, wie es noch niemals in der Weltgeschichte gekracht hat, so wißt, der deutsche Donner hat endlich sein Ziel erreicht. Bei diesem Geräusche werden die Adler aus der Luft tot niederfallen, und die Löwen in der fernsten Wüste Afrikas werden die Schwänze einkneifen und sich in ihren königlichen Höhlen verkriechen. Es wird ein Stück aufgeführt werden in Deutschland, wogegen die französische Revolution nur wie eine harmlose Idylle erscheinen möchte. jetzt ist es freilich ziemlich still; und gebärdet sich auch dort der eine oder der andre etwas lebhaft, so glaubt nur nicht, diese würden einst als wirkliche Akteure auftreten. Es sind nur die kleinen Hunde, die in der leeren Arena herumlaufen und einander anbellen und beißen, ehe die Stunde erscheint, wo dort die Schar der Gladiatoren anlangt, die auf Tod und Leben kämpfen sollen.

English:

Christianity – and this is its most beautiful merit – has to some extent calmed that brutal Germanic pugnacity, but it could not destroy it, and when once the taming talisman, the cross, breaks, then the savagery of the old fighters, the senseless berserker rage, of which the Nordic poets sing and say so much, will rattle up again. That talisman is rotten, and the day will come when it collapses miserably; the old stone gods will then rise from the lost rubble, and rub the thousand-year-old dust from their eyes, and Thor with the giant hammer will finally leap up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. When you then hear the rumbling and clattering, beware, you neighbouring children, you French, and do not interfere with the business we are doing at home in Germany. It could go badly with you. Beware of starting the fire, beware of putting it out; you could easily burn your fingers on the flames. Do not smile at my advice, at the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans and natural philosophers. Do not smile at the fantasist who expects in the realm of appearances the same revolution that took place in the realm of the spirit. The thought precedes the deed, like the lightning the thunder. The German thunder is admittedly also a German and is not very agile and comes rolling in somewhat slowly; but it will come, and when you one day hear it crack as it has never cracked before in the history of the world, then know that the German thunder has finally reached its goal. At this sound the eagles will fall down dead from the air, and the lions in the farthest desert of Africa will pinch their tails and cower in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany, against which the French Revolution would only seem like a harmless idyll. Now, of course, it is quite quiet; and if one or the other is acting somewhat lively there, just don’t think that they will become the real actors one day. They are only the little dogs that run around in the empty arena and bark and bite at each other before the hour appears when the throng of gladiators arrives there to fight to the death.

How Can Christians in America Prepare for Persecution?

Or in the rest of the Western world?

See video here (17 min).

John MacArthur says we are living in paganism 2.0. What they hate most is biblical truth. (I’d go further and say they even hate the idea that there is something like the truth.)

John Piper adds that we are like exiles in this world. We have always been. We should read 1 Peter and rejoice in our suffering, for our eternal reward is in heaven. This is what Christian clergy should be preaching, not things that make the congregation hate and fear the culture surrounding them.

Here’s a passage he may have meant 1 Peter 3, 13-17 (NIV):

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats[b]; do not be frightened.”[c] 15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 17 For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. 

Who is responsible for the eco-terrorists on our roads?

Ultimately, our managerial class and its totalitarian drive

The self-righteous people blocking roads in this and other countries currently think they need to do this to save the world. They don’t mind endangering lives and damaging property. They’ve made that abundantly clear. For what purpose they want to save the world they don’t seem to know, at least they don’t say. The reason for that is clear: The currently dominant belief-system in the West assumes that there is no purpose in the universe. To formulate an ultimate purpose would run counter to that narrative. Thinking about that would expose the emptiness of their outlook. So they instinctively avoid doing so. Instead, all they say is that they want a future. Don’t we all? So why are they behaving like maniacs?

Apart from their above mentioned belief-system, which inevitably leads to depression, here are some reasons they have lost all reason:

  1. In 2018, the BBC told staff they no longer need to invite climate-change “deniers” on to its programmes, suggesting that allowing them to speak was like letting someone deny last week’s football scores. This callous disregard for science and the scientific, always enquiring and, yes, sceptical method has entrapped young people in the delusion that what they are hearing over the airwaves (and many other media) is scientific “truth”. (We saw the same procedure, BTW, “on stilts”, during the Covid pandemic.)
  2. The managerial class in governments around the world and education have no interest in nurturing critical thinking. They are comfortable with a populous that is quivering with hysterical fear. Such a populous will do as it’s told and not disturb their work. Work that is striving for totalitarian rule. This is the fundamental drive behind Tony Blair’s famous mantra on education. What he really meant was: “Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.”
  3. The churches do not seem to realise that the whole eco-ideology (which in its core is anti-human) is a counter-religion to Christianity. Indeed, many churches appear to be co-opted by this counter-religion. So here, too, a counter-narrative that could give hope is blocked off.
  4. Thus, these deluded people sticking themselves to the tarmac, gantries, works of art and whatnot have no reference-point in reality. All possible outlets for sensible counter-narratives to unfounded doomsday-scenarios have been effectively blocked off. They are totally lost. Unless reason and proper scientific discourse is allowed back into the public sphere, this is only going to get worse.