Chaos and Bad Order

 

The "Apple of Eden" from the movie "Assassin's Creed."
In the story, the Apple contains the genetic code to eliminate free will.

 
CHAOS:
There is an eternal human struggle between chaos and BAD order. Between destructive freedom and destructive despotism. In a condition of chaos, such as predominates currently, the majority of humans will succumb to their base desires, especially since no one is available or trusted to train them not to do so.

Indeed, the very idea that some spiritual leaders SHOULD train people to resist their instincts, base desires and self-will is repudiated. According to "modern" wisdom, people are actualized and fulfilled by giving into their desires, even though demonstrably they are not. One only needs to look at the levels of fentanyl addiction today to see that.

People are ACTUALLY actualized and fulfilled by sacrificing their base desires and self-will for a higher cause. A holy purpose.

However the very idea of a higher purpose is repudiated and indeed, reviled by modernism. It is anathema to the modernist zeitgeist. The Assassin's Creed franchise will be mentioned in this post, but it is worth inserting at this point what that creed is:

 "Where other men blindly follow the truth, Remember:
NOTHING IS TRUE.

Where other men are limited by morality or law, Remember:
EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED."

 
Blindly follow the TRUTH? Everything is PERMITTED? Being opposed to truth and morality does not sound like a good creed to me. Truth is truth. Morality is central. Even a pagan, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, said that the practice of virtue is the essential human purpose. But these are the folks we are supposed to root for, more or less, in that franchise.

The original quote "nothing is true: everything is permitted" is originally from William Burroughs, the homosexual drug-using wife-murdering bad boy of the Beats in the 1950's, as I will address later.

So we have looked at chaos, and you do not have to look far to see it. It is everywhere, and incredibly destructive. Where everyone is FREE to follow their most base self, the majority will. They are like lambs without a shepherd, and they are also against all shepherds.

BAD ORDER:
What is bad ORDER? Order is necessary to civilized life, and we see what happens when it breaks down. Murders and rapes, sewage runs in the streets, drug addiction, the water is not fit to drink and the food is not fit to eat, electricity only runs a few hours a day. Most third world countries and many that are headed that way are like this. We are not that far off.

The problem with a human order is that those who most want power are those who should be prevented at all costs from obtaining it if possible. Power in general is a nearly irresistible temptation to indulge one's basest self (think: Hunter Biden.) Imagine what you would do if you had all power and could never be brought to account for anything you do? If that prospect appeals to you, you should never be anywhere near the levers of power; but even people who mean well can be corrupted by it because humans are easy to corrupt and it is very difficult to train them to resist corruption. It would require virtually a moral superhuman to resist abusing power.

In the AC franchise, the Templars genuinely want to end war, crime and violence and bring about a "progressive" New World Order. They are not Idi Amins. Most seem to truly mean well. However, the only way they ever seem to find to achieve those goals is to seek out the Apples of Eden which have the power to destroy human free will... for everyone but themselves, of course. They would be set up as the new rulers of the world.

However for examples of bad order, we don't have to look as far as computer game franchises. Hitler famously made the trains run on time. That's order. Order is good. He was also a homocidal megalomaniac whose actions lead to the destruction of Germany and murdered ten million people he had a personal grudge against, that's bad order. In bad order, leaders are free to oppress the people and indulge their most insane desires, because such an order is lead by a corruptible human who was probably horrendously evil to begin with or they would not have been able to grab power for themselves and keep it. Saddam Hussein and his sons are the perfect exemplars of such bad order. His sons did whatever they wanted, raped any women they wanted and murdered absolutely at will, and nobody could call them to account for it.


THE CYCLE:
And so human societies cycle between bad order and chaos, with each new wave of chaos presenting an invitation to bad order and every bad order presenting an invitation to chaos. While I have no doubt that we are currently under the sway of chaos in American society and a bad order in Washington, does anyone doubt that if things really break down there will be despots waiting in the wings that will make the Bidens look nearly domesticated? I do not. While Trump has up to this point acted in positive and necessary ways in his first administration, with his talk of revenge and executing drug dealers he is clearly poised to go despotic under the right circumstances, and under those circumstances a Trump despotism might be seen as a positive development. Sometimes an ascendant bad order that has not yet attempted to give in to its worst impulses can improve significantly on chaos if those are the only options. After all, we all do want order to be kept on the streets, the water to be fit to drink and food fit to eat, we all want to be safe in our own homes and not get murdered or raped. We all want the trains to run, the planes not to crash, and the mail to be delivered.

There are brief periods of time when a golden balance seems to be achieved between chaos and bad order, mostly when an order that isn't all that bad starts gradually shifting towards chaos. However, such times are rarely as benign as they appear, and all carry the seeds of their own destruction. The 1950's are often viewed as such a time in America, buoyed by increasing prosperity. However, tremendous degenerates were also around waiting for their moment, extending before and after the 1950's. Writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Jack Kerouac were each lauded as the voice of their generation, and all were advocates for either leftism, drunkenness, hedonism, general degeneracy or all of the above. Writers in praise of the modernist zeitgeist - no wonder they were decorated with literary laurels.

Kerouac pals William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg were homosexuals and pedophiles; Burroughs admittedly a pedophile. He especially liked Arab boys. Burroughs actually went to South America to play with a drug that most decent Americans had never heard of or imagined, Ayahuasca. I believe this was after he murdered his own wife but before he wrote tomes about heroin addiction and homosexuality. So the Fifties had some real monsters: it's just that most people (and they should be grateful) didn't know about them. Kerouac himself drank himself to death, which is always a nice final coda to your literary resume. Hemingway blew his own head off with a shotgun, which is not nearly as literary as drinking yourself to death but might well be considered to be the logical conclusion of his life.

RIGHT ORDER:
If human history continually cycles between chaos and bad order, what is right order? G-d lays it out pretty clearly in the book of Exodus: you should not be dominated by a human king (Pharaoh,) nor should you be dominated by your basest self (the big party at the base of the golden calf.) G-D ALONE should be your king, and His laws the Torah and especially the Ten Commandments. You keep that, you need no other kings.

Of course just because G-d plans something nicer, doesn't mean that human beings can't decide against it. People might say, "you say that G-d had this better plan and that humans opted out of it: is G-d omnipotent or not? How could G-d fail?" Well, G-d didn't fail: humans did and failure has always been within the human purview. We are free to fail: indeed I believe that G-d continually chooses in favor of preserving human freedom, even at the price of frequent and nigh-inevitable human failure. After the righteous order under Moses and Joshua and the chaos of the period of the Judges, the Israelites wanted a human king.

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him:

“Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king.

As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”

~1 Samuel 8:4-9

And so RIGHT order disappeared from the Earth. And I would be lying to you if I told you I thought there was much of any chance of it coming back. The RIGHT order is the Kingdom of G-d. Such an order may no longer be possible on this Earth, but it is not that difficult to imagine what it might look like should the miraculous happen and a nucleus of right order be created in this world. Children would be taught to keep G-d's law and conquer their baser selves for the sake of their better selves. Young people would be taught to embrace self-discipline and submit to traditional gender roles as G-d decreed. Those who govern would be the best of these altruistic people and care for the welfare of all while keeping G-d's law and restricting themselves to enforcing that law only while acting as moral guides to being better people. It is not hard to imagine: that it would ever happen is the hard and quite likely impossible thing.

I truly believe that G-d acts to preserve the human freedom to fail, even the freedom of humans to sin though of course G-d cannot approve of sin. But we must all decide for ourselves whether to submit to the rule of G-d, to the Kingdom of Heaven, and few in this age will do so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Is My Job to Know Things

 

A humble but beautiful weed in my garden

 
It is my job to know things. It is not my job to fix those things.

They cannot BE FIXED until the end of the age, assuming that such eschatology is even correct. G-d gives Humankind leave to run rampage until then, to do whatever is in their darkened hearts to do, which is mostly bad.

If gnashing my teeth, such as I have left, continually for the rest of my life would give compensation to G-d for the evils of having to bear Homo Sapiens in His sight, I would. Instead, what I feel constantly is the message, "do your work." Fertilize your plants. Cut down the weeds on the path to the compost pile. Make sticks for your tomato plants. Realize how things are and that you cannot affect them. No one made you king of Earth or responsible for it. Do your work.

What's always fun is realizing that your "cultural allies" are also operating under deception, just different deceptions than the Wokies. They are also preferring what they want to G-d's truth. I say they are allies and they are, at least they believe in the Ten Commandments, most of them. Most of them also believe in the Trinity, which is pagan idolatry which was clearly contradicted in the Torah. Something I heard loud and clear, but too few others did:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord your G-d, The Lord is One.

Not three-in-one or any of that other horse shit. Clearly, or G-d would have told us otherwise in the Torah, believing that a human being is also G-d is idolatry. No man was ever G-d: G-d ALONE is G-d. Many others believe in heathenishness like the idea that Mary has special status and can intercede with G-d on behalf of mortals.

EVERYONE STANDS OR FALLS INDIVIDUALLY TO G-D ALONE.

If you want to get right with the Lord, stop sinning, obey the commandments, pray to HIM for assistance, and if you do so in sincerity you will get it. No shortcuts and no intercessors needed. G-d Himself hears your prayers if you are sincere. Even if you are a terrible sinner, if you repent of it sincerely He will hear you. You don't need Mary, or St. Francis, or any human at all. Not Jesus either.

If you ever want to know what it is like to feel completely alone, imagine that no one at all whatsoever agrees with you on anything that really matters. I don't just think these things I KNOW these things, and no one else agrees. No man was G-d; I know that because G-d said it. No man is holy, only G-d; I know that because G-d said it. So don't pray in any way shape or form to HUMAN BEINGS, it is idolatry. Do not represent human beings as holy: we humans have a million million metric BUTT-TONS of things we should be apologizing to G-d for instead of putting halos on HUMAN heads. It is IDOLATRY. Do not plan human laws that violate the COMMANDMENTS of G-d.

And on and on. I know these things because I can understand simple English and I read what He said on Mt. Sinai and afterwards and I can think. And thanks be to the Lord, I can know things. 

And every time I lament the fact that I am completely spiritually alone except for the company of G-d, I slap myself in the head. I am allowed to know, I have been given the grace to know. Never lament THAT. Be infinitely grateful for that. That's my job, along with cutting weeds and fertiizing plants and feeding cats. To know.

To DO anything about it beyond keeping the Commandments myself is not my job. That's outside my job description.

I must keep the Commandments or suffer the consequences, which is reasonably easy because I want to keep them. I gotta do stuff to keep myself going and to prepare for the future. I gotta do dishes and feed stray cats because I gotta do the first and mercy and love dictates the second. I gotta garden. I gotta carry out the poop (I use a "composting toilet," which is a fancy way of saying a lined bucket and a compost pile.) I gotta cook and clean.

I gotta know things and deal with knowing them. It's not actually very hard.

 

 

 

 

 

How to Become Small

 

Photo by Manfred Majer

We humans love ourselves, don't we? We all love, and I include myself, the story of heroes overcoming evil and of humanity overcoming great obstacles to achieve something. The Greatest Generation of WWII. The first flight of the Wright Brothers. In the modern age, the dream that socialism will cure our many ills, that a human-invented mass framework for living will usher us into the golden age. Or conversely, the dream that America is the shining city on the hill when it is anything but.

And I, perhaps more than most, love the idea that humans could be noble and good - even though I know it to be a lie. I love Tolkien's Lord of the Rings precisely because it shows what isn't true and cannot be true in this world, a noble humanity. Unfortunately this nobility frequently expresses itself in war, and war is the opposite of noble. That the wars of the 20th Century have not permanently invalidated the idea of the nobility of humanity and sent us all into sackcloth and ashes to repent of our evil, is a testament to the refusal of the human species to learn or repent or even think.

Of course the stories never tell of people being noble and good at home, tending their gardens or washing their dishes or being good to their spouses or children. It must always be grand, and grand usually either means violent or dangerous, and neither of those things are in truth good things. Violence and danger should only be undertaken in the utmost extremity, and is no more glorious than surviving a bad cancer operation.

The fictions we tell ourselves, even under the pretext of expressing nobility, all involve one thing: the exercise of power. And that is the biggest lie of all. Power always corrupts. Some say that pride is the primal sin, but if it is, power is its close companion.

Aragorn wouldn't have been much of a hero if he couldn't lop off orc heads with the best of them. Luke Skywalker wouldn't have amounted to much if he couldn't wield mystic power and a lightsaber. Spider-Man wouldn't be worth reading or watching if he couldn't kick some ass, even non-lethally. Force is always the threat, and force is always the response to that threat. And this leads to a world where force is always meeting force violently forever. And worse, we glorify force meeting force violently forever.

And I am not saying you shouldn't meet force with force. I have guns, and probably I would use them in defense of hearth and home. I admit liking stories and games with violence in them. As long as that illusory context of nobility is preserved, I probably like them more than most. Perhaps we are quite irredeemable in that respect: humans love violence. Violence is dramatic. Violence adds spice to stories.Where would fiction be without violence? And I happen to like fiction.

My point is that this should make us think long and hard about our true condition in the world. We should lament that condition. For centuries humans have sought paradise, and for centuries they have proven themselves incapable of living in it. Where is the literature of peace, as there is the literature of war? What poet or novelist writes elegies to peace as they do to war? They don't.

So, lament the war in the human soul. Lament our thirst for power. Grieve for the fact that we are not noble, we are warlike greedy arseholes and always have been.

UNDERSTAND THAT, every time you are tempted to glorify the human.

UNDERSTAND THAT, every time you are tempted to support a "noble war."

UNDERSTAND THAT, every time you propose or support some grand top-down solution to solving human problems. What, humans, these monsters, will fix everything? They will not. They will destroy everything.

UNDERSTAND THAT, every time you imagine some noble yet actually violent hero.

UNDERSTAND THAT, every time you are tempted to glorify those who wield POWER of whatever form, whether light sabers or money or technology or politics or a gun.

UNDERSTAND IT.

And having understood it, RENOUNCE POWER. Become small. Accept your true condition in this world, which is to either be small or be evil. Do not use what you don't need. Don't go where you don't need to go. Do not glorify yourself, or your country, or your ideology, or human power. Do what the people of the 20th Century didn't do, which is lament and repent of our wars and the many ways in which we have destroyed the Earth. Put on that sackcloth, take on those ashes. Wear black, do not smile lightly. Accept the discipline of grief. Put on an armband for the sins of humanity. Mourn that humans are such.

And then live small. Learn what you absolutely need and seek to get those things in the most reliable way, and forget about other things. Perhaps, as I have done, seek to extract yourself from the human world and human society because they will never learn and they will carry on as they have done forever. In ignorance.

But at least one person here and there will not.

The Fast

 If Wednesday comes and there is a "red wave" like everyone says there will be, well I will feel rather silly. Happy, but silly. I don't know for a fact that there won't be. If my explanation for how I am feeling is correct however, then perhaps I can use what is happening to me for my edification.

For the last couple days, I have felt uncharacteristically depressed. Like I am in mourning. Food has lost its flavor, I have no appetite. These could have perfectly normal biological explanations and I would be happy for them to be true: the problem arises if this explanation is wrong. I have no obvious signs of sickness. It is like I am going through the Biblical description of a fast.

Fasting and mourning go together, fasting is a kind of mourning. Sometimes as with the Ninevites after Jonah's visit, it is remorse for one's own sin. While I have many sins in my past, I don't think I am particularly sinny lately.

There is another reason for which people fasted in the Bible. When Moses brought down the tablets of the Ten Commandments to discover the Israelites worshiping cows, after he threw down the tablets, G-d said he would destroy the Israelites and make of Moses the new line of Israelites. Basically making Moses the new Abraham. Moses went back upon the mountain and threw himself on the ground and fasted 40 days and nights. Moses, in other words, was trying to influence G-d to change His mind.

Now this sounds ridiculous on its face, that G-d having decided something even could change His mind. I mean, He's G-d. If He decided something, that's how it's gonna be, period. Nevertheless, not only Moses fasted like this. David fasted in an unsuccessful effort to save his son's life. After his son died, then he ate and drank and his attendants were puzzled and a little offended by this. You fast and mourn while your son is alive, and then when your son is dead, THEN you eat? David's answer is that while his son was alive, he fasted in the hopes of averting G-d's decision, but once he was dead there was no point to that.

So clearly, if fasting can sometimes change G-d's mind, David didn't have the holiness mojo to do that and Moses did, since G-d did decide to have mercy on the Israelites after all.

Now the whole idea that fasting could change G-d's mind is a little crazy to me. One might suspect that G-d, rather than mainly wanting to wipe out the Israelites, wanted to make Moses more responsible for them, and putting their continued survival on him personally would do that. It is vaguely reminiscent of Elijah basically wanting to wash his hands of the Israelites altogether.

And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.
The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars,
and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left,
and now they are trying to kill me too.”

~1 Kings 19:9-10

In other words, in Elijah's opinion the Israelites are altogether irredeemably evil. This declaration was prefaced by Elijah fasting, praying that he would die.

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night.

~1 Kings 19:3-9

What happened after that? Elijah's mantle passed onto Elisha. Why did that happen? Perhaps because Elijah could no longer intercede for the people, having essentially written them off or at least declared that he couldn't face their evil anymore. So G-d wanted to make Moses MORE responsible for Israel and G-d recognized that Elijah COULD NOT be responsible for Israel any more so Elisha had to take over. And both were prefaced with fasting by Moses and Elijah respectively, although it does not state explicitly that Elijah fasted but rather that he was in need of food, which under the circumstances probably meant that he had been fasting. Elijah had a servant, he could have probably afforded something at Beersheba's version of Taco Bell if he were in any mood to eat. ;)

So if what I am going through is sort of unconscious fasting FOR something, what is it I am unconsciously fasting for? What am I wishing to change G-d's mind about?

I am very much afraid that my soul, having perceived something that my mind has not, is fasting to avert a terrible disaster. The Midterm Elections. That the Democrats will win a great victory, by means fair or likely foul. And that G-d will let it happen. THAT is what I am very much afraid of.

I have not eaten all day, and now it is night. If this is what my body is fasting for, then perhaps I should eat. Accept it, accept it, that things are gone much farther than you thought. That horrible consequences are forthcoming, and nobody can stop it. If we win now, if we win in 2024, will that turn the tide of evil in this country? No, nothing short of calamity can turn it now. If we win and are smiling now, we are only setting ourselves up to mourn and cry in 2024 or 2028. America is still evil and godless, regardless. Nothing will change on Nov. 9, not really. The only medicine that will fix America now, is the road of pain.

I hope very very much that I am very mistaken about all of this. Nobody will be happier than I to be made the fool of. But I think I am fasting to change G-d's mind about Nov. 8. Or I am fasting, because He needs to change MY mind about what will happen on Nov. 8. That I have to accept that I am hoping for a lost cause.

"The anger of the Lord will not turn back
Till it has fulfilled and completed His purposes.
In the days to come, you shall clearly perceive it."

~Jeremiah 23:20

What do you do with all the Woke commies?

I usually go with more spiritual topics on this blog, but since I have been banned on Facebook for 24 hours for CRACKING A FRIKKING JOKE, I guess I have to put this here. 

The Nation, once a semi-respectable magazine of sorts, recently went with an article entitled, "Do We Really Have to Care About Miserable White People? Sadly, yes, because they wield disproportionate political power." Read it if you have the belly for it. This is how you say you are a racist without saying you are a racist.

Also, here's their new cover. Think they are sending a message here?

I think maybe they don't like Christians too much, whaddya think?

Now, just as the profoundly odious Joan Walsh asks the question of what they can do about all the hateful unhappy white people, I am going to ask: what the hell do we do with all the woke commies?

If I could push a button and export them all permanently to China, with a Biblical curse that their skin will melt if they ever set foot in the United States again, I probably would. But mass teleportation and Biblical curses are not in my tool box. What's the solution, then? Because if they aren't stopped they are going to wind up making the Third Reich look positively sane.

Total urban meltdown. I hate to recommend Armageddon as a solution to anything, but honestly we're there. We either have to find a way to disenfranchise the Woketards permanently - very undemocratic of me, I know - or else the cities just have to completely melt down and since they can't survive anywhere else, they'll die. Now Putin might make that prescription literal, and that might be a fix as long as Putin and Xi get the same treatment, but we don't have to wait on Crazy Vlad to push the button. The Woketards are shitting their own beds as we speak. The cities they need to continue their parasitic way of life, are the cities they are destroying. Nice symmetry, that.

Now either cheering on their self-induced destruction or politically castrating them both sound like very extreme solutions, and they are. If these solutions were available in the 1930's to stop Hitler from rising to power and initiating the deaths of innocent millions (as versus woketards who are not innocent,) would you want to use them?

Lets take stock of where we are for a minute:

· We have corporate censorship in this country and the executive branch of the US government has eagerly offered to help them do that. I got censored just today.

· We have people in positions of political power demanding total control over your body and whatever they may want to inject into it.

· We have a news media almost entirely controlled by the Woke commies. It is Democrat State Media at this point, an American Pravda.

· The US government is intentionally opening the borders to all comers in order to dilute the vote of current American citizens. That might backfire because basically nobody in the world is as Woke as some Americans are. Those who become citizens are not that likely to go along with it.

· The entire American educational establishment is controlled by the Woke commies. Universities are leftist indoctrination centers. The Teacher's Union is run by Woke commies. Children are being taught in schools to embrace sexual deviance and white self-loathing.

· We have parents drugging and in some times getting surgery for their "transgender" children, with permanent consequences.

· Thanks to the Patriot Act and other such laws, the US Government can spy on its own citizens with impunity.

· They want to disarm us. Gosh, wonder why they want that?

· They want to legalize the murder of the unborn until birth.

· The media suppresses news stories and calls them disinformation when they are critical of Democrats (such as with the Hunter Biden laptop) and then will turn around and say it happened after all, no apologies. They spread disinformation about Republicans, such as that concerned parents at school board meetings are "terrorists."

· Many many more such things.

The hour is way too late to play patty-cake with these monsters. If I could push that magical button that would cause them all to die, aside from a few that I for some unaccountable reason take a liking to, I totally would, because the alternative could be a dystopia the likes of which the Earth has never yet seen. 40 million dead Woketards is a small price to pay for saving humanity. They already chose death anyway.

ANYTHING that we can do to stop them is justified. There may not be shooting in the streets, but it's a war. There is no fair play in war. Now there is a good chance they may self destruct and we don't have to do anything, they seem pretty good at that, but anything else we have to do to stop them we must do. If they win, say goodbye to your life, your country, your freedom and probably anything else you value.

It was true then and it is true now. There is only one kind of good communist. Hell, it's an insult to historical communists to call them communists, the focking Soviet Union was practically wholesome compared to these guys. The Soviet Union wasn't trying to cut your kids nads off. The Soviet Union didn't have Pride Parades where naked pervs march down public streets. I should call them Woke Satanists because that's what they are, the commie bit is just one feature of a much larger package. Their movement needs to be put down like the rabid dogs they are. With extreme prejudice.

In Praise of the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

 Those who are looking for reasons to judge G-d to be cruel according to "modern, conventional morality" (the same morality that has condoned the slaughter of 60 million infants in this country since 1973,) do not have to look very far to find examples in the Tanakh. While G-d very specifically commands that the Israelites during the invasion of Canaan not wage war against any nation that claims descent from Abraham or Lot; for the rest the fate is not so kind. The Israelites are commanded to completely destroy them, every man woman and child, along with their personal possessions and especially any religious idols. They are all basically to be piled in the center of town, the inhabitants along with all their household goods and idols, and burned. How intolerant!

Now as time goes on, things get modified a bit, whether at the command of G-d or more likely despite it. Frequently the Canaanite towns are allowed to surrender and serve as slaves. Arguably it is the self-interest of the Israelites to blame, not the command of G-d, that this is sometimes an option. G-d is pretty unambiguous about the "no prisoners" thing, and constantly warns of the ill consequences of Israelites associating with the Canaanites in any way whatsoever. Total destruction is specified.

However in the Tanakh, G-d does not always delegate mass destruction to His servants. Sometimes He takes action directly. The first and most notable example of this is the destruction of the ante-diluvian world in the Flood. Now you can think what you like about the historicity of such things, but what is undeniable is that the Tanakh SAYS G-d destroyed them. So for the people who are looking for ammunition against the G-d of the Tanakh, grounds for an accusation of cruelty, that is what the Tanakh said He did. We don't know what numbers were involved, but it was clearly depicting a mass death event.

The second most notable example is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or rather the destruction of the whole Dead Sea valley because it was not strictly limited just to those two cities. In terms of total dead, probably 100,000 is not too high a number. And this again was the destruction of every man, woman, child, cow, donkey and chicken. It was a holocaust, which originally meant a burnt offering to G-d to the point of complete destruction.

And again you can argue one way or the other about the historicity of such an event. That's not the point. The point is that the Tanakh says G-D HIMSELF DID IT.

And I am about to argue that this was an act of kindness, a mercy towards humanity. In fact, if you are living in an era where Sodoms and Gomorrahs are NOT destroyed in such a way (as is currently the case,) that this signifies that G-d is really really very very unhappy with Mankind and we should be very very concerned. This is not to say that the Sodoms and Gomorrahs of the 21st Century will not meet destruction: they absolutely will, but through the fruition of their own evil. In other words the full fruit of the wicked cities of America and the world will be allowed to manifest, and that fruit will destroy them. Rather than G-d pruning those branches before they are allowed to fruit.

Evil is incapable of creation and can only destroy in the end. Comparing evil to a virus, the virus of evil eventually destroys the cell that allows it to replicate and so it must find new cells to destroy. America's most wicked cities will eventually lack even the most basic structures that allow them to continue, such as the rule of law and the protection of property and life.

It is a mercy of G-d to clean up Humanity's mistakes for it, and nothing cleans like fire. Like, clearly mistakes were made and G-d is going to clean up that mess for you, Humanity. You get a fresh start, a clean slate. That is in some ways the greatest of mercies: a second chance. Or in this case a third or more chance.

What would have happened if G-d had not destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? What is happening now, to us, today?

Future generations would have been raised completely saturated in evil and abomination. Opportunities for children to grow up to be righteous would have been very slim indeed: in fact without the grace and intervention of G-d there would be no chance of that whatsoever. The evil, the power hunger, the arrogance and the deviance of Man would have grown unbounded, distorting and blaspheming the image of Man who was made in G-d's image. The Devil likes nothing better than to blaspheme G-d by twisting His image into a perversion and a mockery. Those who have eyes to see can already see that happening so clearly. The innocent, those who have not yet seriously sinned, are a special target: either for destruction or for corruption. The Devil kills babies and those who are not killed he makes a special target for moral corruption. We should wish that America's cities be absolutely destroyed rather than for dozens of future generations to live as slaves to wickedness. You may call me evil, and according to "conventional, modern morality" I probably am, but I have often prayed for this. That G-d would give us the kindness that he showed the people of the age of Sodom and wipe out evil from the land. Scourge it from the land with fire. But that seemingly is not what is going on in this era. Evil is going to full flower and fruit.

Death is infinitely preferable to slavery to wickedness. It is infinitely better for the human race to be decontaminated from that evil. It was better for the future generations of Sodom not to be born, than to be born deeply entrenched in spiritual slavery. And that is why the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was a blessing: to the rest of the human race that survived, and to the future generations who would now not be born into complete spiritual oppression.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was an event worthy of thanks and praise, not our all-too-human judgments about the "cruelty of G-d." Our hearts should pine and pray for fresh starts, for clean slates, for the mistakes and deliberate evils of humanity to be wiped away from the Earth. For the possibility of children being raised uncorrupted and clean, and old men going to their graves in peace, reconciled to their G-d. Amen.

By Daderot - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62711574

 

Eye and Cheek

 Theology has often struggled to reconcile the "eye for an eye" morality of the Tanakh, the Old Testament, with the "Love your enemies" and "turn the other cheek" morality of the New. Did G-d change His mind? In the past, my solution has been simple: they cannot be reconciled. Indeed Christians frequently mix Old and New Testament morality rather eclectically, something the liberals (who might prefer an extreme surrender to evil theology) have tended to be quick to point out. To them, Jesus is only the man who forgives adulterers, not the man who yells at pharisees. Yet the issue remains: the Tanakh demands death for adulterers; Jesus rescued one who was lined up for exactly that punishment.

I think now that this conflict actually can be resolved somewhat harmoniously by looking at the very differing conditions of Moses and Joshua on the one hand, and Jesus on the other. G-d didn't change, but circumstances sure did.

While of course the germ theory of disease was not known then, the Tanakh can be thought of as kind of operating on a "germ theory of evil." In other words, you have to nip the contagion right in the bud and quarantine those affected, either by exiling them or in more extreme cases killing them. Evil has to be opposed vigorously and violently, or else it will surely spread and cause even more suffering.This was regarded as a communal obligation: both an obligation of the community and an obligation of the individual towards it.

And of course this theory is quite right: we see all the time how evil spreads through families and communities, the sins of the fathers do indeed rebound onto the sons and daughters. When you look at prison populations, virtually all of them have extensive family histories of violence, drug and alcohol abuse and other disorders. Sure, all of us have our family issues, but prisoners often have profoundly crippling ones.

Evil does spread like a disease. And the Tanakh's approach to that disease is like the approach to gangrene: when the finger gets gangrene, you chop it off to save the hand. But this chopping is not something that is left up to the individual, it is a responsibility of the community. When a crime calls for stoning to death, everyone is supposed to throw the stones. Not just one person. In some cases like idolatry, it specifies that even the closest next of kin of the condemned is to throw a stone; in fact they have to throw the first one.

But you have to ask the question: who was in charge of that community, that ancient Jewish society? Moses and Joshua. Who was in charge of them? G-d. This was, at least ideally, a society almost unique in human history. One in which G-d was in charge, when G-d was recognized as the authority.

What was the situation in Jesus' time? That disease control horse has long bolted the corral. The population was thoroughly infected. The disease was rampant and uncontrolled. The Hebrews had failed to live up to the opportunity to be a holy people led by G-d. The real people of G-d were not in charge of that society, they were refugees in it. Judea had been taken over by the Romans, a violent pagan torturing empire that watched people suffer and die for entertainment. The Jewish establishment had carved themselves out a niche of comfort and wealth and didn't have to give a damn. They made rules without caring what burdens they placed on the people. The Temple might not have had pagan idols in it as in times past, but it was still a corrupt institution run by self-serving elites.

Satan was in charge of the Earth. Satan was the authority. In that context, the communal authority authorized by G-d, which was required for much of Old Testament morality, didn't exist anymore. Sure the Sanhedrin existed, under Roman rule, and was about as representative of the "community" as today's elites are of the American populace. All of the individual obligations still existed: you were still supposed to not lie, covet or kill, and Jesus never once contradicted any of that with the possible exception of Sabbath observance. And you could argue that Sabbath observance was a communal obligation too. That community as an extension of divine rule functionally no longer existed.

What did Jesus change? Communal obligations. Stoning adulterers is a communal obligation, not an individual one. The COMMUNITY was supposed to put that person to death, not the individual. The community prosecutes thieves (if someone takes away your coat, give them your cloak.) The community prosecutes assault (turn the other cheek.) If a Roman slaps you, are you going to take it up with the Romans which are the authority in place? They will probably beat you for your pains.

So in Moses' time, G-d was in charge, of that community at least. In Jesus' time, Satan ruled the Earth. And still does.

Jesus evidences a point of view of the people of G-d as refugees in the world. Outcasts. The offscourings of the Earth. The dregs, in the eyes of the world.

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.
As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
That is why the world hates you.

~John 15:18-19

This is the world of Jesus, and this is our world. Now, for a long time in Europe people sought to establish "Christendom," people in early America did too, and this no doubt had many good effects along with some not-so-great ones. But ultimately, this is the Day of Satan, and I don't believe that anything we do is going to change that until the end.

I really feel like this understanding is the resolution for me for the conflict between the Tanakh and the New Testament. While I believe that the idea that anyone other than G-d was G-d is contrary to the Torah (and it is,) I have often felt drawn to what Jesus taught regardless, and tried to figure out a resolution between conflicting Christian and Torah morality, and I believe this is it. I was a Christian for some years, and I often felt drawn to the refugee motifs in the New Testament that were largely lacking in the Old. We ARE refugees and outcasts in the world. Satan is "the prince of this world" as the Gospel of John says. These ideas are not present in the Tanakh because the Tanakh was written in a time when the rulership of G-d was either already established (Moses, Joshua) or was trying to be re-established. Well that horse had fled to Alaska by the time Jesus was born.

So then does that mean that I now accept the New Testament, despite its many differences from the Old, as being from G-d? Yes. Does that mean that Jesus was the Son of G-d? Quite possibly, whatever that exactly means. Some of these expressions are rather lacking in explanations. A prophet? Quite possibly.

Do I believe that he is the same as G-d? No, and there are many quotes in the gospels which indicate he didn't believe that, either. He always defers to his Father. If that is functionally the same as deferring to himself, that is a peculiar way of deferring. You defer to the other. Jesus defers to the Father. Jesus was a man.

However he was a man that seems to have had a revelation from G-d for these satanically-dominated times. We are not in charge of this world. Satan is.

Conservatives often fight for the establishment of at least some degree of holy authority over the United States, and that is both well-meant and probably would be good in its effects. But just like Christendom in Medieval Europe, it is a stopgap against a satanic world and often the forces that are supposed to be fighting on our side wind up fighting on theirs. Corruption in the Church, you just have to look at the Catholic Church to see how that works. Politicians who run on "family values" who wind up grabbing for the shiny baubles that Satan hangs down to lure the weak. That doesn't mean we stop trying, it means we understand our position. We are refugees and outcasts trying to seize back authority for G-d, and we are going to lose in that effort more often than win until G-d decides to wrap the whole thing up. 

 

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world,
but people loved darkness instead of light
because their deeds were evil.

~John 3:19