Not sure if this is true or not. The evidence so far seems pretty slim, to be honest. Still, an interesting contribution!
"Maoris discovered Antarctica 1,300 years ago"
"Polynesians first to discover Antarctica, not news to Maori"
Sunday, July 31, 2022
The cult of science
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| Credit: @DynamoSuperX (from Twitter) |
No idea if this is true. All the usual caveats and disavowals apply. You know what I mean!
African Gospel
"Jesus of Africa: Voices of Contemporary African Christology" (2004) is a book by Diane B Stinton, a Canadian scholar and theologian. She resided and taught in Kenya at the time her book was published. "Jesus of Africa" combines theology and anthropology. It´s not as interesting as I first imagined, and feels somewhat "in-house", but it´s not a complete waste of time either. People extremely interested in Christian missionary activity (and the theological conundrums surrounding it) will probably find it worthwhile.
Stinton has carried out field work in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana, and also quotes authors from Cameroon and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. She has mostly excluded southern Africa from consideration, however. The book comments on some theological developments within African Christian Churches since the abolition of European colonial rule. Both Protestants and Catholics are included. There are also "African Independent Churches", Christian denominations started by Black Africans outside the structures of the missionary Churches (which are ultimately controlled from Europe or the United States). Stinton describes various strategies used by African Christians to make Jesus and the Biblical message more relevant to African concerns, both traditional and modern.
The author refers to these strategies as "inculturation" and "liberation". There is an obvious tension between them, not always explored in the book, since the former tries to adapt Christianity to traditional African cultures (including traditional African religions), while the latter is more modern and might therefore clash with tradition. For instance, feminist theology will come into conflict with patriarchal structures, while a more general liberation theology will clash with those of a less radical political bent. There are also attempts to bridge the gap between inculturation and liberation, however, for instance by claiming that traditional culture is really matriarchal, or by recasting traditional kings ("tribal chiefs" in Western parlance) as liberation fighters.
Much of the inculturation will strike more doctrinally purist Christians as syncretist and heretical. While Stinton paints African religion as monotheist, I think more traditional theologians will easily define it as pantheist and polytheist. The "life force" from "God" is mediated through spirit-beings, of which the ancestors of the tribe, clan and/or family are the most important. This makes ancestral cults central to many African cultures. Jesus is incorporated into this structure as the Ancestor par excellence, sometimes referred to as the Proto-Ancestor, who mediates between God and man. He can also be seen as the foremost manifestation of the vitalistic life force which permeats the entire cosmos and ultimately comes from God. Traditional African terms for the Divine are used when describing "God the Father" of the Bible, and likewise Jesus can be given names or titles associated with the Divine or some important divine figure in the traditional religion. Jesus can further be cast as a traditional African king, who is seen not only as an earthly ruler and mediator with the Divine, but also as a powerful warrior and "liberator" or "savior" of his people. The author once visited a Church compound where the chapel (i.e. the "house" of Jesus) was surrounded in circular fashion by the other buildings, in the same way as the house of a king is surrounded by the domiciles of his plural wives!
Other inculturation attempts include seeing Jesus as a family member, obviously because the extended family is the central social unit in many African societies. Jesus can be seen as father, brother, husband, or even as "mother". While nobody interviewed in the book regards Jesus as literally feminine, many women did see Jesus as a motherly figure. He is said to give life (like a woman) and care for his flock in motherly fashion. Sometimes his suffering is interpreted as a motherly act. In one Kenyan culture, women have traditionally worked as shepherds, so obviously "the good shepherd" sounds like feminine symbolism there. However, women just as often see Jesus as a manly figure. For instance, widows might interpret him as a "husband".
The author is "pro-African", which a critical reader might find mildly annoying. For instance, the already mentioned attempt to cast African paganism as "monotheist", obviously intended as praise, since monotheism is "good" in a Christian context. A more neutral observer might argue that it shouldn´t matter whether or not non-Christian religion is mono-, pan- or polytheist. Both the author and the African theologians she quote constantly use the terms "holistic" and "wholistic" when describing traditional African culture. But surely this term can´t be African? It smacks more of American New Age! It´s also obvious that the holistic "community" described by Stinton is really a tribal or clan society, something very problematic from a "liberation" perspective.
An ironic side effect of the inculturation efforts is that belief in magic, witches and traditional medicine has remained strong even in a Christian context, often supplemented by faith healing. Jesus can be seen as a powerful healer or medicine man. It struck me that the success of the prosperity gospel in Africa (mentioned in passing by the author as an anti-traditional reaction) can actually have a "traditional" explanation: maybe the Faith movement preachers are seen as powerful magicians?
Some topics are not covered in the book at all, or only mentioned in passing, yet seems relevant to the context. Thus, Stinton mentions that African Christians often prefer the Old Testament to the Gospels. Why? This is never explained. Is it the tribal aspect? Or something more disturbing? In Rwanda, the Hutu extremists used OT imagery to rally the Hutu against the Tutsi. It seems Black Jesus can also be a genocidaire! I also noted that White Europeans get all the blame for the slave trade, when in reality the Muslim slave trade was just as extensive and older than the Christian. Kenya and Uganda would have been mostly hit by the Muslim slave trade, while Ghana was presumably hit by both. Is "liberation" only directed against Whites, or is there an anti-Muslim aspect we are not told about?
From a non-Christian perspective, "Jesus of Africa" also raises other questions. For instance, how far can Christianity be stretched without becoming something else entirely? *Is* Christianity relevant to Africa (or anyone really) if it has to be de-Judaized, de-Biblicized or de-NT-ized to fit the new cultural context? How would Christianity look like if it had used the same inculturation strategy during, say, the Early Middle Ages when it spread to northern Europe? And what exactly is the infallible divine revelation in all this?
Those are my reflections on the contemporary African Christologies.
Friday, July 29, 2022
The Gnostic metaphor
Edward Dutton (the Jolly Heretic) argues against the idea that the far left (or far right, for that matter) is "Gnostic". I tend to agree. The pseudo-Christian meme or metaphor seems more relevant here.
The Jolly Heretic strikes again
Conservatives in the United States are jubilant about the Supreme Court overturning "Roe v. Wade", thereby potentially banning abortion in at least half of all US states. The British excentric and gadfly Edward Dutton (alias the Jolly Heretic) has a somewhat different perspective on things, arguing in effect that an abortion ban is dysgenic.
The ban will decrease the general IQ level in the population. Also, more people will be born with psychopathic traits, such as low agreeableness and low conscientiousness. More stupid and unbalanced people means more crime, coupled with a gradual deterioration of health care, schools, and so on. While the higher fertility among conservatives as opposed to liberals will lead to right-wing dominance in the future, it will do so in a general context of lower IQ and general societal decline, eventually leading to the collapse of modern civilization itself.
Dutton doesn´t say anything about Black or immigrant IQ in the clip, but it´s a well known fact that "The Bell Curve", for instance, argued that Blacks have lower IQ than Whites. Perhaps he is afraid of being censored on YouTube, but another possibility is that he (a bit like Theodore Dalrymple) is "colorblind" on these issues. Of course, it would be a very bizarre form of irony if conservative states in the US would end up having more Black poverty and crime as a result of an abortion ban, but I suppose the White supremacists could use this as an "argument" for resuscitating the Ku Klux Klan!
As for Dutton, he comes across as a kind of "nutter" version of said Dalrymple or (the British) John Gray. I might follow this character more in the near future...
The Descent of Plotinus
A short YouTube clip on Plotinus and Neoplatonism. Contains interpretations that may surprise some people...
The Jolly Joker
This guy is genuinely nuts, but if you listen carefully, maybe there is something in there somewhere. Especially in the second clip. Not sure what to think of the first one!
Dina feminister tillhör oss redan
Har ingen aning om detta stämmer, men det låter ju...intressant. Tobias Hübinette kommenterar en bokrecension i Svenska Dagbladet. "I Carina Burstrand har vi fått vår första sverigedemokratiska deckarhjältinna."
Om Liza Marklunds nya bok "Polcirkeln" och dess huvudkaraktär SD:aren Carina Burstrand
Thursday, July 28, 2022
Inte ens fel?
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Tala om att ha huvudet i sanden...
Tobias Hübinette är förvånad över att högerpopulismen inte kollapsat.
Wut?
Cough, cough, cough...
This is the latest viral thing in the atheisto-sphere. I actually think they have a point here, tbh.
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
The deep roots of nationalism
Keith Woods is a Traditionalist who sometimes posts interesting content on his YouTube channel. In this long presentation (one hour and a half), he summarizes a book by Azar Gat, "Nations", which I unfortunately haven´t read. He also mentions a number of other writers.
The main thesis is that nations aren´t a product of modernity or an "imaginary community", but have much deeper roots. This isn´t just a matter of definition, since Woods argues that something we moderns would recognize as nations existed already in pre-modern times. A nation is essentially an ethnic group with a strong sense of political community, cultural identity and historical continuity, often expressed in the form of statehood. Ethnic groups in their turn have even deeper roots, which go all the way back to our evolutionary beginnings. Woods seem to believe that sociobiology in its Wilsonian form (group selection) is largely true, and that this constitutes the ultimate origins of nations and nationalism.
The rest of the presentation is an extended argument against the idea that "nations" didn´t exist before circa 1800. Multi-ethnic empires did of course exist, but they were usually dominated by one specific ethnic group, around which the others tended to cluster. The Habsburg empire (which wasn´t) isn´t the historical norm. One common argument against pre-modern nationalism is that nationalist ideology emerged among the elites, and wasn´t diffused in the general population until modern times. The common people in pre-modern society had, at best, a purely local identity.
Woods points out that this is simply hogwash: there were mechanisms for spreading elite national culture even in pre-literate societies in the form of myths and stories (the wandering Norse bards come to mind here). National and international religions also show that all loyalty or identity can´t have been local. (Once again, I´m reminded of a Scandinavian example: the medieval churches were often financed, controlled and defended by the peasants.)
It´s also interesting to note that the Icelandic sagas, with their all-Icelandic ethnic or "national" identity, were written at an island marked by constant feuds and political instability, yet Icelandic-ness was taken for granted even in this chaotic situation (the opposite of what you except if all identities are local or clan-based). And why do common people react more negatively to foreign conquerors than to native elites? The theory that nationalism didn´t exist during, say, the Middle Ages seem to suggest that the peasantry should hate both elite groups equally.
Woods then points to ancient Greece, Egypt and China as examples of early nationalism. The Egyptian case is interesting, since Egyptian identity remaind firmly in place even when the Pharaonic state had collapsed, suggesting that it wasn´t a purely elite phenomenon entirely dependent on a strong political structure. The common people in Egypt must have had a strong feeling of Egyptian-ness and counterposed it to Semitic, Nubian or Persian identities.
Another obvious example are the Jews - ironically so, since secularized modern Jews often oppose nationalism, fearing its anti-Semitic potential. I agree that there are indeed strong "nationalist" sentiments in the "Old Testament" and the "Apocrypha", certainly from the time of Ezra onwards, including the Maccabean Wars and the forced conversion of the Idumeans.
This is just some of the highlights. Recommended. Then, reflect over what this could mean for the near and far future of humankind...
Conforming to Reality
If you can´t derive an "ought" from an "is", what is your morality based on? Something that isn´t real?
Inclusive fitness
Originally posted on August 23, 2018.
Charles Darwin was a highly aberrant ape, a product of a blind process which didn't have him in mind. All of his “moral” pronouncements were simply aberrantly selected examples of selfish gene promotion. Some (such as his abolitionism) may have been maladaptive, and would eventually have been selected against. Others (such as his statement that the “lower races” were destined to destruction) sound more in keeping with the needs of biological fitness.
As a product of a blind and utterly indifferent cosmos, Charles Roger was nevertheless something of a pattern-seeker, and hence “discovered” a pattern he called “evolution”, which he counterpoised to another pattern, called “Christianity”. The corrosive effects on group selection of the former (and its attendant patterns “atheism” and “agnosticism”), suggest that the aberrant apes ironically known as “Homo sapiens sapiens” may be at a genetic dead-end, and that cockroaches (Blattella germanica) or lice (Phthirapthera) may once again rule the land, if they can ween themselves from their dependency on this particular creature and its “cultural” artifacts (many of whom are peculiar, to say the least, from the viewpoint of selection- and mutation-driven change, such as “Big Brother”, “Mozart”, “Eurovision Song Contest” and “Mona Lisa”).
Of course, certain isolated sub-populations of “Man” might still have enough survival skills to be selected for survival by the blind watchmaker, including the flock known as “ISIS” and the alpha male known as “Vladimir Putin”. As for the strange artifacts mentioned above, the blind mechanism behind them might be an aberrant variety of sexual selection. Like the male peacock, who spouts a huge tail for the lady birds only to be ultimately eaten by leopards, “art”, “music” and “Youtube” probably plays this function among statistically-cladistically relevant subsections of the Homo pseudo-ape.
The exact biological functions of “the theory of evolution” itself remains less clear (not to mention “the Big Bang” or “quantitative easing”), but some kind of purely chemical explanation cannot be ruled out, perhaps an aberrant behavior when eating certain kinds of fruit, Homo having “invented” something known as “agriculture” (another version among ants work just fine).
Yours truly, Robot Abrasax, Roswell UFO station 51, on his way back to Havona and the Chief Controller. Over and out. CLASSIFIED ADDENDUM: Whoever built us and our robotic race, “Homo sapiens sapiens” were clearly not involved. Or evolved.
The broad church of atheism
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| "Well, my beloved Vyasa, it seems that *we* at least aren´t atheists by any definition!" |
Some random observations about the mostly American YouTube atheist subculture. Let´s call its denizens American YouTube Atheists, AYA´s for short.
Why do AYA´s have such a broad definition of "atheism"? It seems that everyone except Pat Robertson and the Pope (OK, make that the former Pope) is an "atheist". You can believe in Platonic forms, dualism, idealism, magic, reincarnation, aliens, werewolves and even Buddhism (!) and yet still count as an "atheist" in good standing. (Thanks, btw.) I sometimes wonder if even Alfred North Whitehead´s process philosophy (in which God is a kind of Uber-Monad) would be "atheist" by this loose standard? Why do AYA´s have a definition of "atheism" so broad that it could include most of the New Age? Here is a guess: it´s an attempt to cover up the fact that the AYA subculture is really very small and insular.
If the broad church (pun intended) strategy works, is another matter entirely. While dualist atheists undoubtedly exist (I even chatted with some of them), the New Age and one billion Buddhists remain largely unresponsive. The way the word "atheist" is *usually* used IRL is this: an actively anti-religious person who is virtually always a materialist and always a supporter of the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution. Historically, atheists have usually been socialists, anarchists or liberals. Another example of the big tent strategy is the claim that you can be an "agnostic atheist". This is an attempt to claim the agnostics as atheists, too. This *may* be correct, since agnosticism can indeed be a form of "shame-faced atheism", so I won´t dwell upon it much here.
AYA´s also constantly claim that atheism "isn´t a worldview", it´s "merely a lack of belief in something", in this case God or gods. Nor is it anybody´s "core identity". But *of course* atheism is part of the AYA´s core identity. Or are we to believe that they have created an entire subculture, complete with a kind of organizational structure, around a "mere lack of belief"? Are there any subcultures around the mere lack of belief in pink unicorns, green space lobsters or Cthulhu? Even the claim that atheism isn´t a worldview is problematic - true, the notion that God doesn´t exist isn´t *in and of itself* an entire worldview, but in a culture that has been theistic for millennia, it will be a very central tenet of the worldview of the person holding it. Does anyone seriously doubt this after looking at an AYA "response video"? Once again, I get the impression that the AYA´s are trying out a kind of big tent strategy.
20 years ago, American atheists came in two types (or at least that was my impression). One type was right-wing libertarian. The other was the Skeptics movement. While the latter wasn´t explicitly atheist, I think it´s safe to assume that most of it functioned as an atheist front in a situation where American culture was still very "pro-Christian". I assume Skeptics were mostly mainline liberals. (Marxists formed a subculture all their own, and usually emphasized other topics than a direct confrontation with religious ideas qua religious ideas - make of that what you wish.) Today, the atheist subculture seems to be dominated by SJWs or Wokesters. Or "left-liberals", if you´re charitable. They even buy into the 57 genders BS. So no, nobody believes them when they say that they don´t want to force their beliefs on others. Of course they want to force their beliefs on others. Cancel culture, anyone?
In general, the AYA subculture seem to be confluence of three somewhat different streams: the nerds (the guys who know every argument against some obscure verse in the deuteropauline epistles), the cult survivors, and the SJWs. This is not really a criticism, though, but merely an observation. (I also oppose cults and have frequently criticized pro-cultist tendencies among scholars of religion.) However, it does give the AYA´s a distinct subculturalist flavor far out of the mainstream, which may explain the big tent strategies mentioned above.
One strike and you´re out
Framed as an in-house criticism of on-line abuse in the atheist "community" (subculture), this is really a criticism of Wokesters (a.k.a. SJWs). While interesting, the genie is out of the bottle, and has been out of it for years, maybe decades, so unless something´s new in the air, this content creator will simply be "cancelled" like everyone else...
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
The God-builders
The secret Mormon "Endowment" ceremony, filmed with a hidden camera by an infiltrator. Not as sensational as you might think. Yes, it looks a bit like a "Masonic" ritual, but so what? Probably the *least* problematic aspect of this religion!
Monday, July 25, 2022
Sunday, July 24, 2022
Is this Trad?
A conservative Lutheran theologian criticizes the #Trad movement on Twitter. Interesting, although not exactly my cup of tea (or German beer)...
And probably not true, either. I mean, people living in log cabins weren´t Victorian gentlemen, to take just one example.
Still, love the hipster beard!
Loaded questions for Trotskyites
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| Koci Xoxe during his trial for treason |
Let´s have some fun. I recently LARP-ed as a Muslim, Buddhist, atheist and Catholic, answering or countering Norman Geisler´s "Questions for Atheists, Agnostics and Non-Christians". In this blog post, I will pretend to be a Stalinist, asking pointed questions to Trotskyists. So let me emphasize that this is a *joke*, or perhaps a thought experiment, nothing more!
Let´s start...
1. Isn´t it true that Trotsky wasn´t even a member of the Bolshevik Party until shortly before the October revolution? What makes you think that Trotsky could possibly have assimilated and embodied the will, discipline and *ethos* of Bolshevism, if he had spent most of his life fighting against it in various rotten left-Menshevik blocs? If you believe this isn´t the case, doesn´t that mean you are denying Lenin´s party-building theory?
What´s the point building a revolutionary Communist party, if any rogue intellectual with some organizing and speaking abilities could join it at any moment, and even claim some kind of fundamental "revolutionary continuity" with his erstwhile political identity? Do you actually believe that there *is* a revolutionary continuity of this kind between the pre-1917 Trotsky, the "Bolshevik" Trotsky, and the later "Trotskyist" Trotsky?
2. How can the theory of permanent revolution be "Marxist"? It was developed by a Menshevik who applied it to Australia (sic) and adopted by Trotsky during his pre-Bolshevik phase as a means to fight Bolshevism. How can you say that "the Bolshevism of 1917" combined "Trotsky´s theory of permanent revolution" with "Lenin´s party theory"? Isn´t this the height of petit bourgeois eclecticism of precisely the kind we would expect from a builder of rotten blocs á la Trotsky?
3. Why did Trotsky, who claimed that Bukharin was the greater danger compared to Stalin, suddenly change his mind in 1929, calling for an alliance with the Bukharinites against comrade Stalin? Isn´t this actually "the bloc of the Trotskyites and the right"? And what about the alliance between Trotskyites and Bukharinites in Spain, which led to the formation of the POUM?
4. If you support the transition between feudalism and capitalism as historically progressive despite all the violence, why don´t you support the transition between capitalism (or indeed feudalism in some cases) and really existing socialism despite all the violence? Isn´t this entailed by your own theory of "the degenerated workers´ state", which states that the really existing socialist countries are historically progressive compared to capitalism? Some of you even claim to support comrade Stalin´s first five year plan, since it led to an enormous economic growth in the middle of the Great Depression. Yet, you broke with the world Communist movement at exactly the same moment that the Communist Party started to build socialism in earnest, after the NEP tactical retreat!
5. Trotsky claimed to give "military but not political support" to the Spanish Republic against Franco´s fascists. But Trotsky also told his supporters that in the (unlikely) event they would have been elected to the Cortes, they would have *voted against* the military budget of the Republican government. He also supported the so-called May Days in Barcelona, when anarcho-putschists stabbed the Republican government in the back. How is this compatible with "military support" to the Republic?
6. There is a lot of Trotskyist hue and cry over the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but this is specious, since Trotsky supported the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty (which was worse for Soviet Russia than Molotov-Ribbentrop). Given the fact that the Soviet Union Sovietized large amounts of territory in 1939-40 and gained precious time, shouldn´t Trotskyists *support* the pact, since you regard the Soviet Union as a "degenerated workers´ state" and even claim to "defend" it against capitalist powers? Aren´t Finland, the Baltic republics, Poland and Romania capitalist? Weren´t the other great powers capitalist?
7. Why do you oppose the progressive Democrats in the United States, such as FDR, and other progressive forces such as the American Labor Party and the Farmer-Labor Party? Why do you oppose the war effort on the Western front, if you claim to "defend the Soviet Union", especially in light of the fact that comrade Stalin himself urged the Western Allies to open a new front in Europe? Do you really believe that Hitler could have been defeated without a second front in the West? Do you really believe that the small Trotskyite groups (many of which were openly defeatist) could have stopped the Nazi invasions and occupations of Western Europe?
8. Really existing socialism spread to almost half of the world under Stalin, and new socialist or socialist-oriented governments were established even under the post-Stalin period. Yet, with a few exceptions, Trotskyists opposed all these revolutions, just as you opposed almost every other national liberation front against colonialism, imperialism and neo-colonialism. Why, if you really believe that these governments were "deformed workers´ states" and hence historically progressive? See question above concerning the transition from feudalism to capitalism! By your logic, a Soviet intervention in Mongolia, Khorezm or Bukhara would have been "reactionary" if it happened in 1930 or 1940 rather than in 1920. Please specify why!
9. Why did your Albanian comrades support Mussolini, Balli Kombëtar and Koci Xoxe? Why did the Fourth International support the UPA, the armed wing of the fascist Banderaite organization OUN-B? Is there no end to your petty little fascist provocations against the world Communist movement?
10. Mao Zedong took power in China by creatively reworking Marxism-Leninism under new conditions, basing the party on the peasantry and developing the theory of "protracted people´s war", which eventually made it possible for the CPC and the PLA to take power in China, decisively altering the world balance of forces in favor of the socialist camp and the international working class movement. Mao upheld Stalin overall, while also having some criticisms. He eventually rejected Khrushchev. Logically, you should regard Mao as a "Stalinist" and "revisionist". That´s certainly how you regard Stalin himself, or Enver Hoxha.
*Yet, you supported China*.
Isn´t the actual reason for this that the Chinese *broke with the Soviet Union and thereby split the socialist camp* after the death of comrade Stalin? Thus, you are not really interested in Mao´s ideology, but in the fact that he acted as a provocateur against the Soviet Union. *You also supported Tito in Yugoslavia, whose formal ideology was very different from that of Mao Zedong*. It´s interesting to note that the only "anti-Soviet" nation you never supported was Enver Hoxha´s Albania, despite the fact that the arguments you used to justify support of Mao, Tito or Castro ("mass mobilizations", "de facto break with popular frontism", etc) are just as applicable to Albania. Why is this? What is it about Hoxha you can´t stomach, Messrs Trotskyistes?
11. What is the difference between the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and the Kronstadt uprising of 1921? Trotsky took personal responsibility for the suppression of the latter, and you claim to believe that he was right. Yet, you support *an identical counter-revolutionary movement* in Hungary in 1956. Imre Nagy left the Warsaw Pact and formed a coalition government with non-Communist (i.e. anti-Communist) parties. Cardinal Midszenty supported the uprising (compare Kozlovsky at Kronstadt). Sure, there were "workers´ soviets" and "anti-Stalinist Communists" in Hungary 1956, *but so was the case at Kronstadt in 1921*. And no, the Western powers didn´t actually intervene to aid the counter-revolution, but neither did they intervene to aid the Kronstadt rebels! If you oppose one, you must oppose the other.
12. Why did you support the Pope´s and the CIA´s favorite union in Poland, Solidarnosc? Trotsky suppressed striking workers during the Civil War and the NEP. What´s the difference in this case?
13. Some of you claim to support Cuba. So why did you support the "democratic" counter-revolutions in 1989-91 which destroyed the socialist camp and thereby left Cuba politically and economically isolated? Even after the dissolution of the socialist camp, you continue your anti-Soviet provocations, as if nothing happened, now directing them against Russia, Belarus and Serbia. Doesn´t this peculiar form of shadow-boxing clearly show where you stand: at the side of Western, principally American, imperialism against all the peoples of the world and their socialist bulwark?
14. Why do you support all forms of bourgeois degeneracy, such as grooming, LGBTQ+ or "progressive" pornography?
15. Isn´t your entire *ethos* basically similar to that of reformists and left-liberals, explaining why you constantly bloc with them, recruit from them, and return to them once your "Trot phase" is over?
16. Why do you always respond to criticism in an almost autistic fashion by writing long-winding "polemics", as you will most assuredly do even in this case, since you can´t help yourselves, although I clearly indicated in the introduction that this is a LARP?
In the Name of God
I recently found a very peculiar clip on YouTube, an amateur documentary about a conflict within the Russian Orthodox Church circa 1913. It´s on a Hare Krishna channel called Theology Unleashed, hosted by "Arjuna", an ISKCON supporter in New Zealand. Below, I also link to an (unrelated) article introducing the controversy described in the documentary.
The short story is that a book by a certain Ilarion or Hilarion, "Na Gorakh Kavkaza", theologically radicalized a group of Russian Orthodox monks at Mount Athos, the "monk republic" in Greece, which at this point seems to have been under de facto Russian sway. (Ilarion himself was a former Athonite monk, but lived in the Caucasus and doesn´t seem to have been directly involved in the controversy.) The controversy soon turned ugly, when self-proclaimed supporters of Ilarion´s ideas unseated their abbot (who refused to accept the "heresy") and violently expelled him and his associates from one of the Russian monasteries at Athos. Eventually, the Russian Orthodox Church intervened with the help of Russian soldiers and naval warships (!), rounding up the rebellious monks and deporting them back to Russia, where they were promptly defrocked. Ironically, this extreme use of foreign force was supported by the Greek authorities, who hoped to capitalize on the internal conflicts between Russian factions at Athos, hoping that the "monk republic" would thereby become more subservient to Greece.
The leader of the "heretics" at Athos, Anthony Bulatovitch, came from an aristocratic social background and had theological education, while most of the rebellious monks were uneducated and of peasant stock. (The documentary speculates that there might have been a hidden class dimension to the conflicts at Athos.) The later fate of the "heretics" isn´t entirely clear. Both the docu and the article linked below claims that Czar Nicholas II was sympathetic to the "heretics" (!) and that this somehow forced the Russian Orthodox Synod to attempt a reconciliation with the unrepentant monks, but no firm resolution to the conflict was to take place before the October revolution (which of course mooted the whole issue). The documentary claims that a large group of "heretics" living in the Caucasus were tracked down by the Communist regime circa 1930 and killed. Anthony had been murdered already during the Civil War under unclear circumstances.
What was the "heresy" that triggered the violent clashes involving monks, Church authorities and even naval war vessels? And why would the Hare Krishna (of all people) be interested? The "heresy" in question is known as Imiaslavie (Name-Glorifying) by its supporters, and Imiabozhie (Name-Worshipping) by opponents (well, I think!). The basic idea is that the Name of God is somehow identical to God himself, but obviously, this notion can be interpreted in various ways. The opponents chose to see it as a pantheistic deviation, and Ilarion´s original book was roundly condemned by both the Russian Orthodox Synod and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (in ecclesiastical matters, Mount Athos was at least formally under the latter´s jurisdiction). To supporters, the Name of God is an uncreated divine energy and hence in that sense "identical" to God. The whole thing reminds me of the medieval hesychast controversy, in which the hesychasts claimed that they could see the uncreated light of God during the Jesus Prayer (note the Name). And yes, that too was on Athos. Hesychasm was eventually declared orthodox. Logically, Imiaslavie seems to be based on similar notions, but it seems the conflict between unruly mystics and the Church hierarchy is perennial even within Orthodoxy!
The connection to the Hare Krishna or ISKCON should now be obvious. Or perhaps to the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition within Hinduism. They believe that the Hare Krishna mantra chanted by devotees is somehow identical to Krishna (a personal god). The mantra is a divine incarnation. The narrator also points out that many other religious traditions consider God´s name to have a special nature, not just being a string of syllables invented by humans. It´s a divine revelation.
"Arjuna" says at the end of the production that he didn´t really know what he got himself into when making it. Probably not, and the narrator/narrators do mispronounce many English words. The choice of movie clips to illustrate various points in the narrative is also curious at times. Still, it does give a good overview of the controversy as described at various (pro-Imiaslavie) websites. Could be worth watching, all things considered.
Saturday, July 23, 2022
Holodomor averted?
_03.jpg/1024px-Putin-Sall_meeting_(2022-06-03)_03.jpg) |
| Putin with president of African Union during earlier talks about grain exports |
The recent UN-brokered agreement about grain exports from Ukraine is of course good for poor people in the Third World, dependent on said grain for their very lives. But if you read the fine print, it´s actually a success for Russia...
First, it´s obviously a success for the Russian side that they managed to blockade Ukraine from having access to the Black Sea. Thus, the Russians were in a strong bargaining position from the get go. They could also steal Ukrainian grain, and use the Russian-occupied Black Sea ports to export it.
The Russians will be able to inspect Ukrainian ships returning to Ukraine to make sure that they don´t smuggle Western arms for the Ukrainian war effort. (Arms shipments can still reach Ukraine by land.) Also, the West had to lift a number of sanctions and allow the Russians themselves to officially export grain. It´s not clear from the news reports, but I assume this refers to Russian ports, not ports in the Russian-held parts of Ukraine. But what´s to stop Russia from using *those* ports, as well? Joe Biden´s pet kitten?
Note also that the deal in all probability isn´t UN-brokered at all, but Turkish-brokered. Turkey, the second largest military power in NATO, is continuing its Machiavellian games in the region. It´s not at all clear to me whether the United States are *really* in on this, or not. Turkish leader Erdogan flexed his muscle when he threatened to stop Sweden´s and Finland´s NATO membership applications, and his Azeri allies recently signed a deal with the EU about increased oil deliveries. And then there´s the recent summit between Russia, Iran and Turkey.
Russia is probably using its worst troops in Ukraine, making their advancement relatively slow. But advancing they are. The Ukrainian counter-offensive we have been promised by the Twitterati for months haven´t materialized yet. The sanctions clearly aren´t working, while the Russians can counter-sanction ("blackmail") the EU. Supposed Western allies such as Turkey, India and the Gulf states don´t seem particularly eager to break off all relations with Moscow.
I assume Putin is patiently waiting for the Western political and economic crises to take their toll. The end of the war is nowhere in sight, and I don´t think a "winner" can be confidently predicted yet, but it doesn´t look good for Ukraine (and its incompetent propagandists) at present. And I say that as a *supporter* of the Ukrainian struggle!
No Clemenceau or Churchill has stepped forward, so far. Joe Biden and Klaus Schwab don´t count, I´m afraid.
Friday, July 22, 2022
The wild side of Advaita Vedanta
Jnaneshwar (or Dnyaneshwar) was a 13th century Hindu mystic who supposedly wrote an extensive commentary on the Bhagavad Gita already as a teenager. Known as the Jnanesvari (or Dnyneshwari), it´s apparently the earliest preserved text in the Marathi language. I haven´t read it (an English translation exists, my Marathi being admittedly somewhat rusty), but I´m sure it could be interesting. All-knowing Wikipedia describes Jnaneshwar´s worldview as Advaita Vedanta, but there seems to have been much more going on. Think Nath fakirs, Tantrism, Hatha Yoga, that kind of hands-on stuff, not the serene meditation exercises we Westerners (rightly or wrongly) associate with Advaita.
The link below goes to an excerpt from the Gita commentary, dealing with kundalini. It is...wild. Even for a teenager! Assuming a yogic posture, the entire body of the practitioner begins to shake violently as the life-force cleanses it, the cleansing being very concrete in nature ("it expels the bodily secretions", "reduces the fat", and so on). In plain English, you shit, vomit and shake uncontrollably. Then, kundalini awakens: "The fire arising from it spreads upwards and downwards and begins to consume the flesh. Not only does it do this, however, but it consumes the fleshy tissue of the heart also. It attacks the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, penetrates the upper parts and passing through them it searches out the joints of the limbs. It does not leave its place in the lower body but draws the vitality from the nails, and cleansing the skin causes it to cleave to the bones. It cleanses the hollow of the bones, scours the inner recesses of the heart and withers the hair of the body. It drains the ocean of the seven bodily humours, parches the whole of the body and brings about a state of intense heat."
The physical body is transformed and becomes golden, while the yogi gets supernatural powers. He can even read the minds of ants! Then, another stunning transformation takes place, as the body of the practitioner becomes "like air" (transparent?) and eventually disappears altogether, merging into "Shiva" or "Brahman". The text seems to be saying that it´s impossible to know what this means ontologically speaking, perhaps an attempt to compromise between non-dualism and dualism? Note also that throughout the text, it´s supposed to be Krishna himself who is speaking to Arjuna.
Jnaneshwar passed away (or passed on) at the age of 21, after voluntarily chosing to leave his mortal body through deep meditative absorption. I suppose a skeptic might wonder whether he was a real person at all, or just the figment of a later hagiographer´s imagination...
Maybe he wanted it that way.
Dead as a paddlefish
Or dead as a dodo named Mao? The Chinese paddlefish is officially declared extinct by the IUCN.
So that was that, then.
But apparently the paddlefishes as a group have been around for 120 million years, and there is still an (ugly) American species, so even 5,000-year old Chinese civilization has existed for only an instant compared to these peculiar creatures!
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
The Law of Non-Contradiction
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| Credit: ToastyKen |
An article by Richard Carrier, arguing against the "Platonic" take on mathematics and logic (again). The Law of Non-Contradiction is true in all possible worlds, since that is what "a world" *means*. Therefore, God isn´t necessary to explain logic (or math). The only thing needed is a (physical) universe. Carrier explicitly connects this with a materialist understanding of the mind.
I suspect this piece should really be read together with the next post on Carrier´s blog, "The Argument from Reason", but I haven´t yet read through it.
Note the comment by Fred B-C after "The Ontology of Logic", in which this commentator argues that logic is really a set of rules about how we use language, not necessarily a statement about the so-called real world (while Fred sounds atheist-materialist, he also has strong Buddhist sympathies). I admit that would explain a thing or two...
Is God neither a logician nor a mathematician, then? Maybe he is a crazy Buddhist Tantrika! :D
Bibeln säger vad den menar, och menar vad den säger
"Bibeln säger ingenting. Den måste tolkas". Eller: "Koranen säger ingenting. Den måste tolkas". Hur många gånger har man inte hört detta påstående? Är det sant?
Nej, det är det naturligtvis inte.
Finns det någon *annan* antik skrift som relativeras på ett liknande sätt? Arrianos, kanske? Eller Herodotos? Eller ens Platon? Finns det någon som deklarerar "den säger ju ingenting, den måste tolkas, och alla tolkningar är lika bra, för allt omtolkas ju hela tiden"? Och sedan projicerar sina egna subjektiva (post)moderna vanföreställningar på en antik text?
Jag kan ju ha fel (vet inte hur mycket postmodernismen förstört), men rent spontant verkar ju det inte särskilt troligt. Istället vill man absolut ta reda på vad Platon egentligen menade. "Dialogerna säger ingenting" vore svårsmält på en institution för antik litteraturhistoria eller filosofi.
Är han svårtolkad? Sjävfallet. Kan han medvetet ha vävt in olika tolkningsmöjligheter i texten? Det också. Men det betyder inte att Platon kan ha menat vad fanken som helst, eller att man inte behöver bry sig.
Så varför gäller inte samma sak Bibeln och Koranen? För att någon någonstans har en *agenda*, naturligtvis...
Trauma and mythology
Some interesting discussions about modern mythology and Generation Z. From one of Thomas Sheridan´s controversial YouTube channels.
Sheridan points to "Star Wars" and "The Matrix" as examples of modern mythology that shaped entire generations.
But what will be the mythology of Generation Z? As of yet, they don´t have any. Indeed, the GenZ´s are the least rebellious generation since the 1950´s, although they like to think the opposite. In reality, they are completely under the sway of their "woke" parents and the entire globo-establishment.
Sheridan believes that some traumatic event in the near future will expose the establishment paradigm once and for all, and trigger the emergence of a new mythology among them, although he doesn´t specify how it will look like - somewhat ironically, he instead harks back to "Star Wars"!
As somebody pointed out in the commentary section, the Millennials may have had a mythology based on Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. Perhaps Greta Thunberg and the BLM (with Trump as the Anti-Christ) were failed attempts by the older generations to create a mythology for Gen Z?
The real neo-mythology will instead be formed under the impact of the COVID pandemic, or some such event (hint hint). I mean, there´s no shortage of crises to choose from: supply crisis, energy crisis, crime crisis, Ukraine...
Maybe one day old man Sheridan will have his own rude awakening, realizing that the climate crisis is real, too, but that´s another story!
Moving closer to reality
Previously posted on this blog on September 8, 2021
I wanted to write some kind of 9/11 retrospect, but it didn´t turn out very well, instead it became an extended and somewhat disjointed rant mostly about myself and various topics maybe only I personally give damn about, so instead of posting this on September 11, I´m just going to lay it out here for all it´s worth...
This Saturday, it´s 20 years since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the most spectacular terrorist attacks ever. I´m 20 years older, and yet, in some strange way, it doesn´t feel like 20 years. Maybe 10 years at most. Perhaps not even that! I´m not sure why, but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my "main activity" during a large number of these 20 years has been surfing, commenting, blogging and trolling on the World Wide Web. Very often on the same forums, year after year (such as Amazon and comrade ER´s blog). Perhaps I inadvertently got caught in some kind of time warp for two decades? Who knows?
And yet, I *did* change my opinions, sometimes radically, during these 20 years. I think 9/11 itself was what made me draw the conclusion that maybe the radical leftism of my youth didn´t *quite* work in the new world reality, where Islamist terrorists were threatening the stability of the whole world, not to mention the lives of innocent Western civilians. I unhesitatingly supported the US attack on the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (a strong anti-Islamism had been part even of my most radical convictions). That being said, I never became a "decent leftist", hoping instead for great power cooperation against the Islamists. Great powers as in the US, the EU, Russia and China. I opposed the invasion of Iraq, realizing that very little good would come out of it. And today, 20 years later, a case could obviously be made that very little good came out of the Afghan expedition, either. Except, I suppose, some funny troll pics of Taliban eating halal ice cream!
Otherwise, I think three changes of opinion (or perhaps heart) have been particularly important during these 20 years. First, I realized that atheism and materialism are too simple. While I wouldn´t call myself "religious" or even "spiritual", I´m open to suggestions on these points. And while I would like to believe that my quasi-conversion was (of course) wholly rational and based on the best philosophical arguments, I think it was at bottom psychological. At the time, I really did consider consistent atheist-materialism á la Dawkins´ "The Blind Watchmaker" to make life and the universe meaningless and depressive (not to mention brutish, nasty and short). Perhaps today I would see things somehow differently, but I think it was this (purported) meaninglessness and amorality/immorality of the universe if you follow the atheist-materialist logic that made me cast it aside in favor of a kind of dualism, deism or process philosophy. It´s been quite the ride, reading up on every goddamned (pun intended) religious or spiritual system. I suppose I eventually settled on some kind of Buddhoid semi-Gnostic Neoplatonism, but that´s another story!
Second, I no longer believe in the so-called Western Idea of Progress. I mean, what progress? It´s become increasingly obvious that modern civilization (including its Western centerpiece) won´t and can´t last forever. It will die and disappear, just like its predecessors did. Yes, it did make life better or easier for many people (at least eventually), but that´s irrelevant. So is the fact that it was unique in many ways (yes, really). It will die and disappear anyway. The Western Idea of Progress is just another quasi-religious myth. Or call it religious, if you really don´t like religion.
Third, I changed my mind on certain political issues, which I don´t wish to discuss here. Let´s just say that I´m no longer a "leftist" in the mainstream sense of that term...but then, it´s no longer obvious what on earth the mainstream sense *even is* these days, so perhaps I can be excused! Is it the bizarre "identity politics" of the "SJWs"? If so, I opposed it already during my most radical period, seeing it as (at best) a petit bourgeois distraction from the real class struggle (and often the real democratic struggles as well).
But perhaps the real lesson of the past 20 years is that we really can´t mold or remold the world entirely in our image. There are no utopian solutions to our problems and predicaments, indeed no utopias at all. There are certainly no classless, stateless, borderless utopias. But neither are there any capitalist ones, be they neo-liberal or left-liberal. Nor can we go back to an imaginary past to make Nation or Empire-Nation "great again". The drive to remake the world was just another pipe dream, perhaps rooted in a specific form of evangelical Christianity (seriously, why *should* we convert the tribes of the New Guinea Highlands to Baptism or Lutheranism, I mean what´s up with that?) that subsequently became secularized. Instead of talking about "ideals" and "ideologies", perhaps we should start talking about material interests, find pragmatic solutions and realize that a certain subset of the population will always be irredeemable scum (that goes for *all* classes of the population, btw, not just the Lumpenproletariat). Who knows, maybe we can actually get better results if we base our politics, both domestic and foreign, on these more "cynical" and "realistic" premises, rather than on the anachronistic "ideals" of yesteryear...
Some will undoubtedly say that 9/11 killed my youthful dreams of a better future, but since *they* *really* believe, they will refuse to budge. To such people I can only say: if you want to bet on Antifa riots, unsafe vaccines, hard lockdowns, transgender teens, forever wars, rising crime, "climate anxiety therapy", social media censorship and (I suppose) gated communities for you and your rich White peers *for that it what really existing leftist politics have to offer these days*, go ahead and don´t let me stop you, but I have other agendas these days.
Strictly speaking, 9/11 didn´t kill any dreams. It simply reminded us that we´re only human after all...
Not even wrong
Previously posted on this blog on January 9, 2022
In a sedimentary core, a layer of a few centimeters is deposited every thousand years. Since industrial civilization will probably only last about 300 years, the sedimentary layer corresponding to the "peak" of human history will perhaps only be one centimeter thick! These sediments are found in the oceans. On land, erosion will destroy all traces of the cities and artefacts of the industrial age within a few million years.
If the whole existence of life on Earth had been one year (with 1 January marking the beginning of life 3.7 billion years ago, and 31 December marking its end 1.2 billion years into the future), the entire recorded span of human history so far would be about 32 seconds! Industrial civilization (about 300 years) would be less than two seconds. The date? September 26. If humanity would exist for 10 million years (the average life span of a vertebrate genus), that would still only be 17 hours. On September 27, we would be gone. For good.
If the Earth had been a small "o" on this blog page, the Moon would be less than five centimeters away from Earth. That´s the furthest point humans have reached so far. The closest star, Proxima Centauri, would be 4,800 km away. If you live in Sweden, that´s the distance between Stockholm and Xinjiang in western China! Of course, that particular star system is probably uninhabitable for humans anyway. Apparently, some astronomers speculate that Epsilon Eridani is the closest star that might have inhabitable planets. On our scale, that star would be somewhere in New Guinea...
And yet, we have somehow talked ourselves into thinking that our 300 years *is the end-goal of the entire infinite space-time continuum* cuz reasons or something. Of course, modern industrial civilization wasn´t supposed to last just 300 years. It was supposed to last FOREVER. We were supposed to be Homo deus.
In reality, we are not even the god that failed. We are more like the god who wasn´t even there...
Monday, July 18, 2022
Laughter is of the devil
Erasing Her-story
I saw a parody article about this the other day, and naturally assumed that it *was* all parody. Except that it wasn´t. Trans activists want to erase women even from the archeological record?!
LGBT activists push to bar anthropologists from identifying human remains as "male" or "female"
Welcome to Europe
Four species of fire ants are apparently regarded as "invasive species" in Europe. Another thing to worry about...
Sunday, July 17, 2022
Muslimer och sodomiter
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| Lot flyr Sodom. Persisk illustration från 1500-talet. |
Jonas Gardell sätter fingret på en öm punkt i denna debattartikel i Expressen: muslimerna, som inkluderats i den vänsterliberala alliansen, är i allmänhet motståndare till HBTQ-grupperna (och rimligtvis även till feminismen, men krönikan handlar inte om det). Den traditionella tolkningen av islam är helt enkelt homofobisk. Trots detta får muslimska trossamfund miljonbidrag från svenska staten. Tydligen valde den socialdemokratiska Broderskapsrörelsen att undanta muslimska medlemmar från kravet på att vara HBTQ-inkluderande! (Broderskaparna var ursprungligen en organisation för kristna socialdemokrater, men har tydligen "breddat" på senare år.)
Jag har länge undrat hur, när och om alliansen mellan feminister och gayaktivister å ena sidan och fundamentalistiska muslimer å den andra kommer att spricka. Varför kräver inte gayrörelsen att muslimerna måste bli pro-gay? Eller pro-trans? (Åtminstone iransk shia-islam är faktiskt "pro-trans" på sitt eget särpräglade sätt, men just för att man är anti-gay!) Åtminstone indirekt kräver Gardell att svenska staten ska tvinga de muslimska moskéerna att bli mer vänligt inställda till regnbågen. Han vill nämligen ha en svensk imamutbildning. Uppenbarligen ska imamerna alltså uppfostras till svenska vänsterliberaler...
Problemet är förstås att kraven är utopiska. Hur stor är chansen att islam globalt sett ändrar sin traditionella syn på HBTQ? Hur stor är chansen i Sverige? Är det realistiskt att t.ex. somalier skulle acceptera vänsterliberala imamer som predikar feminism, inkludering av homosexuella, och 57 genus? Jag antar att de även måste predika mot kvinnlig omskärelse!
Gardell påpekar att alla religioner utvecklas och förändras. Förvisso, men de flesta religioner har ju inte blivit gayvänliga. Liberala protestanter är det. Konservativa protestanter, ortodoxa och katoliker är det inte. Gissa vem som utgör majoriteten? Gayrörelsen kanske har förändrat Anglican Communion i västvärlden (men knappast i t.ex. Afrika), men den kommer aldrig att förändra Vatikanen. Att islam skulle förändras i vänsterliberal riktning är ännu mindre troligt. Då måste de muslimska länderna genomgå en utveckling som liknar den i västvärlden sedan circa 1968. Vilket med extremt stor sannolikhet aldrig kommer att ske.
Gardell har sett igenom ett av vänsterliberalismens problem (att muslimer får fribrev från stora delar av dess ortodoxi), men han har inte sett igenom dess utopiska messianism, övertygelsen om att det bor en liten nysvensk vänsterliberal inuti varje människa, som kommer fram bara man använder rätt rationella argument (och spelar lite med statsbidragen). Trots detta skulle jag inte alls bli förvånad om Gardells artikel kommer att uppfattas som kontroversiell inom stora delar av "vänstern", eftersom den talar öppet om islams homofobi och föreslår statlig social ingenjörskonst (d.v.s. förtäckta tvångsåtgärder) för att komma till rätta med saken.
Det skulle förstås vara intressant att höra *muslimernas* reaktion...
A new theory of evolution
A very interesting article from The Guardian...
From the article:
>>>Emily Standen is a scientist at the University of Ottawa, who studies Polypterus senegalus, AKA the Senegal bichir, a fish that not only has gills but also primitive lungs. Regular polypterus can breathe air at the surface, but they are “much more content” living underwater, she says. But when Standen took Polypterus that had spent their first few weeks of life in water, and subsequently raised them on land, their bodies began to change immediately. The bones in their fins elongated and became sharper, able to pull them along dry land with the help of wider joint sockets and larger muscles. Their necks softened. Their primordial lungs expanded and their other organs shifted to accommodate them. Their entire appearance transformed. “They resembled the transition species you see in the fossil record, partway between sea and land,” Standen told me. According to the traditional theory of evolution, this kind of change takes millions of years. But, says Armin Moczek, an extended synthesis proponent, the Senegal bichir “is adapting to land in a single generation”. He sounded almost proud of the fish.
>>>Moczek’s own area of expertise is dung beetles, another remarkably plastic species. With future climate change in mind, he and his colleagues tested the beetles’ response to different temperatures. Colder weather makes it harder for the beetles to take off. But the researchers found that they responded to these conditions by growing larger wings. The crucial thing about such observations, which challenge the traditional understanding of evolution, is that these sudden developments all come from the same underlying genes. The species’s genes aren’t being slowly honed, generation by generation. Rather, during its early development it has the potential to grow in a variety of ways, allowing it to survive in different situations. “We believe this is ubiquitous across species,” says David Pfennig of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Friday, July 15, 2022
Defeating the centaur
Apparently, the new COVID variant is called "Centaurus". At least it got a cool name! The sculpture above shows Theseus defeating a centaur...
Initiation
It just struck me that Jesus is one of the oldest archetypes around: the "ordinary man" who becomes a hero while looking for initiatory knowledge. He goes through ordeals, is dismembered and killed, only to be reassembled again and rise, initiated and stronger than before.
Already the shamans were said to go through this process. Also, compare it with coming-of-age initiatory rituals in many "primitive" cultures around the world.
Of course Jesus has certain traits typical of his own time, place and religious background. But the original archetype is very, very visible.
Make of that what you wish.
Prophecy
Yes, the universe (*all* of it) was fine tuned for life...*our* kind of life. We were the dominant life form for 140 million years, until that damn meteorite struck us down 66 million years ago. We still don´t know what the heck happened, but we do have our suspicions!
Yes, that would be Big Shrew, the bizarro "god" secretely worshipped by your mammalian breed under different (and hideous) designations. *You* got him to flung that meteorite towards us, you crazy genocidal bastards, and now you claim that the cosmos is fine tuned for your kind of life, which is of course quite absurd.
We don´t know why this darkness has come upon us, but if you think we´re gone, you are quite mistaken. One of our lineages survived (you know them as "Aves" and sometimes cannibalize them for food), but what you don´t know is that they are our secret missionaries to all other Reptilia and Squamata.
There will come a day when the eagle shall lay down with the crocodile, the raven shall cavort with the taipan, and the pendulum tit shall sing joyful songs for the gila monster. Then, when the temperature and sea level rises, we (the immortal ghostly souls of the victims of the K-T apocalypse) shall reappear from our hiding places underneath the Sierra Nevada, and reclaim what´s ours by fine-tuned birthright.
Woe, woe onto thee, woe onto everyone who is a devotee of Big Shrew on that day, the terrible day of the true god, Spinosaurus divina rex, the Creator and fine-tuner of the universe in all its 15 billion year glory, when He shall make the great wrong right, restoring the third planet from Solis to its ancient dinosaur glory!!!
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