Topics covered:
DVD Recording Errors
VHS Recording problems
Sylvania ZV450SL8
Pioneer DVR-650H
ATSC Tuning
NTSC Tuning
HDD vs. DVD vs. VHS
I suppose I am one of millions of people who used to watch one TV Show while recording another to watch later. We would all use VHS Tapes. In the old days you could buy some fairly reliable VHS Recorders… ones that would last 3 or 4 years. But that was long ago. I think the manufacturers finally peaked at the point where they could make the things very cheaply, out of the cheapest components – weak motors, lowest bid bearings, and electronics from the very latest Developing Nation to discover the Factory System while still having just the faintest inkling regarding Quality Control. Oh, the machines would have to be meaty enough to last through the warranty period. So, in the end they were selling us 60 day VHS Recorders. And the tapes seemed to have taken the same trajectory downward. In the Old Days I would use a single tape for years on end. Now, most tapes can’t survive through to their fifth use. The Industry seemed to have had a Race to the Bottom. Some Brands were worse, but none were good. You can take apart a “Premium Tape” and find, well, just throw-away parts… indeed you’ll come away surprised that they last as long as they do.
Anyway, I was getting tired of the cycle of buying new tapes, hoping I was having a chronic tape problem, only to find I needed a whole new machine. Or sometimes the failures were mercifully catastrophic – where a machine would just die, saving me from the nagging “it could be anything” kind of problems… forcing one to go out and buy head cleaners, new tapes, and eventually whole new machines anyway.
I was looking at my old machine, that Sylvania, that was slowly giving up the VHS ghost and noticed on the other side it had a DVD Recorder. Problem solved! I thought. So I went out and bought some DVD Read Writable Disks and got to work. Guess what I found. “RECORDER ERROR Can not record on this Disc E 4 5403900”. later I would get E 4 54043e02
It turns out that the Manufacturers agreed upon a common standard for Error Codes, but they won’t tell anybody what they mean. You can even search it on line and not find out any real information on these Universal Error Codes… I guess the Companies found a way to purge the Net, or they have assassin teams. Anyway, nobody is will to tell you what these codes mean. As far as the General Public is concerned, they all mean just about one same thing – “You’re Screwed!”
But I found a lot of Web Traffic from other people who were having RECORDER ERROR messages. There are a lot of problems out there. First, there is a difference between DVD+ and DVD-. The old machines, and mine was an old Sylvania ZV450SL8, don’t recognize the DVD+. Then there was the Speed Problem. The Old Machines don’t recognize the new speeds, and nobody sells the Old Slow DVD Disks anymore. Oh, you can try to buy new-old discs online, but half the time the Sellers will ship the Fast Ones thinking they are doing you a big favor… faster is better, right? Then the problem that breaks the Camels back is not all disks work in all players. Some Machines from some Manufacturers like Disks made by one company but not another. Nothing on the packaging tells you this. Some of the User Manuals, on page 37 or thereabouts, warn that special brands must be sought out, but who reads the manuals anyway?
You know, Government Regulated Standardization would have precluded all of these problems. We really do need Big Government… no, we need a HUGE Government. This letting EVERY manufacturer build and sell tricky recorders and tricky tapes where nothing works with anything else, and so much time and money is wasted playing mix and match… well, it all could have been settled in one big Planning Meeting where specifications could have been decided upon once and for all. And if something doesn’t work, then some Big Ass CEO goes to jail and a Vendor License gets lifted. No more getting stuck with useless Memorex Tapes. It all makes me wonder whether Archeologists digging up our Landfills thousands of years from now will be left to puzzle why Trash Dumps all around the World were peppered with spools of Memorex Disks still fresh in their packaging. I suppose if they still have Capitalism, they will understand quickly enough, for as long as Capitalism remains alive then the notion and appeal of baiting Consumers with pretty but useless junk and ripping them off will never be entirely forgotten or abandoned.
Well, but shaking my fist at the sky would not help… not indefinitely, anyway. I had to believe that something out there might work – that some certain Brand and Model of Machines with some certain Brand of Disks could make for a useable combination. They couldn’t all be bad, could they? So I did a huge Web Search to find something that I could confidently go out and buy. But I just found that there are a million problems out there. Yes, there were happy customers out there, but they seemed far too relieved. Everybody was going through way too much trouble! Oh, one guy On Line gave out the cogent and probably prophetic warning that DVD’s were probably a transitory medium anyway, and that it would be crazy to get over-invested in it, and that if one still had an old piece of junk VHS recorder and a pile of tapes laying around the house that still worked, then try to get another couple of years out of them to last you up to the point where we can all laugh derisively when the well deserved Death of DVD comes as it surely will. Unfortunately, my machine was choking on my last few tapes and I need something new now. I was missing TV shows.
You know, we have been in the middle of a Memory Revolution – hard drives with dazzling amounts of memory, and even little memory sticks that each have a hundred times more data capacity then NASA had in total when they ‘said’ they landed a man on the moon. With so much Digital Memory available so cheaply, why were we all still dicking around with disks and tapes? Why not just run the TV Shows into pure memory, simple and sweet?
Yes, there is TiVo. Isn’t that what TiVo does? They have a Webpage that doesn’t seem to work.. or I couldn’t make it work. Anyway, the word I picked up on TiVo is that it is akin to being in a kind of Cult or Secret Society that one has to join… that you can’t just buy a TiVo machine and go home and fire it up. I’ve heard that people have to sign up for stuff. Maybe you need to tithe and attend Sunday services for it. I’m not sure about anything…as I said, their Web Page wouldn’t even work for me. And it all sounds far too complicated from what I have heard in the general ambiance. Remember, it is all only about recording one TV show while one watches another. It shouldn’t involve monthly payments, calendar schedules, sworn oaths, giving up first born children and dancing naked at the bi-annual human sacrifice ceremonies. If I wanted that kind of thing, I’d buy a Saturn.
But once I got the idea of Pure Memory Recording, I searched around and found that Pioneer made a few Machines that might do the job for me. So I ran out and bought one right on the sport, right? No, wrong. There has been another Big Problem plaguing the TV Recording Crowd and that is the Tunerless TV Recorder – VHS or DVD Recorders without the “Antenna In” and “Antenna Out” Connectors. They sell them all over the place now. The first time I bought one, I didn’t believe it when I got it home and found that there was no place to plug my Cable. Honestly, what good is it? Yes, yes, the Sales People tell you that you can get a Top Box or a Set Top Box. But the stores never have one in stock to sell to me. I was told the Cable Company would be glad to rent me one… if I wanted to stand in line for it, and then add to my monthly payments. It was disgusting. Technology taking these huge steps backwards. New Recorders not able to replace Old Recorders.
Anyway, after looking long and hard I found Recorders with Tuners – with Antenna Ins and Outs. The boxes were labeled as having ATSC Tuners. And these worked fine. It turns out, though, that ATSC Tuners are specifically made to handle the new Digital Signals. But most Cable Companies are still putting Analog Signals out over their lines. Yes, they are receiving Digital Programming on their end and we can see the signs of this when the picture freezes or gets choppy or the voices get out of sync… all Digital TV problems, but the signal actually running down our cables is Analog, that is, unless you are actually paying extra to specifically get Digital Channels and those highfalutin HiDef Channels, and even then you will probably still have a range of Analog Channels… in my area is it channels 2 through 64. You know, we should be very happy and grateful that the Cable Companies are converting these signals for us, at their end, or we really would need those darn ATSC top boxes. Oh, if the Cable Companies ever do give up on giving us free Analog Conversion, then we will need not just one ATSC Tuner, but we will need Double Tuners, so we can watch one show while recording another. I saw it mentioned a few times while I was doing all that searching around. It all might happen in 2012, to coincide with all that other End of the World crap.
Anyway, I looked up the Pioneer specs and could find nothing anywhere that said anything about its having an ATSC Tuner. This was when I still thought that was what I needed. But in the Tuner section of the Specifications it listed NTSC. So I looked that up. It turns out that NTSC is Analog Tuning… what I had been getting all along. You see, the ATSC Tuners I had been dealing with were designed to recognize and pass-through Analog Signals to some bare-minimum NTSC Analog tuner that the TV would recognize. I thought I had been using the ATSC Tuners, but not really… not in the full sense. But I was getting a Picture and I was happy. I never knew the difference of the fine details.
Oh, by the way, Retail Salespeople are mostly young lazy idiots. Yeah, for minimum wage, what would we expect, but they are around the stuff all day long. It’s their job to know this stuff. Or maybe it is a matter of them being too young and too dumb to have any communication skills or realizing what the World really expects of them. In a highly technical business they need to be able to come to terms with all of the complexities involved – they need to know what all the little Letters and Logos on the Boxes mean, and they need to be able to explain their applicability to the Customer’s World and Requirements. But these kids are out of our School Systems. They think that they were doing fine with barely passing grades. Really, the schools do a great disservice to the children by providing so many Passing Grades in their Evaluations – A, B, C, D. Only ‘F’ flunks. Only 2 Grades are necessary for any Educational Evaluation – “Perfect” and “Go Back and Try Again”. Until they master everything that is expected of them, they should not be allowed go on and get out – keep them in School forever, or transfer them straight to Prison if they pass some certain age limit. But the Schools should not be allowed to release these idiots into the greater society. The Schools with their system of ‘Good Enough’ does not prepare these young people for a World where good enough is simply no longer good enough.
And with some of those kids one needs to wonder of their honesty. This one Pioneer Model in one large well stocked Audio Electronics Specialty Store had “Antenna In” and “Antenna Out” connectors, where the Tuner is, but it was not the traditional threaded 75 Ohm Cable Input that we are familiar with. He could find an adapter only for the “Antenna In”. I mentioned that I need “Antenna Out” also. He said “You are only recording, so you only need the ‘In’”. Well, I had explained earlier what I was doing – recording one thing while watching another, that the Signal has to be able to run through the Recorder to the TV Set for both things to work at once. He either didn’t understand, or he was lying to me. He was either stupid or he thought I was. That bothered me.
Anyway, when I finally understood that the Pioneer Machines probably would be able to work just fine with the cable I had at home, with their HTSC Tuners, I went out and bought one of their Machines.
I found a small shop where the Owner was the salesman. He had a bench in the back with equipment stacked up. He knew what all the Letters and Logos on the boxes meant. He knew ATSC and NTSC and showed me in his shop the hookups I would use at home, and that they would work. He was fun to talk show, and the demonstration was fun. It verified everything I had learned in all of my Web Searches.
I got a Pioneer DVR-650H. It has a Hard Drive with 250 Gig Memory… that is a lot of hours of TV. It also had a DVD side. Yeah, a lot of people buy these things so they can illicitly tape movies in the theaters with their camcorders and then ‘burn’ Cheap Pirate Swap Meet Copies to sell on the street. Salespeople were assuming that is why I wanted to buy such a thing and were giving me all the Details of the Pirate Trade, and I had to interrupt several times with “Excuse me, but do I really look that sleazy?” Oh, but the machines were rather pricey – three times what I would have expected to pay for a new VHS Recorder. Yes, so I guess it would be nice if the machine could help pay for itself, sleazy or not, wouldn’t it? The asking price was $699 but after I told my sad tale to the Store Manager, he good-willed a hundred bucks off the top and let me have it for $600 even. I was grateful, but still wonder how much just a Hard Drive Thing would have been. Maybe Pioneer should think of making something that can be used purely in the case where somebody wants to watch one TV Show while he records another. Sometimes spending a little bit for a machine that does the one simple thing that one needs it for is preferable to spending a ton of money for a machine that does that one simple thing, while also being able to do a million other things that will only collect dust, never be used, and slowly rot away from neglect. But, then again, it might simplify manufacturing and marketing to have One Model that keeps everybody happy. The big price bite was probably the Hard Drive thing anyway. All the other extras probably did not add up to much at all. So I should probably stop all my bitching.
This Pioneer thing, the DVR-650H, does seem to be a very good machine. For one thing, the NTSC Tuner seems to be a notch above the simple minimum that came in my Sylvania ZV450SL8. The same Cable Signal going to the same TV seems to have a lot more sharpness and clarity. Maybe even the DVD side works. I don’t know. After all these DVD problems I’ve been having, I simply don’t want to have to screw with it.
The important thing is that the HDD Side works very well. HDD is what they call the Hard Drive half of the thing. I thought I was having problems at first, because I couldn’t set out a “Title” which I thought it was necessary to do (you see, I had started to read the Manual. One should NEVER read the Manuals… they only confuse you and put ideas into your head). Anyway, if you just start to record something then the Machine will automatically give it a Title – referring to the time of day or the channel one is recording, which one can edit later at one’s leisure. I was actually making it quite harder than it needed to be. Really, it is almost as simple as just hitting a single button.
Oh, I took a guess and started to PLAY a previously recorded TV show while recording a new Recording, and, WOW, it lets you watch what you recorded before while recording something new. Now that’s progress! That old VHS Machines couldn’t do that.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Bumper Sticker Doctrine of Free Sin
In my visits to America I had seen a bumper sticker: “I am not Perfect, just Forgiven”. Do a search, it turns out to be a title of a song… probably one of those twangy Country Songs done in a thick Texarkana accent that bespeaks the urge to fight the Battle of Appomattox all over again, hoping for a different outcome. I think they all think that EVERY white man had his own Plantation.
I saw the bumper sticker while on Route 66, the famous Highway that coincidentally follows the Bible Belt from end to end, from East to West, from start to finish. What is the ‘Bible Belt’, you may ask. Well, I’ve heard it characterized as Bible Churches and Honkytonks, competing for every street corner… that is, the ones not already taken up by McDonalds. The Bible Belt is also known for a great deal of incest, which probably needs no further explanation than all the chronic drunkenness…to be charitable we must suppose that such behavior can only be explained by actions committed during dead-drunk blackouts. Oh, and Blackouts are quite common in that region. There are Cowboys who think it quite normal to never remember how they get home, or how they manage to wake up finding themselves in jail. Oh, the women also, if one looks at them closely, they do not seem to trail far behind the men in their drinking, or their smoking, or in every means of pursuing a steady decline. So, anyway, all the talk about Incest is just a big rumor. But that doesn’t mean they know where all the babies are coming from. They simply can’t remember.
They really could use more birth-control. In the American South every woman over the age of six should be on birth control. Incest or not, it might serve to slow down the babies having so many babies.
Now, it might be supposed that the Churches are there to turn around this deplorable situation of abysmal morality, that the Churches would exercise a positive moral influence. You would think so. But actually these little Bible Churches are probably a huge contributing factor. They’ve been there from the first. After a few hundred years one would think their beneficial influence would have kicked in by now. But I fear that The Free Sin Doctrine is not lost on these people. While they may nearly all be Brain Rotted Stupid, still, the constant repetition finally gets through. Tell an idiot a million times that God forgives his Sins and he might begin to eventually consider the matter as a given… and then crawl into bed with his… close relatives.
Yes, yes, yes, Young Christian People are always arguing with me that NOBODY understands Christian Doctrine to imply Free Sin. They mean ‘nobody they know’. Not in the Churches where they have come from! How can this be explained? Well, the Churches in the Northeast and West emphasize a different facet of Paulism – Predestination and Election – that God signals who is Saved or Not by who is Rich or not. So the Protestants of the Northeast have to work hard and earn earn earn, in order to prove to God and Themselves that they are part of the Saved Elect. Of course, they still have Forgiveness of Sins, but ONLY if they are members of the Elect. So they are likely to do ANYTHING to get rich. Their eternal Salvation depends on it. You see, if they end up Poor, it means that they are and always have been and always will be, damned – ‘reprobate’ is the Theological Term. It all tends toward stratifying a Class Society, where a Social and Economic Elite will dig in and defend their Special ‘Spiritual’ Status… their ‘election’ or having been chosen by God. Yes, this is all morally reprehensible, bigoted and snobbish, but at least they are frugal and watch how much time and money they waste on drink and drugs, prostitutes, etc. This is all Church of England Protestantism and Presbyterianism. Oh, and they think it is all wonderful proof of how great their Religion is that so many of their Members are Rich as God. They really do in their heart of hearts directly correlate Material Wealth with Divine Spiritual Preference.
One can hardly decide which is worst. Rich Sinners or Poor Sinners.
But in the Bible Belt, it is nearly all Baptist. The Baptist Churches came out of the same Society as Plantations and Slavery. There was only one Rich Man in every town. The Church couldn’t tell EVERYBODY they were reprobate… so in that particular Doctrine (Amoral Election and Predestination), Paul was allowed to be ignored. But the REST of the Bible was definitely the Word of God! Especially those parts about Sin All You Want. Yes, in the South, and the Wannabee South of that great sprawl of Red States, they know their Bible… the convenient parts, anyway. Born Again! Saved! It is drummed into them from their mother’s lap. Believe in the Lord Jesus and your sins will be forgiven. Forget about being Rich when you can be poor and happy (they mean drunk and laid).
Oh, I shouldn’t just be singling out the moral decadence of America’s rural whites. I suspect there is also a connection between all of the little Black Protestant Churches and high crime rates in the Black Communities. And then there is the astronomically high rate of unwed preganancies, which are probably not entirely a bad thing. The young Black ladies have enough sense to kick the young men out who would otherwise be a drain on their households. Rural White Women need their Men, even if it drags them down. Black Women manage to get on by themselves. But there are social drawbacks. While it is good for the women, it deprives the men of the civilizing influence that the company of women often imparts. The men, not living with women but only socializing with them in the worst places, begin to extrapolate from their experience that women are only creatures of the night, and they become dismissive of them. Listening to Modern Urban American Music, there is no very high regard expressed for Women. And this only exacerbates the tendency for the Women to further isolate their Homes away from the men who so little appreciate them.
The Black Community may have some positive influences flowing in from Islam. Muslim Theology pays a great deal more attention to Moral Responsibility. However, the Muslim propensity for Justifying Violence is troubling, especially as it is being introduced into a Community that has enough problems with Violence already.
I’ve been watching the Tyler Perry movies. They are great break from the typical Hollywood formulas where every movie is great deal like the one before. Tyler Perry deals with some very deep and complex problems in the Black Community and he portrays the Black Churches as a largely positive influence. The Churches are centers for Community Support, and that can hardly be minimized. However, unless the Books and Doctrines of Paul are ripped out and tossed away, it does a morally troubled community little good to hear the preachings that God has a policy for endorsing Free Sin. The Black People only need to look over at the White People, their Rural Neighbors or the City Snobs, and ask themselves if that is what they wish to turn into. The Black Community should consciously separate Jesus out from Paul and formulate what they believe are the correct Doctrines. A Christianity of Just Jesus would have all the advantages of a Morally Stringent Islam but without the flaws of Constant Jihad against everybody and everything. Thank God that Jesus never picked up that sword that Mohamed took up and that has been following around Islam ever since. Mohamed may have had his reasons, but today every Camel Jockey from Mongolia to Zanzibar thinks they have plenty of reason too and the Example of Mohamed only encourages them.
The one advantage Islam does have is that you can’t nail a Bumper Sticker to a camel’s ass.
I saw the bumper sticker while on Route 66, the famous Highway that coincidentally follows the Bible Belt from end to end, from East to West, from start to finish. What is the ‘Bible Belt’, you may ask. Well, I’ve heard it characterized as Bible Churches and Honkytonks, competing for every street corner… that is, the ones not already taken up by McDonalds. The Bible Belt is also known for a great deal of incest, which probably needs no further explanation than all the chronic drunkenness…to be charitable we must suppose that such behavior can only be explained by actions committed during dead-drunk blackouts. Oh, and Blackouts are quite common in that region. There are Cowboys who think it quite normal to never remember how they get home, or how they manage to wake up finding themselves in jail. Oh, the women also, if one looks at them closely, they do not seem to trail far behind the men in their drinking, or their smoking, or in every means of pursuing a steady decline. So, anyway, all the talk about Incest is just a big rumor. But that doesn’t mean they know where all the babies are coming from. They simply can’t remember.
They really could use more birth-control. In the American South every woman over the age of six should be on birth control. Incest or not, it might serve to slow down the babies having so many babies.
Now, it might be supposed that the Churches are there to turn around this deplorable situation of abysmal morality, that the Churches would exercise a positive moral influence. You would think so. But actually these little Bible Churches are probably a huge contributing factor. They’ve been there from the first. After a few hundred years one would think their beneficial influence would have kicked in by now. But I fear that The Free Sin Doctrine is not lost on these people. While they may nearly all be Brain Rotted Stupid, still, the constant repetition finally gets through. Tell an idiot a million times that God forgives his Sins and he might begin to eventually consider the matter as a given… and then crawl into bed with his… close relatives.
Yes, yes, yes, Young Christian People are always arguing with me that NOBODY understands Christian Doctrine to imply Free Sin. They mean ‘nobody they know’. Not in the Churches where they have come from! How can this be explained? Well, the Churches in the Northeast and West emphasize a different facet of Paulism – Predestination and Election – that God signals who is Saved or Not by who is Rich or not. So the Protestants of the Northeast have to work hard and earn earn earn, in order to prove to God and Themselves that they are part of the Saved Elect. Of course, they still have Forgiveness of Sins, but ONLY if they are members of the Elect. So they are likely to do ANYTHING to get rich. Their eternal Salvation depends on it. You see, if they end up Poor, it means that they are and always have been and always will be, damned – ‘reprobate’ is the Theological Term. It all tends toward stratifying a Class Society, where a Social and Economic Elite will dig in and defend their Special ‘Spiritual’ Status… their ‘election’ or having been chosen by God. Yes, this is all morally reprehensible, bigoted and snobbish, but at least they are frugal and watch how much time and money they waste on drink and drugs, prostitutes, etc. This is all Church of England Protestantism and Presbyterianism. Oh, and they think it is all wonderful proof of how great their Religion is that so many of their Members are Rich as God. They really do in their heart of hearts directly correlate Material Wealth with Divine Spiritual Preference.
One can hardly decide which is worst. Rich Sinners or Poor Sinners.
But in the Bible Belt, it is nearly all Baptist. The Baptist Churches came out of the same Society as Plantations and Slavery. There was only one Rich Man in every town. The Church couldn’t tell EVERYBODY they were reprobate… so in that particular Doctrine (Amoral Election and Predestination), Paul was allowed to be ignored. But the REST of the Bible was definitely the Word of God! Especially those parts about Sin All You Want. Yes, in the South, and the Wannabee South of that great sprawl of Red States, they know their Bible… the convenient parts, anyway. Born Again! Saved! It is drummed into them from their mother’s lap. Believe in the Lord Jesus and your sins will be forgiven. Forget about being Rich when you can be poor and happy (they mean drunk and laid).
Oh, I shouldn’t just be singling out the moral decadence of America’s rural whites. I suspect there is also a connection between all of the little Black Protestant Churches and high crime rates in the Black Communities. And then there is the astronomically high rate of unwed preganancies, which are probably not entirely a bad thing. The young Black ladies have enough sense to kick the young men out who would otherwise be a drain on their households. Rural White Women need their Men, even if it drags them down. Black Women manage to get on by themselves. But there are social drawbacks. While it is good for the women, it deprives the men of the civilizing influence that the company of women often imparts. The men, not living with women but only socializing with them in the worst places, begin to extrapolate from their experience that women are only creatures of the night, and they become dismissive of them. Listening to Modern Urban American Music, there is no very high regard expressed for Women. And this only exacerbates the tendency for the Women to further isolate their Homes away from the men who so little appreciate them.
The Black Community may have some positive influences flowing in from Islam. Muslim Theology pays a great deal more attention to Moral Responsibility. However, the Muslim propensity for Justifying Violence is troubling, especially as it is being introduced into a Community that has enough problems with Violence already.
I’ve been watching the Tyler Perry movies. They are great break from the typical Hollywood formulas where every movie is great deal like the one before. Tyler Perry deals with some very deep and complex problems in the Black Community and he portrays the Black Churches as a largely positive influence. The Churches are centers for Community Support, and that can hardly be minimized. However, unless the Books and Doctrines of Paul are ripped out and tossed away, it does a morally troubled community little good to hear the preachings that God has a policy for endorsing Free Sin. The Black People only need to look over at the White People, their Rural Neighbors or the City Snobs, and ask themselves if that is what they wish to turn into. The Black Community should consciously separate Jesus out from Paul and formulate what they believe are the correct Doctrines. A Christianity of Just Jesus would have all the advantages of a Morally Stringent Islam but without the flaws of Constant Jihad against everybody and everything. Thank God that Jesus never picked up that sword that Mohamed took up and that has been following around Islam ever since. Mohamed may have had his reasons, but today every Camel Jockey from Mongolia to Zanzibar thinks they have plenty of reason too and the Example of Mohamed only encourages them.
The one advantage Islam does have is that you can’t nail a Bumper Sticker to a camel’s ass.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Child Molesting and the End to Salvation
When the Bishops were found to have taken every dodge to clear Pedophile Priests or to allow them to escape the long arm of the Law, well, people could not understand it in the least. Was it Corruption? Was it simply dull witted insularism where the Bishops only had it in mind to protect the Us’s from the Them’s? But the Bishops were powerful Bosses of the Church, and the Priests, well, just little worker ants in the system. Why did the Bishops care so much? Why didn’t the Bishops simply throw those little perverts to the Wolves – turn them in for prosecution, ex-communicate them and fire their asses. Burn down their damn houses!
But nobody thought for a moment about Church Doctrine. Remember, Jesus died for our sins. Forgiveness. Salvation by Faith, not Works. In a Theological Setup like that, really, isn’t one sin much like the next. Are not all sins to be forgiven. So, yes, while there is a particular horror about Child Molesting, from the standpoint of Doctrine, the Bishops could not treat it in any other way than as though it were a normal sin like lying, cheating, exploiting the poor, or the usual adult heterosexual sins … the normal Work-a-day Bread and Butter Sins of the Confessional. The ones the Priests say they’ve heard a thousand times.
So, anyway, the Bishops were defending the Pedophiles because they thought they were defending Doctrine. Salvation hung in the balance. If God would forgive those cocksuckers, He would forgive anybody. Isn’t that what everybody signed up for? Hey, if you don’t like Sinning, what did you become a Christian for?
In the Middle Ages if anybody questioned Catholic Doctrine, then the Heel would fall. Complaining Communities would be declared heretical ‘en masse’. If some arrests and convictions did not turn things around, then there would be more, and more, and more. If slaughtering the entire heretical community was what it would take to silence the Questioning of Doctrine, then that is what it took. Oh, and remember that the Big Complaint was never that the Bishops were Morally too strict. It was always about Corruption. And, yes, there were always a great many complaints that the hired Priests were … troublesome. You know, honestly, the Bishops never did believe in paying their Priests what decent well educated Human Beings should be paid. So they paid Second Rate and got Second Rate. But despite all that it still remained firmly in the Field of Salvation Doctrine that people could not simply withdraw the Benefits of Salvation from some Christians because the Sins considered inconvenient. Salvation was Salvation. There could be no picking or choosing, or it all would be lost. Wouldn’t it?
But now we have the Modern World and the Church was being taken to Court and losing. Defense of Doctrine was not a permitted defense in the Secular Courts. The Law recognized only Moral Responsibility. And the Church was losing big. Some Cities had to sell off more than half of their Schools and Hospitals to pay off the Sex Victims… who deserved all they got. Afterall, people cannot be expected to give out Blow Jobs for free. They stepped forward demanding to be paid for their services. So give them the money. They must have worked very hard for it. We can all live without schools and hospitals as long as we know that all the various sex acts had been paid for in full. Yes, we can never forget who the victims were in all this.
Oh, by the way, the Catholic Church is constitutionally decentralized. The Pope is ONLY the Bishop of Rome. He would take care of Rome, and the Bishops would take care of their Towns. The way this came down legally was that the Lawyers could not sue Rome for what was done in Cleveland. So the Bishops had to pay their own bills. So, how long, then, could we expect that a Bishop would defend Doctrine if it meant he would eventually go bankrupt and lose his entire Diocese. Rome was not helping. Indeed, Rome seemed as ready to throw the Sinners to the Wolves as anybody else. The Vatican had released self-serving Comments deploring the decline in American Morals… and then European Morals when just as much Pedophilia was found Over There.
So Pedophilia was selected out as being the One Unforgivable Sin. No Salvation for the Pedophile. No Forgiveness. Christ did not die for no dick up the ass.
But wait… what does that do to the whole Doctrine? Remember that the Bishops earlier were probably not defending those little cocksucking Priests because of any sense of loyalty or attachment. They probably wanted to flog them to death for creating so much trouble. But they saw it as their Duty as Bishops to defend Doctrine above all else.
Well, now the doctrine has been cracked.
The World hated Pedophiles and so the Pedophiles be damned.
But now isn’t All Sin back on the Table. Can the Church really just throw out only a corner piece of Doctrine? Now that a Line can be Crossed, what new Doctrine defines that line?
What exactly were we going for when we wanted Forgiveness of Sins? What did we think Salvation meant? Just the little Sins? Of course we could not be forgiven if we did anything seriously wrong. But that reduces Christian Salvation to just silliness.
Anyway, I’m happy. Paulist Doctrine has been renounced. But how long is the Church going to let it go without making the formal announcement that Salvation is no longer in play?
Maybe the Church will be cynical about it all. If nobody has noticed yet, maybe they never will. They will simply run the Church one way, insisting upon Moral Responsibility and Good Works, while still paying lip service to Forgiveness and Salvation. The Church will pretend there is still Salvation and Forgiveness, as long as nobody expects to get any of it. They will continue to Write the Checks against all the old abandoned Doctrines. But since all the Lawsuits, they just can’t cash them any more.
But nobody thought for a moment about Church Doctrine. Remember, Jesus died for our sins. Forgiveness. Salvation by Faith, not Works. In a Theological Setup like that, really, isn’t one sin much like the next. Are not all sins to be forgiven. So, yes, while there is a particular horror about Child Molesting, from the standpoint of Doctrine, the Bishops could not treat it in any other way than as though it were a normal sin like lying, cheating, exploiting the poor, or the usual adult heterosexual sins … the normal Work-a-day Bread and Butter Sins of the Confessional. The ones the Priests say they’ve heard a thousand times.
So, anyway, the Bishops were defending the Pedophiles because they thought they were defending Doctrine. Salvation hung in the balance. If God would forgive those cocksuckers, He would forgive anybody. Isn’t that what everybody signed up for? Hey, if you don’t like Sinning, what did you become a Christian for?
In the Middle Ages if anybody questioned Catholic Doctrine, then the Heel would fall. Complaining Communities would be declared heretical ‘en masse’. If some arrests and convictions did not turn things around, then there would be more, and more, and more. If slaughtering the entire heretical community was what it would take to silence the Questioning of Doctrine, then that is what it took. Oh, and remember that the Big Complaint was never that the Bishops were Morally too strict. It was always about Corruption. And, yes, there were always a great many complaints that the hired Priests were … troublesome. You know, honestly, the Bishops never did believe in paying their Priests what decent well educated Human Beings should be paid. So they paid Second Rate and got Second Rate. But despite all that it still remained firmly in the Field of Salvation Doctrine that people could not simply withdraw the Benefits of Salvation from some Christians because the Sins considered inconvenient. Salvation was Salvation. There could be no picking or choosing, or it all would be lost. Wouldn’t it?
But now we have the Modern World and the Church was being taken to Court and losing. Defense of Doctrine was not a permitted defense in the Secular Courts. The Law recognized only Moral Responsibility. And the Church was losing big. Some Cities had to sell off more than half of their Schools and Hospitals to pay off the Sex Victims… who deserved all they got. Afterall, people cannot be expected to give out Blow Jobs for free. They stepped forward demanding to be paid for their services. So give them the money. They must have worked very hard for it. We can all live without schools and hospitals as long as we know that all the various sex acts had been paid for in full. Yes, we can never forget who the victims were in all this.
Oh, by the way, the Catholic Church is constitutionally decentralized. The Pope is ONLY the Bishop of Rome. He would take care of Rome, and the Bishops would take care of their Towns. The way this came down legally was that the Lawyers could not sue Rome for what was done in Cleveland. So the Bishops had to pay their own bills. So, how long, then, could we expect that a Bishop would defend Doctrine if it meant he would eventually go bankrupt and lose his entire Diocese. Rome was not helping. Indeed, Rome seemed as ready to throw the Sinners to the Wolves as anybody else. The Vatican had released self-serving Comments deploring the decline in American Morals… and then European Morals when just as much Pedophilia was found Over There.
So Pedophilia was selected out as being the One Unforgivable Sin. No Salvation for the Pedophile. No Forgiveness. Christ did not die for no dick up the ass.
But wait… what does that do to the whole Doctrine? Remember that the Bishops earlier were probably not defending those little cocksucking Priests because of any sense of loyalty or attachment. They probably wanted to flog them to death for creating so much trouble. But they saw it as their Duty as Bishops to defend Doctrine above all else.
Well, now the doctrine has been cracked.
The World hated Pedophiles and so the Pedophiles be damned.
But now isn’t All Sin back on the Table. Can the Church really just throw out only a corner piece of Doctrine? Now that a Line can be Crossed, what new Doctrine defines that line?
What exactly were we going for when we wanted Forgiveness of Sins? What did we think Salvation meant? Just the little Sins? Of course we could not be forgiven if we did anything seriously wrong. But that reduces Christian Salvation to just silliness.
Anyway, I’m happy. Paulist Doctrine has been renounced. But how long is the Church going to let it go without making the formal announcement that Salvation is no longer in play?
Maybe the Church will be cynical about it all. If nobody has noticed yet, maybe they never will. They will simply run the Church one way, insisting upon Moral Responsibility and Good Works, while still paying lip service to Forgiveness and Salvation. The Church will pretend there is still Salvation and Forgiveness, as long as nobody expects to get any of it. They will continue to Write the Checks against all the old abandoned Doctrines. But since all the Lawsuits, they just can’t cash them any more.
Evil Monks
Recently I had spoken with a fellow who, in his younger days, had been an American Peace Corps Volunteer in the Far East. Amidst his endless stories and observations was the fascinating tidbit that NOBODY ever decided to become a Buddhist Monk, that the Monasteries were actually just functional Orphanages. Yes, while it is supposed that some actual orphans were dropped off, that is, children who had lost their parents, in most cases it was probably prostitutes dropping off incidental babies, or a farmer dropping off the baby of an unmarried daughter after “a fox had jumped out her window”, whereupon the daughter could become a proper virgin again. So, in short, the Monasteries of the Far East are filled almost completely with … well, let’s keep calling them “orphans”. That’s nicer. His point was that in the Far East becoming a Monk represented no huge religious or spiritual commitment. Monks just happened to be Monks. Nobody ever asked them what they wanted?
Oh, and these people would continue to be Monks all of their lives, considering that there was a strong social stigma against… “orphans”. Somebody should probably look into that today. With Television everywhere, probably even in the Monasteries, these Monks would learn what it is to act normally. They could escape, grow their hair, go to the Big City and get a job. So it is that the Modern World changes everything.
Anyway, back to the Orphanage Monasteries. Yes, it is wonderful that in certain Monasteries the Monks are given such intensive training in matters of the Spirit… if we could only find where such a Monastery actually exists. But more usually we see Monks given enough vocational training to be manufacturers of Gift Shop Trinkets, or they are set out to beg at the train stations or airports. Their Spiritual Training consists of keeping to a schedule of mandatory prayers. Well… that better than nothing.
Oh, but there is far worst. We see all these Movies in which unscrupulous Administrators of these Orphanage Monasteries take all of these lads and train them up to be Fighters, Militiamen and Assassins. Certainly, it must be a far stretch to understand how Religion and Spirituality could have much to do with any of this. It is more likely that Chief Administrators with Priestly Titles have no official oversight and can make themselves rich in any way they can imagine, even by hiring out private armies and hit men.
Oh, it is not just the Buddhists I blame for this lack of centralized discipline and control of their “Priests”, but historically the Muslims have had the same problem with their Monasteries. The original Assassins came out of some very corrupt Muslim Monastery. And the Assassins would have made the Ninjas look like a bunch of little pussies!
Oh, and here is a puzzler… that there are so few female Monks, Nuns, in the Far East. Nobody ever says so out loud, but a lot of ‘nostril pinching’ is suspected. What they ‘say’ is that the female babies are far more frail than the boys and so many more female babies ‘die’ at birth… nobody says they are ‘killed’, but simply that they don’t make it. Yeah, pinching their noses probably doesn’t help since they are so frail already. Anyway, even if they are not wanted, the boys are passed along to the Monasteries. There is simply nowhere for the unwanted female babies to go. I hope this has changed. To me, the prejudice seems to go the wrong way. Girls can be so much more useful than boys in the Modern World. They cooperate better. Less testosterone. Anything a boy can do, that matters, a girl can do better.
Oh, the West should not be too judgmental about Infant ‘Nose Pinching’. Remember that only until recently “Infant Mortality” was high even in the West. And Mid-Nurses were employed. Now, what was a Mid-Wife’s job, exactly? The Mid-wife would come into the home. Talk to the wife. Talk to the husband. Have a look around. Then a baby would be born that would either live or die. Coincidentally, a lot of large families in small houses had a higher infant morality rate. Not a written word has passed into History… who would write such a thing? … but the Mid-Wives were probably nose-pinching. Oh, and while their services were much sought out, sometimes it was resented, and the resentment would on occasion explode. Most of the American Witch Trials targeted Mid-Wives. But they shut down those trials quickly. People needed to protect their Secret. Before Birth Control and Legal Abortion, and before there were Social Programs and Safety Nets for the miserably Poor, people needed to do something about their pest Babies. I guess nobody thought about sending them all to a School for Trained Killers. Oh, if only the whole World were Buddhist.
Oh, and these people would continue to be Monks all of their lives, considering that there was a strong social stigma against… “orphans”. Somebody should probably look into that today. With Television everywhere, probably even in the Monasteries, these Monks would learn what it is to act normally. They could escape, grow their hair, go to the Big City and get a job. So it is that the Modern World changes everything.
Anyway, back to the Orphanage Monasteries. Yes, it is wonderful that in certain Monasteries the Monks are given such intensive training in matters of the Spirit… if we could only find where such a Monastery actually exists. But more usually we see Monks given enough vocational training to be manufacturers of Gift Shop Trinkets, or they are set out to beg at the train stations or airports. Their Spiritual Training consists of keeping to a schedule of mandatory prayers. Well… that better than nothing.
Oh, but there is far worst. We see all these Movies in which unscrupulous Administrators of these Orphanage Monasteries take all of these lads and train them up to be Fighters, Militiamen and Assassins. Certainly, it must be a far stretch to understand how Religion and Spirituality could have much to do with any of this. It is more likely that Chief Administrators with Priestly Titles have no official oversight and can make themselves rich in any way they can imagine, even by hiring out private armies and hit men.
Oh, it is not just the Buddhists I blame for this lack of centralized discipline and control of their “Priests”, but historically the Muslims have had the same problem with their Monasteries. The original Assassins came out of some very corrupt Muslim Monastery. And the Assassins would have made the Ninjas look like a bunch of little pussies!
Oh, and here is a puzzler… that there are so few female Monks, Nuns, in the Far East. Nobody ever says so out loud, but a lot of ‘nostril pinching’ is suspected. What they ‘say’ is that the female babies are far more frail than the boys and so many more female babies ‘die’ at birth… nobody says they are ‘killed’, but simply that they don’t make it. Yeah, pinching their noses probably doesn’t help since they are so frail already. Anyway, even if they are not wanted, the boys are passed along to the Monasteries. There is simply nowhere for the unwanted female babies to go. I hope this has changed. To me, the prejudice seems to go the wrong way. Girls can be so much more useful than boys in the Modern World. They cooperate better. Less testosterone. Anything a boy can do, that matters, a girl can do better.
Oh, the West should not be too judgmental about Infant ‘Nose Pinching’. Remember that only until recently “Infant Mortality” was high even in the West. And Mid-Nurses were employed. Now, what was a Mid-Wife’s job, exactly? The Mid-wife would come into the home. Talk to the wife. Talk to the husband. Have a look around. Then a baby would be born that would either live or die. Coincidentally, a lot of large families in small houses had a higher infant morality rate. Not a written word has passed into History… who would write such a thing? … but the Mid-Wives were probably nose-pinching. Oh, and while their services were much sought out, sometimes it was resented, and the resentment would on occasion explode. Most of the American Witch Trials targeted Mid-Wives. But they shut down those trials quickly. People needed to protect their Secret. Before Birth Control and Legal Abortion, and before there were Social Programs and Safety Nets for the miserably Poor, people needed to do something about their pest Babies. I guess nobody thought about sending them all to a School for Trained Killers. Oh, if only the whole World were Buddhist.
Civilization and the Internet
The Ancient Greeks thought of themselves as ‘Civilized’ and thought of everyone else as ‘barbarian’. What they probably meant by it was whether or not people were familiar with their own local customs – they should have just said “Greek” or “Not-Greek”, not “Civilized” or “Barbarian”.
In the Modern World people use the word ‘Civilized’ to mean modern. Old ways are ‘Barbarian’ while all the new stuff is “Civilized”. It plays well into the idea that All Progress is Good.
Or the term ‘Civilized’ is used to cover everything they deem to be ‘politically correct’. When being judgmental, people used the term ‘Civilized’ to express approval, ‘Barbarian’ to express disapproval.
But important words need to be defined. If we really seek to be ‘Civilized’ we really have to have some fixed idea to aim for that does not shift with the popular taste or the political mood of the day.
Thinking about what Civilization has meant throughout History, at the most basic level it refers to those institutions and customs that allow for the greatest population densities. Barbarian, as the opposite, refers to cultural traits that keep population densities low, serving to engage conflict that either kills off population elements directly or serves to drive off population into retreat and emigration. Examples? Ancient China and India were able to sustain huge urban populations. Against this on the other extreme we have Nomadic Hunter Gatherers or Nomadic Pastoralists where populations were low and were actively maintained to be low – think the American ‘Indians’ or the Eurasian Steppe Tribes.
The other day I was reading a book that purported to lay out the next hundred years. Regarding the Internet, his comment was that it was ‘barbarian’ … I found the quote – “Computing culture is… by definition, barbaric. The essence of barbarism is the reduction of culture to a simple, driving force that will tolerate no diversion or competition”. Huh!? Sounds like he doesn’t like computers and so they are ‘Barbaric’… “by definition”. His definition of Barbarism, that it ‘tolerates no diversion or competition’, well that sounds like institutions that settle conflict and emphasize cooperation. And isn’t that Civilized? Remember it is the Lowest Population Density Cultures that allow for the most Competition, most of it very deadly. And as for ‘diversion’, the small tribal units that rise up and develop within the matrix of all the nomadic travel and the competing social organizations and individuals found in more advanced Barbaric Communities, well, are often very diverse, especially in regards to the development of new weapons systems to be used to advantage in all of their ‘competitions’.
It is the Civilizations that, on the other hand, prioritize conflict resolution and cooperation by regulating ‘competition’ and minimizing ‘diversion’ as a source of social friction. The author’s “definition” simply does not fit with the patterns of History. I think what the guy was doing was using a definition of Civilization and Barbarism that paraphrased “American” and “Un-American”. His book “The Next Hundred Years” was a thinly veiled manifesto urging America to launch a military assault on the rest of the World, conquering it before there could be any significant change in the balance of powers away from Unchallenged American Supremacy. Computerization, which could empower the Developing World, scares the guy and in his mind can end up hurting America more than it helps, so it has to be Barbarian – ‘by definition’.
Actually, Computerization has already proven to be rather ‘civilized’, insofar as it has been applied to organize or produce subsistence goods and to ameliorate the living conditions within the Modern Urban Sprawls. And the Sky is the limit. Left unrestricted Computerization and the Information Society could really collect and catalogue ALL information. Society and the Economy could be planned down to the finest details. Oh, and Crime and Corruption depends upon Shadows and Information Dark Zones. Complete Information would eradicate Crime and Corruption. A complete Civilization would definitely have a Computerized Backbone.
Yes, Computers have been used for assault and to divide, that is, Computers have had a Barbaric role in places. Barbarians use any Weapon they can find. Many Corporations and Political Activists have urged Computerization upon Authoritarian Regimes, hoping that “Freedom” of information would serve for the Collapse of Order, so that Western Corporations could swoop in and pick up the pieces. Use the Internet to spread Discontent and Rebellion – to burn ‘down Civilized Cathedrals’ so the Businessmen can get ‘a few golden candlesticks’ cheap at auction.
Yes, in fact the Internet can be destabilizing. However, behind the possibility of a little bit of destabilization, there is the huge potential for centralizing and collecting Information. This makes Control so much easier. Corruption and Crime were possible in previous Planned Economies, but with Computerization and the links between all Information and All Transactions, well, it won’t be quite so easy to make a bag of potatoes go missing as it was before.
There has been a previous Information Revolution in History. The Printing Press. It first arrived in China. The Chinese used the Printing Press to distribute Information Pamphlets. The first major printing in History was the title “Get Rich Grow Rice”, it was distributed free from the Government, and the little book gave precise details for building rice paddies and installing irrigation systems (“water always flows from up to down”) as well as setting out the calendar for planting and harvesting. The Chinese made much of their Information Revolution – Chinese Population grew enormously while at the same time larger surpluses were able to be stored to offset occasional famines and dry spells. Other forces eventually intervened, but largely Information proved to be a good thing in regards to promoting and maintaining a high population density… in being ‘Civilized’.
When the Printing Press got to Europe, it was used to reproduce the Bible, which was sold privately, and which effectively introduced Paulist Doctrine to the Masses. Paulist Doctrine? Think “Salvation” which is the code word for Free Sin and permissive Capitalism. European Civilization became fracture by Nationalistic and Class Wars and there was the rise of the exploitative Factory System, Usury, Rum Running, the Slave Trade. Of course, there was also the Chinese Style of Information Books getting out, though nobody ever gave anything away. The Printing Press Revolution in Europe was therefore half Barbaric and half Civilized – forces of conflict and selfishness offset by tools for production and cooperation. The Result still hasn’t entirely settled.
But the Computerized Revolution… well, it all gets cranked up by a significantly large notch, doesn’t it? I would bet on Civilization… eventually. The near view is a bit troubled, however.
The World presently is on the brink of disaster and I honestly can’t see it so swiftly turn back from the Edge, as it would need to do. So the Present Order is very likely to collapse and the 7 Billion people who live today will be confronted by a period of intense Barbarism. Remember that Barbarism cannot support any significant Population Density. As Economies and Product Distribution Systems break down, crowded metropolitan areas will simply starve out. I suppose when the dust clears there will be several hundred million people left on the entire Planet. Maybe as they rebuild they will be able to put Computerized Information Technologies to good use and perhaps introduce the World’s First True Civilization, and not the Hybrid Barbaric Civilizations we have had to deal with up until now.
In the Modern World people use the word ‘Civilized’ to mean modern. Old ways are ‘Barbarian’ while all the new stuff is “Civilized”. It plays well into the idea that All Progress is Good.
Or the term ‘Civilized’ is used to cover everything they deem to be ‘politically correct’. When being judgmental, people used the term ‘Civilized’ to express approval, ‘Barbarian’ to express disapproval.
But important words need to be defined. If we really seek to be ‘Civilized’ we really have to have some fixed idea to aim for that does not shift with the popular taste or the political mood of the day.
Thinking about what Civilization has meant throughout History, at the most basic level it refers to those institutions and customs that allow for the greatest population densities. Barbarian, as the opposite, refers to cultural traits that keep population densities low, serving to engage conflict that either kills off population elements directly or serves to drive off population into retreat and emigration. Examples? Ancient China and India were able to sustain huge urban populations. Against this on the other extreme we have Nomadic Hunter Gatherers or Nomadic Pastoralists where populations were low and were actively maintained to be low – think the American ‘Indians’ or the Eurasian Steppe Tribes.
The other day I was reading a book that purported to lay out the next hundred years. Regarding the Internet, his comment was that it was ‘barbarian’ … I found the quote – “Computing culture is… by definition, barbaric. The essence of barbarism is the reduction of culture to a simple, driving force that will tolerate no diversion or competition”. Huh!? Sounds like he doesn’t like computers and so they are ‘Barbaric’… “by definition”. His definition of Barbarism, that it ‘tolerates no diversion or competition’, well that sounds like institutions that settle conflict and emphasize cooperation. And isn’t that Civilized? Remember it is the Lowest Population Density Cultures that allow for the most Competition, most of it very deadly. And as for ‘diversion’, the small tribal units that rise up and develop within the matrix of all the nomadic travel and the competing social organizations and individuals found in more advanced Barbaric Communities, well, are often very diverse, especially in regards to the development of new weapons systems to be used to advantage in all of their ‘competitions’.
It is the Civilizations that, on the other hand, prioritize conflict resolution and cooperation by regulating ‘competition’ and minimizing ‘diversion’ as a source of social friction. The author’s “definition” simply does not fit with the patterns of History. I think what the guy was doing was using a definition of Civilization and Barbarism that paraphrased “American” and “Un-American”. His book “The Next Hundred Years” was a thinly veiled manifesto urging America to launch a military assault on the rest of the World, conquering it before there could be any significant change in the balance of powers away from Unchallenged American Supremacy. Computerization, which could empower the Developing World, scares the guy and in his mind can end up hurting America more than it helps, so it has to be Barbarian – ‘by definition’.
Actually, Computerization has already proven to be rather ‘civilized’, insofar as it has been applied to organize or produce subsistence goods and to ameliorate the living conditions within the Modern Urban Sprawls. And the Sky is the limit. Left unrestricted Computerization and the Information Society could really collect and catalogue ALL information. Society and the Economy could be planned down to the finest details. Oh, and Crime and Corruption depends upon Shadows and Information Dark Zones. Complete Information would eradicate Crime and Corruption. A complete Civilization would definitely have a Computerized Backbone.
Yes, Computers have been used for assault and to divide, that is, Computers have had a Barbaric role in places. Barbarians use any Weapon they can find. Many Corporations and Political Activists have urged Computerization upon Authoritarian Regimes, hoping that “Freedom” of information would serve for the Collapse of Order, so that Western Corporations could swoop in and pick up the pieces. Use the Internet to spread Discontent and Rebellion – to burn ‘down Civilized Cathedrals’ so the Businessmen can get ‘a few golden candlesticks’ cheap at auction.
Yes, in fact the Internet can be destabilizing. However, behind the possibility of a little bit of destabilization, there is the huge potential for centralizing and collecting Information. This makes Control so much easier. Corruption and Crime were possible in previous Planned Economies, but with Computerization and the links between all Information and All Transactions, well, it won’t be quite so easy to make a bag of potatoes go missing as it was before.
There has been a previous Information Revolution in History. The Printing Press. It first arrived in China. The Chinese used the Printing Press to distribute Information Pamphlets. The first major printing in History was the title “Get Rich Grow Rice”, it was distributed free from the Government, and the little book gave precise details for building rice paddies and installing irrigation systems (“water always flows from up to down”) as well as setting out the calendar for planting and harvesting. The Chinese made much of their Information Revolution – Chinese Population grew enormously while at the same time larger surpluses were able to be stored to offset occasional famines and dry spells. Other forces eventually intervened, but largely Information proved to be a good thing in regards to promoting and maintaining a high population density… in being ‘Civilized’.
When the Printing Press got to Europe, it was used to reproduce the Bible, which was sold privately, and which effectively introduced Paulist Doctrine to the Masses. Paulist Doctrine? Think “Salvation” which is the code word for Free Sin and permissive Capitalism. European Civilization became fracture by Nationalistic and Class Wars and there was the rise of the exploitative Factory System, Usury, Rum Running, the Slave Trade. Of course, there was also the Chinese Style of Information Books getting out, though nobody ever gave anything away. The Printing Press Revolution in Europe was therefore half Barbaric and half Civilized – forces of conflict and selfishness offset by tools for production and cooperation. The Result still hasn’t entirely settled.
But the Computerized Revolution… well, it all gets cranked up by a significantly large notch, doesn’t it? I would bet on Civilization… eventually. The near view is a bit troubled, however.
The World presently is on the brink of disaster and I honestly can’t see it so swiftly turn back from the Edge, as it would need to do. So the Present Order is very likely to collapse and the 7 Billion people who live today will be confronted by a period of intense Barbarism. Remember that Barbarism cannot support any significant Population Density. As Economies and Product Distribution Systems break down, crowded metropolitan areas will simply starve out. I suppose when the dust clears there will be several hundred million people left on the entire Planet. Maybe as they rebuild they will be able to put Computerized Information Technologies to good use and perhaps introduce the World’s First True Civilization, and not the Hybrid Barbaric Civilizations we have had to deal with up until now.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Why Did God Abandon Christ
Modern Jewish Religious Scholarship has an answer for the Christian claim that Jesus was the Messiah, and that is that a failed Messiah could not have been any Messiah at all. God would never allow a Valid Messiah to fail.
Hmmmmm. Considering all the support that Judaism and Zionism has been getting from Christians lately, particularly from the American Protestants who often act more extremely Zionist than even some of the worst Zionists, you would think that the Jews would develop a more tactful answer to such a crucial Christian question besides “there is absolutely no basis for your Religion”. But it does help explain why the Jews have been such a universally loved and adored people – why every Society that has ever had dealings with the Jews have come away with warm feelings and eternal gratitude. It is because the Jews have always been so consistently generous, accepting, and kind, especially concerning topics of comparative Religion.
But just because an argument is stark, mean-spirited and nasty does not mean that it should not be addressed. Maybe that even adds a priority. Why was Christ a failed Messiah? It all began with enough promise. In His infancy the Three Kings came from the Civilized East proclaiming that not only did Hebrew Prophecy predict His Coming, but likewise all of the World Religions were aware of His Coming and were wide open for His Acceptance. And Jesus became quite famous while still very young. He would have had decades to fulfill his destiny. But after only a few years, it was over. Jesus was knocked out by almost the very first flex of serious political opposition. It does appear that Christ was a bit too much of a light-weight to be a World Messiah and King of Kings. We could have expected a bit more Push and Gravity from a True Messiah. Or maybe a True Messiah could have harnessed his resources better – side-stepping early fights until he had the strength to win them.
So what happened? What went wrong?
Look at Mathew chapter 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19. We have the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem and instigating a riot in the Holy Temple. Jesus objected to the vendors and money changers and we get the picture of Him knocking over tables and cracking a whip at middle-aged Jewish Businessmen who had been doing what they had always done, and were probably surprised and appalled at what must have appeared to them to be a crazy instance of mean-spirited lawlessness by some lunatic zealot.
In Mathew and Mark we also get the Story of Jesus blasting some poor fig tree with a curse. Jesus killed a tree. Now who goes about gratuitously killing trees? How does a tree go about deserving to die?
Okay, seriously, what happened? Did Jesus have some sort of a nervous breakdown? Apparently. How else can we explain it? What we do know is from that moment on Jesus no longer enjoyed the protection of God. There was no longer a protecting Army of Angels seeing to it that Jesus could not even stub a toe. Jesus was now entirely vulnerable.
Are the Jews correct about a Messiah necessarily having the endorsement God, no matter what? Yes, it is an argument with some apparent sense behind it, but then the Jews needs to wonder to themselves why they have NEVER had their Messiah. Until they have a True Messiah that has never failed, they should not talk about what constitutes a True Messiah. If we look at History, simply the way IT IS, and not as they think it SHOULD BE, then it seems that the Christian view is probably more correct – that God can send Messiahs, but that Messiahs can screw up. That seems to be what happens.
Jesus very well may have been a True Messiah that failed. David also might have been a True Messiah that had failed. Naked dancing in the street. Killing men over pretty girls. Yeah, David was a great Messiah… if he just only would have stuck to writing inspirational psalms and killing evil giants.
So, maybe Messiahs aren’t guaranteed any special sense for being wise or even very careful. And just being good is not always enough.
It reminds me of Joan of Arc, a veritable Messiah of France. Her Mission was to clear away Occupation Forces so she could get her King crowned. She succeeded brilliantly. History speaks of pitched Battles, blood and gore, but probably what had happened was that the British and Burgundian Forces largely withdrew ahead of the Maiden’s Advance, not wishing to face their Enemy at the height of their Enthusiasm but willing to back off and bide their time. They did not call it the “Hundred Years War” for nothing. But still, marshalling such Enthusiasm even for a limited Mission was a major historical feat. Even dealing with her own Armies was something of a miracle… getting so many Men to fall in line. But even after her God Given Mission was achieved, she kept fighting, and for reasons that were not really very clear. Pounding on walls of smoky little forts outside Paris. What on Earth for? So God withdrew the protection of His Angels and Joan was captured and suffered almost every indignity. She was burned to death. An English Cardinal was there… yes, the English were still to be Catholic for another 5 minutes in History before they would betray their Civilization… anyway, witnessing the Burning of Joan of Arc he said, “My God, we have burned a Saint! There will be nothing left for us now”. I guess the Cardinal had seen all the way into the Future, of England today, being a little Lap Dog for America.
Anyway, back to Messiahs. Apparently Messiahs have to pay very close attention to their Mission parameters. But even knowing exactly what their Mission parameters are must be a significant challenge. Jesus probably thought he was supposed to chase around businessmen, and Joan must have thought she had to carry on the Good Fight. Who knows what David was thinking… that Messiahs could do any damn thing they liked and God would just have to deal with it… apparently the Orthodox view of Judaism even back then.
But the Truth was that Jesus was probably supposed to act with Kindness, Patience and Due Process. Rule by Riot was not to be the first act of a Messianic Kingdom. Joan should have stopped and meditated on her next move. And David might have listened to his conscience. They all should have avoided making mistakes.
Maybe God can tolerate small errors. But Violence in the Temple was probably over the line. Joan attacking small garrisons just to flex her muscles was probably over the line. David being a drunken playboy, well…
It’s a shame that Messiah’s can’t have Coaches. Being a Player is complicated. One really should know better, but during the heat of the Game, well, the cool thinking of a Coach on the side-lines simply makes more sense.
“Jesus! We’ll worry about the Temple Business Plan Lay-out later. Right now our big problem is getting them the trust us.” If Jesus had only had a Coach shout in those instructions, maybe we would have had a Messiah and King of Kings, and the World would be Civilized Today. Maybe Americans would even have had Health Care by now.
Yes, maybe we should temper our prayers for a Second Coming of Christ, and remember to first pray for a Good Coach. With a Good Coach then maybe we could keep a Jesus or a Joan in play long enough to finally do some Good.
Hmmmmm. Considering all the support that Judaism and Zionism has been getting from Christians lately, particularly from the American Protestants who often act more extremely Zionist than even some of the worst Zionists, you would think that the Jews would develop a more tactful answer to such a crucial Christian question besides “there is absolutely no basis for your Religion”. But it does help explain why the Jews have been such a universally loved and adored people – why every Society that has ever had dealings with the Jews have come away with warm feelings and eternal gratitude. It is because the Jews have always been so consistently generous, accepting, and kind, especially concerning topics of comparative Religion.
But just because an argument is stark, mean-spirited and nasty does not mean that it should not be addressed. Maybe that even adds a priority. Why was Christ a failed Messiah? It all began with enough promise. In His infancy the Three Kings came from the Civilized East proclaiming that not only did Hebrew Prophecy predict His Coming, but likewise all of the World Religions were aware of His Coming and were wide open for His Acceptance. And Jesus became quite famous while still very young. He would have had decades to fulfill his destiny. But after only a few years, it was over. Jesus was knocked out by almost the very first flex of serious political opposition. It does appear that Christ was a bit too much of a light-weight to be a World Messiah and King of Kings. We could have expected a bit more Push and Gravity from a True Messiah. Or maybe a True Messiah could have harnessed his resources better – side-stepping early fights until he had the strength to win them.
So what happened? What went wrong?
Look at Mathew chapter 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19. We have the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem and instigating a riot in the Holy Temple. Jesus objected to the vendors and money changers and we get the picture of Him knocking over tables and cracking a whip at middle-aged Jewish Businessmen who had been doing what they had always done, and were probably surprised and appalled at what must have appeared to them to be a crazy instance of mean-spirited lawlessness by some lunatic zealot.
In Mathew and Mark we also get the Story of Jesus blasting some poor fig tree with a curse. Jesus killed a tree. Now who goes about gratuitously killing trees? How does a tree go about deserving to die?
Okay, seriously, what happened? Did Jesus have some sort of a nervous breakdown? Apparently. How else can we explain it? What we do know is from that moment on Jesus no longer enjoyed the protection of God. There was no longer a protecting Army of Angels seeing to it that Jesus could not even stub a toe. Jesus was now entirely vulnerable.
Are the Jews correct about a Messiah necessarily having the endorsement God, no matter what? Yes, it is an argument with some apparent sense behind it, but then the Jews needs to wonder to themselves why they have NEVER had their Messiah. Until they have a True Messiah that has never failed, they should not talk about what constitutes a True Messiah. If we look at History, simply the way IT IS, and not as they think it SHOULD BE, then it seems that the Christian view is probably more correct – that God can send Messiahs, but that Messiahs can screw up. That seems to be what happens.
Jesus very well may have been a True Messiah that failed. David also might have been a True Messiah that had failed. Naked dancing in the street. Killing men over pretty girls. Yeah, David was a great Messiah… if he just only would have stuck to writing inspirational psalms and killing evil giants.
So, maybe Messiahs aren’t guaranteed any special sense for being wise or even very careful. And just being good is not always enough.
It reminds me of Joan of Arc, a veritable Messiah of France. Her Mission was to clear away Occupation Forces so she could get her King crowned. She succeeded brilliantly. History speaks of pitched Battles, blood and gore, but probably what had happened was that the British and Burgundian Forces largely withdrew ahead of the Maiden’s Advance, not wishing to face their Enemy at the height of their Enthusiasm but willing to back off and bide their time. They did not call it the “Hundred Years War” for nothing. But still, marshalling such Enthusiasm even for a limited Mission was a major historical feat. Even dealing with her own Armies was something of a miracle… getting so many Men to fall in line. But even after her God Given Mission was achieved, she kept fighting, and for reasons that were not really very clear. Pounding on walls of smoky little forts outside Paris. What on Earth for? So God withdrew the protection of His Angels and Joan was captured and suffered almost every indignity. She was burned to death. An English Cardinal was there… yes, the English were still to be Catholic for another 5 minutes in History before they would betray their Civilization… anyway, witnessing the Burning of Joan of Arc he said, “My God, we have burned a Saint! There will be nothing left for us now”. I guess the Cardinal had seen all the way into the Future, of England today, being a little Lap Dog for America.
Anyway, back to Messiahs. Apparently Messiahs have to pay very close attention to their Mission parameters. But even knowing exactly what their Mission parameters are must be a significant challenge. Jesus probably thought he was supposed to chase around businessmen, and Joan must have thought she had to carry on the Good Fight. Who knows what David was thinking… that Messiahs could do any damn thing they liked and God would just have to deal with it… apparently the Orthodox view of Judaism even back then.
But the Truth was that Jesus was probably supposed to act with Kindness, Patience and Due Process. Rule by Riot was not to be the first act of a Messianic Kingdom. Joan should have stopped and meditated on her next move. And David might have listened to his conscience. They all should have avoided making mistakes.
Maybe God can tolerate small errors. But Violence in the Temple was probably over the line. Joan attacking small garrisons just to flex her muscles was probably over the line. David being a drunken playboy, well…
It’s a shame that Messiah’s can’t have Coaches. Being a Player is complicated. One really should know better, but during the heat of the Game, well, the cool thinking of a Coach on the side-lines simply makes more sense.
“Jesus! We’ll worry about the Temple Business Plan Lay-out later. Right now our big problem is getting them the trust us.” If Jesus had only had a Coach shout in those instructions, maybe we would have had a Messiah and King of Kings, and the World would be Civilized Today. Maybe Americans would even have had Health Care by now.
Yes, maybe we should temper our prayers for a Second Coming of Christ, and remember to first pray for a Good Coach. With a Good Coach then maybe we could keep a Jesus or a Joan in play long enough to finally do some Good.
Paul the Third Person of the Trinity
One grows up with the furniture of one’s Religion and even if it is not entirely comfortable or even suitable, one grows accustomed to it, and familiarity is its own consolation.
But once past the age of intellectual integrity then one must be willing to send off to the Heap anything that can’t justify itself as True Religion. The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is one of those old familiar things that needs to be trashed.
But first, we should examine why it is that Theologians create questionable doctrines in the first place. Well, all such things occur on two levels. The first level of deception is when some seemingly inspired Founder of a New Sect or Religion spins out a new basic doctrine. The precise details are unimportant because the general picture is ordinarily enough to attract and convince the common people – such people are not particularly caught up in over-thinking things, or even in doing much thinking at all. But then afterward, sometimes long after the founder has gone to his Eternal Reward, the people who do worry over the details, the Scholars and Priests, discover that there are logical, theological, metaphysical and even reasonable discrepancies in the Basic Doctrine. More often than not they wish to support the Basic Doctrine, and not toss it out for being flawed. In most cases they are the Career Professionals of the Religion and have every interest in sustaining the Religion… in not ‘killing the goose that lays their Golden Egg’. They may even believe that their Religion might do some good if allowed to persist. And so they set out to fix everything. They come up with convoluted attachments to the Basic Doctrine that fill in the gaps and to reconcile the inconsistencies.
One is supposed to argue from Particulars to the General, to see how all the little things add up to One Big Thing. But the habit of Theologians, however, is to take the One Big Thing already handed to them and simply make up a lot of little things to fit with it. After the Fact has already been established by Tradition and Authority, they superimpose new sets of details and interpretations on the old stories and rewrite the literatures so it all seems as though it were solid from the very beginning.
In Christianity, Salvation was the Basic Doctrine. The Holy Trinity was the invention that was supposed to remove the difficulties.
You might ask, “what was the problem with Salvation?” Well, the problem is that if by killing one man the Entire World for All Eternity could get Salvation, well, then they would have killed somebody long before, wouldn’t they? Especially if sins are forgiven. The Killing itself might be wrong, but, then, if it is immediately forgiven… But it all simply doesn’t follow. There is no such power in any one man. Human Sacrifice had been used for particular and limited ends, for some temporary atonement or momentary appeasement, to relieve a famine or assure a victory, but nobody ever pretended that some Universal and Eternal Benefit could be accrued just by murdering one guy.
So, this is why we have the Second Person of the Holy Trinity – Jesus the Man was redrawn as Jesus the God. Jesus as a Divine Person suddenly had the power to be very useful if He were to be ‘Sacrificed’. Killing Jesus the God Man would be enough to plausibly argue for Salvation – Jesus a God would be a Worthy Sacrifice to God the Real God… the First God. Sorry, we can’t call Him the ‘only’ God anymore. Multiplying one’s Gods confuses things, doesn’t it? For instance, does one pray to Jesus, or simply in the name of Jesus? Is Jesus God or isn’t He? (How many Sunday School Teachers wish they could have replied to such a question, “Don’t worry about it. Its all just bullshit anyway”).
And it gets even harder. The Trinity also has a Third God. What is that about? Well, as the Theologians of the 2nd Century looked upon the Doctrines that came out of the First Century, they were troubled over the matter of credibility and credentials. Jesus, if He had not always been thought of as a God, at least started as a plausible candidate for Messiah, and worked great wonders, spoke with Wisdom, and had a lot of charisma. No one ever doubted that Jesus had been a Great and Powerful Man, not even His enemies. But all of the Big Doctrines, and especially the Doctrine of Salvation and the supporting Doctrine that Jesus was a God Man, all these doctrines came from Paul. Well, Paul had problems. His biggest problem was ‘who the heck is Paul’. He was not part of the original Team. We are not told that he even met Jesus, and if he had met Jesus, we are probably not told about it because Paul was probably one of those pesky Pharisee enemies of Jesus, and that would have been simply too difficult to explain away. Also, many from the original Team, the Real Apostles, went to print renouncing Paul and his Teachings. We see Paul in the light of the Greek Church that fell for his stories, but back in the Holy Land it was all quite different. Paul had many real enemies. The last chapters of the Book of Acts follow Paul around Jerusalem as first one Forum and then another of Jews and Christians bring Paul to trial for inciting riot and preaching heresy. Paul’s reputation was saved in part because absolutely all of the Second Century Reviewers were in fact Greeks who did not worry in the least about Semitic and Hebrew sensibilities, such as Monotheism and One Jealous God. But they did understand that Paul had huge credibility problems. While he was their most beloved Founder, he was also their worst embarrassment. It seems to be a problem with Religions of the Near East.
Oh, where did all the Jews and Real Christians go? Why were the Greeks left in charge of Christianity. Well, remember the Book of Revelation and the Prophecies of Jesus that said the World would end and Jerusalem would be destroyed and the Church would be removed up into Heaven. It happened right on schedule. From 70 A.D. to 130 A.D. there had been three progressively severe Wars of Jewish Rebellion. The Jews would riot and murder some community of Greeks (over the years the Rebel Jews had murdered millions of Ethnic and Cultural Greeks) and then Rome would come in and re-establish order. Well, they found the only way to re-establish order was to kill them all… a lesson modern generals are reluctant to take heed to, supposing that the Roman Generals had never tried winning ‘hearts and minds’ which would have worked as well for them then as it has worked for us now. Anyway, Rome’s successful Final Solution for their Jewish Problem quite erased any influence that the Genuine Christian Church might have had on the Greek Counterfeit Church.
So, back to Paul’s credibility issues. From the 2nd Century perspective, Christian Doctrine seemed to come from an outsider – a man without miracles, charisma, or any particular destiny; a rough and ugly man. He sold a Religion to the Greeks, but that spoke as much toward Greek gullibility as to any special power he had to sway minds and persuade hearts. While Doctrines relied upon the say-so of this spotted personality, then there would be problems.
So the Theologians of the 2nd Century invented the notion that the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit could rank on the same footing as God Almighty Himself. Therefore, when pressed on the issue of just what gave Paul any credibility on matters of Religion, well, they could answer that Paul had been possessed by the Holy Spirit. It was not that they were believing Paul – ugly, stupid, ill-tempered Paul – it was that they were believing the Holy Spirit that was only using Paul as a vessel. Yes, that was it. They had their Story.
The issue would rise again in History. Catholic Civilization reigned for a Thousand Years, just as Christ had predicted, but then there was the invention of the printing press, and Bibles were printed out in ordinary language – vernaculars – English and French instead of just the Priest-Speak of Latin. The first Reformers and Fundamentalists began taking to the streets proclaiming that the Bible taught Free Sin, but they were answered that nobody important in the Bible spoke such Blasphemy. It was only Paul and only then in the last and least significant chapters, the back pages. You know, High Christian Civilization ( which our biased History calls the Dark and Middle Ages) had did its best to forget Paul had ever existed. Only the Bishops remembered Paul… Paul had been their Personal Secret that allowed them to live in all of their corruptions. Salvation was a Privilege enjoyed only by the Bishops and Popes. The Bishops still use Paul similarly – molesting children, insisting that if Salvation forgives Sins, then they might as well sin enough to put the doctrine to some good use. But the ordinary people and even the ordinary clergy and the Religious Orders had never heard of Paul. Or if they had, then Paul was dismissed as some crazy nut that survived in a dusty book that obviously suffered from too little intelligent editing when they had first put it all together.
So the Protestants of the 16th Century invented the doctrine of “Word of God” – that if the Bible says it, then it can be equated to God Almighty Himself. This Doctrine had been invented for the same reason that the Holy Spirit had originally been promoted up to God Status, and that was in order to make Paul equal to God. While the Whole Bible is supposed to be the Word of God, when we see how the Doctrine is actually applied, all the benefits fall to Paul. Jesus doesn’t need the help, and nobody else is ever quoted for anything. “Word of God” is used to effectively make Paul the Third God of the Holy Trinity.
Yeah, I know. Yuck! So that is why they still need the Idea of the Holy Spirit to stand in for Paul. But there would also be problems enough with just the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit was declared the Third Divine Person of the Holy Trinity, but It came from rather humble beginnings. The scriptures of the first century speak of the Holy Spirit, but the rendering is a bit confused. At Pentecost it seemed at first that Everybody had the Holy Spirit, but by the next day all seemed to return to normal and nobody had it. The Book of Acts speaks of a few select people known for having the Holy Spirit, but does not give their names. It seemed to be a rare gift even where it was acknowledged. No, Paul is not acknowledged as having had the Holy Spirit. The same passage in the Book of Acts that speaks of people having the Holy Spirit then goes on to speaking of Paul as being one of the others, who, by inference, obviously didn’t have It. Yes, Paul says he had it, but it is odd that the Real Christians at the time did not agree.
Paul, in his letters, particularly Corinthians, speaks of the Holy Spirit, but defines it in ordinary non-spiritual non-miraculous terms. Why would Paul down play the Holy Spirit when he would benefit so much personally by the Doctrine? Well, you see, the Holy Spirit had first appeared among the Hebrews and the Jews in Jerusalem. Paul’s Greeks had heard of it and were complaining that Paul was not giving It to any of them. They were all paying Membership Fees and expected something, and Paul did not appear to be delivering. So Paul answered effectively that the Holy Spirit was really no big deal after all. Paul defined the Holy Spirit in ordinary terms so he could argue that his ordinary people already had plenty of It. And he diverted their attention to Faith and Salvation.
So we have a situation where the Holy Spirit is at first minimalized, and then when it is seen how useful it can be, it is suddenly ‘super-sized’ up again to being an Equal Person with God… a Third God. Well, this simply brought back the problem that Paul had tried to address – that people would have some great expectations of this Holy Spirit, and how could the Church be expected to deliver on such great expectations? With millions of Believers and NOBODY with any hint of the Holy Spirit, people would begin to get suspicious. Oh, but maybe the more serious problem would be from people who would insist, as Paul had, that they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and that they should be the New and Blue Religious Leaders.
This brings us to Gnosticism. People were not oblivious to the point that Paul had benefited from the Holy Ghost Doctrine to the extent of being treated like a Human God, even despite an altogether apparent lack of good looks, fine bearing or exemplary intelligence. If Paul could do it, well, anybody could. Everybody saw their chance. If they could only think of just one neat gimmick, then they could invoke the Holy Spirit just like Paul had. And many did. New Teachings and New Teachers were popping up in every district. Even honestly, without suspecting any of the usual deliberate and jaded scams, people could be seduced by such a Doctrine into supposing any wacky internal notion or delusion to be a Gift of the Spirit.
Oh, there was also the problem of people asserting their Moral Objections to the Free Sin Doctrine of Salvation, offering as their support and reason the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Well, this idea that the Holy Spirit could be used to support a standard of Righteousness and Purity, well, it had to be crushed! What would Christianity come to if we again permitted such moral judgments? Isn’t the teaching “Judge not and be not judged”? We will accept a complete world of the worst criminals because we might someday commit a misdemeanor. And we call that ‘Religion’. Anyway, it was the logic that appealed first to the Bishops and then and now to the Protestant Leaders of Everything.
So, anyway, finally the Church put its foot down and issued the pronouncement that the Holy Spirit had served its purpose and would now come to its end. It was the middle of the 4th Century. Christianity had just become the State Religion. God therefore no longer needed to talk through people. The Holy Spirit’s earthly career would be finished – exorcised! That would be that! The same Conference, the Council of Nicea, that had selected and sealed the Books of the Bible also issued the Death Certificate for the Holy Ghost.
Thank you, Holy Spirit. That will be all.
When you think about it, it is all rather sad. At Pentecost, the first celebration after the Death of Christ, the Promise of the New Religion had been summed up in the sanctity and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It would have been nice if that Promise had been pursued and developed. People could have nurtured their Spiritual Lives with such an open and unspecified Doctrine. Instead the idea of the Holy Spirit was materially exploited and then abandoned when it lead to some complications. It would be traded out for the Doctrine of Salvation, that Jesus had been murdered to Justify Free Sin. Hell is swapped for Heaven – where else, after all, can Sinners be received without Judgment? Whatever a Religious Doctrine says or doesn’t say, Heaven must absolutely and unequivocally be reserved for Spiritual Purity and Perfection – once any Darkness or Stench is allowed in, then it is no longer Heaven, is it? So don’t kid yourself, the ‘Heaven’ that Sinners are lining up for is just a pearly trap door over the abyss of Hell. It can be no other way while there is still a God in His Heaven. Satan cannot prevail, even if Satan ‘believes’, even if Satan has ‘Faith’ – as long as Satan still sins, he still belongs in Hell, just as do all sinners.
But our Religion mixes all of that up and nobody seems to be able to tell the difference.
I remember a Catholic Priest standing up at the pulpit and bragging that “Christianity” was the only Religion in the World that provides “Salvation”. He saw nothing wrong with that. Would he have preferred that the Entire World be allowed Free Sin? Yes, as a matter of fact, it would be more fair if the Rest of the World could equally drop the restraints of Morality and Ethics and be just as Free and easy going as Christians. Capitalism would work so much more smoothly if everybody could ignore their scruples.
But once past the age of intellectual integrity then one must be willing to send off to the Heap anything that can’t justify itself as True Religion. The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is one of those old familiar things that needs to be trashed.
But first, we should examine why it is that Theologians create questionable doctrines in the first place. Well, all such things occur on two levels. The first level of deception is when some seemingly inspired Founder of a New Sect or Religion spins out a new basic doctrine. The precise details are unimportant because the general picture is ordinarily enough to attract and convince the common people – such people are not particularly caught up in over-thinking things, or even in doing much thinking at all. But then afterward, sometimes long after the founder has gone to his Eternal Reward, the people who do worry over the details, the Scholars and Priests, discover that there are logical, theological, metaphysical and even reasonable discrepancies in the Basic Doctrine. More often than not they wish to support the Basic Doctrine, and not toss it out for being flawed. In most cases they are the Career Professionals of the Religion and have every interest in sustaining the Religion… in not ‘killing the goose that lays their Golden Egg’. They may even believe that their Religion might do some good if allowed to persist. And so they set out to fix everything. They come up with convoluted attachments to the Basic Doctrine that fill in the gaps and to reconcile the inconsistencies.
One is supposed to argue from Particulars to the General, to see how all the little things add up to One Big Thing. But the habit of Theologians, however, is to take the One Big Thing already handed to them and simply make up a lot of little things to fit with it. After the Fact has already been established by Tradition and Authority, they superimpose new sets of details and interpretations on the old stories and rewrite the literatures so it all seems as though it were solid from the very beginning.
In Christianity, Salvation was the Basic Doctrine. The Holy Trinity was the invention that was supposed to remove the difficulties.
You might ask, “what was the problem with Salvation?” Well, the problem is that if by killing one man the Entire World for All Eternity could get Salvation, well, then they would have killed somebody long before, wouldn’t they? Especially if sins are forgiven. The Killing itself might be wrong, but, then, if it is immediately forgiven… But it all simply doesn’t follow. There is no such power in any one man. Human Sacrifice had been used for particular and limited ends, for some temporary atonement or momentary appeasement, to relieve a famine or assure a victory, but nobody ever pretended that some Universal and Eternal Benefit could be accrued just by murdering one guy.
So, this is why we have the Second Person of the Holy Trinity – Jesus the Man was redrawn as Jesus the God. Jesus as a Divine Person suddenly had the power to be very useful if He were to be ‘Sacrificed’. Killing Jesus the God Man would be enough to plausibly argue for Salvation – Jesus a God would be a Worthy Sacrifice to God the Real God… the First God. Sorry, we can’t call Him the ‘only’ God anymore. Multiplying one’s Gods confuses things, doesn’t it? For instance, does one pray to Jesus, or simply in the name of Jesus? Is Jesus God or isn’t He? (How many Sunday School Teachers wish they could have replied to such a question, “Don’t worry about it. Its all just bullshit anyway”).
And it gets even harder. The Trinity also has a Third God. What is that about? Well, as the Theologians of the 2nd Century looked upon the Doctrines that came out of the First Century, they were troubled over the matter of credibility and credentials. Jesus, if He had not always been thought of as a God, at least started as a plausible candidate for Messiah, and worked great wonders, spoke with Wisdom, and had a lot of charisma. No one ever doubted that Jesus had been a Great and Powerful Man, not even His enemies. But all of the Big Doctrines, and especially the Doctrine of Salvation and the supporting Doctrine that Jesus was a God Man, all these doctrines came from Paul. Well, Paul had problems. His biggest problem was ‘who the heck is Paul’. He was not part of the original Team. We are not told that he even met Jesus, and if he had met Jesus, we are probably not told about it because Paul was probably one of those pesky Pharisee enemies of Jesus, and that would have been simply too difficult to explain away. Also, many from the original Team, the Real Apostles, went to print renouncing Paul and his Teachings. We see Paul in the light of the Greek Church that fell for his stories, but back in the Holy Land it was all quite different. Paul had many real enemies. The last chapters of the Book of Acts follow Paul around Jerusalem as first one Forum and then another of Jews and Christians bring Paul to trial for inciting riot and preaching heresy. Paul’s reputation was saved in part because absolutely all of the Second Century Reviewers were in fact Greeks who did not worry in the least about Semitic and Hebrew sensibilities, such as Monotheism and One Jealous God. But they did understand that Paul had huge credibility problems. While he was their most beloved Founder, he was also their worst embarrassment. It seems to be a problem with Religions of the Near East.
Oh, where did all the Jews and Real Christians go? Why were the Greeks left in charge of Christianity. Well, remember the Book of Revelation and the Prophecies of Jesus that said the World would end and Jerusalem would be destroyed and the Church would be removed up into Heaven. It happened right on schedule. From 70 A.D. to 130 A.D. there had been three progressively severe Wars of Jewish Rebellion. The Jews would riot and murder some community of Greeks (over the years the Rebel Jews had murdered millions of Ethnic and Cultural Greeks) and then Rome would come in and re-establish order. Well, they found the only way to re-establish order was to kill them all… a lesson modern generals are reluctant to take heed to, supposing that the Roman Generals had never tried winning ‘hearts and minds’ which would have worked as well for them then as it has worked for us now. Anyway, Rome’s successful Final Solution for their Jewish Problem quite erased any influence that the Genuine Christian Church might have had on the Greek Counterfeit Church.
So, back to Paul’s credibility issues. From the 2nd Century perspective, Christian Doctrine seemed to come from an outsider – a man without miracles, charisma, or any particular destiny; a rough and ugly man. He sold a Religion to the Greeks, but that spoke as much toward Greek gullibility as to any special power he had to sway minds and persuade hearts. While Doctrines relied upon the say-so of this spotted personality, then there would be problems.
So the Theologians of the 2nd Century invented the notion that the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit could rank on the same footing as God Almighty Himself. Therefore, when pressed on the issue of just what gave Paul any credibility on matters of Religion, well, they could answer that Paul had been possessed by the Holy Spirit. It was not that they were believing Paul – ugly, stupid, ill-tempered Paul – it was that they were believing the Holy Spirit that was only using Paul as a vessel. Yes, that was it. They had their Story.
The issue would rise again in History. Catholic Civilization reigned for a Thousand Years, just as Christ had predicted, but then there was the invention of the printing press, and Bibles were printed out in ordinary language – vernaculars – English and French instead of just the Priest-Speak of Latin. The first Reformers and Fundamentalists began taking to the streets proclaiming that the Bible taught Free Sin, but they were answered that nobody important in the Bible spoke such Blasphemy. It was only Paul and only then in the last and least significant chapters, the back pages. You know, High Christian Civilization ( which our biased History calls the Dark and Middle Ages) had did its best to forget Paul had ever existed. Only the Bishops remembered Paul… Paul had been their Personal Secret that allowed them to live in all of their corruptions. Salvation was a Privilege enjoyed only by the Bishops and Popes. The Bishops still use Paul similarly – molesting children, insisting that if Salvation forgives Sins, then they might as well sin enough to put the doctrine to some good use. But the ordinary people and even the ordinary clergy and the Religious Orders had never heard of Paul. Or if they had, then Paul was dismissed as some crazy nut that survived in a dusty book that obviously suffered from too little intelligent editing when they had first put it all together.
So the Protestants of the 16th Century invented the doctrine of “Word of God” – that if the Bible says it, then it can be equated to God Almighty Himself. This Doctrine had been invented for the same reason that the Holy Spirit had originally been promoted up to God Status, and that was in order to make Paul equal to God. While the Whole Bible is supposed to be the Word of God, when we see how the Doctrine is actually applied, all the benefits fall to Paul. Jesus doesn’t need the help, and nobody else is ever quoted for anything. “Word of God” is used to effectively make Paul the Third God of the Holy Trinity.
Yeah, I know. Yuck! So that is why they still need the Idea of the Holy Spirit to stand in for Paul. But there would also be problems enough with just the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit was declared the Third Divine Person of the Holy Trinity, but It came from rather humble beginnings. The scriptures of the first century speak of the Holy Spirit, but the rendering is a bit confused. At Pentecost it seemed at first that Everybody had the Holy Spirit, but by the next day all seemed to return to normal and nobody had it. The Book of Acts speaks of a few select people known for having the Holy Spirit, but does not give their names. It seemed to be a rare gift even where it was acknowledged. No, Paul is not acknowledged as having had the Holy Spirit. The same passage in the Book of Acts that speaks of people having the Holy Spirit then goes on to speaking of Paul as being one of the others, who, by inference, obviously didn’t have It. Yes, Paul says he had it, but it is odd that the Real Christians at the time did not agree.
Paul, in his letters, particularly Corinthians, speaks of the Holy Spirit, but defines it in ordinary non-spiritual non-miraculous terms. Why would Paul down play the Holy Spirit when he would benefit so much personally by the Doctrine? Well, you see, the Holy Spirit had first appeared among the Hebrews and the Jews in Jerusalem. Paul’s Greeks had heard of it and were complaining that Paul was not giving It to any of them. They were all paying Membership Fees and expected something, and Paul did not appear to be delivering. So Paul answered effectively that the Holy Spirit was really no big deal after all. Paul defined the Holy Spirit in ordinary terms so he could argue that his ordinary people already had plenty of It. And he diverted their attention to Faith and Salvation.
So we have a situation where the Holy Spirit is at first minimalized, and then when it is seen how useful it can be, it is suddenly ‘super-sized’ up again to being an Equal Person with God… a Third God. Well, this simply brought back the problem that Paul had tried to address – that people would have some great expectations of this Holy Spirit, and how could the Church be expected to deliver on such great expectations? With millions of Believers and NOBODY with any hint of the Holy Spirit, people would begin to get suspicious. Oh, but maybe the more serious problem would be from people who would insist, as Paul had, that they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and that they should be the New and Blue Religious Leaders.
This brings us to Gnosticism. People were not oblivious to the point that Paul had benefited from the Holy Ghost Doctrine to the extent of being treated like a Human God, even despite an altogether apparent lack of good looks, fine bearing or exemplary intelligence. If Paul could do it, well, anybody could. Everybody saw their chance. If they could only think of just one neat gimmick, then they could invoke the Holy Spirit just like Paul had. And many did. New Teachings and New Teachers were popping up in every district. Even honestly, without suspecting any of the usual deliberate and jaded scams, people could be seduced by such a Doctrine into supposing any wacky internal notion or delusion to be a Gift of the Spirit.
Oh, there was also the problem of people asserting their Moral Objections to the Free Sin Doctrine of Salvation, offering as their support and reason the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Well, this idea that the Holy Spirit could be used to support a standard of Righteousness and Purity, well, it had to be crushed! What would Christianity come to if we again permitted such moral judgments? Isn’t the teaching “Judge not and be not judged”? We will accept a complete world of the worst criminals because we might someday commit a misdemeanor. And we call that ‘Religion’. Anyway, it was the logic that appealed first to the Bishops and then and now to the Protestant Leaders of Everything.
So, anyway, finally the Church put its foot down and issued the pronouncement that the Holy Spirit had served its purpose and would now come to its end. It was the middle of the 4th Century. Christianity had just become the State Religion. God therefore no longer needed to talk through people. The Holy Spirit’s earthly career would be finished – exorcised! That would be that! The same Conference, the Council of Nicea, that had selected and sealed the Books of the Bible also issued the Death Certificate for the Holy Ghost.
Thank you, Holy Spirit. That will be all.
When you think about it, it is all rather sad. At Pentecost, the first celebration after the Death of Christ, the Promise of the New Religion had been summed up in the sanctity and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It would have been nice if that Promise had been pursued and developed. People could have nurtured their Spiritual Lives with such an open and unspecified Doctrine. Instead the idea of the Holy Spirit was materially exploited and then abandoned when it lead to some complications. It would be traded out for the Doctrine of Salvation, that Jesus had been murdered to Justify Free Sin. Hell is swapped for Heaven – where else, after all, can Sinners be received without Judgment? Whatever a Religious Doctrine says or doesn’t say, Heaven must absolutely and unequivocally be reserved for Spiritual Purity and Perfection – once any Darkness or Stench is allowed in, then it is no longer Heaven, is it? So don’t kid yourself, the ‘Heaven’ that Sinners are lining up for is just a pearly trap door over the abyss of Hell. It can be no other way while there is still a God in His Heaven. Satan cannot prevail, even if Satan ‘believes’, even if Satan has ‘Faith’ – as long as Satan still sins, he still belongs in Hell, just as do all sinners.
But our Religion mixes all of that up and nobody seems to be able to tell the difference.
I remember a Catholic Priest standing up at the pulpit and bragging that “Christianity” was the only Religion in the World that provides “Salvation”. He saw nothing wrong with that. Would he have preferred that the Entire World be allowed Free Sin? Yes, as a matter of fact, it would be more fair if the Rest of the World could equally drop the restraints of Morality and Ethics and be just as Free and easy going as Christians. Capitalism would work so much more smoothly if everybody could ignore their scruples.
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