Entropy is the natural state of things. Countering entropy and producing order requires energy, discipline, sacrifice. These can only be maintained by the masses when they're subject to pressures that force them to exert this energy.
In the absence of these pressures, everything gradually dissolves: traditions, obligations, relationships, and gradually, perhaps, even the self.
A significant question for us is 'can we artificially induce these pressures?' - or do we have to wait for collapse?
As our technology advances, our ability to service our illusions grows all the greater. The early gnostics could have their orgies, but they couldn't surgically alter their bodies or build chatbot gf simulators. We grow ever better at fooling ourselves, and ironically construct the very prison of illusion that the gnostics believe the world to be in the first place, complete with an AI demiurge built in mockery of God and the human mind.
I have a question from other side of West countries. In my understanding, West has been successful and now is in decline - there is no more growth so we have to reduce number of people to keep growth and premium for top class. Due to that, we have all this crazy situations since covid.
Anyway, here in old post USSR countries, we are kind of lacking the material wealth which West acquired. There is plenty of place to build, produce and consume. Still, we adopted the Green Agenda and many of the people are pushing it here. In my understanding, the doctrine of Great Rest and Zero emission agenda is good for West to keep their advances. For East which still have space for growth it's very bad agenda but still they push this further.
My question is - how long will take to push this West ideology away and restore normal "competitive" thinking in old Eastern Block? I wait for that any moment now and hope, we will restore some normality here - as well as decoupling from the crazy west people.
Update:
Also, I can answer my question by my self - I love to comment because it also helps your thinking to sort out. It's due to west influence here by pouring money and acquiring elite's grip over politics and resources here. I know many people frequently gaining commands and idea from London, New York or other think-thanks. This has to stop. I also support to reduce emissions by taxing more intercontinental flights. Stop import from China, tax the privat jets and put trade-bariers back. You will see the world to be back in normal very soon.
Why does it seem like every policy choice - from reducing energy consumption to interfering with supply chains for fertilisers needed to grow food to encouraging our youth cohorts who should be preparing to marry and have kids to neuter and mutilate themselves - happens to tend towards population reduction?
I've never thought about it in these terms before, but you're absolutely right. This is the grand unifying theme.
Sin means to stray, missing the mark, which is where the word comes from (hamartia). Some tend to emphasize that humans are firstly sinners, but does that mean first bad, but then can become good, even though they’re already in the image of God by their very nature? Depending on how people are actually thinking about it, some (Christian and non-Christians alike) may tend to view the world and people as largely bad, rather than first good, and that because of the nature of our world, it’s impossible to hit the mark each time. But they have to love the Good inside them, such that they understand sin as deviating from that innate good, rather than their identity being sinners.
It’s a mistake to treat the world and everything in it as first bad. That’s not the fundamental idea of Christianity, though many Christians lean into the idea that they are sinners, but then worship Christ and admire the saints from a comfortable distance ie they don’t actually have to imitate them but they like the idea and it makes them feel good.
Each man and woman is made in the image of God, which makes us fundamentally good. The early Saints are clear that God came in the flesh because the whole of man was to be redeemed, meaning that to be in the image of God and act in imitation of Christ, the Word was made flesh, which is why Christianity doesn’t talk about just a disembodied God or spirit, but the Word made flesh, such that man could imitate the real thing.
Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, but not the end. People shouldn’t fear Goodness, Truth, and Beauty (which is God), but fear that they fall short of it and fail to develop it to its rightful place in themselves. To try to be good simply by negating evil is not really being good as such.
For, do we really want people’s spiritual lives to be like dog training where it’s punishment when they do something bad and reward when they do something good—a system of reward and punishment. Good human beings are not created by dog training. And that’s ultimately one of Christ’s main interventions, since he himself said that he had not come to change the Law, but to fulfill it. Unless it was in the heart and became something people truly loved, it wasn’t the real thing. What we were always left with was a very hypocritical society full of institutionalized corruption, which in the words of St. Jerome:
“So true is it that, where there is most law, there, there is also most injustice.”
Enter the sadists who love nothing more than to call for the burning and stoning of “sinners,” which all the more gives them great pleasure because such deeds are done in the name of morality and “righteousness.”
These are the most dangerous imitators.
Hence, the need to love the real thing and not imitations of the real thing. Ultimately, the survival of our society depends on whether people can distinguish the “real thing” from “imitations of the real thing.”
Very interesting article and thanks for the link to RenewAmerica. It just occurred to me that while there do appear to be gnostics like Bostum there seems to be many more who do not believe in another world. The reason this seems to be apparent to me is the hysterical obsession by so many "modernists" with dying from Covid. Surely, if they truly believed in some kind of post-material world they would have a more cavalier attitude. Instead, people are terrified of dying which leads me to believe they view this life as the only one and death as complete extinction.
I recommend you read 'Naming Infinity' by Loren Graham. Explores the heresy of the 'Name Worshipers' and their suppression by the Moscow Patriarchate. Fascinating stuff.
Great piece.
Entropy is the natural state of things. Countering entropy and producing order requires energy, discipline, sacrifice. These can only be maintained by the masses when they're subject to pressures that force them to exert this energy.
In the absence of these pressures, everything gradually dissolves: traditions, obligations, relationships, and gradually, perhaps, even the self.
A significant question for us is 'can we artificially induce these pressures?' - or do we have to wait for collapse?
As our technology advances, our ability to service our illusions grows all the greater. The early gnostics could have their orgies, but they couldn't surgically alter their bodies or build chatbot gf simulators. We grow ever better at fooling ourselves, and ironically construct the very prison of illusion that the gnostics believe the world to be in the first place, complete with an AI demiurge built in mockery of God and the human mind.
I have a question from other side of West countries. In my understanding, West has been successful and now is in decline - there is no more growth so we have to reduce number of people to keep growth and premium for top class. Due to that, we have all this crazy situations since covid.
Anyway, here in old post USSR countries, we are kind of lacking the material wealth which West acquired. There is plenty of place to build, produce and consume. Still, we adopted the Green Agenda and many of the people are pushing it here. In my understanding, the doctrine of Great Rest and Zero emission agenda is good for West to keep their advances. For East which still have space for growth it's very bad agenda but still they push this further.
My question is - how long will take to push this West ideology away and restore normal "competitive" thinking in old Eastern Block? I wait for that any moment now and hope, we will restore some normality here - as well as decoupling from the crazy west people.
Update:
Also, I can answer my question by my self - I love to comment because it also helps your thinking to sort out. It's due to west influence here by pouring money and acquiring elite's grip over politics and resources here. I know many people frequently gaining commands and idea from London, New York or other think-thanks. This has to stop. I also support to reduce emissions by taxing more intercontinental flights. Stop import from China, tax the privat jets and put trade-bariers back. You will see the world to be back in normal very soon.
Why does it seem like every policy choice - from reducing energy consumption to interfering with supply chains for fertilisers needed to grow food to encouraging our youth cohorts who should be preparing to marry and have kids to neuter and mutilate themselves - happens to tend towards population reduction?
I've never thought about it in these terms before, but you're absolutely right. This is the grand unifying theme.
A fine read.
A reflection after reading your piece.
Sin means to stray, missing the mark, which is where the word comes from (hamartia). Some tend to emphasize that humans are firstly sinners, but does that mean first bad, but then can become good, even though they’re already in the image of God by their very nature? Depending on how people are actually thinking about it, some (Christian and non-Christians alike) may tend to view the world and people as largely bad, rather than first good, and that because of the nature of our world, it’s impossible to hit the mark each time. But they have to love the Good inside them, such that they understand sin as deviating from that innate good, rather than their identity being sinners.
It’s a mistake to treat the world and everything in it as first bad. That’s not the fundamental idea of Christianity, though many Christians lean into the idea that they are sinners, but then worship Christ and admire the saints from a comfortable distance ie they don’t actually have to imitate them but they like the idea and it makes them feel good.
Each man and woman is made in the image of God, which makes us fundamentally good. The early Saints are clear that God came in the flesh because the whole of man was to be redeemed, meaning that to be in the image of God and act in imitation of Christ, the Word was made flesh, which is why Christianity doesn’t talk about just a disembodied God or spirit, but the Word made flesh, such that man could imitate the real thing.
Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, but not the end. People shouldn’t fear Goodness, Truth, and Beauty (which is God), but fear that they fall short of it and fail to develop it to its rightful place in themselves. To try to be good simply by negating evil is not really being good as such.
For, do we really want people’s spiritual lives to be like dog training where it’s punishment when they do something bad and reward when they do something good—a system of reward and punishment. Good human beings are not created by dog training. And that’s ultimately one of Christ’s main interventions, since he himself said that he had not come to change the Law, but to fulfill it. Unless it was in the heart and became something people truly loved, it wasn’t the real thing. What we were always left with was a very hypocritical society full of institutionalized corruption, which in the words of St. Jerome:
“So true is it that, where there is most law, there, there is also most injustice.”
Enter the sadists who love nothing more than to call for the burning and stoning of “sinners,” which all the more gives them great pleasure because such deeds are done in the name of morality and “righteousness.”
These are the most dangerous imitators.
Hence, the need to love the real thing and not imitations of the real thing. Ultimately, the survival of our society depends on whether people can distinguish the “real thing” from “imitations of the real thing.”
Very interesting article and thanks for the link to RenewAmerica. It just occurred to me that while there do appear to be gnostics like Bostum there seems to be many more who do not believe in another world. The reason this seems to be apparent to me is the hysterical obsession by so many "modernists" with dying from Covid. Surely, if they truly believed in some kind of post-material world they would have a more cavalier attitude. Instead, people are terrified of dying which leads me to believe they view this life as the only one and death as complete extinction.
I recommend you read 'Naming Infinity' by Loren Graham. Explores the heresy of the 'Name Worshipers' and their suppression by the Moscow Patriarchate. Fascinating stuff.