Dear Mr Gottfried,

I don’t at all agree that there is some misplaced religious fervor involved in Obamamania. For all these creatures of the Left, for all Whites who denigrate their own achievements, I think that there is a far simpler and more elemental factor at work explaining their behavior- they are simply Cowards. Surely the saturated stench of cowardice is the common characteristic, and motivating force, of so many Americans today.

The suicidal quest for suicidal virtue?  I love it and shall use it to good effect.

As for differentiating between Catholic and Protestant Churches, the main difference in an organizational sense was the financing and population of the typical high ranking clergy.  In England, the Church of England had a large number of non primogeniti of the landed families in the high ranking clergy.  That is why that once religious country fared so well, that is until the aristocracy began to go down the tubes. 

In the United States, when the country began to industrialize and even earlier, the organized Church was more egalitarian so more prone to fractionalism.  The fact that dominant wealth in the United States has been commercial, and therefore unstable, organized religion has been less influential than it was in pre-modern Europe or even the countryside in Europe up until the early 20th Century.  As a Presbyterian, I and much of my family have been disgusted with the gutting of traditions by the church hierarchy.  Thankfully our church has made a break with the Presbyterian Church USA.  The only reason organized religion is Catholic countries hasn’t gone South as much is due to its bureaucratic structure.  Its bureacratic inertia has helped it keep its traditions, but the Churches in southern Europe are as empty as the North.

As for the malaise, I think it is due to the atrocious spiritual environment Westerners find themselves in.  A failure of leaders to recognize that man does not live on bread alone with the consequences we see around us every day.

@john

MILF stands for “mothers I’d like to f-ck” and the P in WASP stands for “protestant”, thought I think the Old Money Yankees are WASSSHs (White Anglo Saxon Socialist and Secular Humanist).

Imbibing the elixir of self-loathing, liberal whites are WINOs, white-in-name-only.

Mr.Gottfried,

Agreed. There is definitely a religious-type fervor regarding the President-Elect. In the main, we have abandoned God and the current replacement “Savior” du jour is the man Obama. Through the act of voting for him, many “Christian” Caucasians subconsciously believe they have cleansed their souls of all sin and shall now gratefully do 4-8 years of penance. Besides, they believe he may actually answer their prayers. The Golden Calf baby, herded by Obama. Their prayers are almost always for self, the perfect spiritual reflection of the degenerate and narcissistic civilization in which we live.

What was it, 1961 or so when Daniel Boorstin wrote “The Image - A guide to pseudo events in America”? The whole of the country has become a pseudo-event of sorts - reality inverted, words twisted and redefined, malbehavior not just acceptable but feted, and high offices occupied by the least moral and ethical of us. Repeatedly. Ad nauseum. “Image is everything.”

“Cowardice!” came the argument from one quarter. Yes and no, for indeed to be a coward there must be a recognizable entity to fear to the point of turning to run away. Unfortunately for our youth, moral and ethics were not taught them, and what they have seen is a society reveling in its own filth and excrement. It is the norm. The institutional memory they have been taught is televised. Where then lies the cowardice in that group? Just plain ignorance, and no more.

For their elders who know better, yes. The P.C. police are everywhere, and the moment one utters truth, fast do fly the pejoritives. But the brainwashing has gone well, and too few are left who even know the truth, let alone those who are willing to speak it. Besides, they may well lose their jobs. “Go along to get along”. Get a paycheck. They have given themselves over as slaves to usurers, and sacrificed the whole of the civilization to Moloch.

And besides, the so-called “Christian World” is no longer willing to call sinful acts what they are - sin. Capital “S” Sin. Adultery is an now just an “affair”, fornication is simply “sex” or “hooking up”, homosexuality is an “alternative lifestyle choice”, and abortion, well, it’s either “A woman’s right to choose” or “Let’s just not discuss it”. It’s Murder. All of these are “sins”. Upper case letters. 

The great collective “we” no longer use the word “sin"- it’s so passe’. Heard mention of it lately? Anyone? From either Priest or Preacher at the pulpit? The paper? A wager no, I’d say. All we hear about from the pathetic poseurs on the altars is about “Love” and “forgiveness”, rather than “The wages of sin is death” or “I am an angry and jealous God!”. “All is forgiven if you love Jesus!”

Spare me.

Death. With sexually transmitted diseases and debt slavery as plagues on the way to hell. To both individual and nation alike. We’re diseased in both mind and spirit. Deuteronomy 28-31 clears it all right up. Read it and welcome to the big deja vu all over again. Jesus himself said to read the scriptures, and he had to be referring to the ones already in “print”.

Twenty Seven times in the Old Testament the Israelites were admonished to “Be ye a separate people”. That should have pretty well cleared up the “multiculturalism” argument right there. A “Stiff-necked people”, or just plain stupid?

We’re all just dancing away in Babylon baby, just dancing the night away. “Last Call” is but a few moments away. And on and on they dance…

I think it comes from an awareness of their tribalism, a desire to avoid conflict by denying this aspect of being human, and to love thy neighbor. It is an attempt to run away from their human nature and not repeat history or the conflicts happening around the world. People haven’t found a balance yet between the desire for expression and social harmony.

“it is also very much alive and well among religious Protestants, and particularly among the Evangelicals and Mennonites of my acquaintance. These people are anything but non-believers. Nonetheless they entirely agree with Obama’s remark, made to Pastor Rick Warren, indicating that sin means “sexism, racism, and homophobia.”

With due respect to Revivalist Christians, it is their view of sin that is the problem.  For all of their supposedly holy living, they do not fully appreciate the depth of sin.  They see sin as something outside themselves, not in themselves.  They see sin primarily as acts, not as a condition of the soul.  This is why John Wesley can come up with the concept of sinless perfection in spite of what the Apostle John has to say about such things.

When someone sees sin primarily as external acts that can be accomplished or avoided, self justification is easy.  I can follow ten steps to a closer life with God.  This self-justifying religion is popular because it is easy.  On the other hand, seeing oneself as hopelessly depraved is, in fact, freeing.  One no longer obsesses over whether it’s right to drink or not, or go to the movies, or enjoy frivolous things.  The Christian who follows Augustine’s (and I would say, Luther’s) thoughts on sin realizes that grace must be total.  I can’t purify myself.  I’m already purified.

The subjectivism of Revivalist Christianity makes it easy to change the list of sins from, drinking, smoking and dancing, to racism and environmental insensitivity.  Since their faith is based on experiences with God rather than on scriptures and creeds, they will be the next generation of liberals

The evidence for misplaced social guilt among Protestants is considerable, as Paul has documented.  Of course it also hasn’t helped that anti-intellectualism among Protestants has left them unprepared to deal with ferocious assaults from the Left since WW2.  These attacks have been relentless and have undermined Protestants’ confidence.  Let’s not forget that prominent leftists like Richard Hofstadter influenced a whole generation of historians to see white Protestants as bigots and proto-fascists.  Allan Lichtman’s recent attempt to trace US Protestantism back to the KKK of the 1920s continues this polemical tradition.  Even rightists like Viereck in the 1950s got a kick out of bashing the “ignorant” nativistic Protestants.  In short, it is hardly any wonder that many Protestants feel diffident about their traditions, and are reluctant to defend them; they are under siege.

Traverse City and environs aren’t prototypical Northern Michigan. There’s a high concentration of summer- and second homes in the area of affluent people (more RC than the townies) from Chicago, Detroit and smaller cities of the lower peninsula.  Thus, the liberalism here exhibited is not that of the elk-hunting, trailer-park dwelling, pickup-driving native of, say, rural Montmorency County.

The Captain makes an interesting point.  You could turn it around, though.  Are many leftist Protestants suffering from an authoritarian personality not in the right-wing sense (as Adorno thought) but in the PC sense of mindlessly obeying leftist trash so as to to be praised for being tolerant?

“Many of our Negroes are decent, respectful and hard-working.  Unfortunately many are not.  What they need are jobs, a toned-down lasciviousness, to stay away from White women, to respect the White man and to put down the pipe.

Some Mestizoes we have, more we do not need; in fact less.

That goes for all “immigrant” scum: Go home.”

Honestly, is this what passes for conservatism these days?  Captan Nachos: You are an ass.  You appear to delight in the sound of your own voice (or in this case, the sight of your own writing).  You seem to enjoy pulling out certain quotes that you think others will find obscure to point out how very intelligent you are.  How lucky for you that you “dodged” all those bullets.  How unlucky for us.

A true conservative is not a racialist.  Contrary to the latest fad opinions on what has become an increasingly irrelevant blog for middle aged libertarians.

This is a rather surprising article by Paul Gottfried, because in past years when I contacted him to assert that what he was describing was essentially an inherent fruit of Protestantism, most particularly cultural WASPism, his invariable response was to inform me that Catholics were equally guilty and therefore my assessments were invalid. He twice slurred the Irish to me in his attempts to brush me off, saying that the Kennedys proved that my view had to be false.

Amazing how the good professor has begun to catch up to me, aint it.

Assimilation is the reason that Catholics in America are what they are in terms of this cultural and religious liberalism that leads inexorably to cultural suicide: the thanatos syndrome, as Walker Percy terms it. David Hackett Fischer’s claim is that all subsequent immigrant groups assimilated to one of four main British cultural groups, two of which formed Northern (or Yankee) culture and two of which formed Southern culture. The two that formed Northern culture were Quakers (utterly heretical in exactly the ways that Gottfried describes) and Anglo-Saxon Puritans, who were the most savagely self-righteous and violent Judaizers to emerge from the Reformation with political power. As befits such, they rather quickly in American history produced an endless stream of Unitarians, Universalists, feminists, and free-love freaks, as well as entire new religions (such as Mormonism). The ‘conservatives’ among them came to worship money and promote the Social Gospel as they forged faith in a new church to save mankind: (Yankee) American democracy.

American Catholics overwhelmingly settled in the North and thus necessarily assimilated to the most Liberal part of American culture. Fischer identifies the Kennedy family as proof of his thesis, declaring that by the generation of John and Bobby, the Kennedys reflected NOT Irish culture but Boston Brahmin WASP culture.

And race has been central to that WASP determined faith in a salvific America. I assert that the key reason comes from the British Isles. There, Modern UK politics arose by promoting that which was Anglo-Saxon over vestiges of Norman culture with the intent to exterminate all that could be identified as Celtic. That culture war was not forgotten on the boat ride across the Atlantic, and the Yankees, as soon as they no longer could make vast fortunes from the cross-Atlantic slave trade, focused their attentions of damning the Southerners – who were virtually 100% free of Anglo-Saxon Puritan blood – as being uniquely guilty of sin: the newly discovered sin of slave owning. Having shucked most of historic Christian Orthodoxy, the Yankee WASP managed to stumble on his heart’s-desire for Unpardonable Sin that would allow him to feel sinless as he warred, culturally, against the descendants of those that in the British Isles his ancestors warred to exterminate culturally: Celts and Catholics.

Flannery O’Conner observes, “In the absence of this faith {Christianity} now, we govern by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, long since cut off from the person of Christ, is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and in the fumes of gas chambers.” Walker Percy’s Father Smith phrases it this way: Tenderness leads to the gas chambers. Heresy like atheism and agnosticism also generates ‘tenderness,’ bleeding heart liberalism, that for logical outcome produces terror. PC is America’s Big Brother.

The War Between the States (or to those who believe in the sacredly indivisible salvific America The War of the Great Rebellion, or to those who swallow any propaganda spewed by the victors The Civil War) marks how and why the Yankee Elites became obsessed with uplifting the Negro. From the Union/Yankee side, that war was about ‘saving the Union,’ which means forcing all states to remain in it and pay taxes to DC, but at some point a moral justification was required for the slaughter. From the Union/Yankee side, that war was about ‘saving the Union, which means forcing all states to remain in it and pay taxes to DC, but at some point a moral justification was required for the slaughter. Only then did the Abolitionist position come to be something other than a small minority one, usually hated, in the North, because then it was not only about freeing black slaves: it was about punishing ‘Other’ whites and thus making the Yankee WASP the king of America culturally. Then blacks were clear tools and weapons to be used by the righteous descendants of Puritans against the unrighteous descendants of Celts and Catholics: and that is the reason the Yankee WASP Republicans during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age damned the Democrats as the party of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.

And how could Catholic immigrants or Scots-Irish Southerners become ‘good Americans’? They must assimilate to the basics of Yankee WASP culture and become its standard bearers. And once they were successfully assimilated, they too could play the game that leads inexorably to the thanatos syndrome, for it is an heretical perversion of Christianity: a form of godliness that is actually utter rebellion against Christian orthodoxy.

It is a total waste of time to look for answers in contemporary politics. The matter is at heart a perhaps inextricable mix of ethnic culture heritage and identity and theology. And the WASP version has a telos that promotes endless liberalism romanticizing non-whites and non-Christians and punishing of white Christians who fail to dispossess their own children in favor of the romanticized non-whites and non-Christians. As long as Yankee WASP culture is mandarin in America, the thanatos syndrome will reign.

There’s enormous power in the victim Role in Western Civilization since Christ; no power in being the Actual victim. Christians are confused about this themselves; they don’t understand that those groups taking advantage of them, are only claiming a Role – yet Christians assume it’s *actual.

Of course the mainstream media works day and night to convince them it’s actual because the very existence of the current Establishment is hinged on this illusion being believed ‘as if’ actual.

I suspect this is only possible though at another level of depth, because Christianity sought to become universal.  It does not inherently possess, as racialists are attempting to return (if possible) to Christians, a sense of the group or peoplehood.

When in fact conversely, there is no individual per se who is not dependent on the others and a part of them (whether they are essentially anonymous ghosts and ciphers pretending also to be individuals per se or not.) The Greeks, on whom Western Civilization is based along with Christianity, do not even have a word for ‘individual.’ There’s only the family, the extended family, community and so on.

PERSONALLY, I do feel like I notice if Christians today are “suicidal”, it may even be healthy in this sense. What the gods or perhaps the top God wants them to realize is they are attempting to put death, as well they should, the illusion of the Christian ‘individual,’ per se. The purpose of the polis or group or family is the good life, and thus the good life as well for each of its individuals; so long as they realize that can only in Fact be achieved as a group…And that is the case anyway, whether they realize it or not.

If they don’t realize it, other groups will take advantage of Christians, always moving into and claiming for themselves the victim Role, since it’s so powerful a role to be in, in order to manipulate Christians.

Protestant Christianity is reaping the fruit of Pietism, and now, Multi-culturalism.  Pietism turned the Christian in on himself and turned him back into a moralist.  Multiculturalism has replaced traditional morality with the morality of the new secular religion.

According to a recent Pew survey 50% of “Evangelical” Christians “were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation.” No Christian who confesses the Athanasian Creed could agree to such universalism. 

American Revivalist Christianity is doctrine-less moralism.  Their “churches” are Christian-ish societies for social networking or entertainment or therapy, but they are not churches.

“Evangelicals” do not memorize their Bibles anymore, they have no catechisms, and Christmas is a shopping season to them.

But for all their infuriating faults I still count them as brothers. We need to win them to a better and healthier confession of their faith.

American Revivalist Christianity is going to collapse of its own weight.  We need to be there to pick up the pieces, and start rebuilding anew.  I hope I live long enough to see it.

Dr. Gottfried,

As always, I found your article to be stimulating and insightful and much in line with my own thinking. However, I suspect that you might be making too much of the distinction between Protestantism and other forms of Christianity. But this deviation aside, I think we are probably on the same page.

Christians are good people, or at least they want to be good or they want others to perceive them as good. Accepting this premise, I offer another: There is no better way to force good people to do what you want than to guilt them.

Sadly, a powerful body of men has recognized the vulnerability of Christians to guilt manipulation and they have effectively used this tactic to dismantle Western Civilization.
Big Government, international bankers, transnational corporations, pro-Israel pundits, and liberal idealists have seized control of the means of information and are now determining for the rest of us what it means to be good. Western Man has consequently been indoctrinated into accepting the ideological positions of equalitarianism (all men are equal), egalitarianism (all men should be treated equal) and universalism (all men want the same things and can live happily ever after.) Traditional western values, be they Christian, democratic or Enlightenment, have been twisted, corrupted and infected to buttress these three ideological positions and the results of this process have subsequently destroyed the ability of Western Man to pursue his true self-interest as a people without feeling a paralyzing guilt in doing so.

Of primary significance is Western Man’s inability to practice any form of discrimination (excepting self-discrimination), the foremost principle of group survival. A people incapable of recognizing the importance of placing self-interest well above the interests of outsiders will not survive. A people incapable of recognizing superiority over inferiority will be unable to compete. And a people unwilling to believe in their unique and manifest destiny will suffer the same tragic fate of all great civilizations that let themselves be ransacked by the scavengers of the world.

And this is the sad state we find ourselves today. Marx may have been right when he said the ideology serves the interests of the ruling class. One need only consider how equalitarianism, egalitarianism, universalism and the politics of guilt have served the interests of our ruling elite. Transnational corporations and international bankers advocate a cosmopolitan worldview because they desire free trade and open borders. Big Government propagates equality and social justice because this provides a moral license to expand the leviathan powers of social engineering. Minorities march for equality in order to attain superequality, affirmative action and a redistribution of wealth in the form of neoslavery (welfare). Pro-Israel pundits corrupt American foreign policy with notions of universal democracy achievable through wars that serve Israeli interests. Liberal idealists find salvation and divine purpose in worshiping the spawn child of Christianity known as secular progressivism. Truly there are sinister anti-Western forces at work and they are manipulating the Western world with the politics of guilt.

But are these sinister agents really to blame? Or does the vulnerability of Christianity to guilt manipulation owe as much or more to a doctrinal foundation as it does to external forces of manipulation. There are many good arguments supporting those who believe slave morality to be natural evolution of Christianity. Equalitarianism, egalitarianism and universalism are deeply ingrained within the Christian scriptures. A knowledgeable Christian scholar might point out that there are many passages in the bible favoring inequality and discrimination, but the passages supporting the equalitarian worldview outnumber and outshine those that do not. Regardless, it does no good to speak of Christianity in the abstract. We must deal with Christianity as it is today, not what it should be, and right now Christianity is a universalistic creed that has condemned Western Man to a fate of suicide. Perhaps there will come a day when this is no longer so and I support the effort of those who are attempting to retranslate Christianity in such a way that it becomes a creed that supports Western survival more than it condemns us to suicide. These efforts are not without some chance of success as it was not long ago that Christianity once gave Western Man the ardent belief in both his superior quality and superior value and this, in turn, equipped him with the moral conviction and the manifest destiny to conquer lands, expand his power, and achieve unheralded prosperity. But if Christianity truly has run its natural course and has forever become a slave morality, then a new creed will have to be formulated to unite Western Man and give him the moral certitude to put his survival and prosperity well above the interests of outsiders.

Christians cannot embrace the world’s multi-culturalism and also maintain an exclusive way of salvation.

“But if Christianity truly has run its natural course and has forever become a slave morality, then a new creed will have to be formulated to unite Western Man and give him the moral certitude to put his survival and prosperity well above the interests of outsiders.” -Mike Gavin

Mike your take on Christianity is tinged by Epicurean philosophy wherein ‘Salvation’ means that which gives a mortal equanimity of mind and confidence. Whether or not the world is divinely Natural, containing the divine or divine spark itself; which the Epicureans philosophized it did not, and does not, and that there’s no such thing. So go ahead and tell the mere mortals or majority of sheep whatever will keep them calm, civilized, maleable etc., and of course not suicidal, unless their rulers prefer them to be suicidal, on occasion. And that is what they, and you seem to be suggesting ‘salvation’ actually *means.

It’s normal that would be your perspective, Mike since that has been the prevailing moral and political direction for the past 500 years since Epicurus, & the Stoics, were embraced instead, and displaced Aristotle in modern Western philosophical thought.  Aristotelean philosophy is much more humble in acknowledging what it cannot know, which the Epicureans assumed they knew such things concerning life after death, etc. And since for Aristotle the good life is that which also leads into the contemplation of God, because the divine or the spark of the divine emanates from within this world too or from within the substructure of mother Nature as well as perhaps from the transcendent into this world, his more complete perspective lends itself to the idea of the incarnation in Christianity. That this dimensional world itself also has meaning, essence and substance that is also of the divine.

So really Mike, unwittingly in behalf of a rather chauvanistic and one-sided philosophy of the Epicureans, modernity has been, in an act of its own profound hubris at war with Christianity more than not.  Couple that with the Jewish philospher Philo’s persepctive that there is nothing of the divine in this world, and pit the tag-team of modernity and Jewish chauvanism against the more benign and probably more complete Christian belief system, and it’s probably amazing it has survived for this long.

I would have to agree therefore with John Rutowicz’s observation that a nation-which-is-also-its-religion, divided against itself (i.e. multi-cultrually) eventually, sooner or later, cannot stand.

Jim,

The style and subject matter of your post reads as if you wrote much of this response at another time and date and have just been itching for some excuse to cut and paste it here for the public to view no matter if it is at all germane.

“With due respect to Revivalist Christians, it is their view of sin that is the problem.  For all of their supposedly holy living, they do not fully appreciate the depth of sin.  They see sin as something outside themselves, not in themselves.”

I don’t know where such an idea would come from. The Revivalist no knows that sin is the problem, he knows that sin is something the Christian has a constant battle with because he must fight the tendency of the flesh to get lazy and do that which is more comfortable or easy. The major revivals in this country fought against the idea that sin was an external.

I can understand Prof. Gottfried’s lack of understanding of the Christian mind coming from a Jewish background. The rest however, are simply ignorant, and intentionally so. It is the liberal, of all persuasions that have a death wish, and it was creeping liberalism that led to the downfall of the mainline denominations before WW2. Christianity was reduced to Roman Catholic Bishops defending it. Evangelicals had not made it to the right side of the tracks until the late 60s early 70s . It’s funny to contemplate the “anti-intellectual” fervor of Evangelicals when you realize one of the first things they did when they established their denominations was also establish educational systems to train people for the ministry. Those colleges dealt with the world’s philosophies simply because they had to be able to stand against them. It was the mainline denominations that sunk into anti-intellectualism simply because liberalism is anti everything that smacks of truth. The Christian, OTH, seeks truth and applies it too his/her life. At times that’s hard, but Christ would have it no other way.

The altruist-egalitarian moral code that now threatens us was formed during an historical period which was almost totally ignorant about biology, genetics, and heredity. it is largely derived from the religious doctrines of a culture which preferred magic to science and mysticism to reason. This heritage of scientific, and especially biological, ignorance, obscurantism, hostility and evasion has left us a legacy of intellectually impoverished leadership, to the extent that no,current major political figure can dare reveal any knowledge of genetics, heredity, or the biology of race.

The quest for virtue by modern Christians seems to be restricted to certain types of virtue. They’re pietists with respect to PC-liberal values (anti-sexism, anti-racism) but display antinomianism/licentiousness when it comes to traditional Christian morality (sexual morality, Christian propriety, contraception, sometimes abortion even). Presumably, this is a function of what’s considered “virtuous.”

To Quartermaster:

I want to make it known that I like my revivalist friends and neighbors.  I think they have truly good qualities.  They have been reliable pro-lifers (I hope that continues).  Many are home-schoolers, which I admire.

But Revivalist have always had problems with doctrine including the doctrine of sin.  Charles Finney (the father of Revivalism) was a pure moralist who believed in man’s dormant moral powers, not the hopeless depravity of man.

“Deeds not creeds” is the mind-set of the Revivalist.  This is why Christian piety so often gets reduced to “10 easy steps to...” or “the purpose driven...”

Moralism is easy and it feels good once you’ve got it right.  The new generation of Revivalist/ecological multi-culturalist Christians have got their new piety: anti-racism and loving the earth.  They recycle and vote for a black man and believe that God is well pleased.  Just like their parents believed that avoiding the local pub was God’s holy work.

To those who would argue that PC is an inherently Hebraic Protestant preoccupation, I
would point out that some of the most Judaizing Protestants, such as Southern
Presbyterians and the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, have been emphatically
white ethnic. On the other hand, Catholics in the US, England, Canada, and Australia,
including
those who attend Mass, actively support the political Left, in greater proportion
than Protestants. Catholic paleos of my acquaintance are usually hysterically
anti-racist and stress the obliviousness of the Church as an institution to
racial and ethnic differences. My point is not to beat up on either Catholics
or Protestants but to stress the Protestant character of PC in the US. In my book on
the strange death of Marxism, I try to correct any misunderstanding about the
argument of my study on multiculturalism,by stressing the Catholic character of
multiculturalism in European Latin countries. Needless to say, neither Latvian
Protestants nor Lithuanian Catholics seem infected by our cultural
diseases. This makes me think that absent heavy doses of cultural Marxism, with
which we first infected ourselves and then spread to the Germans and other Europeans,
it would be hard to imagine the social and political problems that I adress in my
books. Note that I never claim that any form of orthodox Christianity produces the
politics of ssocial guilt. What I look for are predispositions.

Capatain Chaos,

“I didn’t want to do it, I swear, but I needed to establish “street cred.””

Chuckling. Sometimes you are quite funny.

“Search not far and wide for a sturdier rationalization/narrative to feed the lemmings; perhaps the direct approach is in order?”

I think you are selling our brethren on this website short. The reason I come here is to avoid the lemmings who think politics means touting the party line at it is propagated by FoxNews.  There are quite a few intellectual authors and bloggers on here who think outside the mainstream box.

“The meaning of your lives IS the continuity of your people.”

I do not disagree, but we have now arrived at our reoccurring disagreement over strategy and tactics.  You seem to believe that the worst things get for us, the more likely we are to regain our group consciousness. I asked you this before and perhaps you answered, but what evidence do you see of this occurring? We have lost most of our major cities, California, much of the SouthWest and much of Florida. Other states and cities are likely to follow.  Our people are not waking up to the reality of their displacement and demise, instead, they seem to be fleeing.  At what point will it be too late to turn things around?

QuarterMaster

“It is the liberal, of all persuasions that have a death wish, and it was creeping liberalism that led to the downfall of the mainline denominations before WW2.”

What is liberalism other than secular Christianity on steroids?

“What is liberalism other than secular Christianity on steroids?” –Pete

That’s interesting Pete in that Paul Gottfried indicates in his post above yours in a nutshell, he looks to the best of his ability for ‘predispositions.’ That’s the key.

If Jim R.’s post above is accurate the past 500 years have been dominated by the Epicurean philosophical influence, which was also the subject of Marx’s dissertation.

So today perhaps Christians as well, secular or religious are also unwittingly aetheistic materialists. Since they no longer embrace the Divine as a part of this divinely Natural world. In addition to there being some transcendent influence from as it were St. Elsewhere (beyond.) … Also Captainchaos accurately points out how easy it is to ‘guilt’ such a people, who have so lost their bearings for so long?

I agree as well there has to be a racialist element embraced i.e. allowed for those who wish it, as part of the divine plan of mother Nature. It is still a simple Fact for example that all the laws and customs of this very nation were written by white people, for white people. That is in fact the racialist group from which all of this emanated. We don’t live in a nation which emanated from African customs and laws; we don’t live in a nation that emanated from Semitic customs and laws per se. We live in a nation that emanated from White European Christian customs and laws where that was all ‘at’ 225 years ago.

But if we no longer view the divine as an emanation from the substructure of this world itself what stake have we in it? (Even if we yet ‘believe’ in some other *inevitably much more fanciful transcendent influence, be that also real, or imagined, ‘whatever.’)

Picture for a moment that the Earthly Mother, mother Nature is divine, and good: the angels of air, and of water of sunshine and of earth (as is perhaps the so-called Heavenly Father, Divine – he created the world and saw it was good – take that as a given).

Well that is contrary to both the Epicurean philosophical view and contrary to the Jewish philosopher Philo’s philosophical view. Yet those ways of perceiving the world dominate today, whether people are religious or secular (and whether they even realize it or not) to the extent that it is ‘who’ we are today. By the way, that IS also ‘who’ the framers of this nation were as well. So the apple has not fallen far from the tree.

While at the same time some of us rail against it intuitively, and search to find the predispositions which may in fact be causing it. The reality is that modernity for the past 500 years ongoing is now neither Aristotelean nor Christian in its philosophical underpinnings.

That’s my opinion as to what accounts for all of our predispositions in general. Then of course one can always become more specific in putting it under the microscope.

Probably (and sadly) Captainchaos is accurate, in his believing it all has to implode therefore before any signigicant change in direction can manifest. Since it would be essentially a 180 degree correction, wouldn’t it, at this pont in time?

But at the same time there is a danger too in believing that this can be manipulated via staged events and so forth. It’s much bigger than that.

In terms of ‘strategy’ if any is even possible, it would then be a going back to, a returning to where we were when we unwittingly went in the atheistic, materialistic direction, pretty much like sleepwalkers… And that is yet the dream we are having today, whether religious per se or not, in my opinion.

No one can just snap their fingers ‘presto’ and wake a civilization Up from the past 500 years, can they?

Should we try? … Ok, stand ABACK –

‘PRESTO – CHANGEO’ !

See it doesn’t necessarily vork like d’hat. (humor) Instead in the mundane, a nation tends to want to elect someone like an O’bama. Or go to the movies… We’re off to see the Wizard -

I would argue that this type of thing is a product of a new outbreak of the gnostic
heresy - that God is not concerned with matter, but is only concerned with things of the spirit.  This would explain the rise of female ordination, cremation of the dead, and a disregard for
the environment.  The “virtue” that is being celebrated is a disregard for matter and
a pitting of the spirit against it.  They also disregard sexual sin because it is
involves matter and is “irrelevant” to the spirit.

Orthodox Christianity teaches that God created all things, and that in taking flesh
He redeemed matter, the foremost being human nature, and that He seeks the restoration
of the Creation, not its destruction. 

It is hard to escape the gnostic conclusion that an “evil God” created matter, and
we must help the “spiritual God” destroy or corrupt it, to attain to “spiritual
enlightenment.”

Another possible gnostic conclusion is that “Evolution” and not God made the material
world, including racial and sexual differences.

Excellent post. I find the Foxman-Dershowitz-Emanuel analogy to be especially apt. Three people who feign being victims of racism and prejidice in order to victimize others the same way.

To John Rutowicz

I would have to say your knowledge of “Revivalists” is somewhat shallow. Perhaps you buy into the bald assertions of Calvinist axe grinders, such as Michael Horton, who read everything in terms of Calvin’s Institutes and anything that disagrees with that has problems with Sin. I’ve seen some people that call themselves Revivalists (and some Calvinists fall into that category, check the Council on Revival for one example), but are indeed quite shallow, and no little to nothing of what they speak. I could call Bush a conservative, but it would make him one. Same goes for Revivalists.

Horton, and others of his ilk, view Finney as little more than a moralizer. Such is nothing more than a comic book view of Finney. I have theological problems with the man, but the term moralizer doesn’t fit the man, unless you Christ as a mere moralizer. The man was as hard on sin as Wesley or Edwards.

As for your Multi-cult Christians, I’ve never met one I could place under the head of Christian. If you want to place people like Campolo, MacLaren, and others are fakes who wouldn’t know Christ if he walked up and introduced Himself. Both are true heretics.

To Pete.

There is no such thing as “Secular Christianity.” The term is an oxymoron in the same class as calling someone a “Hindu Muslim, or Free-Market Communist.” There fakes out there calling themselves Christian that would fall under that head, but fakes are exactly what they are. They are simply attempting to empty the term “Christian” of any meaning.

we badly need an edit function.

Some how I left the n’t off “wouldn’t”. Bush is no conservative.

Dear Webmaster:

Could you create a special “captainchaos comment” link containing all his writings past and future so that we can avoid it?

Dear Quartermaster,

Perhaps we are not bosom friends, but I would yet have you as an ally.  It is true that I am shallow in many things.  We will have to disagree about Finney.  If you have not done so, I’d suggest reading Finney’s “Revival Lectures” and his “Lectures on Systematic Theology” (which are not a systematic theology), you might be surprised at what you read.

I understand that you would call younger, wayward Revivalists; fake Christians and heretics.  I would, no doubt, agree with you.  But how would you explain their apostasy?  How do “Evangelicals” or “Revivalists” come to abandon such basic Christian doctrine?  I would suggest that their path to apostasy is not identical to apostate Roman Catholics or Anglicans or Lutherans.

I believe I understood Professor Gottfried to say that it was his impression that a sort of secular religiosity was particularly prevalent among “Evangelicals and Mennonites” of his acquaintance.  What has led to this end among those whom conventional wisdom would say are the most culturally conservative in America?  If we don’t understand the problem we can’t correct it.

I wish you peace this evening, and still count you as an ally in our cultural fight.

John Rutowicz

Here’s a very small suggestion. Instead of the CHRONICLES crowd engaging in nothing but non-stop grumbling, overhung with defeatism so palpable it could be bottled, why not take the lead in developing an actual agenda, first, detailing what changes we would ideally like to see legislated; second, what desired changes conceivably could get legislated, the promotion of which should therefore be our focus; and finally, third, what tactics a national political Right should employ.

I suggest that all rightist energies at the level of politics should be devoted to stopping immigration, protecting private property and the free market as much as possible, and preserving firearms freedoms, and at the apolitical level of culture, to developing white brotherhood or communalism. There are other issues I care about passionately (eg ending affirmative action), and ones I hate, but that other conservatives are passionate about (eg criminalizing abortion), but these are of secondary or tertiary importance.

Middle America is being put through the historical meat grinder. Every factor is trending against us. The end result, absent a successful racial nationalist revolt, will be the Fall of America, itself a PHYSICALLY horrific process which will take the form of our nation’s complete immiseration (I mean each of us personally, not the risible ‘budget deficit’, which is now a norm, not an aberration), as well cultural persecution/genocide, and pervasive physical fear grounded in a reality of constant criminality shading into open anti-white racial guerrilla warfare. America will eventually resemble the “New South Africa” in its complete inhospitableness to whites. The last generation will daily live in a condition akin to those haggard and anxious whites trapped in the Superdome in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The task of those of us on what might be called the Serious Right (which included the late Sam Francis, and perhaps a few other CHRONICLES men, such as Prof Gottfried, though by no means all) is to formulate the moral arguments, and political (and eventually military) strategies to prevent or at least mitigate this horrible, onrushing future. Who among you is up to this challenge?

“Excellent post. I find the Foxman-Dershowitz-Emanuel analogy to be especially apt. Three people who feign being victims of racism and prejidice in order to victimize others the same way.” –Bob D.

I don’t know if you’re ‘the’ Bob Dylan but I recall when Bob D. first ‘made it’ big in the mainstream media, he was immediately corraled by the Left and given an award. And they attempted to make him their ‘boy’ in that regard writing finger-pointing songs in support of themselves and their polemic. To Bob’s credit from the podium while accepting the award Bob told them to go stick it (in so many as it were, enigmatic words.) Afterwards when the press interviewed him and asked what that speech from the podium was all about Bob said: ‘they wanted me to write their finger pointing songs, but I only have 10 fingers.’

There’s enormous power in the victim Role in Western Civilization since Christ, no power or little power in being the Actual victim generally. That was what one of Jim R.’s posts above was about.

There’s an important distinction between the true & the actual in reality. This is due to the human factor, and in my opinion undoubtedly the spiritual dimension. I too, like jeff w. believe that the divine is also an emanation from within the substructure (or if you prefer symbolic-structure) of the world itself, as well as from ‘elsewhere’ or beyond meaning the transcendent. I’m glad to know I’m in the company of geniuses like Aristotle and Heidegger et al. the non-Platonic, non-Epicurean, non-Cartesian philosophers, who in their wisdom *never imbalanced toward ‘spirit’ (cheating so to speak) as if it were in a war with the Earthly Mother or mother Nature. Wasn’t it Christ who said ‘if we can’t love what we see, how can we love what we do not see?’

The true, you see can be true if not yet actual in the world (and sometimes still true even if never actual in the world.) Sometimes the true becomes actual in the world over time. Myths you see are often true even if not (yet) actual in the world. The world is also Divine. Myths tend to contain very large truths depicted in a rather simple way so as to reach as many people as possible without necessarily bogging them down or turning them off with myriad details. Because of this real possibility for honest myth there is also the possibility for the fake in terms of myths which is known as propaganda, or the outright Lie, and the half or three-quarter truth ‘as if’ true. That is of course ‘bad’ in its true sense, as in good & bad.

Man, himself is a good example of the true becoming actual in the world over time: first with the potential for consciousness i.e. not just being aware like the other animals but finally aware of being aware. Then once fully conscious capable in *time through education & refinement of becoming a rational being with his living soul. That may or may not go on..after his death depending on his spiritual ascendance, in my opinion – Except as soon as you are talking about ‘after death’ that moves us into the area of faith. This is wherein we must be humble whether theistic or atheistic. No one can *know. That’s why the word Faith even exists.

I come to Takis for the infinite finger pointing and stay for a game of pin the tail.

To John Rutowicz:

I’ve read both. Particularly both versions of his lectures on Systematic Theology and still reach a different conclusion on Finney. Perhaps because I know where he is coming from and trying to accomplish. Personally, I’m not high on Systematic Theology as scripture is not systematic, and systematic theology is more a work of philosophy than exegesis. Philosophy simply muddies the water of scripture and allows the introduction of many concepts that simply are not biblical. Augustine started that nonsense and is why Calvin’s meanderings are so heavy with what has come to be recognized as Roman Catholic theology and Gnosticism. I will stick with Biblical Theology and leave Athens out. Jerome had pretty much the same opinion, but succumbed to the spirit of his day. His friendship with Augustine didn’t help.

Frankly, I’m not sure we could be allies. Co-belligerents perhaps, but without knowing a great deal more about you there is simply no way I would ally myself with you. I don’t ally myself with Calvinists and both posts here say enough for you to see why. There are many Arminians I find in the same boat as Calvin’s followers, and for much the same reason.

Much of the trouble with the younger generation that has fallen prey to the social gospel is much of the Church is sick and is fighting power battles. The mainline denominations demonstrate this phenomenon quite well. The evangelical side pushes the gospel, and the liberals are pushing political correctness run amok which takes energy that should be going to reach the world. The evangelicals are slowly pushed beyond the pale and the liberals win the kids. This is secular religiosity. I’ve not observed such among Evangelicals. Mennonites are different story as some are bending to the spirit of the age. Some, who call themselves Evangelical, are bending as well. But every Evangelical I know is withdrawing from such people. The NAE has started down that path now, and will end up, for all practical purposes, if not actually, merged with the NCC.

The trends are against righteousness. Some of the nonsense taught by Calvin and his spiritual descendants is part of the reason. Charles Stanley’s teaching that you sometimes can’t tell a sinner from a Christian is a good example. Biblically, if you can’t tell a person from a sinner, then that person is a sinner. Both OT and NT is quite harsh on the idea that a person can live in sin and be one of God’s people.

I submit, the most common and greatest moralizers are leftists. Finney would retch at the idea of being included with such people.

Good points.  My wife and I frequently discuss how non pc we are in being totally devoid of white guilt.  Maybe it’s because we’ve employed many blacks over the years.  And maybe it’s because my mother didn’t get her first coveted teaching job many years ago because she is Catholic, thus radically changing my life.

Thanks River I liked this following post of yours, it’s true & actual:
______________

“Excellent post. I find the Foxman-Dershowitz-Emanuel analogy to be especially apt. Three people who feign being victims of racism and prejidice in order to victimize others the same way.” –Bob D.

I don’t know if you’re ‘the’ Bob Dylan but I recall when Bob D. first ‘made it’ big in the mainstream media, he was immediately corraled by the Left and given an award. And they attempted to make him their ‘boy’ in that regard writing finger-pointing songs in support of themselves and their polemic. To Bob’s credit from the podium while accepting the award Bob told them to go stick it (in so many as it were, enigmatic words.) Afterwards when the press interviewed him and asked what that speech from the podium was all about Bob said: ‘they wanted me to write their finger pointing songs, but I only have 10 fingers.’

There’s enormous power in the victim Role in Western Civilization since Christ, no power or little power in being the Actual victim generally. That was what one of Jim R.’s posts above was about.

There’s an important distinction between the true & the actual in reality. This is due to the human factor, and in my opinion undoubtedly the spiritual dimension. I too, like jeff w. believe that the divine is also an emanation from within the substructure (or if you prefer symbolic-structure) of the world itself, as well as from ‘elsewhere’ or beyond meaning the transcendent. I’m glad to know I’m in the company of geniuses like Aristotle and Heidegger et al. the non-Platonic, non-Epicurean, non-Cartesian philosophers, who in their wisdom *never imbalanced toward ‘spirit’ (cheating so to speak) as if it were in a war with the Earthly Mother or mother Nature. Wasn’t it Christ who said ‘if we can’t love what we see, how can we love what we do not see?’

The true, you see can be true if not yet actual in the world (and sometimes still true even if never actual in the world.) Sometimes the true becomes actual in the world over time. Myths you see are often true even if not (yet) actual in the world. The world is also Divine. Myths tend to contain very large truths depicted in a rather simple way so as to reach as many people as possible without necessarily bogging them down or turning them off with myriad details. Because of this real possibility for honest myth there is also the possibility for the fake in terms of myths which is known as propaganda, or the outright Lie, and the half or three-quarter truth ‘as if’ true. That is of course ‘bad’ in its true sense, as in good & bad.

Man, himself is a good example of the true becoming actual in the world over time: first with the potential for consciousness i.e. not just being aware like the other animals but finally aware of being aware. Then once fully conscious capable in *time through education & refinement of becoming a rational being with his living soul. That may or may not go on..after his death depending on his spiritual ascendance, in my opinion – Except as soon as you are talking about ‘after death’ that moves us into the area of faith. This is wherein we must be humble whether theistic or atheistic. No one can *know. That’s why the word Faith even exists.

Posted by River on Nov 22, 2008.

To Quartermaster:

You do truly seem to be the last true disciple of Wesley and Finney.  Good luck with that.

To John Rutowicz.

I seek truth, and I tend towards ruthlessness in that. I don’t like imprecision in myself or others, particularly in Theology.

If you wish to consider me the “last true disciple of Wesley and Finney” and that sort of classification makes you comfortable, then have at it.

I can assure you that, if true, it would not make me the last true disciple of those two men. I do admire both, but I am a disciple of Christ. As a Christian, I certainly have no need of luck.

Christianity is an alien faith in Western countries—it is fundamentally non-Western (i.e., Semitic) in origin and as such The West cannot begin to heal until this Oriental trance is totally shaken off.

Much of Europe is luckily trending in this direction, whilst America continues to backslide in to the Judaeo-Christian morass. 

There is no doubt that this weak and ‘forgiving’ Christian America will be the first White-majority country to fall due to the swamping of Browns, Blacks, and Yellows from all corners of the globe while the post-Christian societies of Europe will wake up in time to expel the invaders and reclaim their lands.

And to think that I believed that Paul Gottfried finally had begun to discern the glaringly obvious implications inherent in his ideas. As ideas do have ineluctable consequences, it is at best pissing in the wind to identify the rotten and poisonous fruits of any era or nation without digging to reveal and then to cut off the roots.  You can bet everything you own that those waging the culture war from the Left understand that and make it central to all they do. They know which specific ethnic groups to hate most as naturally producing and gravitating toward cultural and religious conservatism, and they attack such groups endlessly. They also know which groups – ethnic and religious – naturally produce fruits they can work with, and those groups they will praise and promote until such time as they no longer need them.

Neither 19th century Southern Presbyterians (who were infinitely LESS Judaizing than contemporary Dispensational Pre-Millenialists) certainly were not ashamed of their ancestors and cultural heritage, but that should never be used to equate them with ‘white nationalists.’ They understood that whites who were theologically and culturally perverse (such as the anti-Trinitarian Yankee WASP Elites) were the enemy. Likewise, the Boers saw English culture in South Africa as a liberal enemy. Each of those cases helps make my point, especially considering that when Southern Presbyterians became fully assimilated to the mandarin American culture, which is Yankee WASP culture, they became increasingly liberal both culturally and theologically, eventually becoming largely indistinguishable from Boston Unitarians.

Imperial politics in any English speaking country guarantees that Catholics primarily will be on the liberal side in politics because ‘conservative’ first and foremost means preserving the status quo of a system designed to dispossess the forefathers of those Catholics.  That pattern guarantees that culturally conservative Catholics are moved to the left in two ways that overlap and feed off one another: in general assimilation to the culture and in association with cultural and moral liberals in political associations that are seen as necessary to end anti-Catholic discriminations. Even so, to assert that Catholics even in England – the worst case scenario - support abortion, homosexual marriage, and the enshrinement of Islam as a sacrosanct UK religion in greater numbers than Protestants in England is to assert foolishness.

Some Catholic paleos are ‘hysterically anti-racist’ to the point of inadvertently promoting key aspects of PC while damning many decent whites who simply want to avoid being overwhelmed by hordes of race-obsessed and criminally inclined non-whites who also get affirmative action preferences over them. But that is yet another example of their assimilation to Yankee WASP cultural proclivities that have been mandarin in the US since the Emancipation Proclamation.

Latvian Protestants and Lithuanian Catholics are indeed largely free of contagion of the WASP PC disease because they have not been ruled by the UK or the USA. The culture that is mandarin for them is Russian Orthodox.

Yes, we infected ourselves, and that is the issue. But what Gottfried fails to see is that we infected ourselves with at least two of the British groups that David Hackett Fischer delineates: the infection is not merely inherent in Yankee WASP culture; it is Yankee WASP culture.

Voltaire was as ardent an Anglophile as he as anti-Catholic. Voltaire, looking at an England the average paleo considers a paradise (the early 18th century, the era of the Penal Laws), when the Church of England was in every way the ‘National church’ and failure to support it was a type of treason, saw the nation that he felt certain was the bastion of liberalism that would forge the world he desired, a world run of, for, and by anti-Catholic cultural and moral Liberals.

Voltaire was a prescient genius.

The British Empire became the largest in world history and so spread the contagion of Modern WASP culture to all corners of the globe. The USA picked up the slack by World War 1. The economic power of the US spreads it even today as the US rots morally and intellectually from its own contagion.

Augustine responded to the 425 AD sack of Rome by partly Arian heretic (such anti-Trinitarians would be seen as ‘conservatives’ in English-speaking Protestantism today) and partly pagan Germans with City of God Against the Pagans, in which he detailed how the fall of Rome was inherent in its moral failures.  Rome could not be saved by politics, nor by any mere ‘tolerance’ of orthodox Christianity while its wealthy and powerful also promoted both Arianism and other heresies and paganism, including Levantine Fertility Cult abominations.

Z,

To the degree that alleged Christianity is Semitic, it is off base. Abraham was called out of Semitic culture, and any return to it is to backtrack from Abraham into perversion. Rabbinical Judaism is cultural backtacking into Semitism, and it thus is no mistake that from c. AD 30 on, the vast, vast majority of Jewish ‘leaders’ have seen Christianity as utterly alien to them. In rejecting Christianity, you are allying with the Pharisees, the Talmud, and the cultural weight of the Semitic Fertility cults.

The desire for suicide is not limited to Prots.

For the extreme in White Male self hatred, go to the website of the National Catholic Reporter.

Professor Gottfried:
“Catholic paleos of my acquaintance are usually hysterically
anti-racist and stress the obliviousness of the Church as an institution to
racial and ethnic differences.”

Isn’t this tendency is a result of their Church’s claim to being “THE” universal Church (as opposed to “a” universal Church).

That said, based on what they write publically, RC-paleos John Zmirak, Scott Richert, Tom Fleming, and Jim Kalb don’t seem hysterically anti-racist.

To: Z

If as you suggest, it is best for the West to sort of ‘sake-off’ Christianity, which conversely the Greeks for example decided was an opportunity for them in history to adopt, and so did adopt it as their own, as they did with other cult religions, while at the same time adjusting such to fit their own model. I would suggest, like the Greeks, any time anything of tradition is adjusted (rather than supplanted which is dangerous to say the least), it is best to build adjustments upon existing Tradition. So as not to go back to square one or prior…the past savagery, as the Greeks apparently understood. I agree with where you’re coming from, but the Greeks aren’t ‘semitic’ are they?

May I recommend “The Lives of Plutarch” by Plutarch, a Roman “pagan” writer, of the 3rd Century B.C. wasn’t it, on whose “Lives” Shakespeare (greatest writer in the limited language of English, ‘the language of Tarzan’ like Hebrew too) based 3 of his plays, one of which was ‘Julius Caesar’.

Plutarch is excellent and refreshing because of the classical, heroic spirit and good values in his work, right?

Plutarch held all the gods to be real, himself preferring Apollo as the top God, like Zeus for the Greeks, and all the other gods were Apollo’s deputies. Plutarch points out that although the Jews believe there are other gods beside their top God Yahwah, Jews believe other gods are no good, and Plutarch suggests the Jews are wrong to denigrate other gods, and the Gods of others. This special and supremacist ‘attitude’ of the Jews with regard to their own God and also then about themselves is not tolerant, and leads to the behaviors socially which hurt others who are not ‘Jews.’

The American pioneers of 150 - 300 years ago, when they yet were of good stock or mostly ‘unspoiled’ and still having the normal, tolerant, good values of Christians, - they read primarily 2 Books the Bible (mostly New Testament) and “The Lives of Plutarch”.

Conversely, moral and political writers of the past 500 years in Western Civilization have all been (falsely) idealistic, in my opinion due to their secret (or stated, as with Marx) wish to eliminate, ironically, the dimension(s) of the gods, the spiritual or Divine dimension of THIS world and of themselves. That’s very Epicurean. Epicurus wasn’t Semitic. There are many strains of philosophic and cultic religious belief in the West itself. Actually Christianity although containing strains of the Semitic, contains more of the Greek perspective. Are you suggesting Europe go back to its northern barbarian roots religiously of only 1,500 years ago.

But in the present, this godless (secular) idealism (of recent history), has led to conclusions which anyone can see with hindsight are then ALSO incorrect. (Then capitalism / marxism happens and especially Wall Street goes ‘wild,’ EATING everyone.) [That is the (underlying) PROBLEM of the past 500 years.] On the other hand the Essenes (Semites), like Aristotle (Greek), intited that THIS world is also Divine and that they were also of the divine -of the Earthly Mother or mother Naure, and they were tolerant of all other such beliefs, even if they did not hold those other beliefs (of others) themselves. They believed to each their own God(s), and that is GOOD. What is patently bad is to deny the divine, here, if the hindsight of the recent past (500 years in the West) is to have taught anything.

Here’s the point in a nutshell, Judaism is the most intolerant and supremacist belief system. *And the more subtle point in general is: that when we forgo (try to get rid of) the divine, here in the world, then *modern writers moralists & political theorists (perhaps yourself included, I don’t know?) replace the truth with their own Falsely Liberal [replacements or] notions. Which because they are not true, donot work for very long. Only Tradition which includes the divine, *works even when, or if sometimes a few things in any tradition could use ‘adjustments’ in *time.

The question becomes: is this world the Earthly Mother, mother Nauture also divine or not? The Traditional answer is yes. If the answer becomes “no” (as is presently the general assumption in Europe, and the assumption of Jewish philosophers like PHILO, who currently holds sway) - then all of the modern illusions begin. As a result, the 20th Century is the bloodiest century in the history of the world… & sadly it is ongoing into the 21st Century. YET, the Jews believe this is good and ‘God’s will.’ That is false, not true. But now America is also their captive. Because of the mainstream media in America, and the West, most people do not even know that this is the case. Very sad, no?

No one thing is true, it is ALL true when it is truth, and no one God(s) are true they are all true beliefs when they include the divine.

If we don’t know our limitations (one of which is we cannot successfully eliminate the Divine, here, since that is not the truth), then we have one more limitation, not one less.

All the pretending in the world that the false is true, NEVER can make the false to be true. Sorry, that is the limitation of freedom itself - and THAT too is what Wall Street gone wild also does NOT comprehend. No?

Buy or sell, that is the question. (humor) Sorry, I always attempt to include humor? We cannot escape the Divine. Can we?

Kudos to professor Gottfried for keeping the light fixed upon our darkest corner, namely, our collective Christian shadow side.  When Richard S. noted that Western Christians “are obsessed with being virtuous” he may have failed to delineate the vastly different world feeling between what virtue means for a Christian vs. an old world pre-Christian pagan (or secularist).  The slave finds virtue in obedience, and the blinder his fealty the greater the virtue - the non-Christian world viewed virtue with a far greater infusion of the masculine instinct. 

If extant Christians (of whatever brand) in the world appear less tainted by liberal eschatology than their Westernized brethren it has more to do with the ebb and flow of historical events leaving pockets of Christians retaining some vestiges of normal human instincts, at least for now.

Mencken’s translation of Nietzsche’s profound treatise, “The Anti-Christ” might be strong medicine but lord knows our sickness is calling for drastic measures.

“When Richard S. noted that Western Christians “are obsessed with being virtuous” he may have failed to delineate the vastly different world feeling between what virtue means for a Christian vs. an old world pre-Christian pagan (or secularist).” -Art Woodland (in his post directly above)

Art Woodland, I like your name, and agree with a lot of what you posted above.

Except, don’t you realize that the old world pre-Christian pagans were anything but ‘secularists’, sir? The demos or people of Greece and of Rome and their greatest thinkers were highly religious, in accepting the Divine dimension, as a part of this world, the Eartly Mother, or mother Nature, as well as *intuiting such influences also undoubtedly resided as well, in the otherwise ‘transcendent’ dimension(s). Only Stoics like Zeno (Semitic, a Phoenician) and Epicurus (he was Greek or was he Roman?) wished to eliminate the Divine as a consideration, when addressing the morals and the politics of mankind. That was entirely new in the history of the West. So I would suggest to yourself, calling all non-Christians ‘secularists’ may be a self-defeating hubris, not yet detected in the dark corner of your shadow-Self? Is that possible?

If you do not remove that speck of chauvanism or hubris from your own eye first, if you accept it is such, then these ‘drastic measures’ you speak of will no doubt only backfire. No? Part of keeping a slave a slave is to make him ‘believe’ his philosophy or religion is the be all and end all of history and morality, biology and politics, just like the Jews believe of theirs, and so do the Muslims. Perhaps that is what Mr. Z meant above in his remarks, although one would hardly wish to go back to the rather raw and more incomplete religious beliefs to my knowledge of northern European barbarians of only 1,500 years ago. Better to re-study [in detail] the ancients, Greek, Roman, Jews who were *usually anthing but savages, and especially not so compared to moderns today.

But perhaps, who knows, if drastic measures are called for maybe the beliefs of barbarians of 1,500 years ago is the real SHOCK treatment required (in returning the masculine spirit to men?), which you not I, speak of. As for our situation at the moment, we are all politcal slaves these days, anyone with half a brain, which I count myself one of those, can easily see.

But adjustments in key areas of influence in any Tradition of merit can usually be administered without such dire measures. The great thing about Tradition is that it only can survive as the Greeks knew BECAUSE when it is built upon, and not circumvented which is what modernity has attempted to do for the past 500 years, it not only survives but endures and eventually again can prevail not over others but in improving the lot of one’s own. In this regard it is a world of inches really, not of miles and miles.

Modernity has proved to be one long emergency, at a time when paradoxically there has been the least ‘reason’ in history for it to necessarily be so at least in terms of living conditions in the West; and so since that is your milieu as well ‘the interminable crisis’, no doubt you react as if the ‘drastic’ is required? I’m not saying it’s not required, I’m only obviously offering my reflections on the subject. Jews are non-Christians, do you consider religious Jews secularists as well.

If not, then there’s another hidden chauvanism or hubris of your own ‘as if’ Yahwah is the only God of merit. Please, isn’t this board of higher reptute than to fall head over heels for that, at the expense of truth. Or do you only wish to be the ‘good’ slave? -(humor) – sorry.

@ Jeff W.

Thank you for the post.  - My previous post was an attempt to juxtapose the contrasting world feelings between what “virtues” symbolized for the ancient pre-Christian world (secularized or otherwise) vs. the ancient or contemporary Christian.  I may have inadvertently confused you, as I did not intend for anyone to infer that the pre-Christian realm was wholly secular. 

Indeed, as you point out, the ancient world was far more steeped in religious belief and tradition than our modernist landscape.  However, it seems the psychological foundational relationships emanating from differing concepts of what constitutes the numinous Divine is of profound and relative significance in today’s world, as these contrasts are almost universally overlooked, (namely the relationship which existed between Man and the Divine then vs. now.)

Our Western malaise has more to do with the supplanting of Mythos with Logos than the countless (and inconsequential) schisms occurring within the realm of Logos (Monotheistic Christianity) ever since its Nicene victory. 

The Fall of Rome should tell us that Tertullian got it right (Athens vs. Jerusalem), while Augustine simply had it ass backwards.  That the latter should frequently be referred to as a “philosopher” on this site is enough to indict our sense of posterior direction as well as explain why our imminent Fate reinforces the axiom that what we learn from history is that we fail to learn from history.

Art, you say that the West’s suicide is a result of the victory of
Christianity over paganism, yet, why, in your understanding, did it take
nearly 2,000 years to “show it’s true self”?  If Christianity has ever
been “the enemy within,” as it were, why just in the past 50 yrs is this happening? 
As an Eastern Orthodox Christian I would argue that what we are seeing is a much more
recent deformation of Christian teaching & consciousness than what you are
holding.  Let me ask you this, too, if today’s “Cultural Marxism” is “Christian”, or
rooting in Christianity is “Economic Marxism” also “Christian”?

@ Mr. Dorsey

Thank you for your response.  You raise some extremely relevant questions in which, unfortunately, the limited space on this site will restrict our ability to address fully. Clearly, the distinction does not refer to an overly simplified dialectic between Christianity vs. Paganism, lest we are drug down to the level of what Gottfried refers to as basement dwelling Odinists.  Attempting to paint with broader brush strokes one can only hope to isolate potentially harmful world views, and the extent to which these may be harmful, and if so, from whence such as these might originate.

The fundament of the Christian ethos rests upon a foundation of Universalism, Egalitarianism, and Tolerance.  These “values” are not inherently evil or bad if applied within a normal, evolutionarily “instinctual” framework.  When such values however, transcend the boundaries of normal “instincts” the effects may range from the slightly harmful to the pathologically destructive (examples abound). 

Western history from its enjoinder with Christianity reflects, to some degree or another, an ebb and flow between these two poles.  In some sense though, as your post suggests, the West has never been more “Christian,” if we are to judge by the prevailing jubilant acceptance of a multi-racial-cultural society reflecting the very mores upon which Christian Universalism is grounded.  This is likely a result of a combination of factors:  Technological progress advancing Globalization combined with the perpetual reinforcement of these values by a self serving media representing ideological Judeo/Christian interests. 

It must be added however, as my former post intimated, that this perversion of natural instincts hatched and abetted by the cult of Christian values must accept its fair share in the long historical blame for the ruin of Rome, along with its perpetual war upon the advancement of science and philosophy.  Similarly, the childish nostrums found in the roots of Marxism and liberal democracy find their cross-eyed first cousins in the same perverted sense of universalized fraternal togetherness.

Art you’re too complicated. Keep it simple. Christianity isn’t the blame, the West itself is bipolar, swinging between Aristotle the sane, and Plato the space-cadet; between Aristotle the appropriately spiritual and Epicurus the abject materialist.

The powers that be in giving Aristotle the boot 500 years ago in terms of moral and political philosphy in favor of Plato the ‘noble liar’ or Facade maker; and in giving Aristotle the boot 500 years ago in favor of Epicurus the abject materialst...Got the best of both worlds in favoring both Plato & Epicurus in terms of making the herd materialistic (consumers) via Epicurus; while at the same time leading them around by their noses as Politically Correct Dreamers via the Platonic Facade.

Save all of your high sounding mumbo-jumbo, it’s all happened in the past 500 years...With *special EMPHASIS on the past 50 years, since the powers that be were given a new propaganda tool by the gods - known as ‘moving pictures.’

There are many gods some are on the Christian side, and some are on the anti-Christian side. Get it?

Keep it real, stop with all your silly obfuscation. It’s transparent. I hope I didn’t inadvertently mislead or confuse you. ?
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