pope 

Rod Dreher hollifully panics with beatitude...

That’s okay… Here he goes:

As important as it generally is to vote conservative, we are not going to vote ourselves out of this crisis. The core of it is cultural. Do you see American conservatives producing a vital culture today?

The progressives have all the cultural energy, but are creating what Philip Rieff called “deathworks” (defined by Carl Trueman as “the act of using the sacred symbols of a previous era in order to subvert, and then destroy, their original significance and purpose.”) Their cultural works are parasitical on the creations of a living culture. They mostly destroy that which gives life.

Do you see why I’m so committed to the Benedict Option concept? The West is dying … and if Christianity is not going to die with it, we Christians have to take radical action to create resilient ways of living, in the same way that the early medieval Benedictines did.

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/david-rieff-saint-kite-culture/

This cri-de-coeur comes into Rod’s mind after someone “FROM THE LEFT” (holala! can I faint in raptures?) posted something against "the woke"… Nothing new (we could be guilty of this caper here from time to time), but the tortuous thingy makes Rod Dreher foam at the mouth with delight, because the woke is the enemy of the “right” and the left LOVES the woke thingy. So there… Here, Gus could say that woke has a few good ideas and some bad ones as well. This could appear as dialetheism, but there is no contradiction in the dichotomy.

Meanwhile, Rod's Benedict Option is like burying yourself incognito to let a 10 million year long storm pass overhead. The new “barbarism” ain’t going away: technology has made sure of that and we’re lazy. We love pressing buttons and thinking gives us headaches. So, as Benedict devotee, you won’t survive in the concrete forests. Your ideas won’t survive the natural world either, and these ideas won’t even register at an anthropological dig, unless you become Hobbits…

David Rieff, is the man from the Left who despises the wokeness. He wrote a missive in his Substack newsletter, titled Desire and Fate. Here is a paragraph:

The madness of Woke and the barbarous inanities of “anti-racism’ (please note the inverted commas!) are well on their way to destroying high culture in the Anglosphere and probably in parts of Latin America and Western as well, even if in those regions there is the kind of cultural pushback that has all but disappeared in the Anglosphere. This is because most of the Right in the US, Canada, and Australia is no more committed to high culture than it is the preservation of the environment, whereas as in Western Europe and Latin America high culture has not for a century at least been largely a monopoly of the Left, if not a monoculture, to use a phrase the critic Harold Rosenberg once used to describe Jewish intellectuals. In contrast, from Borges to Houellebecq a conservative tradition remains alive in Western Europe and Latin America, whereas in the Anglosphere, once one gets past Chesterton, Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy, the cultural pickings are slim indeed.

OMG! One, I mean one person called Gus, doesn’t know what Rieff is talking about. It could be my spectrum dumbness… But I think there are too many misunderstood name-drops and a too great outrage without explanation. But that’s okay. Culture is fluid and has surface tension, though culture has no universal value. I mean zero universal value. ZERO.

Whether you bury yourself in a Benedictus hole or in a spacial woke, these are only relative minuscule transient ZEROs with nil influence on the performance of the universe. If you do not understand this, don’t worry. Houellebecq, that completely loony non-sensical philosopher of France’s dunnies, makes more sense than Rieff and Rod Dreher put together… 

The only transient thing that should matter to your self is the level of pain and contentment — and your management thereof, using polite social interaction and personal hygiene. 

“...sacred symbols of a previous era being destroyed with their original significance and purpose.?” This is a humongously tiny subject... There are many symbols of relationship used in our languages — from letters of the alphabet to Chinese glyphs, all with their meanings and associations for communication — but to elevate these often APPROPRIATED symbols, including a cross, to sacredness is a slight of hand reserved for a Pen and Teller show. Like all magic, it’s fakery with ZERO value. But this fakery fills our mind with tremors of supernatural, because we’re unable to ACCEPT reality — as strange as it also is for dogs and cats. The main ultimate reality of our existence is death. Hopefully a good death, not like one in some of Scott Morrison’s home for the damned old people...

Our life isn’t limited by gods nor angels, but by life’s tight constructs which by accident and necessity of "fighting" entropy over a random limited set of environmental values, including the field of temperature, cannot be continuous, except in cancer. Cancer is a continuous life-form because it has no terminators in its DNA modification. 

Heaven is where cancers live forever, relatively, until they runs out of biochemical substances to survive from. Cancer is life with entropy gone beyond structural coherence, with "no ability to die”.

Meanwhile, THE WEST IS DYING BECAUSE IT HAS REDISCOVERED THE NOTION OF GUILT. 

The West has been rotten to the rest of the world (colonialism, slavery, etc). The West is still rotten to the rest of the world. It bombs countries too often, then the West HAS TO ACCEPT refugees from such countries in acts of pseudo-compassion, disguised as contrition (guilt eradication). The cultures don’t mix, especially Islam and Christianity, while secularity should be the goal. But both religions reject the concept of a secular world. It goes against their commercial — I mean COMMERCIAL — values.

Yes, we use cultural values to define our prejudicial beliefs, whatever moment in time we presently are, with an often pre-masticated memory of the past and a flimsy image of the future. Some of these cultural values can be thrown out of kilter by a new fashionable movement that will be ephemeral and soon will be replaced by a newer vision. The main parameter of our relationship is to be able to live together peacefully, without being cloned mono-human. ONLY SECULARITY CAN ACHIEVE THIS. And this is hard, because we believe in our sphere of cultural influence, none of which is universal, but localised mostly in our own self desire to belong, or influence, under god.

We create collective hubris though by brainwashing each other with the illusion of knowledge. Religions are the experts here. Religions are formalised statutes of ignorance, which, until sciences came along, explained our earthly situation with ritualised bullshit. Religions still promise bullshit, despite the evidence of observations. The Benedict Option is but a tiny spec of this ignorant bullshit.

But do we have to listen to the spiel? In order to be fair and understand the self-aggrandisement of the trousers braces, we have to:

The Benedict Option

A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

"Already the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade."-David Brooks

In this controversial bestseller, Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life.

From the inside, American churches have been hollowed out by the departure of young people and by an insipid pseudo-Christianity. From the outside, they are beset by challenges to religious liberty in a rapidly secularizing culture. Keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House may have bought a brief reprieve from the state's assault, but it will not stop the West's slide into decadence and dissolution.

Rod Dreher argues that the way forward is actually the way back — all the way to St. Benedict of Nursia. This sixth-century monk, horrified by the moral chaos following Rome's fall, retreated to the forest and created a new way of life for Christians. He built enduring communities based on principles of order, hospitality, stability, and prayer. His spiritual centers of hope were strongholds of light throughout the Dark Ages, and saved not just Christianity but Western civilization.

Today, a new form of barbarism reigns. Many believers are blind to it, and their churches are too weak to resist. Politics offers little help in this spiritual crisis. What is needed is the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church. The goal to embrace exile from mainstream culture and construct a resilient counterculture.

The Benedict Option is both manifesto and rallying cry for Christians who, if they are not to be conquered, must learn how to fight on culture war battlefields like none the West has seen for fifteen hundred years. It's for all mere Christians — Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox — who can read the signs of the times. Neither false optimism nor fatalistic despair will do. Only faith, hope, and love, embodied in a renewed church, can sustain believers in the dark age that has overtaken us. These are the days for building strong arks for the long journey across a sea of night.

Wow… Hold on… What is the Barbarism so described? SECULARITY? ATHEISM? POLITICAL HUBRIS? CHOICE OF PRODUCTS? NEW SHOES? SCIENCES? DEMOCRACY? SEX FOR PLEASURE? FREEDOM TO THINK? IMMORALITY? GARDENING THE NATURAL WAY?

At this level, it appears that 99.9 per cent of Western populations are zombied by the media and do not think much, apart from the next pay-day so they can buy a new washing machine or barbecue a few snags on Sunday next. We know a lot, but understand little.

Some people see through the fog of god and its invented tight-arsed controls…:

About the Freedom from Religion Foundation

The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion. In modern times the first to speak out for prison reform, for humane treatment of the mentally ill, for abolition of capital punishment, for women's right to vote, for death with dignity for the terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization and abortion have been freethinkers, just as they were the first to call for an end to slavery. The Foundation works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church. As FFRF’s principal founder Anne Gaylor noted, “To be free from religion is an advantage for individuals; it is a necessity for government.”

What is FFRF’s purpose?

The purposes of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

Incorporated in 1978 in Wisconsin, FFRF is the nation’s largest freethought association with more than 30,000 freethinkers: atheists, agnostics and skeptics of any pedigree. FFRF is a non-profit, tax-exempt, educational organization under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3). All dues and contributions are deductible for income tax purposes.

————————

I know, the FFRF looks a bit like a “church”… but despite its tax exemptions, it’s not. It’s a sane philosophical positioning for the future… 

The West's slide into decadence and dissolution has little to do with having lost its religious underpants. The West is going bung due to its (mis)management that has been betting on GREED and MILITARISM, raping other nations under false pretences, than being a good citizen of the world and feeling guilty about this addiction. Suddenly (not quite suddenly) some other nations have shown BETTER leadership in managing their people. We call them despotic or "totalitarian"  — as if we weren't in the same boat with different subtleties of control.

Yes the uneasy cultural mixes have not much to do with the price of fish but in the transition from the culture of religious deceit to a scientific/technology based ideal. Mistakes have been made and will be made — especially by religious dudes who sit on rocks like shags drying their wings, thinking they are preaching.

GOD DOES NOT EXIST. Is this simple enough?

Sure, death is inconvenient to our inflated human ego. Dogs will die on their rugs, from old age, or at the vet. Cats go and hide under next door's house to die. Roadkills/cat-kills are the only evidence of dead birds. This was the theme of The Thornbirds… translated in some lingoes as “birds go and hide to die”. 

Meanwhile, our local philosopher, Stan Grant asks:

Does Australia have a God problem?

This past week's debate about religious freedom has tested the limits of tolerance, freedom, respect, and rights. Many MPs were motivated by deeply held convictions, but the tone of debate wasn't helped by a heavy dose of political opportunism and partisanship across the aisles of parliament.

The political right senses an opportunity to expose the left as being weak on faith, calculating it will hurt Labor in multicultural seats, especially in Sydney's west. They paint the left and the progressive politics of identity at its more extreme as dismissive, indeed hostile, to religion.

….

John Milbank argues that Christianity itself can reconcile virtue with difference in a way that is "living together in agreement, rather than mutual toleration". He says it is a justice of a "real peace, that is more than just suspended warfare".

In Australia, we have arrived at a position of suspended political warfare, but the issue of religious freedom versus secular freedom is far from peacefully resolved.

It requires a nuance and depth that evades our politics. The questions of faith go to the very heart of the modern secular liberal project.

All over the world it is up for grabs, hijacked by hatred and exploited by demagogues.

It is not, as it has been framed here, simply a contest of rights. It is, as the philosopher Hannah Arendt put it, the more existential question of the right to have rights.

(Stan Grant is the ABC's international affairs analyst and presents China Tonight on Monday at 9:35pm on ABC TV, and Tuesday at 8pm on the ABC News Channel and is a co-presenter of Q&A).

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Stan is diplomatic on this issue and does not offer a settled point of view. We hopefully do: RELIGION SHOULD STAY OUT OF POLITICS (whatever politics means). We also mention Hannah Arendt here:

https://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/39335

and here: https://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/30164

For John Milbank see:

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/33110

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/32207

and: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/33211

So where to now?:

GOD DOES NOT EXIST. Do you want extra chips with that?

Here:

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/41949

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/41680

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/42483

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/41996

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/41676

and:

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/40667

GUS LEONISKY

Rabid atheist (with no influence on universal gravity whatsoever).

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!