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Category: Religion

Good and Evil: An Observation without Answers

This is the first thought in six months that has driven me to blog. Yet I hesitated. Because I had (and have) no answers, no solutions, no actions to advocate. Still, the thought wouldn’t leave my mind.

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Silver and I were talking a few evenings ago about good and evil — as who isn’t these days? He raised a few of the metaphors and stories that humans have used to try to explain great evil over the centuries.

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Failing institutions, fading memories, falling civilizations?

A friend of mine works in a field that’s on the cutting edge of the cutting edge. He’s a problem-solving genius and his reputation has taken him all over the world. This cutting edge business (like any industry) utilizes many types of experts. Some are experts in exciting new tech. My friend’s expertise, OTOH, happens to be in a specialty that, while absolutely vital, is old tech. It’s not “sexy.” Even the big schools associated with it no longer teach it. Lots of brilliant young people are never learning it even on a theoretical level, and have no idea it…

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Violence, fantasy and reality:
Where does it go from here?
Part I

The other day I witnessed a conversation I could never have imagined. Picture two successful professionals, thoroughly decent people, respected (perhaps even revered) in their fields. Intelligent, moderate individuals, but outside what was once the political mainstream. They relax over glasses of wine, discussing a certain prominent “public health expert.” They discuss whether prison is too good for said expert, or whether dragging him behind a mule cart, drawing, castrating, quartering, and placing his head on a pike in a public square is more appropriate. And no, they hadn’t had that much wine. Both were embarrassed by their own words.…

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From alpha to omicron, there’s nothing new under the shining delusions of authoritarians

One October day in 1844, thousands of followers of William Miller awaited the return of Jesus in glory and their own glorious ascension to heaven. The non-event that followed became known as The Great Disappointment. It didn’t help that the whole non-believing world was laughing their asses off while the devastated Millerites grieved and tried to recoup. You’d think something called The Great Disappointment would have been the end of the Millerite cult. But only if you underestimate the self-justifying irrationality of human beings. Sure, some walked away. But many who walked simply became True Believers in a different sect…

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I’m suffering an attack of optimism

I’m suffering the sudden onset of optimism. Don’t worry, the condition probably won’t be fatal or chronic. I’ll be back to my normal, healthy, pessimistic self in a week or two. But meanwhile I can’t get rid of this feeling that everything may turn out okay out there in the world. Well, not everything. But outcomes of the current madness may be better than we expect. I feel this way precisely because everything’s falling apart. And all kinds of people are recognizing that everything’s falling apart or has already fallen and can’t be raised back up. That’s the part that…

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A freedomista symbiosis for our future? Part II

I just re-read Rod Dreher’s FAQ on the Benedict Option. I love it. Although Dreher is talking exclusively to Christians (though inclusively among varieties of Christians), there’s a lot there for the rest of us, as well. He opens with a quote from his inspiration, social critic and historian Alasdair MacIntyre, that says in part: A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What…

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A freedomista symbiosis for our future? Part I

And so our “awkward stage” continues. The awkward stage is that excruciatingly, endlessly frustrating phase in which tyranny, brutality, and bigotry against freedom grow ever more oppressive but the oppressed feel powerless to act effectively on a large scale. Moral though it may be to string lawless, dictatorial rulers up on lamp posts, it isn’t what good people do — at least not until provocations and deprivations exceed endurance. Yet without effective options, we good people find ourselves ever more bound and restricted. In the 25 years since I opened 101 Things to do ‘Til the Revolution with my infamous…

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Saturday links

I’m working on that promised blogosaurus. I really am. It’s about halfway done, but it keeps wanting to pull in a different direction than I want it to go. With luck, I’ll wrestle it into submission by early next week. In the meantime, here are some links to keep you entertained, charmed, baffled, ticked off, informed, or whatever the case may be. —– In the Land of Opportunity, the wealth of the richest 1% is about to outstrip the worth of the country’s entire middle class. Cheers. Florida gets its first Second Amendment sanctuary county. Today is the anniversary of…

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Where are the wise ones? And do we really need ’em anyhow?

Winter has already arrived here in the NorthWET, bringing days of steady rain and a desire to crawl back into bed, crank up the mattress warmer, and hibernate for the next seven months. This was one of those years when we never really got a summer; those happen about every fifth year and turn the supposedly changing seasons into one endless, multi-year gloom. During the few rare pleasant days I was mostly hustling to get walls walled and plants planted and forgot to enjoy myself. Still, the rain’s bound to make the newly planted grass happy, and it’s the price…

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Tuesday links

Arkancide? Something else equally sinister? Judith Miller, a former jailbird herself, sez it’s awfully hard to commit suicide while in federal detention. (Conspiracy theories have gone mainstream since Saturday!) This may not fix a broken medical system, but it’s sure a provocative step: Go to Mexico, have surgery with an American surgeon, get a nice fat bonus check from your insurance company. Red flag laws, “assault weapons,” Republican politicians, and other vermin. Eight dangerous myths about survivalism. The secret to super-long life? Not diet. Not exercise. Not genetics. Just plain old lying. Companies are borrowing money, not to invest and…

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