Thursday, October 10, 2024

Christian Mass-Murder Cheerleaders

 

This video: “Judeo-Christian” Was Always A Psyop

The two discussants offered the following parable:

Luke: 20: 9 Then He began to tell the people this parable: “A certain man planted a vineyard, leased it to vinedressers, and went into a far country for a long time. 10 Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that they might give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the vinedressers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 Again he sent another servant; and they beat him also, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12 And again he sent a third; and they wounded him also and cast him out.

13 “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him.’ 14 But when the vinedressers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.’ 15 So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others.”

And when they heard it they said, “Certainly not!” 17 Then He looked at them and said, “What then is this that is written:

‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone’?

18 Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”

19 And the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on Him, but they feared the people—for they knew He had spoken this parable against them.

The interpretation offered (extremely paraphrased): why on earth do many Christians believe that the modern-day state of Israel has anything to do with Biblical eschatology.  The owner (God) of the vineyard (land of Judea) has destroyed the vinedressers (the Jews – not as a people, but as in having to do anything with ongoing expectations) who had killed the owner’s servants and even his son (Jesus).

In other words, the vineyard (the land of Judea) is taken away from the first tenants (the Jews) and given to others (not the Jews, but those who would honor the son).  So why do so many Christians proclaim the legitimacy, and even necessity, of the first tenants to return to and retain the land?

As an aside, I have not yet come to study this parable at my other blog, so we will see what Metropolitan Hilarion has to say about it at some point.

My comment to this video:

First, thank you for taking this on.  The Scofield-dedicated Christian Protestants will one day be remembered just like the Christians in Hitler’s Germany are remembered today – cheer leading enablers of mass murder.

Christians such as these are working to destroy Christianity in the United States, whether knowingly or not.  There is nothing Biblical about this Scofield ideology.

Three thoughts:

Judeo Christian is a made-up term.  It first appeared in the 1820s, and was used to indicate Jewish converts to Christianity.  The modern usage only came to be in the 1950s or so.  Further, today’s “Judaism” and Christianity are both children of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Do we not, instead, have on the one hand a Hebraic-Christian tradition and on the other a Hebraic-Jewish tradition (if one needs to invent labels)?

A note: I looked into this invented tradition about two-and-a-half years ago.

Continuing with my comment: in the video, the gentlemen discussed why it is that today Hitler is demonized and Stalin is, at most, left alone.  They offer that it is because Hitler was on the political right.

Regarding “Hitler was the bad guy on the right.”  That technically isn’t correct.  Hitler led the National Socialist Party, this as opposed to communism, which was an international socialist political ideology.  Both were movements of the left.  The difference between these two leftist movements is that National Socialism recognized differences among and between people – certainly in many wrongheaded and even evil ways, but the issue was that different cultures and traditions are different and the difference is often meaningful.  The international socialists were, and remain, against this reality.

Hitler’s Nazis were socialists, and the communists of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin were socialist.  They were all on the left.

Finally, labeling everything we don't like as "Hitler" is convenient, because now no one speaks of sin.  Hitler has allowed society to ignore sin.

How often do Christians speak openly of sin…and hell.  We have come to just say “Hitler,” as if this is the description of the worst hell on earth (it isn’t), let alone the worst hell of which God has warned us.

Conclusion

I have heard at least some bits and pieces of the Scofieldian conversation shifting.  Before, it was “Israel has a right to defend itself.”  But by now, twelve months in, this idea of Israel “defending” itself is unsustainable.  Now I hear: “Well, you either support God’s will or man’s morals.”

What will they say when Israel is both destroyed and, with the aid of the United States, destroys much of the region and the Rapture or Second Coming or thousand years or whatever is nowhere in sight?  I think the answer to that is easy.  There have been other interpretations and understandings of the end times over the last 2,000 years, and the failure of each never prevented the rise of a new one.

How about just always being prepared, as we, the watchful servants, never know when the master will return?

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

The Witch Hunters

 

I continue to appreciate The Nathan Jacobs Podcast (also on YouTube here).  In a recent episode, The Ideology of Hell – Nominalism & the Liberation of the Individual, he ended with a very insightful point, which I will review here (and timestamped here).

The overall message of this episode is a continuation of his primary theme – the most important question: realism or nominalism?  And, as you can see from his title, in his view nominalism is a road that both liberates the individual and leads to hell.  And, over the course of my writing at this blog, it is a point I came long ago to embrace.

Again, what I identify as quotes are not always word-for-word transcriptions.  Take that for what it’s worth.

In the ending section, the last few minutes of this two-hour episode, he summarizes the woke ideology that is merely one more step in this nominalist path:

We are gods.  We can remake reality how we see fit.  Whether through cultural change, surgical means, virtual reality, whatever.  Reality is subject to us, not the other way around.

We certainly live in this world today.

So, what comes next?  When people abandon religion, they initially move to the occult.  When they grow disillusioned with the occult, they move into political activism.  They are search of something to give their lives meaning.

Yes, we live in this world.

So it isn’t about trans, or homosexuality, or abortion, the real thing driving them is this pursuit of meaning, for purpose.  It is the ability to advocate for justice.

They are in search for meaning, a cause, a way to change the world.

And this gets to why there will not be a national divorce.

This is why I am very cynical when people talk about a national divorce.  On the one hand, I really do think it is a good idea. 

I think beyond a good idea – it is the only peaceful possibility.  The thing is, what I just wrote is an impossibility, like a square circle.  It isn’t peacefully possible, so it cannot be a peaceful possibility.

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Despair

 

A follow-up to my post on a new podcast by Nathan Jacobs.  I have written a short post based on a 15-minute section from one of his recent videos, on the topic of despair.  This post can be found at my other blog, as it seemed more appropriate for that blog.  For those of you interested and not following the other blog, you can find it here.

Better yet, just watch the clip.  He tells it much better than I can write about it.

Thursday, September 5, 2024

Nominalism vs. Realism

I have come across a new podcast, The Nathan Jacobs Podcast (also on YouTube here).  For those of you who have followed (and remain interested in) the discussion here regarding objective truth, natural law, the Enlightenment, the limits of man’s reason without some higher, controlling metaphysic, I think this podcast might be right down your alley.

Some backstory: while I had heard of, and listened to, Jacobs in the past, it was this recent discussion between him and Jonathan Pageau that caught my attention: Embrace Realism: It's All Mystical!  From the video description:

Dr. Nathan Jacobs is an academic, artist, and filmmaker. In this conversation we discuss where reason, rationality, and discernment fit into the mystical experience and how the modern world has mistakenly divorced reason and mysticism.

Take a look at Jacobs’ personal website: the description of him as an academic, artist, and filmmaker, is no exaggeration or overstatement.

Although beginning in Protestant (I think Reformed) Christianity, he found aspects of this lacking in terms of explaining / understanding God, God’s actions, etc.  He has since converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.  What is interesting about this, at least to me: he embraces the role that Plato and Aristotle have played in the development of the understanding of God.  He also speaks positively of the idea of a natural law ethic.

Why do I find this interesting?  I see both embrace of this and pushback on this from Orthodox Christians.  Especially pushback on the idea of natural law (with one glaring and wonderful exception, which I have written about here).

I am about four podcasts in (out of fourteen at the time of this writing).  They appear to come out about once a week, and almost all are between 1-2 hours long.

Why the title to my post?  In his first podcast, Jacobs describes the question of nominalism vs. realism as the single most important question in our time!