I've been in a near non-stop political discussion for over eighteen months, plus written many articles about the state of things in American and the world. (Compendium of Archpriest Symeon Elias' Writings)
Endured many hours of lectures by a renown Orthodox teacher, all spoken inside the dialectic of political correctness, as he tried his best to baptize Darwin with dignity. I commented on and refuted some of the assumptions and added a lot of supplemental material.
(Defanging The Atheist Tiger - Lecture Series Volumes One - Eighteen)
And many more hours hanging on every word of Yale Neurobiologist Dr Robert J Wyman's course in "Darwinian Demographics" - an exercise in Malthusian fantasy taught as truth.
(Struggle For Life - Lecture Series Volume One - Fifteen)In the last few months, since it seemed apparent that Mitt Romney was going to be the Republican nominee, I've answered angry question after angry question and witnessed the mighty Romney Spin machine try to round up all the disaffected, non-romney folks, with a massive lie campaign, to little success. At this point they are frustrated and angry as they try by philosophical and mental gymnastics to twist Romney into an acceptable choice. If they can't do that, if you don't buy it, then they bully you, become abusive and/or try to guilt you into accepting him. The intellectual dishonesty of these Romney activists is truly amazing. It is grinding, boring, uncreative, evil, driven by fear in some and deception in others.
Dumb America On Parade
At the same time I've watched the efforts of some old friends, some reposed now many years, speaking prophetic things from the grave, on youtube and other media. A few hours of lectures, speeches and interviews of murdered U.S. Congressman from Georgia, Larry McDonald, old tapes of Bill Cooper and others.
I have poorly come to the defense of the persecuted primate of the Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Jonah. I have campaigned for the signing of the Manhattan Declaration and counseled hundreds of people, via mail, email, private Facebook, and in person, 90% younger than me, some just in their late teens and early twenties. This has been a joy.
I've also read about two books a week, none of it admitted to be fiction; ranging from the early church fathers, two different versions of the New Testament, some "stealth jihad - christian deconstructionist theology," - amazing the number of really stupid modern 'christian' heretics with Arab names from muslim countries - it is a whole Christian dis-information machine; seven books on Islam, the Koran again, a list of political and political science books, two medical books, history and alternative history books, and some fun stuff like . . . oops . . . I've got to remember to read some fun stuff. I did in the meantime create a Website where I am placing my favorite musical artists.
Creative Wisdom - Clouds and Glory.
Plus, I walked 3300 miles in the last twenty months and rode my bike many more miles - only had one mild heart episode - I'm 29 months recovered from a stroke, which challenged my left hand. Oh, I forgot - there was some fun stuff - I also wrote some songs, and painted two paintings (had not painted anything in years) and this year recorded
In the exercise of it all, the counseling, the philosophical/theological/political writing, there has been the constant goal, to extract the truth from the forrest of deceptions, lies, spin, propaganda, agenda, etc. But not merely to extract the truth but to examine it, test it. Why? Because Truth Matters, and we as a society have forgotten that. We say silly things like "my truth" and "your truth" as if truth itself is malleable. The common paradigm demands that we think anyone insane who claims to have discovered anything actually true and knowable. The modern dialectic itself has become a lie, where the perception of truth is nearly impossible by anyone not aware of the "manipulation of consciousness" rampant in our culture, which flows though most any sentence of any common conversation billions of times a day. And in the sea of manipulated thinking and conversation our culture, our society, our communities and country, are spinning into chaos. Freedom is lost, slavery is encroaching. How could it not when the minds that form the culture are spinning into chaos?
This is off a cell phone txt to FB update - so here it is unedited: "I beleive the fight for standards of humane treatment of people, especially women, in certain US CENTCOM AOR regions of the world, is both humanitarean as well as intellectual and academically moral. I believe in intellectual honesty, logical consistency, and moral coherence. When I see these things twisted and robbed from the landscape of scholastic and journalistic discourse by the loathsome social disease of political correctness, and the unwillingness of secular western academics to confront atrocities in other cultures, it saddens me on several fronts. Not only does it bring out my seething distain for double standards, but it also hurts the very cultures that political correctness is supposedly seeking to empower and protect."
Wow! Succinct and true. We are so used to the power structure manipulating everything we see and hear that maybe it takes primitive survival conditions of the mountains of Afghanistan to breakthrough the somnambulistic stupor, created and humming away in our sub-conscious, drumming the pace, rhythm and direction of our thinking.
It is a fact that the public dialog wrapped in the deconstruction mechanism of political correctness is all spin, whether it is a discussion about an automobile brand, a politician or political action, a social question, a moral question or concept; it is all spin; merely different levels of lying, conducted inside a false dialectic and TRUTH is lost completely in the process. What people cannot seem to grasp any longer is that Truth Matters. Intellectual honesty, logical consistency, and moral coherence - i.e. moral sanity. I've said to him many times, "Perception of Truth is primarily a matter of character." How many do not have a clue what that means?
I was always reminded of the great gulf that was created when some protestant person, especially an evangelical would say, "Tell me about Orthodoxy. What do you believe?" Why would this create a gulf? Because I knew that as much as they thought they knew, they would not know even if I could explain it simply and succinctly. Why? Because the religious language they already possessed would make them misunderstand almost every thought I stated, unless I took a lot of time to first discover and then deconstruct their belief, so that I could then reconstruct a completely different but "related" version of the same belief, then compare and contrast. In self defense I started carrying around business card size versions of the Nicene Creed and the Jesus Prayer on one side and Psalms (50) 51 on the other side. If you are not an orthodox Christian you will not understand this paragraph.
So in the language of an artist: The artist develops something called "the artist's eye" or "the artist way of seeing." Unless you have developed this method of perceptions all descriptions of it sound silly. But once the artist's eye is gained, you can see with the properties of normal perception and at the same time see with very different perceptions. Honest it is true.
So in the language of a musician: Les Paul, the inventor of the electric Guitar was a gifted pianist, and at a young age was already Jackie Gleason's music director and pianist. He ran into Art Tatum (the greatest pianist of the 20th century - few people ever heard play) - Les said, "I watched the things he was doing on the keyboard, that seemed impossible but he did them with ease. That night I quit playing the piano and took up guitar." He told the story of taking his brother to see Art at a club. Art sat down and began with an extremely difficult downward run on the piano that actually required a gliss-slide of the thumb on three notes each octave, plus five notes with the five fingers, while his left hand play pedal tones, an almost impossible task, executed flawlessly. Les turned to his brother and said, "Well what did you think of that?" His brother asked, "What?" Les said, "that unbelievable run he started with!" His brother shrugged and said, "I used to make a sound just like that when mother would make me dust the piano." You see, Les was listening with highly trained and developed perceptions. His brother was hearing with normal untrained perceptions. It is the reason Art Tatum played piano gymnastics in creative patterns of unbelievable complexity and most people yawned, but every pianist in the world knew it was one step above anything they would ever do.
Oh Hell, let's make it simple. You ever played Where Is Waldo? Waldo's not there, but once you expend the mental energy to discover him, from then on you will easily perceive him. It requires an "epiphany" to discover Waldo. (Epiphany look it up.)
Once that Epiphany happens, watching Fox, CNN, all the talking heads, the instant they open their mouths, instead of accepting the lying spin that is ALWAYS THERE, you see the lying Waldo instead. Honest, once you see it, you will realize how nearly worthless ninety-nine percent of the programing is.
Once that Epiphany happens, watching Fox, CNN, all the talking heads, the instant they open their mouths, instead of accepting the lying spin that is ALWAYS THERE, you see the lying Waldo instead. Honest, once you see it, you will realize how nearly worthless ninety-nine percent of the programing is.
In this society our ability to perceive truth has been purposely stunted. Like some bent version of theology is substituted for the real making perception of the real almost impossible, or the normal way of seeing blinds the perceptions of "really seeing" as only gifted photographers and artists do, or how the lesser sounds of music never train the ear for the finer perceptions of music. The common dialectic - the common way of perceiving truth, forming truth and speaking truth - is false. The media, the pop-culture, the political debate, the 24/7 news cycle, rather than enlightening one, actually adds layers of scales to our eyes and blinds us from the perception of truth. Lost in the common dialectic we have no foundation, no rudder, no anchor, we are totally malleable, mere clay in the hands of our "handlers." And as a society, being handled, WE ARE.
If people cannot come to grasp that with their many good intentions they are creating slavery, we will indeed be enslaved.
As an Orthodox Priest, I have had many non-orthodox offer me proof that there Christianity is "real" and for the most part it would be one of the common brands of American cultural Christianity, which truthfully is pagan based. I would say, "Okay, but something is very wrong. Apostolic Christianity conquered the pagan Roman empire without firing a shot - so to speak - a totally peaceful conquering of the most massive empire of the day, and the only blood that was shed was the blood of Christian (real) martyrs. (not the hate filled modern murdering kind). Yet, here we are the polls say nearly eighty percent of Americans claim to be Christian and we are creating an increasingly hostile pagan society. Something has to be seriously wrong with that Christianity." And that is true something is terribly wrong with that Christianty, but what is it? It is not for the most part connected to TRUTH. The more educated or astute would say, "Wait a minute! The Holy Roman Empire which was Orthodox was conquered by Islam! And Russia that some dared called Holy Rus was conquered by Atheistic Communist Statism! Tell me what did that say about THAT christianity?" And he would be right; It wasn't for the most part connected to TRUTH.
It will require "humility" to give up the delusion that we may merely opine, based upon information we have haphazardly gathered from the culture and conclude that opinion is based in truth. Just because he theologize and/or philosophize and/or enter the political debate it may or may not, probably is not grounded in truth.
Thus those questions, "Where are we? How can we discover it? What do we do now?"
Everyone wants to start with the last. They say to me when they begin to perceive in panic the abyss into which these mad men have dumped our Republic, "Is that all you can do, harp and complain? Just tell me what you propose to do." I tell them and they cannot hear it; ninety-nine percent will say, "But you haven't offered any solutions!" They can't hear or take seriously the "first step" toward a future solution. What they mean when they say, "What do you propose we do?" is - "inside the fantasy of perceptions I own, how can you instantly and painlessly fix these things I see that now trouble me."
TRUTH MATTERS, because without a true view of our circumstances, a true view of our enemy, a true view of our tools or lack thereof, we cannot possibly perceive even the first step toward a solution. IF we don't have clear sight we cannot read the map, if our minds are blocked by fantasy, illusion and delusion we cannot hear the answers. TRUTH MATTERS.
Why should we NOT take them at their word.
I am in the presence of genius. Because of this, plus the fact that I am NOT a genius, I will continue to pester you with questions via FB, my friend. ;)
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