Jim's Blog

According to statistics that are likely out of date and obsolete there is a negative 0.2 correlation between religiosity and intelligence. A 0.2 correlation is substantial.

Of course, this relies on the definition of woke and progressivism as not religions. There is apt to be a positive correlation between adherence to the state religion, and intelligence, because you have to adhere, or at least pass as adhering, to the state religion, in order to be a member of the state or quasi state elite. And smart people are apt to do whatever it takes to get into the elite.

So, the state religion will have more of the smarties, and the other religions necessarily less. Unless, of course, the state religion is really stupid, and anyone smart is suspected of heresy, and therefore is not allowed into the state and quasi state elite.

For several decades, an IQ north of 140 locked you out of the elite. Then an IQ north of 130. These days it is starting to look more like an IQ north of 100, and it takes an IQ of at least 105 to make stuff work, to do almost any productive task unsupervised and self organised.

Because a state is necessarily based on a synthetic tribe, because faiths are synthetic tribes, and any synthetic tribe is going to have the characteristics of a faith, it has always been the case that adherence is required of members of the state and quasi state elite, and all states always are going to require adherence. Always have and always will. Separation of Church and State is always a lie. The question is always: what is the State Religion to be?

But some religions are considerably dumber than others.

The French Church of Reason, which was the enlightenment acknowledging what it is apt to deny, that it is a religion, was clever silly. Its priesthood had to be very very smart, in order to understand the very clever rationalisations for believing very silly things.

Similarly, Orthodox Judaism. You have to be mighty smart to understand the reasoning as to why gross violation of the Lord’s commandments constitutes the strictest adherence to them. As I have often remarked, the Talmud is in large part a vast collection of lawsuits against God which the Jews believe they won and God lost.

It is striking that Orthodox Jewish contribution to science and technology is absolutely insignificant, while Jewish contribution is considerable, and often very impressive. I conjecture that if you believe in a God that can be fooled and bamboozled with too clever by half rationalisations, you believe in a nature that can be fooled and bamboozled by clever lawyer tricks and bureaucratic bullshit, which as Richard Feynman observed, leads to attempting to launch rockets that blow up. As Feynman observed, nature cannot be fooled. Islam suffers a related a problem, because of its belief in a capricious and changeable God. If you believe in a God that can change and lie, you believe that Nature can change and lie. When debugging code, you are too likely to give up on Schrodinger bugs, like the infamous bug where LibreOffice could not print on Tuesdays, which kept being marked “will not fix”.

Unix and Linux has a notorious problem with reliably identifying file types, which has led to no end of bugs, due to shotgun parsing. It should have been immediately suspected that this was yet another one of those. In retrospect, the bug was not a Schrodinger bug at all. A Schrodinger bug is never a Schrodinger bug in retrospect. It is always something that should have been one of the usual suspects. I don’t think Islam was to blame for the “will not fix” dismissal of this bug, but Islam encourages the mindset that led to “will not fix”. “$#!% just happens, nothing one can do about it”. When one Linux program is passing a temporary file to another Linux program created by a different group of engineers, and something funny happens, file type misidentification should be on one’s list of the usual suspects.

The primary cause of Boeing’s Starliner moon mission just not getting off the ground, parts falling of Boeing airliners, and repeated “unusual extreme turbulence” events severely injuring Boeing airliner passengers and crew, seems to be tech lead Shaniqua, but tech lead Shaniqua’s “$#!% just happens, nothing one can do about it” mindset is clearly visible. Nasa gave launch approval with a “will not fix. $#!% just happens, nothing one can do about it” failure in the valve system, on the basis that the observed failures would not have led to any great harm. But if one valve fails mysteriously, and it does no great harm, another valve could fail mysteriously, and cause catastrophic mission failure. This is similar to what led to the Challenger disaster. They figured burn through in the Challenger booster was not doing enough harm to lead to catastrophe — but had no idea what was causing burn through, or why some burns burned further through than others. And one day it burned all the way through, which some people accurately predicted, and permanently lost their careers for accurately predicting.

Getting back on topic. The enlightenment faith was a very clever religion, a too clever by half religion, a clever silly religion. And an excellent example of this was the extraordinarily brilliant philosopher George Bernard Shaw, who believed in all sorts of completely stupid things. For example he visited Soviet Russia during the great Holodomor famine, and believed that the Soviet Union was doing a great job of looking after the peasant masses and that food was abundant.

But as our officially unofficial faith became holier and holier, it became sillier and sillier, and people just gave up concocting and learning clever rationalisations. The last clever rationaliser was Scott Alexander, who came up with no end of amazingly clever rationales for the grossest stupidity, and was predictably purged on suspicion of heresy.

Anyone really smart in the elite is really old or recently died, for example Larry Summers and Kissinger. The slightly younger ones, for example Hillary Clinton, are midwits, and the new generation of the elite is just stupid. It looks like the mean IQ of the Harvard intake is south of a hundred.

The Dark Enlightenment is smart and takes as its fundamental principle engaging with empirical reality through the scientific method, rather than finding clever reasons to ignore reality after the fashion of the Enlightenment and peer review. (Though these days I increasingly see peer review ignoring reality without bothering to find clever rationales for doing so.) The Dark Enlightenment is dark because, as Christians would say, mankind is fallen, and as the Dark Enlightenment says the same thing in game theoretic language, attaining cooperate cooperate equilibrium on a large scale is difficult.

Science is inherently a priestly profession. And if the official religion is unduly focused on the next world, it is apt to be stupid. And we see a lot stupid variants of Christianity. What made late seventeenth century, early eighteenth century Anglicanism such a great religion is it managed to endorse the scientific method as explained in the Sceptical Chymist. If nature is the direct manifestation of the will of a God that cannot change and cannot lie, then someone who directly has observed nature with his own hands and own eyes has special authority, and peer review and priestly consensus does not. Recall that the Puritans rioted and attempted to shut down the Royal Society, because the King was granting the scientific method status that they felt properly belonged to priests and prophets.

Well it does properly belong to priests and prophets. Prophets like Elon Musk and Richard Stallman, and priest prophets like Linus Torvalds. It belongs to the technomages. And the official state religion just has to make its peace with such people, as Charles the Second’s Anglicanism managed to do. Newton was rightly ordained and rightly buried in Westminster Abbey, even though his intellectual curiosity led to him dabbling in no end of heresies. The state and the state religion just has to do its best to include such difficult people in the state religion, because it has to include them in the state and quasi state elite, or else the state will wind up with a stupid state religion and a hostile elite outside the state and state religion.

A lot of versions of Christianity are infamously somewhat stupid: Young Earth creationism is faithful to an overliteral interpretation of scripture and is stupid. I have good authority for arguing that it is overliteral, since Saint Augustine argued it was overliteral, neglecting the spiritual meaning for an interpretation as history and geography, long before anyone knew it was stupid. Mariolatory is stupid and a gross violation of scripture and Christian morality.

Right now we have problem with perverts in the schools, in child protective services, in the scouts, in every quasi state institution that can give a pervert access to other people’s children, with the schools and similar services sexually mutilating other people’s children. And Christians are very quiet about this. By and large, it is the stupidest versions of Christianity that are quietest. Russian Orthodoxy is not quiet, but the credit for that belongs to Putin’s nukes, not to its doctrines. It is a lot safer to criticise Western state immorality and heresy when located in Russia.

Today is Resurrection Sunday. I promised this blog will not become a Christian blog, but religion is on topic when it affects material and effective causation.

The faith of the Dark Enlightenment is Nature or Nature’s God, Gnon, but holy war is coming, and you need to bring a gun to gunfight and a faith to a holy war. Nature is not going to cut it, because it provides an inadequate basis for cooperate/cooperate equilibrium. Nature provides an argument that you should cooperate with cooperators and defect on defectors, but believing that will not convince a counterparty that you are a cooperator. You are not going to win a holy war unless Christ is King. And by, the way, saying “Christ is King” has just been deemed anti semitic and grounds for being cancelled, deplatformed, and demonetized, the state of South Dakota banned important elements of Easter a few days before Easter (the events relating to the curse upon the Jews), and Biden has just made Resurrection Sunday tranny day. We have long had metaphorical war on Christmas — you cannot buy Christmas wrapping paper in the United States that has Christian symbolism on it, now war on Easter. Literal war gets considerably closer.

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The story so far: Christ has been crucified. On the cross he lamented the punishment of the Jews, reminded us of the parable of the fig tree, and promised the repentant thief, and us all, resurrection, and the women laid him in the tomb. And on the third day:

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Luke 24:
1. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.

2. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

3. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

4. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

5. And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

6. He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,

7. Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.

8. And they remembered his words,

9. And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.

10. It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.

11. And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

12. Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.

13. And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.

14. And they talked together of all these things which had happened.

15. And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.

16. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

17. And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?

18. And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?

19. And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:

20. And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.

21. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.

22. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;

23. And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

24. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.

25. Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:

26. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?

27. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

28. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further.

29. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.

30. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.

31. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.

32. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

33. And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,

34. Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.

35. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.

36. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

37. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.

38. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

39. Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

40. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

41. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?

42. And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.

43. And he took it, and did eat before them.

44. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

45. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

46. And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

47. And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

48. And ye are witnesses of these things.

49. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

50. And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.

51. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

52. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:

53. And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.

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OK, he shows up, demonstrates he has a physical human body thoroughly and at considerable length, issues a very short mission statement, and leaves. The mission statement is for all time and all men. Acts two and three continue with a whole lot of stuff about the Jews, which is now illegal in South Dakota, but I leave that out, for the question now is. How shall we apply this mission our time, with our culture, our history, and our people? Forget the Jews, that was Peter’s problem, not our problem.

In past Easter posts I have Streisanded what is now illegal in South Dakota, but today is a bigger day than that. Peter was addressing his problem, but we have our problem.

We all have our personal sins — for me, Lust, Gluttony, and Wrath. Gluttony got me into big trouble, but I adequately recovered from that problem and am now healthy BMI and WHR. Lust and Wrath has led to no end of actions that theoretically should have gotten me into big trouble, but amazingly have not. But perhaps my biggest sins with the worst and most tragic consequences for me were weakness — that I failed to adequately resist the evil demands of the state, that like Adam, I failed to exercise the authority I had the right and duty to exercise. These, unlike my purely personal sins, had consequences for me.

Why is today Good? Because we remember the forgiveness of sins.

You already know today’s story and how its ends, but briefly recapping the story so far: Jesus has been betrayed, arrested, and beaten, and Peter chickened out at the last minute — which foreshadows some important things much later in the gospels, but that is not part of the Easter story.

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Luke 22:
63. And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him.

64. And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?

65. And many other things blasphemously spake they against him.

66. And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led him into their council, saying,

67. Art thou the Christ? tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe:

68. And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go.

69. Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.

70. Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.

71. And they said, What need we any further witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.

Luke 23:
1. And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate.

2. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.

3. And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it.

4. Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man.

5. And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.

6. When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilaean.

7. And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time.

8. And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him.

9. Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing.

10. And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him.

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I will interject a little background here. Israel suffered from divided sovereignty, which not long after these events became considerably more divided.

Herod theoretically ruled as King, but he was a clearly illegitimate King and dependent on Roman soldiers, not his own. The hereditary priesthood, the Sadducees, theoretically ruled, and had legitimacy, but lacked capability. The pharisees, open entry priests, roughly equivalent to lawyers and legacy newsmen today in the political sense, and to today’s Orthodox Rabbis in the religious sense, were pushing on the hereditary priesthood’s turf, and getting away with a fair bit of actual rule, which rule Jesus complains about in the previous Easter posts. The Romans had the swords, and actually ruled, but were, like today’s Global American Empire, reluctant to admit to ruling and tried to rule through proxies, but their proxies were weak and quarrelsome. The Pharisees had a mob, the Romans an army. Herod not much of an army, the hereditary priesthood even less. Any power Herod had, the Romans gave it to him to keep their hands off events, and when those events might cause trouble for Herod, he dumped them back on the Romans. The Sadducees were sane and not particularly evil, unlike the Pharisees, but they did not really believe their faith, so no one else believed it either, analogous to today’s Anglican Church. Which left them with considerably less power that their legitimacy supposedly provided them, hence the frequent chaos in Jerusalem that the Romans and Herod found difficult. And, like the Pharisees, they did not want any religious competition.

Because Jerusalem was a problem that Herod was unable to handle, the Romans were openly and directly ruling Jerusalem, but they did not want to. Since the Romans had the actual rule, in this sense it was not the Jews that killed Christ but Italians that killed Christ, but the Romans had no interest in Jewish religious disputes, and viewed the heresy and blasphemy charges against Jesus Christ as silly and incomprehensible. They were trying to accommodate the demands of their proxies. It was the proxies (Pharisees, the religious faction in Israel that survived as today’s Jews) that demanded the crucifixion. The Romans thought that this was all just more incomprehensible Jewish trouble, of which they had had plenty, and in the coming years would have plenty more.

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Luke 23:
11. And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate.

12. And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves.

13. And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people,

14. Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him:

15. No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him.

16. I will therefore chastise him, and release him.

17. (For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.)

18. And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas:

19. (Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison.)

20. Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them.

21. But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.

22. And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go.

23. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.

24. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.

25. And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will.

26. And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.

27. And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.

28. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.

29. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.

30. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.

31. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?

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Recall in the Palm Sunday post Jesus weeping for Jerusalem as he drew nigh. For their collective sins, the Jews were going to suffer collective punishment. Also recall the fig tree in the Maundy Thursday post that was green, but without fruit, and soon was withered.

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32. And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death.

33. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

34. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

35. And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

36. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar,

37. And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.

38. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

39. And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

40. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

41. And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

42. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

43. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

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And this is the good news that makes this Good Friday.

Jesus was crucified between two thieves; One was hardened to the last, one repented of his sins. The one that repented and accepted Christ stands for us.

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44. And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

45. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

46. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

47. Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.

48. And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.

49. And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things.

50. And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just:

51. (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.

52. This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.

53. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.

54. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.

55. And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.

56. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.

In this post we cover the last supper and the events leading up to it, starting with Palm Sunday where it starts to turn ominous. The previous Palm Sunday post stopped in the middle of first foreshadowing

In the Palm Sunday post, we remembered Christs triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The crowds went wild because he had resurrected Lazarus. And then Christ prophesies his crucifixion.

Jesus, after having prophesied his crucifixion and resurrection, addresses the pharisees, and, in the midst of the crowd joyfully accepting him, prophesies that Jerusalem will be destroyed for rejecting him.

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Luke 19

37. And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;

38.Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.

39.And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.

40.And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

41.And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

42.Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

43.For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,

44.And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

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On Palm Sunday, Jesus enters the temple and casts out the money changers. He continues to go the temple daily, and it is not clear which event belongs to which day, so these events tend to be recollected on some subsequent day, which practice I am following. The writers of the Gospels themselves could not keep it straight.

And now a little correction to modern day post Christian doctrine of Jesus the pacifist hippy Jewish community organiser.

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Mathew 21:

12. And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

13. And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

14. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.

15. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased,

16. And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

17. And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.

18. Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.

19. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.

20. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!

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As miracles go, withering the fig tree seems a bit underwhelming. It may well be seen as significant because the fig tree was used as a symbol of the nation of Israel on the King’s coins, and because of his earlier parable of the fig tree, which parable I will now interject without worrying about chronological order, not that anyone is quite sure about chronological order. Nor does anyone care much about chronological order, for these events took place in eternity as well as in the world and the flesh.

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Luke 13:
6. He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.

7. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?

8. And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:

9. And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

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So Christ is digging about the nation of Israel and dunging it, but it did not bear fruit.

On the next day after Palm Sunday, or possibly some subsequent day at the temple, Christ prophesies.

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Matthew 21:
32. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.

33. Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:

34. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.

35. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.

36. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.

37. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.

38. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.

39. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.

40. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?

41. They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

42. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?

43. Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

44. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

45. And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.

46. But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.

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In short, Israel is no longer Israel. We are the new Israel, and a nation that is faithful to the Lord shall not perish. A false profession commonly withers in this world, and it is the effect of Christ’s curse. The fig-tree that had no fruit, soon lost its leaves. This represents the state of the nation and people of the Jews in particular. Our Lord Jesus found among them nothing but leaves. And after they rejected Christ, blindness and hardness grew upon them, till they were undone, and their place and nation rooted up.

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Mathew 22:
36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38. This is the first and great commandment.

39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

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Which taken out of context can be interpreted as Jesus the hippy pacifist Jewish community organiser, but not everyone in the world is your neighbour, and before this and after this we see some tough love from Jesus.

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Christ denounces the Pharisees. His denunciation of the pharisees applies to modern day Judaism, which is Phariseeism, other forms of Judaism having converted to Christianity or otherwise vanished.
Judaism legalistically evades the law and the commandments, in the same way as Christ condemns. Jews are continuously generating new laws, and energetically boring loopholes through old laws, until the loophole is so large and much used that only the rim around the loopholes remains.

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Mathew 23:
23. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

24. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

25. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

26. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

27. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.

28. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

29. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,

30. And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

31. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

32. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

33.Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

34. Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

35. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

36. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

38. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

39. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

---

Similar deserved vengeance will fall on every church and nation which is Christian in name only. In the mean time the Saviour stands ready to receive all who come to him. There is nothing between sinners and eternal happiness, but their proud and unbelieving unwillingness.

A nation that encourages abortion, homosexuality, and transexuality will lack cohesion. Lacking cohesion, will be unable to choose between peace and war, and so there will be war, a war in which, lacking cohesion, it will defeat itself, as Israel foolishly and self destructively drifted into war with Rome over small matters in which it was obviously the wicked party. And soon the nukes may well fly.

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Mathew 26:
17. Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover?

18. And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples.

19. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover.

20. Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve.

21. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.

22. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?

23. And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.

24. The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.

25. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.

26. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.

27. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;

28. For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

29. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.

30. And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.

31. Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.

32. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.

33. Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.

34. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

35. Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples.

36. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.

37. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.

38. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.

39. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

40. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?

41. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

42. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.

43. And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy.

44. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.

45. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

46Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.

47. And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

48. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

49. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.

50. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him.

51. And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear.

52. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

53. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?

54. But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?

55. In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me.

56.But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.

57. And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled.

58. But Peter followed him afar off unto the high priest’s palace, and went in, and sat with the servants, to see the end.

59. Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death;

60. But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,

61. And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

62. And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?

63. But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

64. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

65. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.

66. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.

67. Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,

68. Saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?

69. Now Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee.

70. But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest.

71. And when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.

72. And again he denied with an oath, I do not know the man.

73. And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.

74. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew.

75. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

Normally this blog does not note the high holy days of Easter, except for Resurrection Sunday every now and again.

But, since the State of South Dakota has criminalised Good Friday a few days before Easter, I will Streisand the high holy days of Easter, among them Good Friday.

Today we remember Christs triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Which starts to get even more ominous tomorrow, but I will not tell that part until Maundy Thursday and the last supper.

This post legal in South Dakota. The Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday posts will be illegal in South Dakota, especially the Good Friday post, because they will consist largely of portions of the New Testament that are now illegal in South Dakota, and have long been dangerous for any pastor anywhere in the Global American Empire to mention.

John Chapter 12:

12. On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,

13. Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.

14. And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written,

15. Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt.

16. These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.

17. The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record.

18. For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle.

19. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.

20. And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast:

21. The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.

22. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.

23. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.

24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

25. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

26. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

27. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

28. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

29. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.

30. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.

31. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

32. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

33. This he said, signifying what death he should die.

Phariseeism is the same thing as modern day Judaism. The Pharisees were eliminated in Israel, as prophesied, but survived in Babylon, and created the Talmud in the sixth century of our lord. Modern day Judaism is Talmudism, and the Talmud is a great pile of horrifying demonic stuff.

Christianity plausibly claimed to revive a faith more ancient than Abraham, of which Phariseeism was a heretical corruption. Christ is King and High priest in the line of Melchizedek (mortal) and also the Stoic Logos made flesh (divine). (Thus Christianity incorporates Greek stoicism)

Worship of the God of Abraham long predates Abraham, and worship by an organised priesthood was operating at the time of Abraham. Melchizedek, King of Salem (and King of Righteousness), interacts with Abraham as a King interacts with an ally who possesses a substantial armed force, and as a priest to an adherent of his well established and widespread faith. As King of Salem, and dealing with political and military troubles, obviously mortal, and nothing in the Bible says he was not wholly mortal. On the other hand, nothing in the Bible says he was not also something more. In the war the bible describes, we see armed forces cohering on the basis of kinship in the male line, and also cohering with nonkin on the basis of shared faith and piety. Christianity is that shared faith, more ancient than Abraham, plus the sacrifice of God to Man bringing forgiveness of sins.

There are frequent unkind references to Jews in the New Testament. These should be interpreted as references to Pharisees, to the Jews of modern Judaism, who are under a curse for Deicide. And the way the wind blows, they are likely to be expelled from Israel yet again.

Phariseeism

The problem was that the Jews were holiness spiralling the letter of the law to evade the spirit of the law. They were, and still are, Jewing God. They holiness spiral the letter in order to flat out disobey the commandments.

The letter of the law ended because following the letter of the law had become wicked, and this wickedness led to catastrophic consequences.

Gnon was not amused, so sent his son down to tell them to cut it out. They, as Jesus prophesied, killed him. They then became the unchosen people, eternally cursed for deicide. Kings who accept Jesus Christ as Lord have interpreted his commentary on legalism as requiring them to compose laws suited for their times, their circumstances, the nature of their people, and the history of the people, but which give effect to the spirit of Old Testament law. Which seems an obvious and obviously correct interpretation. King Alfred saw himself as divinely appointed to issue laws for the Angles and Saxon whose spirit followed the Old Testament, but whose letter adapted Roman law and Saxon custom.

I have told this story many times, and will now tell it yet again. (Finally promoting it to a post:)

The Jews were Jewing God. They still are.

In the time of Jesus, as now, the Jews were Jewing God, violating the law by scrupulously and carefully obeying it. Gnon was not amused, and the Jews suffered dreadful consequences.

Legalism had become rejection of the commandments, instead of observance of them.

It was divinely prophesied that if the Israelites collectively violated the commandments, they would be expelled from Israel. They violated the commandments, Jewing God by strictly observing the letter of the law in ways that violated the spirit and intent of the commandments, and, by massively violating the commandments, pissed off their neighbours, among them the Romans. Cause and effect. And because they were terribly self righteous about their violation of the commandments, one thing led to another. Chance and necessity. And the Romans expelled them.

The letter of the law, under the accretion of new laws to deal with new circumstances, and the scribes and pharisees re-interpreting and re-re-interpreting old laws, had come to have meanings and effects grossly contrary to the spirit and intent of the commandments.

This is addressed at length in the New Testament, but is most unambiguously revealed not in the New Testament, but in the incidents that led to the prophesied expulsion of the Jews from Israel and the prophesied destruction of the Temple.

The New Testament ends just before these incidents, probably because the people who were writing it all got killed in them.

Legalism had became the grossest possible violation of the commandments, which violation pissed off not only Jesus and Christians, but also Israel’s neighbours, and among them, the short tempered six hundred pound gorilla, Rome.

Shortly after murdering Paul, James the just, brother of Christ, and James’s wife, the Jews murdered a Roman cop. And because they were as self righteous about this incident as they were about murdering the disciples one thing led to another, and eventually to mass murder on an enormous scale.

The Jews were so uptight about avoiding contamination by blood, that in order to avoid walking on land contaminated by chicken blood, they proceeded to violate the commandments on coveting, stealing, and murder. They got themselves covered in the blood of a Roman cop who was courageously attempting to impartially enforce Roman order to the benefit of all, illustrating in blood Jesus’s rant about whited sepulchers and his lectures on the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law. And not long thereafter, they illustrated those lectures in oceans of blood.

Pharisaical legalism manifested as coveting, robbery, and murder, while Christian legalism (which is far less common) tends to manifest first in adultery, then in sodomy and trannieism.

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘The Wages of Sin is Death’

The Pharisaical Jews at the end of the second temple period wound up murdering a whole lot of Pharisaical Jews, and burned the food stores while Jerusalem was under siege by the Romans.

The second Christian heresy was the super strict chaster than thou sexual morality of Nicolas the Deacon, one of the seven Deacons appointed by the apostles, which in practice manifested as cuckoldry and adultery, as the strict sexual morality of today’s Vatican manifested first in liberally nullifying inconvenient marriages, and now as sodomy. Married priests with obedient children are unacceptable, but priests having sex with each other in a great big pile are consenting adults.

The Logos

I explain the meaning of “Logos” at length in “The Logos”

For Aristotle, “logos” (“word”) was rational and responsive debate, and the meaning of that debate – the kind of debate I encourage on my blog. But obviously this debate is going to be substantially about moral truths

Natural law is law and right conduct deduced from the way the universe is, and the way it works: the moral and social meaning of physical law, of material and effective causation.

But meaning requires a meaner, requires a person. So, around three hundred years before Christ, fifty years after Aristotle, “the logos” (“the word”) came to mean a person. That person, the person that gave rise to physical law, logos spermatikos, to material and effective and causation, was The Logos (the word). A person who meant the moral and social truths that arise from material and effective causation.

I explain the tactical and strategic consequences of this doctrine (by their fruits you will know them) in “The Logos has risen“.

Nature is not amoral. It is the logos manifest. A bird must fly, and a human must cooperate. Failure to fly is failure of telos, failure to succeed in cooperation is failure of telos. Our race is about to go extinct by the inability of men and women to cooperate on reproduction, assuming we do not nuke ourselves first. This natural condition implies certain rightful norms of natural law and biblical law, norms that progressivism has repudiated for men and women, repudiated for races, and repudiated for armed nation states, some of them nuclear armed.

The God of Abraham was the God of Melchizedek, and Melchizedek was priest King, and Abraham was not. Christianity is the restoration of a faith older than Abraham. If you purge all the Aryan “additions” from Christianity, such as natural law and sacramental marriage, it is not Christian any more. The Christian doctrine of the Logos gives reality moral authority, since reality is a manifestation of will of God. Sacred marriage comes from the old Greek Aryan tradition, and was plonked into Christianity by Jesus himself. The logos comes Greek philosophy, and was plonked into Christianity directly by the apostles, who attributed it to Christ himself. The attribution is complex and arguable, but they were there and we were not. Christmas comes from a later period, from the fourth century of our lord, when Christians were a minority in power, and wanted to pull in the majority, hence its nature as Christian celebration to which all are invited regardless of faith. Although sacramental marriage comes directly from Christ, also directly from old Aryan faith, the Aryan tradition of only one wife (all children by concubines being illegitimate and not inheriting the property and rank of nobility of the father) seems to have been quietly assumed and accepted a little later, assumed as implied, the Jewish tradition at the time being many wives of equal status.

Anyone who uses the term “logos”, as in “The Logos is Rising” is usually aggressive defender of trinitarianism and Christ’s deity, and is usually also an aggressive opponent of egalitarianism, feminism, and all that. What I see is a strong correlation between forceful support of the ancient other worldly doctrines of Christianity, and forceful support of the ancient this worldly doctrines of Christianity, from marriage to Christmas, “Pagan” additions and all. Those who want to purify Christianity from “Pagan” additions want to count Melchizedek as pagan and will tell us that Paul was wrong or disingenuous to count the temple in Athens as dedicated to “I am that I am”.

The Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius justifies the Stoic doctrine of forgiveness and mercy from the fact that we necessarily have imperfect information about the other, paralleling the Game Theoretic Dark Enlightenment rationale for one tit for two tats. And he practised this doctrine, while at the same time performing his job as emperor, which frequently required him, like Saint Justinian the emperor, to kill people in considerable numbers.

Around 350 years before Christ, paganism had died among the intellectuals. Not long after, it died among the common people, for we read writers in the late Roman Republic ridiculing attempts to motivate the common soldiers by appeal to faith. They believed the ordinary soldier was even more cynical than themselves.

So the philosophers set to work manufacturing a replacement.

For Aristotle, “logos” (“word”) was rational and responsive debate, and the meaning of that debate – the kind of debate I encourage on my blog.

But obviously this debate is going to be substantially about moral truths

Moral truths from material and effective causation:

For example the red pill on women implies that we should restore the social technology our ancestors had for dealing with the woman problem, law on women sex and family in the spirit of Old Testament sex and family law, and similarly, the debate on anarchy, stationary bandits, the warrior class, and the existence of the state – if you don’t have an army, and that army a leader, you will soon have a hostile foreign army in occupation. Or, worse, mobile banditry. And that army is going to have to be funded, hence taxes, also known as stationary banditry. So a warrior is honorable if he fights not for gold alone, but for God, King, and Country. And, similarly the debate about religion and state religion. If you don’t have a good state religion, you will shortly have a very bad one, for a priesthood, like an army, is a mechanism of large scale cooperation by a group that seeks to impose its will on a larger group. (Harvard.) The “no establishment of religion” clause is not viable or even meaningful except as in accord with the Westphalian principle that each state has its own state religion, and no one attempts to impose one state religion on all states.

The sovereign needs to establish consensus, for no man rules alone. Establishing consensus is what priesthoods do, as armies do command and coercion, so a priesthood is going get in bed with the sovereign, and he with them. They need him, and he needs them. Holiness spiral is apt to ensue when they get the upper hand.

The Logos as a person.

Natural law is law and right conduct deduced from the way the universe is, and the way it works: the moral and social meaning of physical law, of material and effective causation.

But meaning requires a meaner, requires a person. So, around three hundred years before Christ, fifty years after Aristotle, “the logos” (“the word”) came to mean a person. That person, the person that gave rise to physical law, logos spermatikos, to material and effective and causation, was The Logos (the word). A person who meant the moral and social truths that arise from material and effective causation.

Which Stoic doctrine is right there in the New Testament: The Gospel of John, Chapter one, verse one:

In the beginning was the Word, [The Logos] and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Game theory 101, prisoners dilemma. Everyone should cooperate with cooperators and defect on defectors. tit for tat.

But while we get good results if everyone does that, the individual incentive is to be seen as a cooperator, in order that he can defect. And the priesthood is apt to manipulate the consensus to disguise defection as cooperation, hence Christ’s indictment of Jewish legalism. The Talmud is a great pile of too clever by half lawsuits against God.

So the stoics, starting three hundred before Christ or so, personified the logos, as the person that animated the universe, made it real, not just an idea.

And Christianity announced that that person had shown up, fully man and fully God, and announced game theory 301, and suffered everything that flesh can suffer.

Game theory 301, in a world of imperfect information, one tit for two tats, or else everyone gets stuck in defect/defect. So, turn the other cheek, but you only have two cheeks, and walk the extra mile, but only one extra mile. Peace on earth to all men of good will, but Old Testament solutions are applicable to men of bad will. Christianity is not a suicide pact.

But again, this sound policy, though in the collective interest, is not in the individual interest. But it is in the individual interest to be part of group that attempts to ensure conformity to it.

So you attempt to deduce law and right conduct, the behavior and beliefs that distinguish a man it is safe to cooperate with, from a man that it is dangerous to have anything to do with, from the nature of the universe. But you are not going to persuade anyone that you will in fact conform to this behavior, unless you regard the meaning of the universe as the will of a person.

Classic Romano Greek paganism was long dead, Aristotle tried to substitute meaning without an author to mean it, and that did not fly either.  So the stoics had to personify the logos, through whom all things were created.

So, Christianity.  Which is stoicism plus all the excellent social technology preserved in the Old Testament from the Bronze Age before it went decadent, plus The Logos showing up in person and suffering all that flesh can suffer.

And, since Christianity contains the philosophy that best leads to large scale extended cooperation, it needs to be the state religion, and the state needs it to be the state religion. No man rules alone, and the sovereign needs a priesthood that cooperates with him. So Christianity and good conduct in ordinary everyday family life needs to be a requirement for state and quasi state office. Equality before the law for all married taxpaying Christian men with children.