If Enlightenment Is Real, Christianity Is the True Religion.

 This is because enlightenment is non-universal, and its non-universality would imply that the Christian accounting of what an enlightened state is within its religious structure is the only judicious and merciful presentation of it. Enlightenment as presented in Karmic religions like Buddhism is actually both very undeveloped and unfair, and in the one case where it is developed to a greater degree, it reveals that the root of Buddhism is false.

If the average human is constitutionally incapable of enlightenment, this would mean that enlightened people would need to be private to some degree concerning their status. Perhaps even to deny it, and insist in their own frailty (as Christian saints do). For it is the case that enlightenment cannot be universal to everyone in this lifetime due to tragedy, circumstances of birth, disability, and just the generalized fact that the average human is constitutionally incapable of achieving the levels of wisdom and self-control characteristic of enlightenment.  

And, in this context, the way that Buddhism and Hindusim treat enlightenment become even more questionable, because one’s status as enlightened would have to be a far more private affair. This is because:

- Pride and gaudy displays of your achievement are fundamentally egotistical and prideful, which goes against what we know to be enlightened behavior. I
- It would also not make sense to reveal access to a higher level of reasoning and moral truth as an 'enlightened' person to people who cannot actually follow that path, and so dangling this reality before them would serve no good purpose. You may be able to theoretically help a limited number achieve it by revealing you know the way, but to display this in front of the masses, receive honor and prestige, and simply say that this is a merit-building activity for them doesn’t track well. It far more tracks with it being an exercise in ego.
- It would be frustrating and generally unhelpful to the unenlightened to feel the gap between themselves and the enlightened knowing it could not be closed.

Thus:

(1) The truest Buddhist and Hindu doctrines would likely be heavily reliant on the very literal ideas of obtaining merit through acts of discipline, obedience, and discipleship to be reborn in a state capable of enlightenment, yet:

Karmic faiths that do not emphasize the mercy of divine beings or rebirth are utterly lost in the egalitarian impulse of modernization. The only way that they can seem to remain valid is retconning them so that "Eastern teachers have presented a palatable version to Moderns with the hope that they accumulate merit as comparatively faithless people, employing skillful means."

We must insist on this because it seems many of the greatest minds in the East & West are completely one-shotted by the egalitarian education that would call out unequal access to enlightenment as a fundamentally unfair barrier to paradise, and thus a form of bias they would not be able to square with a “good universe.”

Yet, the modern inclination toward providing access to paradise to the non-elite is not a gross stance, right. It’s a reflection of a healthy impulse to always account for the downtrodden, and so it would make more sense to flip this whole thing around and suggest that this is more proof for a universe presided over by the Christian God:

The impulse toward mercy to the weaker lifeform is the most correct impulse, and it is present in all humans and manifested most obviously in the modern world where everyone is concerned about fairness.

Virtually only Christianity adequately does this, and Mahayana Buddhism does this inadequately, because

 

(2) Mahayana is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, an innovation by later Buddhists on the initial doctrine that tries to grapple with the fact that Buddhism is completely unfair to the householder who cannot hope to obtain enlightenment with their status in life, and Mahayana solves the problem by relying heavily on Bodhisattvas appearing as a deus ex Machina to solve this.

Now the layman can lead a normal life in good faith, and if on his death bed he recites a sutra, he can expect that Avalokitesvara hears him and, mercifully, allows for his rebirth in a higher Buddha plane setting him up for eventual Nirvana.

Buddhism is thus, of course, a religion that is false at its root and subsequently reformed to account for this theological plot hole.

There is no real dogma of progressive revelation within Buddhism, and any such insistence would be post-hoc, so the falsehood of Mahayana is obvious. It’s an innovation on a theology that is fundamentally stillborn.  

(3) Christianity accounts for non-universal accessibility to enlightenment in its theology, ecclesiology, and soteriology. Its actual starting point on this topic is rooted in reality while Buddhism and Hinduism both fail to clarify this at the start.

For the general thrust of it affirms that one can obtain Sainthood (our analog for being an enlightened one), but the path to such is generally considered so rigorous and sin so common that it is not even actively promoted as a universal path at all. Rather, the layman is expected to repent and focus on personal betterment, never expecting literal Sainthood.

(4) Christianity is the truest religion of enlightenment because it also emphasizes humility over ‘non-self.’

Humility is a far more practical, personal value that simple people can actualize, and the actualization of humility produces some sense of non-self. At the highest form of humility, non-self is obtained.

But Buddhism is an inversion of this: it promotes the obtainment of non-self, which is a stumbling block to the normal person, and it even sets up the doctrine in such a way where the virtues of humility can be lost in favor of the philosophical complexity of practicing egolessness and non-self.

This goes back to what I have heard said before: Buddhism contrasts sharply with the truth and seems often to be an inversion of it. Not in the silly way that the Satanists literally invert things, but in the sense that, being just metaphysically wrong about the structure of the universe and the dialectic behind moral advancement, it frequently comes to mirror conclusions about the truth.

So, if we accept the idea that Enlightenment is real, Christianity is the true religion.

Vietnamese Agriculture Being Destroyed by Hydropower Dams

Recently, a Vietnamese friend of mine told me about the ongoing problems facing the Vietnamese agriculturally due to the damming of the Mekong river. It came up in a discussion on a Chess Forum and I was delighted by the information that I was able to find pertaining to this. 

 How dams starve the Mekong River Delta of vital sediment

But as Chinese-built hydroelectric dams have mushroomed upriver, much of that sediment is being blocked, an analysis of satellite data by Germany-based aquatic remote sensing company EOMAP and Reuters shows. The analysis reinforces an estimate by the Mekong River Commission, set up in 1995 by countries bordering the river, that in 2020 only about a third of those river-borne soils would reach the Vietnamese floodplains, and at the current rate of decline, less than five million tonnes of sediment will be reaching the delta each year by 2040.

… The amount of sediment going downstream in 2007 was 143 million tons!

Stretching nearly 5,000 kilometres from the Plateau of Tibet to the South China Sea, the Mekong is a farming and fishing lifeline for tens of millions as it swirls through China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia before reaching Vietnam.

“The river is not bringing sediment, the soil is salinised,” said Cung, 60, who has grown rice at his family’s 10-hectare farm for more than 40 years.

“Without sediment, we are done,” he said. His steadily diminishing harvest now brings in barely half of the 250 million dong ($10,636) annually that he earned just a few years ago, and his two children and several neighbours have left the area to seek more stable and lucrative work elsewhere.

Terrible!

And check this out:

Tidal amplification and salt intrusion in the Mekong Delta driven by anthropogenic sediment starvation

While offshore M2 tidal amplitude increases by 1.2–2 mm yr−1 due to sea level rise, tidal amplitude within the delta is increasing by 2 cm yr−1 and salinity in the channels is increasing by 0.2–0.5 PSU yr−1. We relate these changes to 2–3 m bed level incisions in response to sediment starvation, caused by reduced upstream sediment supply and downstream sand mining, which seems to be four times more than previous estimates. The observed trends cannot be explained by deeper channels due to relative sea level rise; while climate change poses grave natural hazards in the coming decades, anthropogenic forces drive short-term trends that already outstrip climate change effects.

…

The earlier estimates28 of total sediment transported by MR were c. 160 Mt yr−1, but recent estimates27,36,62,63 range between 40–110 Mt yr−1. While only 13.5% of total VMD discharge springs from upper Mekong basin (Chinese Lancang-Mekong River), 40–60% of total Mekong sediment load originates from that stretch of the basin5,60. Estimates of sediment reduction rate from Chinese catchments due to 6 mainstream dams range between 40–90%5,36,64,65. Considering the hydropower development in Mekong tributaries, the aggregate sediment trapping of the dams are predicted to reduce sediment supply by 36%(moderate)−95%(worst case)66 and a recent study67 measured 75% reduction in sediment supply to the VMD. Furthermore, although sand export was banned in Cambodia and Vietnam, domestic consumption persisted. Projections to 204068 show more than 1500 Mm3 demand within the VMD for infrastructure development. Figure 1 shows the spatial distribution of sand mining within the VMD and upstream in Cambodia. The issued mining licences in Vietnam, in 2015, summed up to 28 Mm3 yr−1 (40–50 Mt yr−1), which is four times the previous estimates10. Considering that this does not account for sand mining in Cambodia, Laos and possible illegal sand mining, only in Vietnam, this amount is likely to be close to 100% (or more) of the total fluvial sediment supply.

…

While sea level is rising at nearly 3 mm yr−169 and consequently, M2 tidal amplitude over the Mekong continental shelf is increasing by 1.2–2 mm yr−149, the M2 tidal amplification within the delta is c. 2 cm yr−1 (e.g., at My Thuan), and salinity is rapidly increasing in the delta by 0.2–0.5 PSU yr−1, notwithstanding the increased upstream discharge due to CC and hydropower operations. The way SLR [Sea Level Rise] affects salt intrusion is a) by increasing channel depths, b) increasing offshore tidal amplitudes and c) increasing tidal amplitudes within the estuarine channels. Furthermore, the anthropogenic land subsidence11,12 possibly also contributes to deeper channels by c. 1–4 cm yr−1. On the other hand, in physical terms, sediment deficit has similar effects as relative SLR; i.e., it results in deeper channels and larger tidal amplitudes which lead to increased SWI [Salt Water Intrusion]. However, relative SLR (including land subsidence) in the past 15 years would perhaps sum up to c. 20–30 cm, while our presented evidence in this study, backed by previous research, indicates bed level incisions in the order of 2–3 m. Therefore, it is inevitable to conclude that anthropogenic trends outpace climate change trends by an order of magnitude and pose larger threats in the short term while exacerbating the medium to long term climate change impacts.

Tidal amplification and salt intrusion in the Mekong Delta driven by anthropogenic sediment starvation | Scientific Reports

Queer Joy & Resistance

 From an article in Salon:

When progressive political commentator Keith Edwards recently turned the New York City Pride March into a two-hour livestream of queer joy, he put a name on what he was doing. The GLAAD-backed broadcast was built, in part, for people watching alone in states where Pride can feel dangerous. “One of the most radical things you can do in a moment of extreme fear and a moment of authoritarianism,” he told The Advocate, “is to experience joy and happiness.”

Weeks earlier, RuPaul had posted that the only response to fascism was to party and dance, and was sharply criticized for it. Two moments, weeks apart, but the same uneasy question beneath both of them: Is joy resistance? Or is it what we call avoidance when we want avoidance to sound principled?

In a country where LGBTQ+ people are watching their rights stripped away in statehouses, drag performers turned into political targets and trans people used as campaign-season fuel, “go dance” can sound almost heartless. But queer people have had this argument before.

In a 2013 Washington Blade essay about coming out during the AIDS crisis, Dave Purdy remembered older gay men telling him it was wrong for his generation to dance, party or enjoy themselves while their gay brothers were sick and dying. He and his friends rejected that view. For them, the dance floor was not an affront. It was survival, self-love and something close to church.

…

The dance floor was not where the crisis disappeared. It was where the living found one another inside it. That is the part America often forgets. Survival is not only the refusal to die. It is the insistence on remaining human while threatened.

This is the sort of journalism that gets people excited: by just partying and doing whatever you want, you are caring for yourself and this is a valid way of staying centered, and even of… Resisting! 

But the funniest aspect of this is that we are talking about two self-inflicted crises: 

AIDS: Gay men giving each other a lethal disease through fornication. 

Conservative Ascendance: Liberals pretending they are fighting fascism because conservatives have power and are using that power to enforce the law. 

It’s so melodramatic and comical to paint continued engagement in self-destruction as self-care. 

Self-care and resistance during the AIDS crisis is not fornicating. 

Self-care and resistance during the MAGA era is staying informed, debating, participating in the marketplace of ideas. 

But all these guys know is how to justify their vices. Their entire political worldview is based on it. 

Living the Simulation

      We are not a simulation, but a simulation is not a bad way to potentially view what is happening.

                Of course I am not speaking about a simulation in the sense that it is a trial for anything, at least not that we know of. It is a simulation in the sense that everything is predetermined, known by God, and thus also the sense that it could only be the way that it is…

                We can see it as a simulation in that the known reality is being played out by God because putting it into actuality is the affirmation of the vision,  but more importantly it is the instantiation of the good. By going through with this play and doing what we are destined to go, we make real His Vision, and we become eternally coexistent beings who rule over the eternal instantiations of His Perfect Vision.

              To get to this point where we are now - our departure point for eternity - we must remember the good literally has become incarnated through the birth of God on Earth as Christ, and it can even be further incarnated through the church, which is us. 

                It is the church that actively cooperates with God and receives the grace to do further good things on earth that are reflective of God.

                This does not just mean the literal alleviation of suffering, though that is certainly something that we must do together, but it further includes the creation of art that enlightens, conversations that soothe people, bonging with family, friends, neighbors… Of course it can include doting on children and pets.

                Even the process of positive activity in the economy can be a net gain for everyone since this is one of the best means of alleviating poverty and suffering. The creation of value out of nature, even when it is not necessarily reachable by the people who need it most, is in its own little way a general contribution to the globalization of wealth and alleviation of poverty. It can even be said that the struggle to feed and comfort oneself is an act of mercy, for this can also be a struggle to achieve for many. 

                The “simulation” is us living out with God’s grace in His Great creation that He entered as Jesus Christ. It is us participating in the actualization of this world full of the good and the beautiful.

                And everything can actually become a sacrament in this context (yes, that is a Lord of Spirits reference). 

Minnesota Liberalism

 

Paul Skallas is not entirely wrong here... In fact, there is something very important about his observation: Minnesota's liberalism is an expression of cultural traits that are deep and inherent in the Scandinavian culture of many of the settlers who are an integral part of the rather unique upper Midwest attitude.

I am no expert on Scandinavia, but I am from a Scandinavian-American family based in Minneapolis yet I grew up several hours away from it and got to experience both deep Minnesota liberalism and the highly rational but short-sighted & ineffective conservatism of the voters that do make North Dakota an unquestioningly red state in national elections - all while having an even more distinct & exclusively Scandinavian-American demographic.

The Scandinavian-American is simultaneously communitarian and existential. This sounds like nonsense, but Scandinavia is defined by its high trust in institutions, welfare states, massive sense of social responsibility and reciprocity, and there is also an expectation of everyone to be on the same page and not fall behind. Yet, this has the typical Stoicism found in WASP culture, and the geographic hardships of the harsh winter and rugged terrain bred both a sense of dependence on others and also a sense of self-reliance, independence, and even isolation. You could even say that the communitarianism of Scandinavians enables existentialism because support networks are impersonal and obligated, and thus the individual feels isolated even when he is being "supported."

It is also the case that the Christianity of Scandinavia was deeply influenced by the Pietist movement within Lutheranism which emphasizes the very personal and emotional aspects of religion. This does not have to be inherently liberal as it would be misleading to suggest that these are a people completely devoid of conservatism - North Dakota and rural Minnesota are massively anti-abortion and none of this is rooted in Catholicism. You can also look at previous faith statements from many 20th century churches and see them denounce things like divorce and rock 'n' roll music. My great grandfather was a Pietist minister who didn't let his children watch movies because he equated Hollywood with Babylon, and this was something my grandmother proudly relayed to me. She was a conservative, but also decidedly non-judgmental and "hands-off." She would tell you to your face that rock 'n' roll music is poisoning the minds of the youth and cite the case of some teens killing themselves after being inspired by Kurt Cobain, but ultimately, this is actually irrelevant. The narrow path versus the broad path is timeless, and the particular form of the devil in the culture is irrelevant. The choice of the path you walk is purely that of the individual, so the most devout Scandi conservative even in the reddest part of North Dakota is effectively disarmed as they would respect your right to walk whichever path you chose and would not make any claims as to know which one you are on.

Lutheran Pietism was inherently skeptical of authority, emphasized the individual relationship with God, humble living, "deeds not words" - "function over form," and felt that the person who internalizes true Christianity in a way that is unconventional is superior to the dogmatist. This reminds me of another Scandinavian-American told me that 'Lutheranism is the Buddhism of Christianity.' He's not wrong. One of the right things that Lutherans do is emphasize the personal journey of the Christian and seeing spiritual life as going to a hospital and not a court... Just as such, the Buddha spoke of treating the wound caused by the arrow, not debating the origin of the arrow. But this does contain within it a fatal flaw with the wrong ecclesiology. Without having the ability to reach a consensus on the ultimate truth, you end up with lots of people who do not even subscribe to the truth. Without the truth, you do not know the severity of the injury and end up treating a major affliction like a minor ailment.

The homosexual now presents himself as someone with a minor ailment to the church community, and with a doctrine that does not believe the true Church is embodied anywhere on Earth, that just also believes the religion is ultimately personal, that we are all sinners, that this is all just... our journey.... It gets very difficult even for conservatives to navigate the relationship. The most conservative ones rightfully state that they cannot accept unrepentant homosexuals as normal members of the church nor condone their behavior and take a very rational Protestant approach, but the wedge gets pushed deeper & deeper & deeper, and over the decades more ministers splinter with the culture until ultimately the hyperindividualistic spiritual egalitarianism of Lutheranism leads to a collective spiritual poverty.

The gay becomes no different than a guy who has jerked off to internet pxrn before. Nobody can judge him. He's a full member. Get him a wedding because, ultimately, it would be hypocritical for a church that has no say in anyone's divorces and no sense of ministerial stewardship and interference in the parishioner's personal life to deny them... And the church is just a building. The wedding is just a ceremony. We do not apply litmus tests to other people's marriages. We don't stand in the way of divorce. We don't confess our sins. We don't commune with the actual body & blood of Christ afterwards. We are told to not judge... So let's have a fabulous gay wedding.

Now, if the conservatives come from a religious heritage like this, it becomes effectively impossible for them to stand up to liberalism effectively in the political life. The most they can do is clarify that they are not actually bigots, defending themselves from the accusation before it even comes, and carefully justify themselves to the whole world as the good conservatives who are completely defanged and whose objections are more about fiscal policy and the limitations of government than presenting any sort of challenge to the prevailing cultural norms.

Because there is not clearly set out, timeless standards, and there is no hierarchy that effectively organizes resistance and enforces orthodoxy to those standards, the conservatives are largely adrift. They are not even conventionally part of the 'Moral Majority' and the Evangelical attempts to resist cultural change...

And you see that among the conservatives of Minnesota and North Dakota: exceedingly few of them feel some kinship with the energetic Bible belt conservatives that have fought for invocations of prayer at schools and Ten Commandments, and even fewer are creationists. They are highly secularized while suffering from the same problem of deracination that has infected all of American conservatism.

So while North Dakota is 'red,' it is certainly the case that their culture is also still reflected in the innate, deep liberalism of Minnesotans.

The liberalism goes deeper than anywhere else in the US because of the fact that it is not mixed with revolutionary zeal or electrified by modernity but actually has its roots in communitarianism and existentialism that are paradoxical yet cooperating characteristics with deep roots in the culture.

Traditional Culture Can Transform Small Acts of Vice into Virtue Even If It Can't Prevent B. S. & Horror

 Cultures with a High Baseline of Respect & Virtue Create Bullshit & Horror; Low Baseline Cultures Create Bullshit & Horror; The Middle Path Also Creates Bullshit & Horror; Yet, High Baselines Constantly Pressure People to Reform, Even If They Are Hypocritical & Corny

 

I am a firm believer in what Plato said in The Republic: Good laws cannot make bad men good, nor do bad laws make good men bad. But the argument would go on to say that… a series of good laws can make society more efficient and high-functioning, and it can at least make mediocre people behave outwardly like good people. Maybe it sucks that the guy is insincere, but I am a 40 year old man. I am no longer a teenager. Authenticity is between God & Me. It’s also between That Guy and God. But I also think appearing good is part of the job description when it involves serving my wife & daughter, and I want you to get the same things for yourself and your family.  

 

Plus I think Plato would have added to this by saying that “Good laws sometimes make mediocre people good, although some mediocre people just become hypocrites, but that’s okay… I don’t actually really care what those people think, anyways, since they are made of bronze and I am made of gold.*” Plus people are forgetting something else Plato said: Fake it till you make it.

 

The greatest problem that conservatives face is the fact that they cannot actually produce a ‘1,000 year reich.’ Cultures just don’t decay, but they suffer from the hypocrisy of the imperfect people who live in them. So all of the antagonists and critics ask… what’s the point? Why have any standards? Why not just have pure, unadulterated liberty as opposed to living in an uptight community where we are all judged by hypocrites?

 

You can call this argumentum ad Harper Valley P.T.A.: Conservative society is a bunch of hypocrites giving virtuous hussies a hard time about their clothing. Conservatives are only good at being superficial, while those who openly defy the gilded & cheesy externalities of virtue actually possess true virtue, and this is why they are so attracted to tearing down conservatism… They bring down a corrupt, pretentious edifice, and they reveal that true virtue is unassuming and hidden, and they like to show up dressed as the people who the Pharisees condemn. This position is not entirely without merit, but it is a very stale and shallow position that fails to account for the fact that bullshit & horror persists even when the Middle Class stops acting like Pharisees and starts acting like aristocratic drug-sucking fuckpigs.

 

Bullshit & Horror

Bullshit always exists. It never doesn’t exist. Bullshit trails behind humanity like it trails behind a herd of cattle – whatever we do is inadequate and often poorly executed. The shitty boss in the suit insists on formalities and ring-kissing that is all a bunch of bullshit. The shitty boss in shorts and a tee shirt will do all the same bullshit & only respond positively to ass-kissing but he doesn’t even wear a suit and tie when he fires you. The former is ugly because it is hypocritical, the latter is ugly because it doesn’t even benefit from a veneer of propriety that comes with formality.

 

Horror is created by three things:

-          Poverty, because it makes people very desperate and desperate people do horrible things.

-          Poor upbringing, because it fails to inculcate values in normal people who then become more apt to do horrible things when mingled with a little desperation. This isn’t that relevant to either high, middle, or low since the low actually are right in these terms: values can be conveyed through a variety of vehicles to kids. It doesn’t matter how dressed up or stuffy it is.

-          Genetics, because some people are just born with terrible impulses & inclinations and lack the cognitive bandwidth to control these impulses or realize just how bad they are.

Culture does not really actively counter these things. It can potentially create a good set of norms, but we all know how hypocritical people are. These high standards perhaps do not actively recruit people because so many folks are hypocritical. They may even result in discouraging people so much that they want to abandon these high values, but I think that they also apply constant pressure through forcing right decisions through their formalities and the perception of losing prestige. Of course, some people will just try harder to suppress knowledge of their darkness, but some of these people will fail to do this (and pay the price) or they will be forced into accepting their circumstances and made to go through the motions of virtue which may actually reform them by producing reflection and compunction.

It is also the case that hypocrites will be negatively impacted by high baseline cultures because they will be found out & eaten alive by the vicious mob. It can be pointed out that the mob who shames the slut and derides the drug addict is not necessarily that virtuous in itself, but allow me to put on my own cynical smug face: “lol but why does it matter to you what the executioner is wearing?! You’re DEAD ANYWAYS..!”

 

(You could even point out that the sword of tactical nihilism that selectively abolishes meaning can also be wielded by the conservatives, and has been by guys like Leo Strauss – maybe God isn’t real, maybe Virtue isn’t real, but it makes society more efficient & functional when the metaphorical Inquisition metaphorically burns people at the stake, so get over it..!)

 

(I can also point out that, in addition to not eliminating bullshit & horror, the low baseline cultures have not done away with the Inquisition – it just persecutes people now for different behaviors.)

In short, high culture & high virtue societies at least encourage reformation of the people in between virtue and vice through constant pressure, even though that pressure often comes from imperfect institutions and is dampened by the collective hypocrisy within the society. I call this “Crooked Teachers Can Still Encourage Virtue with A Crooked Stick.” (This phrasing is inspired by the reaction to the Donatist heresy.

 

And it also provides a means for pulling down debauched elites & sub-elites. I call this “Crooked Teachers Can Still Beat Crooked Students with A Crooked Stick.”

 

So the thesis is very simple: we need a high baseline culture to benefit those who are neither vicious nor virtuous but can be pushed towards a higher calling, and fill this vocation partially (as hypocrites) or fully.  Some of these people will become GOODER FASTER – meaning, those men who eventually realized they should not have abandoned their family when they turn 45 and their kids life is fucked up would have given their right arm if you could turn back the clocks & force them to be fathers instead of deadbeats.

Bullshit and horror I cannot fix  - but I can transform small acts of vice into virtue or at least “high functioning hypocrisy.” Low culture cannot fix bullshit & horror, either, but they are far less likely to transform small acts of vice into virtue or high functioning hypocrisy because they abandon the mechanisms that can enforce that.

* This is the origin of the rapper’s gold chain – signaling to the peons that they are of gold. The chain, though, represents slavery to a media mogul.

The Pilgrim Exiting Civilization on the Tiger

The Korean Christian culture requires some removal from normal Korean society and thought processes that are integral to the traditional culture. It is a culture where shamanism is extremely prevalent and it is easy to see its remnants throughout social practices and attitudes, but even when we are looking at life through a non-religious element we see certain attitudes towards sexuality that can undercut even Western secular concepts about it in a way that outright atheism cannot. Basically, there are so many aspects about traditional Korean thought that are rooted in outlooks based in Eastern religion that it being a Korean Christian means a separation from tradition. 

This morning I woke up and watched a Japanese Christian describing one of the biggest & greatest barriers to entrance into Christianity as the fear that Japanese have of not meeting community expectations and expectations of their ancestors to honor them, and it can also be daunting in general to hear that their ancestors may not be in heaven... it grinds too much against them. This is solved in Korea with many people having realized that replacing certain aspects of the traditions with Christian prayer fills the gap between Christ and the East and still fulfills cultural obligation. Probably the same can occur in Japan, but that threshold just has not been hit. 

Probably all civilizations have had issues like this which separate it from Christ, and this is also why even Jewish religion, with its monotheism, stuck out like a sore thumb to its neighbors. Rejecting the worship of traditional spirits, ancestors, etc., and the many deities that are thought necessary to maintain life and happiness, and eventually even replacing this with the very Christian idea that you can pray but maybe it's only going to bring you persecution, shows such a radical departure from traditional ideas about life. 

In a wonderful post on PoFo, #15,354,109, I was able to get grain inspiration from Annater who points out that civilization itself seems to have a pagan nature to it that is conducive to polytheism. This is in line with a lot of what we see in real life, how civilization propels people to eagerly worship things that are not God, whether that is mammon or lust. Call me crazy, but I affirm the traditional view - these things are presided over by demons, what the pagans call gods. 

Annater talked about how the West has a tradition of creating circumstance where Annater has the capacity to be a pilgrim, "to be in a civilization but not of a civilization." He equates this with... 

"To ride the Tiger and let Nature Flow as Nature does. Even somewhat "Chinese about it."

This is some of his most profound writing, in my opinion, perhaps the opus dei of his amazing posting career. 

I will have to return to the 'Chinese' part at the end of this post. But first, back to ideas about Western civilization...:

What makes the West unique is that their traditions have a history of exiting civilization. We should perhaps refer to the West of having a history that treats the soul as a pilgrim who defies secular and temporal realities. The individual does not feel boxed into certain pagan rites or obligations. I am not saying that pagan civilization did not previously have rebels who defied these norms and expectations, in fact, I think it is the case that pagan civilization frequently becomes decadent and incapable of fulfilling its traditional pagan rites, but the gods are indifferent about this. Why? Because the worship of fortune/money, fertility rites, and ancestor worship are just the worship of greed, lust, and pride, and many other things as the context provides for them in the practice of these rites. The gods do not need to disturb the decadence because the decadence feeds their hunger and serves their purpose as demons. 

Because we are based on the rejection of pagan civilization, modern Western civilization is liberal as it is liberating individuals of previous obligations and boiling religion down to a far more intimate, personal experience. Moreover, Western civilization is highly self-critical, and it encourages also the criticism of that which is around it as a means of separating oneself from the fallen world.  

Oddly enough, you could say that the Christian civilization is one that has a spirit of self-appraisal and critique baked into it, and so secular institutions which attempt to circumvent these things are doomed by the increasing literacy and naturally rebellious pilgrim spirit of Western civilization. 

Of course, it takes centuries to build up the necessary momentum to achieve the real blossoming of this we first see, the Renaissance, but real eyes would actually look to the monasteries of the dark ages and medieval world, and to also look at the way that Christianity always created a tension within government that emphasized legality and limitation of tyranny for the explicit sake of all people that is the deep roots of this liberalizing and progressive force. 

You could say that human rights are in the DNA of Christianity. After all, it abolished the slavery of the Roman world outright. Serfdom and other difficult economic relations that subsequently appear in the West would keep people arguing against my point, but remember that slavery was essentially reinvented in the West by Protestants when they went to the new world, and they promply abolished it again a couple centuries later.

You can also credit Christianity with making the West hyper-creative, even outright countercultural and revolutionary. For in Christianity, the worldly culture is not a definitive commentary on truth, the truth is something that transcends the world, and so disposal of conventional cultural understandings, of common "truths" and even common "sense" and traditions is seen as not just as excusable, but even praiseworthy.

The Christian is actually here to radically re-envision himself and the world so as to make room for Christ and to embrace his worldly neighbor, creating a completely new space in each generation in an attempt to perfect himself and be a light to others.  

In short, Western civilization was able to redefine what makes a civilization due to the influence of Christianity... It was able to create a whole new concept of governance and social ontology that is highly transient and contractual and noninvasive because Christ blew up the mythos surrounding power and redefined interpersonal relations, removing traditional emphasis on blood ties that was overly clannish and localized. 

Now, in regards to how this is Chinese... 

There is a distinct tieback into Eastern philosophy in riding the tiger. The East is obsessed with the world as an often arbitrary, domineering nature that eats us up but it has within it something that is also pleasing and defining. It erases particularity of the individual by emphasizing the interconnectivity (interpenetration) of the whole, and in this it actually can begin to subvert secular power and redefine relationships. 

Thus in a sense there are some notes from Taoism that are uniquely affirming to a Christian outlook on this... 

Modern Western Christians tend to not see this easily, but the Eastern Orthodox can in the sense that they emphasize the incarnation of God in earth and His Death on the cross as a final blood sacrifice that permeates the world, redefines our relationship with God, and allows for salvation. 

They also understand the concept of being a floating minority in a cruel world - the Eastern Christians have tragic relations with the world and emphasize historical saints that suffered and were martyred, and they see in them the highest glory. This affirms a sort of arbitrary, naked natural power that is lurking in the wilderness to eat us all... 

We refer to the world sometimes as the Desert, so even some of the monasteries on Mt. Athos where there is no desert can refer to the nature around them as a desert due to the symbolic meaning. Desert denotes wilderness, and that wilderness denotes the natural world and raw state of power that is out there swallowing everything. 

Western Christianity overemphasizes the individual, and the East emphasizes the whole of Creation, I feel, and thus tends to encourage self-erasure of the individual through emphasis of Creation as a means of producing humility and peace with the arbitrary, predatory state of nature... 

And who is then trying to create PARADISE, UTOPIA in such a world? 

It comes off as profoundly Chinese in terms of its spiritual dimensions because it emphasizes unity with the creation and ignores the Catholic and Protestant urge to conquer creation and build. 

Christians are not here to conquer anything but themselves, and they are no there to build anything but the church. 

Thus, it has its strong parallel with the spirituality of a Chinese peasant who is riding the tiger of unpredictability and upheaval, uncaring or even oblivious to the society that rages around him because he neuters it but calling it what it is: never-ending chaos that isn't even really my business. 

(This strain of thought is, of course, most clearly Taoist, but the assumption of a chaotic, uncontrollable reality is absolutely also a Confucian concept.)