Tag: john waters

The Source of Our Beliefs

Roger Mitchell1 Comment

 “What he wished to believe, that is what each man believes” — Demosthenes

On multiple occasions in the past, and always in response to some person stating that he (or she, usually a he) has no religion, no god, and is, therefore, fully and sovereignly in control of his life, I have said that everyone has a god, a religion, whether they acknowledge it or not. What is the one thing, the value, the idea which you hold in highest regard, which is most important to you, and which reigns supreme over everything else in your life? Regardless of its nature or being, that is your god and the pursuit of it is your religion. You place your faith and your belief in it and you worship it. No one is exempt. No one can rise above this fact nor escape its certainty.

I have been vindicated. In his book, We Who Wrestle with God, Jordan Peterson, yes, that Jordan Peterson, writes this, barely a few pages into the foreword.

“We elevate what we most highly regard to the utmost place of supremacy or sovereignty. We aim at the upward target we deem central, however momentarily. We bring our consciousness itself to bear on what we define as worthy of the expenditure of our attention and the efforts of our action. We begin our continual journey forward by positing a good–a good that is at least better than our point of departure. This is an act of faith as well as one of sacrifice: faith, because the good could be elsewhere; sacrifice, because in the pursuit of any particular good we determine to forgo all others.”1

Nature abhors a vacuum, it is said, and those who state that there is no god and that religion is for fools literally create their own spiritual vacuum which must be filled with something. That something is usually themselves. “God does not exist, therefore, in the absence of God, I become God.” This is commonly known as atheistic humanism and its most basic tenet is that Man can determine truth for himself without any “help” from outside. The major problem with this line of thinking is that it is impossible to prove that God does or does not exist. Instead, the concept must be taken on faith, which is an aspect of a religious belief.

Some “believers” in the non-existence of God become nihilists, believers in nothing, who work toward the destruction of anything good and positive so that something else can be built in its place, subsequently to be destroyed. (See here for a good description of nihilism.)

“Let us put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life–the passion for destruction is also a creative passion!” — Mikhael Bakunin

This is perpetual, unending destruction for the sake of destruction, until Utopia is reached. Somehow, Utopia will be attained. The devil is in the details.

“Deeper down, at the core of our dilemma, is a self-perpetuating crisis of thought. In a sense the difficulty is a very simple one, adequately captured in the story of Adam and Eve. Mankind, tired of dependency on its creator, seeks to strike out alone.” — John Waters

Yes, mankind seeks to strike out alone, to chart his own course, to become his own arbiter of truth. This is exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden, metaphorically or literally, and mankind is still suffering from the action taken. Mankind also suffers from the actions taken today because we have never recovered from The Lie that we could be like God, equal with Him in the determination of what constitutes and defines good and evil. We see it everywhere throughout society. It is in the forefront of the news constantly, as evidenced currently by Israel’s ongoing slaughter of her weaker neighbors, countenanced by the assertion that this is, somehow, God’s desire and, therefore, to be supported without reservation.

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” — from the Melian Dialogue

Yet, in spite of this, in the midst of all the chaos, din, and confusion, there is that still small voice which whispers quietly to us, which we cannot drown out or silence, no matter how hard we try: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

What is God? Who is God? Who shall declare himself as God? There is only one answer and it is seen in the immediate quote above. Even this, though, is subject to interpretation because if Man is God, then however Man loves his neighbor is right and proper, as in, “Do to your neighbor, but do it to him first”, which is pure aggression, or “Love your neighbor, but more especially his wife”, because in all probability, your neighbor is “loving” your wife, even as we speak.

This whole conversation thus reverts back to the beginning: what is truth, and who will define it. Shall I submit to a higher authority and align my life with its (His) decrees or shall I make the vain attempt to go my own way and declare myself God, regardless of the cost?

Does it really matter who or what we worship as God? Does it really matter whose word becomes law? The difference is stark. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”, and its total opposite, “I am the president. I can do whatever I want.”

Well, yes, Mr. Trump, you can, but there are always consequences which follow.

  1. We Who Wrestle With God, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, Penguin Random House, 2024, page xxvii.
    ↩︎

Five Years On: Covid, Clergy, and Culpability

Roger MitchellLeave a comment

“…five years after the most significant assault on the human race by its governments since the invention of democracy, only a handful of clerics have emerged to state clearly that, far from being any kind of ‘subtle seduction’, this assault was evil and disgusting.” — https://johnwaters.substack.com/p/diary-of-a-dissenter-the-week-from-aaa

John Waters was commenting on the Catholic Church’s response to the various Harry Potter books and films when he threw this curveball, but it fits. Of course, he was referring to the COVID (pandemic, plandemic, panic, debacle, fiasco, coup, etc., take your pick), but the fact of the matter is that his statement is absolutely accurate. Let me ask you. How many members of the Christian cloth, the clergy, (whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox doesn’t matter) have you heard recently (or at any time at all) call out the Covid scheme for what it really was–an overt assault on the rights and freedoms of individuals world-wide? Really now, I’ll bet you can count them on the fingers of one hand without using any of them twice. Can you? Give it a try. If I am wrong, let me know by leaving a comment and include links which back up your assertion. I’ll check them out.

Early on in the COVID years (late February 2020), I saw that this was a scam and began encouraging people to resist it. One of the ways I did this was to state that churches everywhere ought to tell the State where to get off and to get out.

Corona, churches, and Easter

This exhortation produced nothing, nothing at all, as the local churches I am familiar with did nothing of the kind but, instead, fell all over themselves to parrot and obey the Party Line because…Romans 13. Well, that last is pure conjecture, but I have no doubt that it had something to do with the attitude of obsequiousness, in addition to which they were scared to death, fearful, terrified, that they and everyone around them would get sick and die unless the State was exalted and worshipped as the only entity which could stave off the (allegedly) approaching existential disaster. God, er, I mean, Government forbid that anything like this should happen. Or, it might have had something to do with an obscure, archaic, generally benign, seldom mentioned tax law called 501(c)(3), which is rarely, if ever, used to restrict anyone’s free speech.

Pardon, my sarcasm is showing! I apologize profusely to anyone who might bristle at the heretical thought that the concept of money is one of the most prominent things which pastors, preachers, and church officials think about. How could I have been so stupid???

An Easter Message for Our Time

Can you think of even a single church leader who has stood firm in his denunciation of the State for their mendacious, brutal oppression of the citizenry during the COVID era? How many can you name who were willing to go on record in defense of human rights and liberty at the risk of their own health, wealth, and well-being? Try this for starters, Artur Pawlowski, who did not hesitate to call a spade a spade. Or, better known, Chuck Baldwin, who absolutely refused to shut down his large church in Kalispell, MT and is constantly speaking out about the abuses of Statist societies.

OK, there’s two. You only have to come up with three more.

Am I being too hard on the preachers? OK, then, let’s spread the responsibility around. It is fairly certain that the church leaders were only saying what their constituents wanted to hear, you know, the itching ears syndrome. After all, when Covid arrived on the scene, everyone was scared s*itless [spitless] and everyone was looking for someone, anyone, to assure them that all was well and, lo and behold, there was the State, which openly proclaimed the narrative: “Do as you are told and all will be well with you. Otherwise, you will die a horrible, agonizing death and if you don’t, someone’s grandmother in Omaha or East Berlin will. You don’t want that on your conscience now, do you?” This is not a great amount different than the admonitions we heard as young children at table. “Eat your food. There are starving children in Africa.” That didn’t make any sense to me then, and still doesn’t.

With respect to that, the parishioners were as complicit and compliant as the clergy and, five years on, it doesn’t seem to have improved substantially, if at all. Churches today are still filled with people (pew-sitters) who want to have their feelings tickled, to go home emotionally satisfied, to congregate again after the service at the local restaurant and extol the “lift” they got from the morning’s “worship”, which was AWESOME!, and for which they willingly deposited their tithe (Es ist Pflicht!)1 in the “offering” tray as it was passed around. Is it any wonder at all that pastors and priests do not rock the boat, do not call their followers to a higher level, do not call out evil for what it is?

Is it any wonder that today churches have no power to speak power into the lives of those who are enmeshed in the grip of evil?

In a thought-provoking post on his Substack, Joshua Stylman wrote this gem.

“Now, the mirage is gone. What was once promised can no longer be afforded. The institutions that upheld the illusion are spent. They extract, but no longer inspire. They preach equity while enforcing dependence. They sell empowerment while removing agency.”

“And still, they insist the dream is alive.”

Stylman was not writing about churches. Instead he was focused on the real problem of homeownership in America among the younger generations, most of whom will never own a home due to financial circumstances–price and interest rates, for instance. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to extrapolate his assertion onto Christian churches today. Unfortunately, much of the “dream” which has been promised relentlessly over the years and decades has been the assurance that Jesus would return soon, real soon, and “rapture” His followers out of here, to never experience any more evil or hardship again. Yeah, beam me up, Scotty! What is even more unfortunate is that those who swallowed this crap whole-heartedly refused, by and large, to affect the society around them in a positive manner, believing that anything they did would be minimal, would have little to no effect, and would probably be destroyed in the Tribulation.

“Everyone knows the world is getting worse and worse, so, why should I waste my time, energy, and wealth in a vain attempt to alter its course for the better? “

Except for voting Republican and conservative in the next election, especially if one of the names on the ballot is Donald John (Captain Warp Speed, Colonel Bombast) Trump.

Es ist Pflicht! That is required.

  1. Es ist Pflicht! A German phrase which basically means “duty, obligation, responsibility, etc.” My thanks to C.J. Hopkins for the education. ↩︎