Raised in a secular family, I never knew what ‘in the image of God’ actually meant. I ignorantly assumed it meant something poetic and sentimental; just a term of endearment a parent might have for a child, or a mere comforting conceit of feeling special. It made no sense to me and no Christians that I knew personally explained, or even referred to it. If I’d been a Theology student that might have been different, but interest in that was slow and late to come, after many distractions. I’ve been reticent to write the promised piece on ‘Mere Credulity’ which many of us have been afflicted with. The topic is gargantuan, multifaceted and for someone learning independently as they go, very difficult to distill down into a form which communicates for others without the same exposure to background reading (lots of it).
So this is not a polished piece but more of a ‘show your workings’. Dr Taylor Marshall’s podcast; ‘What Is Gnosticism? In 10 Easy Points’ prompted it with his simple definition of Imago Dei;
“Traditionally, ‘made in the image of God’ means we have an intellect & free will.”
A radically transformed understanding comes from hearing that simple definition of Imago Dei and contemplating it - the universality of it - it’s very practical, especially after initial studies of Aristotle, Aquinas & DeMarco (plus others). Doesn’t everyone deserve access to clear teaching on this, whether inside OR outside of Christian Faith communities? If there is to be a preservation of ‘All People Endowed By Their Creator With Inalienable Rights’ rather than an enforced ‘Co-Creation; The Divine State Granting/Withholding Privileges’ - then isn’t it each individual’s responsibility (no matter their creed) and duty to ensure they understand what both those statements mean and crucially the distinction between them? I don’t see that as an attempt to proselytize or convert, but to educate in its original sense.
It now makes great sense to me that Progressive & Social Reconstructionist Modern Education had the destruction of Intellect & of Free Will as its paramount purpose. Big Foundation financed Social Science strategically dominated the post war Education System, tactically employing the Behaviorism and Pragmatism of Wundt, Hall, Dewey, Skinner, Thorndike, Coulson, Potter, Gramsci, Marcuse, Freire & many others to condition generations of teachers & students, incrementally grooming susceptibility & receptivity to ideological subversion and radicalization. Manufacturing the mindset which would ultimately embrace and drive the destruction of Individual and National Sovereignty from within (while feeling virtuous about it).
When you read that one of the major stated aims of Communism/World Revolution has been to eradicate Christianity it’s easy to get caught up in the sectarian aspect of that, to see it as tribal/identity conflict rather than as the means to an end rooted specifically in the lust for carceral power; Panopticon Surveillance and Abolishment Of Private Property (physical, intellectual, psychological). The Long March Through The Institutions, wielding the hammer of Deconstruction and the sickle of Social Reconstructivism, has gradually, now exponentially subverted and drained Traditional epistemological, psychological and moral authority. It had to do it in that order.
Intellectual foundation had to be disabled, taken out first - like a strategic military infrastructure target. This left generations without situational awareness, without the means to develop discernment, their traditional authority figures neutered - made ‘irrelevant’ in the anti ‘patriarchy’ spell of Aufheben der Kultur, to supplant new ‘popular’ culture (Generative Themes). Awakening and fostering appetites in us which would enhance our susceptibility to the parasitic influences of temptation and hubris.
Communism’s Velvet Glove - devastatingly effective on a stimulus-response driven population, a growing bureaucratic class of functionaries and a feminized workforce susceptible to ‘Idealism and its innumerable sub-species’ (Gerald B Phelan)
Without an understanding of what metaphysics is in its applied sense (not some rarefied ivory tower luxury) how can any individual (regardless of creed) gather situational awareness? How can someone come to understand and live in an awareness of what they are within themselves and in relation to all else around them? An individual void of that will have their metaphysic supplied for them by others, often without them even realizing. Without sound intellectual foundation we are cognitively compromised and intellectually lazy. The Herculean effort to struggle to come to an understanding of something alone, without mature guidance and the fellowship of other stumbling souls is more than most can bear. This is what angers me about the glib soundbites in praise of the ‘freedom’ for individuals to simply learn alone via internet study. That has its place a supplementary resource once you’re cruising at high altitude, but in the initial steep climb, you need in person guidance and peer intellectual fellowship, not simply social. Progressive Education’s fetishizing of social learning (group work, herd think) was of course, to mould Social(ist) Man under a Doctrine of Relativism by which intellectual function is confounded at source and no way to build cognitive immunity to Thought Reform. No situational awareness. Simply a passive assent to walking the Long March in lock step.
The prae-posterius radical subjectivity of closing the mind in on itself has held generations captive. The cognitive dissonance generated is so hard to overcome when you lack both the vocabulary, grammar, fluency of conceptual understanding and expression - i.e. when you’re functionally illiterate across domains of knowledge. Even when presented with expert instruction and learning materials, the foundational gaps in elementary knowledge are so many and the accrued, compounded assumptions so calcified that it renders you blind, mute and dumb. Ask me how I know. What you need for your own sustenance may be all there laid out but you can not see it, or digest/assimilate it, even if you want to. First, your own mental pathogens have to be detoxed; relativism, skepticism, nihilism, cynicism:
Dr James Lindsay has repeatedly stated the necessity of developing the capacity to resist the tyranny which in practise requires resisting the seduction of convenience, resisting the reward of social/status affirmation and resisting the lure of comforting lies while shouldering the Struggle (sessions) of being a ‘Resister’. Understanding the corruption (pragmatic weaponizing) of language is key. It struck me during Dr Marshall’s podcast how much our capacity to Put On The Armour is related to comprehension of what Imago Dei means in practise and our call to being discerning rather than confounded in falsity; Mere Credulity, instead of Congruity. Or as Yuri Bezmenov answered very simply at the end of his lectures “Christ Jesus” when asked “What is the solution to these assaults, what is our defence?” When I first heard his lectures I didn’t understand that at all. I couldn’t get past my own noise.
What I want to develop going forwards are ways to make some of the research I’ve benefitted from more accessible to people who might initially dismiss it (as I in times past would have done) because it’s rooted in Theological teaching and they’re ‘not religious’, or from a different Faith, or the material’s too dense and they would benefit from seeing it in a more pictorial/image based format. Or they haven’t yet come to awareness of the causes of their own cognitive dissonance. I’m open to working in collaboration with others who have far greater technical subject expertise, but not necessarily had to communicate that outside of a Faith or a scholarly community before. What I can bring to the table is very fresh awareness of the blocks and challenges to understanding from a secular perspective, with an ever deepening respect and love for the material itself, in its relevance to current situational awareness.
If you consider this work has value and you’d like to support me by pledging I’d be extremely grateful.
‘Socialism must be the religion which destroys Christianity’. That requires first making the Image Of God within each person irrelevant - inaccessible. Darkening, dulling, debilitating the intellect and crippling free will. (Aufheben der Kultur) operates also by cloaking what’s in front of your nose, or removing your desire for it while enticing you to something else more gratifying. Sleight Of Hand.
To round off this set of working notes I’ll illustrate the linguistic sleight of hand of our current ideologues (like previous ideologues) with the words of Neil Oliver from his recent GB News monologue:
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“The Herculean effort to struggle to come to an understanding of something alone, without mature guidance and the fellowship of other stumbling souls is more than most can bear. This is what angers me about the glib soundbites in praise of the ‘freedom’ for individuals to simply learn alone via internet study.” Absolutely! This is perfectly expressed and I have many examples I could cite to support it.
I got involved early on with ed tech while a student and teacher at Arizona State, they are a prime example and forerunner of the globalist education program. But it was very much a bait-and-switch, I now understand nearly 2 decades later. At the center of our discussions back then were privacy, saving the liberal arts from ‘the Crow’ (the new president at that time in charge of the transformation), and focusing on students who were already prime for such an environment--it was about serving a ‘niche’ group as I understood it, not at all about forcing it down the throats of the western world at the point of a (literal!) needle!
Anyway, thanks for the work, nice to find you and expand my horizons further.