Category Archives: Extremism

What Is Truth?

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I’m sceptical (or skeptical if you’re in the US). It’s a legacy of my years of believing the promises of Christianity. Preachers, pastors, Bible study leaders told me for 25 years that the promises of the bible, of Jesus himself, were all true. And like a fool I believed them. Jesus had made a new creature out of me; he loved me; he was guiding my life; he was returning soon; I’d be resurrected; I’d live in heaven forever… and on and on.

What a preposterous set of propositions! It took my Great Realisation, my own personal revelation that there was no God, to make me see how ridiculous they were.

It is this that left me with a legacy of scepticism. If I’d been misled all this time by people I respected and admired, what else was I accepting as true that very well might not be? I wasn’t going to be fooled again and so began to question practically everything I was told by authorities, experts and the media. If it seemed ‘off’, as we say these days, not quite right or too good (or bad) to be true I asked, ‘Who says so?’, ‘How do they know this?’, ‘What is the evidence?’, ‘Do they jump to conclusions or is their reasoning sound?’, ‘Why should I believe what they say?’ It’s exhausting, I assure you, having to search out the evidence – the primary sources of information – and to sift through it, recognising any bias that has been imposed on it. It’s either this or I must accept without question that everything I’m told is true. I can’t do that any more.

Here are a few examples of claims that I’ve been sceptical of on the recent past:

We are being guided by the science, said politicians during Covid to ensure compliance with whatever lockdown measures were being imposed. Did this really just mean was ‘we are being guided by our interpretation of some rather suspect data’? It became clear after we emerged from the hysteria surrounding the pandemic that this was the case.

Tens of thousands will die of Covid unless you comply: this based on computer predictions which turned out to be very far from accurate: the suspect data that ‘guided’ politicians.

A woman can have a penis. A man can have cervix. Yes, our politicians told us this during our recent fixation with transgenderism. Whatever you think of people changing sex, these two statements, designed to change hearts and minds, if not penises and cervixes, are patently false. Whatever was guiding those who said such things, it certainly wasn’t ‘the science’.

No more irresponsible, undeliverable promises. So said the Prime Minister exactly a year ago. I’m not going to be sceptical or cynical about this. I feel sure it’ll turn out to be true. Is he implying though that promises made earlier than this were indeed ‘irresponsible and undeliverable’. Surely not.

We will not raise taxes on working people (and energy prices will fall by £300 in the long term), Labour politicians, now the government, said only last year in an attempt to gain our votes. I was sceptical about this, as with much they said, and for the first time in many years Labour did not get my vote. Taxes have increased considerably for working people and everyone else in the last year and are set to rise again this week. The price of energy has risen too, by 18%, and will do so again in January. A £300 reduction by 2030, if it happens at all, is not really going to offset this by much. This was all very predictable; since when do politicians tell us the truth in order to get us to vote for them?

Anything Donald Trump says. Insert your selection here.

The NHS is the envy of the world. Pundits and politicians are very fond of this one. They like to add too that the NHS is underfunded. But the NHS is expensive, management heavy and wasteful. Is it really the envy of the world, and if it is, so what, when it’s constantly in crisis at home?

The BBC is the envy of the world. It is impartial and balanced. Is it? A number of independent reviews have determined that it has its own agendas and biases. During lockdowns it fuelled hysteria and now contributes to climate change panic. Rather than reporting facts, it tells us too often what we’re meant to think about issues. It has also been rocked over the past dozen years by sleaze and scandals.

Islam is a religion of peace. So many questions about this one. Many Western politicians have claimed something like it. President George W. Bush did, shortly after 9/11. Perhaps ordinary Muslims are committed to peace but there are many Islamists (the term now used for Muslim extremists) are evidently not: as well as 9/11 there have been acts of Islamist terrorism in London (7th July 2005), at Charlie Hebdo in Paris, in Manchester, the slaughter in the street of an off duty soldier, the massacre of Israeli young people in October 2023, the killing of Christians and others in Nigeria.. Is ‘Allahu Akbar’ really a cry of peace?

We can halt or reverse the climate changes we ourselves have caused. Can we? Who says? (Greta Thunberg, yes, but no actual scientists that I can find.) We can perhaps mitigate and slow down the change, and we should. But the climate will continue to change. Are these changes solely the fault of us humans – we’re contributing to the pace of change, certainly – when the climate has been in constant change from time immemorial?

I was accused of trying to be a maverick in a recent comment on an old post. Honestly, I’m not. It’s more a case of ‘once bitten, twice shy’; I’m not going to be told ever again what to think, especially not by those who don’t present good reasons why I should (I’ve Jesus to thank for this). Everything needs to be questioned, otherwise our minds are not our own. Be sceptical.

There May Be Trouble Ahead…

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Prophets, from left to right: Elijah, Julie Stephens,
Cindy Jacobs and er... Ed Miliband

Prophets don’t exist. A bunch of people intoxicated by religious fervour who think God has given them a special message that they must deliver to whoever will listen, are not prophets; they are a collection of extremists intoxicated with religious fervour.

We know this because no God exists. He can’t, as a result, drop messages, special or otherwise, into the heads of fanatics.

That’s it, really. No more to be said.

But so-called prophets exert quite an influence on our modern world. According to Abraham (I know, he’s a mythical figure but bear with me), God selected an ancient Jewish tribe to be his favourite buddies, so long as they did whatever he demanded of them, including hacking off their foreskins and that of their sons. What sort of prophet – what sort of God – comes up with this kind of lunatic fetishism?

Later the creators of a new prophet, whom they called Moses, came up with a story in which their hero encountered God in a bush (the symbolism is lost on us today.) This time he wanted his special buddies to invade their neighbour’s territory, slaughter them and take their land for themselves. This his favourite, de-foreskinned tribe did (modern genetic analysis of the peoples in the region suggests this isn’t what happened.)

After these fictional madmen came some potentially real fanatics who thought God had assigned them to lambast their fellow Jews for their shortcomings. These prophets promised the rubes rewards if they behaved as the prophets thought they should. These guys also came up with the idea that God would send a warrior Messiah to help his special little tribe take over the world. This is what happens when fanatics are allowed to get a hold of things.

A couple of centuries later, another self-proclaimed prophet turned up (or is invented) who seemed to think he’s the most special-est of all the prophets so far. This guy, called Yeshua (meaning ‘salvation’, so obviously not in any way symbolic) prophesied that the Messiah would be arriving real soon to sort the world out. He’d then hand it over to the Jewish people to manage. This guy’s script writers weren’t sure if Yeshua was talking about himself or some other supernatural character called the Son of Man. It doesn’t matter really. Nothing he prophesied happened when he confidently predicted it would: there was no Messiah who flies down from heaven, no final judgment, no great reset for the Earth. He was an absolute failure as a prophet; evidence, if more is needed, that those who claim to speak for God don’t know what they’re talking about. Don’t worry, though, this guy was recast as a resurrected Godman, just like the ones in pagan myths.

A few other prophets appeared around about the same time. In fact, the extremist who changed his name to Paul seemed to think that just about anyone could become one so long as they ‘edified’ the brethren. It was a few years though before the next really big so-called prophet came along.

In the 8th century, a guy called Muhammad said he was told by an angel who represented a different version of God that, amongst other things, Islam would spread worldwide and there would be an increase in senseless murders. These rather nebulous and self-fulfilling predictions are even now coming to pass. Muhammad’s future followers are indeed spreading Islam across the globe while senseless murders continue being committed, a good many of them by Muslims themselves.

While Muslims have made it clear that Muhammad is the final prophet, history has blessed us since with a few more. Joseph Smith in the 1880s was commanded by a different God (or maybe by the same one who’s changed his mind again) to start a new church and to obliterate anyone who stood in his way. He was successful in this enterprise, despite managing to get himself killed in the process.

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that given their abysmal success rate and the number of people who have suffered or perished as a result of their endeavours that we’d have had enough of prophets. While churches cannot agree on whether ‘genuine’ prophecy still exists, the prophets keep coming. Fanatics the world over, every bit as barmy as their predecessors, appoint themselves some deity’s spokesperson, and the ‘prophetic’ pronouncements begin: meaningless theobabble spattered across the Internet.

Do You See What I See?

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Christianity with its visions of God, angels and resurrected god-men, is not distinctive. It emerged from a culture in which such epiphanies were commonplace and highly esteemed. Appearances of deities, other supernatural beings and dead people were valued as genuine encounters with a reality on the other side of this mortal life. Paul was a Hellenised Jew and a Roman citizen (if Acts 17 can be believed); it was perfectly natural for him and his contemporaries to see and hear things that weren’t there.

Not only was the fledging Christ-cult influenced by the superstitious culture around it, but was born too of Judaism, itself awash with visions, apparitions and revelations. How could the new religion fail to be when its originators existed in such a milieu. One or other of these ‘visionaries’ believed they’d seen a resurrected Jesus. Of course they did. This is how gods manifested themselves then; everyone knew it. There were even those who hadn’t really had any inner-visions but wanted to be regarded as mystics themselves so would pretend they too had had direct contact with the deities.

The human mind has always been susceptible to illusions, to the potency of dreams and to misinterpreting what is going on around it. It’s also prone to a spot of fantasising now and then. This propensity didn’t cease once Christianity established itself. Muhammed claimed to have been visited by angels who revealed new truths about the nature of God – not least a change in name.

In the 19th century, a young farmer, Joseph Smith, living during a widespread and particularly intense religious revival, imagined (or pretended) he’d been visited by God and Jesus. Later, he said he’d been visited by a hitherto unknown angel with the unlikely name of Moroni. The result of course was multiple wives for Smith and the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Sufficient numbers of people believed Smith’s cockamamie stories about his alleged visions to commit to Mormonism. Smith wasn’t alone; others had visions of deities, including but not restricted to the Big Two, Jesus and his Father God. Hundreds recently saw the Virgin Mary hovering above New York City. They couldn’t all be wrong could they? Of course not, but they were all be deluded. Just like Joshua Mhlakela whom Jesus appeared to and told him the date of the Rapture was 22nd September, or possibly the 23rd, then with ‘billion percent’ certainty 7th October. Or maybe 8th…

This is how religions are made, changed and adopted: on a bed of illusory sand. If we need any further evidence that such experiences are illusory, created by the mind itself, then consider this: each time God, his angels or his Son appear in the religion-soaked brains of mystics and fraudsters, they reveal a message at odds with that revealed to previous visionaries. Each revelation has to be different of course. There would be no reason for such ‘visits’ otherwise.

Hence Abraham (or his script writer) imagining YHWH promising an eternal covenant and a new land.

Moses (or his script-writer) claiming YHWH had issued new laws while at the time commanding the slaughter of tribal enemies.

Cephas thinking he’d seen a risen Jesus who may or may not have told him of the imminent the End of the Age.

Jesus himself reportedly talking with his ‘Father’ about the necessity of his execution.

Paul flying to heaven so that Jesus could explain in great detail a new covenant, negating the original ‘eternal’ covenant with Abraham.

John of Patmos envisaging Jesus coming to Earth to slaughter the enemies he purportedly instructed his followers to love. (And Christians claim the Bible presents a unified message!)

All of these are manifestations of, and within, the minds of fantasists. Such manifestations are a naturally occurring malfunction of the brain.

And so it continues. Beware anyone who claims to have seen or heard from a deity of any sort. They, like their biblical counterparts, are deluded and almost certainly ill.

The Day After The Rapture

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Are you still there?

Either the rapture didn’t happen or there aren’t many True Christians round where I live. I watched all day for them jetting into the sky to meet Jesus but didn’t see a single one.

What went wrong? That South African preacher Joshua Mhlakela who saw Jesus surely can’t have been mistaken. Jesus told him clearly that yesterday, or maybe today, would be when he’d be back to collect his Chosen and judge the great multitude of sinners. I even turned on the TV last night to see if it had happened elsewhere. I thought the Final Judgement was underway with some dude ticking off the UN. Turned out just to be some big orange guy, not Jesus in disguise.

So what now? I think I can guess. Jesus’ message to Joshua Mhlakela will be reinterpreted: it wasn’t that the Rapture was going to happen yesterday, or today. It’s the events leading up to the rapture that he promised would kick off this week. That’ll be it. The Rapture itself is still some time off, as it always is.

Mhlakela’s vision of Jesus was no different from the ones the earliest Christian believers had: those character with fake names like Peter and Paul. Dismiss the good pastor’s vision of the Lord and what JC purportedly said and you have to dismiss the visions of those early fanatics who operated under aliases. Visions, dreams and hallucinations have no bearing on reality, as Mhlakela and the thousands who believed him have demonstrated yet again. Christianity and many other faiths are founded on such imaginings. As Luke puts it in Acts 2:17 during ‘the Last Days’ of 2,000 years ago:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams (misquoting Joel 2: 28-29)

This is the basis of the Christian delusion, and every other.

I Wish We’d All Been Ready

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Holy cow!

This is a special, urgent post!!! I just learnt to today, courtesy of Joe.My.God that tomorrow is the date set for the Rapture. In case you didn’t know, I need to warn you to give you time to repent and turn to Jesus. We know the rapture’s going to happen this time for sure because a pastor in South Africa was visited by Jesus a couple of nights ago who told him he was definitely returning tomorrow, 23rd September, at the time of the Jewish Feast of Trumpets (me neither). Charlie Kirk’s martyrdom has something to do with it too:

I’m sure these three signs together can’t be wrong, which means the Rapture is going to happen tomorrow as an absolute certainty.

Here’s how the UK’s always reliable Daily Mail reports it:

An ancient Biblical event in which Christians disappear from Earth and those who remain are left to face Doomsday is believed to be just days away.

Claims by social media users, as well as respected pastors and rabbis, have pushed the idea that the Rapture will begin on September 23, marking the Second Coming of Jesus and Judgment Day for non-believers.

This year, September 23 falls during the Jewish Feast of Trumpets, also known as Rosh Hashanah, but some Christians have tied the holiday to the prophecy that Jesus will return to Earth ‘with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God.’

The prophecy is mentioned in the Bible, 1 Thessalonians 4:16, which states that even the faithful who have died will rise from their graves and be taken to heaven by Jesus; however, a date for this event is not given.

In a YouTubevideo viewed nearly 500,000 times, Pastor Joshua Mhlakela, a South African preacher, claimed Jesus appeared to him in a divine vision and said he would return during the Feast of Trumpets.

‘The rapture is upon us, whether you are ready or not. I saw Jesus sitting on his throne, and I could hear him very loud and clear saying, I am coming soon,’Mhlakela said during the interview with CettwinzTV.

‘He said to me on the 23rd and 24th of September 2025, I will come back to the Earth,’ the pastor declared.

Even more clips predicting the imminent return of Jesus this month have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in the last week alone.

If you can’t find it in yourselves to welcome Jesus into your hearts as Lord and Saviour then you’ll have to gird your loins for what happens next. Something dire I feel sure. Judgement and a millennium of despair or some such. It might not be too bad though, once the Righteous Ones are out of the picture.

Whichever, I’ll see those of you who are still around come Wednesday when we can discuss what we’re gonna do!!! This blog isn’t going to be of much use any more, that’s for sure. Those of you who’ve decided to head heaven-bound meanwhile, enjoy the trip and don’t forget to write.

Not The Answer

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Unlike most Brits, I knew of Charlie Kirk before his assassination last Wednesday. He cropped up on American blogs I read, most frequently on Joe.My.God. I profoundly disagreed with practically everything Charlie Kirk had to say, though a little of it made me re-examine my position on some issues. His views on gun control seemed to me to be extremely foolish and I objected to what he had to say about gay people, our relationships and status in society. I reacted against his Christian views, entangled as they were with his extreme political views. I objected too to his promotion of his faith; it seemed trite and smug (but then I think this of anyone who preaches Jesus.)

Following Kirk’s death, it’s been reported that he was prepared to debate with those who disagreed with him. He said, ‘When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence… When people stop talking, that’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, they lose their humanity.’ Seemingly then he valued free speech and recognised the importance of dialogue and discussion, though perhaps his intent was to influence the views of others rather than reconsider his own.

He was opposed to transgenderism and this, at the time of writing, looks to have prompted his murder. Many on the Utah University campus last Wednesday would have been incensed by Kirk’s position that trans people were an ‘abomination’, showing a ‘throbbing middle finger to God.’ Some engaged him civilly on the issue, asking pertinent questions. Tyler Robinson, however, decided he would oppose Kirk’s more extreme views and advance the Trans cause by shooting him dead.

There is no justification for what Robinson did. Executing people one disagrees with is a feature of Putin’s Russia or Kim Jong Un in North Korea. It ought not to happen in the democratic west where we debate our opponents or, if they happen to be politicians, vote them out of office. Murder is never the solution, and in this case did not advance the cause the shooter felt so strongly about. Quite the opposite.

Those who argue that his shooting was justifiable – and yes, they’re out there – on the basis that Kirk’s views were extreme and reactionary must also accept that the assassination of any public figure is justifiable on the basis that some people find their views objectionable. Do we really want to go down this road, of rationalising assassinations on the basis the target espouses an ideology we find objectionable?

Those who rejoice at Charlie Kirk’s demise demonstrate a lack of humanity and support the desecration of Western values, free speech in particular.

 

 

The End Is Nigh

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The End is Nigh. Yes, really. Climate change activists waste energy on a daily basis letting us know. Unless we listen to them, our self-appointed Saviours, and immediately give up fossil fuels, the world is headed for calamity and will end soon. Never mind the pollution caused by Russia’s war-mongering and that of the 21 wars and 108 other armed conflicts (what’s the difference?) in the world today. It’s the way you heat your home that is going to bring about the end.

Not with the same focus as today’s climate fanatics but with the same religious fervour, the Jews of two and a half millennia ago waited expectantly for their very human Mashiach (anointed one) to appear. He was to deliver them from their oppressors and make them oppressors instead. He failed to arrive.

Years later, in the first century CE, a small enclave of Jews became convinced their Messiah was on his way. He had by this time transmogrified into a heavenly being but would soon be arriving to set the world aright and deliver his little band of followers from evil and, they decided, from death too. He didn’t make it, but such irrational wishful thinking is how all religions get going and Christianity was no exception.

Muslims, meanwhile, believe that the Day of Judgement is not far off. Everyone will then be judged according to their service to Allah, the faithful rewarded with eternal life, the rest sent to Jahannam (hell).

So here’s a question for you: what do these years have in common? 66-70CE, 365, 370-400, 500, 793, 800, 847, 1000, 1033, 1200, 1284, 1504, 1585, 1600, 1705, 1792, 1833, 1836, 1874, 1901, 1918, 1936, 1967, 1977, 1982, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2007, 2011 and 2021.

They are, of course, a few of the innumerable predictions that the end isn’t far off, after which there will be a great reset. As I suspect you already know, none of these predictions came to pass.

Neither will any of the numerous predictions of future apocalypses– lots of them here – either. It’s not that we’re incapable of wiping ourselves out; it’s possible we will one day, but there won’t be a Mashiach, Christ or God who will step in at the last minute to rescue a favoured few so that everything can start again. There’s no simplistic fix of the sort climate zealots, Islamist terrorists and bumptious politicians insist. Like their apocalyptic predecessors they’re only deluding themselves and lying to the rest of us.

We are, it seems, obsessed with End Times scenarios, and always have been. Our only saviours, however, will be ourselves, if we’ve the will to be. I’m not sure we have, but a first step might be recognising that there’s no Starman (Starmer?) waiting in the sky, or anywhere else, eager to save us. There’s no magic panacea that will rescue us and reset the world.

Hysteria/Mission Creep/Overreach

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When I was head (principal) of a primary (elementary) school in the 1990s, I had a staff member who regarded every small problem as ‘a Major Disaster’ (her words). Everything from a mislaid document to wet weather on sports day was an earth-shattering calamity. She was not the only one to overstate manageable events. Those who wield authority over us, their media lackeys and those with a cause of their own to promote are expert in whipping the populace up into a frenzy disproportionate to the given situation. After a short period in the spotlight, the hysteria and the movements that cause it usually fade, as the media finds something newer and shinier about which to induce panic. Occasionally, the newly out-of-favour movements fight back with renewed vigour, a mission creep extending their influence into new areas.

Looking back over the last 25 years, I and my fellow citizens here in the UK have been expected to be alarmed to an alarming degree about:

The Millennium Bug, when every computer in the world, so the experts said, would crash the instant the year 2000 started. This would, in turn, crash every automated system everywhere, causing chaos and mass fatalities. You all know what actually happened.

Foot & Mouth Disease, when millions of cattle and sheep were slaughtered and burnt. Millions of healthy animals were destroyed in case they contracted the disease.

Weapons of Mass Destruction supposedly amassed by Iraq who, we were told, could unleash them on the West within 45 minutes. That there was no evidence of any WMDs and the fact Iraq did not deploy them (because you can’t deploy something that doesn’t exist) did not deter George W. Bush and Tony Blair from launching their oxymoronic (with the emphasis on the moronic) ‘war on terror’. In so doing, they destabilised the world, creating many of the problems we face today.

Child Abuse Scandals: After either missing or covering up the serial abuse of children and vulnerable people by a BBC celebrity, British authorities went to town on ‘suspected paedophiles’, many of whom were nothing of the sort. (A friend of mine was caught up in this hysteria and spent time in prison for a youthful indiscretion many years earlier.) Unfortunately, this national crisis and the perceived need not to offend Muslims came into conflict when, over 20 years, rape gangs comprised mainly of Pakistani men were able operate in up to 50 UK cities with impunity. Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable, white working-class girls were systematically groomed and raped while the police and authorities turned a blind eye, the consequence of a woke priority taking precedence over the rights and safety of others.     

The Covid Pandemic and Lockdown, when governments the world over (apart from Sweden) panicked about a flu-like virus, closed down entire countries, failed to protect the vulnerable and crashed the very economies needed to fund healthcare and treatment for the infected. Britain was closed down for almost 2 years and still hasn’t recovered from the consequences. Citizens are now paying heavily for actions taken by a government that extended its powers to achieve very little.

        Cartoon by Mark Woods, Spectator magazine, 7th June '25

Mental Health issues and the medicalised labelling of ordinary human behaviours. We all have mental health issues; this is what it is to be human. Some, it is true, have more than others. Determining an individual has ‘mental health issues’ forces him or her to become his or her issues. Instead of being prone to depression (as I was) or anxiety, the individual who experiences these is now ‘neuro-diverse’. Instead of suffering from a condition the individual could do something about they become that condition. Some people, usually males, used to be diagnosed as autistic. Now that autism is seen as a spectrum, everyone is deemed to be on it somewhere; everyone as a result is autistic. People become trapped in their condition with no way out, lifelong treatment the only recourse.

Black Lives Matter. As Lionel Shriver asks here, do black lives matter any more now than they did before all that righteous indignation and virtual signalling from white people?

Identity Politics in which individuals were told as a matter of urgency to self-identify solely on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, gender or sexuality. Gender dysphoria became a thing from which the trans-movement emerged. While I’ve every sympathy for those who feel they were born in the wrong body, society was unprepared for and incapable of dealing with the consequences. Women became ‘cis-women’, sex became ‘gender’ (a grammatical term), ‘non-binary’ became an option and the abuse of pronouns was politicised. An individual could identify as a plural ‘they’, while others lost their jobs if they declined to play along. Worst of all, children, who were too young to be allowed a tattoo, were given puberty blocking drugs, and in some cases surgery, because they felt they were the wrong sex. Children.

The High Court in the UK recently ruled that a man cannot become a woman, entrenching the views of campaigners and prompting other supporters to claim they knew this all along.

Wokeism; while it’s right and proper to treat each other with kindness, courtesy and consideration, politicising something we were, by and large, already doing was not. Wokeism pushed the boundaries over what could be done or said, or rather could not. Anything that might cause someone else offence was forbidden; commenting or criticising others’ religious beliefs or defending women’s rights became ‘hateful’; having a view on unsustainable immigration numbers made you a fascist. This was the era of cancelling those who did not conform to woke ideals. Toppling statues was popular too on the basis that a long-forgotten figure from 250 years ago may have had a slight connection with the slave trade. Western guilt for actions over which people living today had no part in and demands for reparations to those equally uninvolved ensued.

The ‘necessary’ control of free speech, a panic we’re still mired in. Stupid and inflammatory comments on social media can now earn you a prison sentence longer than that of a paedophile offender, often preceded by a visit from half a dozen policemen who will root through your house looking for evidence that you might have once had a ‘Brexity’ thought. Subjects off limits are; arguing that Covid19 began in a Wuhan laboratory (it might upset the Chinese); Islam, Islamic extremism and the Pro-Palestinian movement (however it’s still okay to criticise and condemn Jewish people for the actions of their government); expressing views different from the UK government’s and whatever the prevailing narrative happens to be. A government agency, ‘Prevent‘, last year redefined terrorism (see below) as ‘vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination’ and any expression of what it calls ‘cultural nationalism’. What this means is that those who call out religiously-motivated discrimination, lawlessness and terrorism are to be considered terrorists themselves. Actual terrorism and violence is therefore protected against those who would speak out about it, those who do so being the real terrorists. To put it another way, which I read recently (though can’t remember where): those who say hurty things are far more culpable than those who commit actual hurty things. This Orwellian doublespeak must now be taught in universities and other higher education institutions.  

The Climate Crisis and Net-Zero. You must be alarmed by the climate crisis (see here for how much of it Al Gore got wrong). You must too pay heavily for net-zero, thanks to additional taxes; energy prices in the UK are the highest in the world. You must buy into the government’s attempts to enforce a net-zero energy policy by 2050, despite net-zero being unachievable.

What if, might, could, maybe: the media’s favourite phrases to ramp up hysteria. ‘There might be terrible consequences’; ‘we could be headed for another Major Disaster’; ‘if X happens (though it hasn’t) then Y could possibly follow.’ When did the media stop reporting what has actually happened and take up fortune telling instead?  

* * * * * *

There is some comfort in the fact that the so-called crises and hysteria of the past eventually receded and faded away. So too will many of these current causes. All things, as George Harrison once wisely reminded us, must pass. They will, however, be replaced by others equally irrational and preposterous. Those who create them, be they governments, special interest groups or overwrought Swedish teenagers will expect us to conform to their Chicken-Little levels of hysteria. When they do, don’t be alarmed and be sure to seek out the evidence for yourself.

Provoking the Lion: a Fable

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The others didn’t need much persuading when Sinwar told them they really had to do something about the lion. It was, he said, too near the camp and represented a threat. The gods demanded they gather their guns and other weapons to launch an attack not only on the alpha-male itself but the entire pride. That way, any future threats would also be eliminated. The problem of the lion and its proximity to the camp would be resolved once and for all.

They planned a dawn expedition when the lion and the pride could be caught unawares. As hunters they knew how to take their prey by surprise. They crept into the undergrowth and caught different members of the pride in their sights. Then, the onslaught began.

The cubs and unwary females were butchered first, with unrelenting savagery. Lionesses that sought to protect their offspring were mercilessly gunned down. Finally, the males appeared from the undergrowth and were met with a hail of bullets that tore into their powerful bodies, ripping them apart. They were no match for the hunters’ arsenal.

Caught unaware as it was, the pride stood no chance. The hunters looked on the carnage and knew it was good. They returned to camp, taking with them the only cubs to have survived the onslaught, mortally wounded and unable to resist. Once safely returned they praised the gods who had surely blessed their mission and ensured its success.

News of their heroic efforts soon spread until all around marvelled at their accomplishments. No-one gave much thought to the lions who had been slaughtered. It was taken as read that the pride had been in need of a merciless cull. Right had prevailed.

Unknown to Sinwar and the hunters, however, the alpha lion had survived. Hidden in the shadows, he licked his many wounds and knew instinctively he would exact revenge. He had been severely provoked and he vowed to himself that such provocation would not go unpunished. Others joined him; males who had recently left the pride to establish their own, heeded the deep instinct that they must band together to ensure their survival.

They attacked when their hunters were least expecting it and returned the savagery that had been meted out to them. The nearby townsfolk were shocked at the bloody retaliation; the hunters had been within their rights to attack the pride, after all. The lions had no right to exact a deadly revenge. Everyone in the region and even further afield seemed to think so. Nonetheless, a great deal more senseless death followed.

Having decimated the hunters and rescued some of the cubs, the lions took many townsfolk in their savage maws. They then moved on to new territories, sensing the allegiance of others to the hunters. They attacked those who had lent their support and had hunters of their own, losing some of their own number while destroying any who stood in their way. A rogue elephant from far away blundered into the fray, trampling many more while demanding the hunters and lions make up and be friends. (Meanwhile, a pygmy shrew from another land wondered if it too should join in but found itself incapable of deciding even whose side it should be on.)

Having stood its ground, the alpha lion returned to its den. He had taught the hunters and those who supported them that they provoked him at their peril. It would, he vowed, never happen again.

The New New Testament: part 3

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Following the fourth gospel is the epistle of Jude, written at the end of the first century. It is certainly not by a brother of Jesus, despite this traditional attribution. Rather, it addresses false teaching in the Christian community of its day. It makes its points with reference to characters in Jewish scriptures and even mentions the apostles (those who had visions of Jesus) but knows nothing about an earthly Jesus. Parts of Jude are lifted wholesale into the later forgery of 2 Peter.

And then… another made up Jesus! This time the avenging angel of Revelation. I’ve written about Revelation recently so won’t repeat it all here. Suffice to say, this revealing is completely within a disturbed cultist’s head. He wants to see those who oppose the cult to suffer at the hands of his the Messiah who sweeps down from heaven determined to wipe out unbelievers and set the chosen few up as rulers of a reformed Earth. This Jesus seems to have forgotten he once told people to love their neighbours, pray for those who persecuted them, humble themselves, give all they had to the poor etc etc. Revelation Jesus has no time for this sorta shit! Of course, he’s no more real than any of the gospel Jesuses. He’s simply another made-up version, ‘revealed’, or so his creator would have us think, from Heaven. Revelation is chockful of symbolism – The Whore of Babylon, the Number of the Beast, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb etc – all of it applicable to the time when it was written. It has no bearing on anything after that time and doesn’t, despite sloppy interpretations, feature ‘the Anti-Christ’.

The letters of John were all probably written by the same person. This is not the John credited with creating the fourth gospel nor Revelation’s nut-job. This John, or whatever he was really called, is concerned with divisions within his community, chiefly those caused by a group who denied that Jesus was the Christ (1 John 2:22). They were literally anti-Christ. This is where the term occurs in the New Testament and it doesn’t refer to a future madman who will crush Christians in his attempt to rule the world. It seems likely that John’s anti-Christs believed Jesus did not visit Earth as a flesh and blood human being. They were perhaps the last remnants of those Christians who, like Paul and most of the preceding New Testament letter writers, held that Jesus was a divine being, active only in Heaven. With these epistles then, written around CE 100, we turn a corner. Belief in the symbolic Jesus depicted in the gospels as a real man, has become the orthodoxy. It took some time to get here.

And chronologically, that’s about it. There are four forged books left, making the properly ordered New Testament end, not with a bang but a whimper. While 1 & 2 Timothy and 2 Peter claim to be written by Paul and Peter respectively their late date rules this out. 1 Timothy provides the infamous line that women should remain silent in church and obey their husbands at all times. 2 Peter has all the nonsense about a day being the same as a thousand years in God’s eyes. Its duplicitous author argues that God is delaying bringing punishment to the world so that more people might be saved. Evidently he lacks any mathematical understanding. You would think at this point the cultists would have realised that the cultists of the previous century, so certain of the Lord’s imminent arrival had got it disastrously wrong. But no. They reinterpreted their ‘revelations’ and prophecies so that instead of his arrival being ‘at hand’ it was now set to happen at any time in the future, even thousands of years ahead.

Christianity was all but dead at this point. It simply refused to admit it.