The Bible killed us (but not how you might think)

[Donnadogsoth]

The Bible killed the West because it is so long, complicated, abstruse, obtuse, apparently contradictory, seemingly incoherent, confusing, arcane, and recondite. Its recitation generates a haze of complacency in its audiences, most of whom have long ago given up trying to understand it as a literary document and have either rejected it entirely or followed along, mumbling prayers led by their chosen spiritual leaders.

 

This has killed us because it kills people's access to great ideas. People think about the Bible the way they think about Science: way too confusing, impenetrable to anyone except specialists, and not worth the trouble to find out about. The difference between the Bible and Science is, the former produces intangible goods, whereas the latter produces tangible ones.

 

Given the choice between understanding that Christianity provides a kind of immune response capacity in a culture to Communism, for example, or understanding that something magical and respectable called "electricity" means a flick of a plastic switch lets you read, eat, and otherwise live comfortably at night, the more believable, tactile, desirable choice is obvious. It is all too easy to shear off the former and simply trumpet the latter.

 

In so shearing, however, one throws out the great literature of the age, the great art, the great music, the great philosophers, and is left with mere technologism, or Scientism, the notion that all problems, no matter how psychological in nature, are technical problems vulnerable to technical solutions, and that all that is lost—the soul, the identity of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and the perspectives granted us by the geniuses of history—is of no account.

 

Understanding the Bible is difficult, but not impossible, just as understanding Science is difficult, but not impossible. It's this difficulty that is defeating us as a society sinking deeply into the womblike comforts of a high-tech decadence. The Bible is to blame because it set the standard so high, its intangible benefits allowed so much—the Renaissance, the preservation of knowledge by the various orders of Christian monks, the scientific revolution itself, the Enlightenment, the abolition of slavery, globally extended European civilisation, and the glories and optimism that characterised the 19^th and much of the 20^th Centuries--that now the culture it has created can barely bring itself to crane its neck enough to look up to it.

 

The solution, needed as a defense against inimical forces such as Communism, Cultural Marxism, Islam, British Free Trade ideology, and Nihilistic Hedonism, is to engage in depth expeditions to recover the Western canon now resting and corroding at the bottom of the Atlantic with the bones of the jettisoned Middle Passage slaves murdered in response to the encroachment of Christian liberty. We need people who understand Christianity, the Bible, the Philosophers, the Artists, and the Scientists who comprise the soul of the West.

 

The Bible killed us, but the Bible promises a Resurrection.  Christendom has nearly perished before, and revived, so the modern world appears poised to perish, and may yet revive--if sufficient heroes can be found in time.

[RichardY]

The Bible killed the West because it is so long, complicated, abstruse, obtuse, apparently contradictory, seemingly incoherent, confusing, arcane, and recondite. Its recitation generates a haze of complacency in its audiences, most of whom have long ago given up trying to understand it as a literary document and have either rejected it entirely or followed along, mumbling prayers led by their chosen spiritual leaders.

I agree, but in contrast the Koran isn't exactly coherent and Islam is spreading. I remember sitting next to a twitchy ethnic Iranian guy on a plane in Norway, strangely got into a conversation in which he said he thought Islam was garbage and said there was some passage about "preying with the beard of a goat" (go figure ).

 

On the surface though "There is "One" God but Allah and Muhammed is his Messenger" IMO beats "Holy Trinity" or Demi-God Jesus. There is only one Moral Will that of Allah and submission to his Will is Just. Kind of a moral abdication of responsibility. What inbred middle easterner is even going to learn the Koran on the whole. 

 

A much abridged version of the Bible perhaps cutting out the chronology of events would be interesting but not so much as to be a children's version.

 

This has killed us because it kills people's access to great ideas. People think about the Bible the way they think about Science: way too confusing, impenetrable to anyone except specialists, and not worth the trouble to find out about. The difference between the Bible and Science is, the former produces intangible goods, whereas the latter produces tangible ones.

 

The solution, needed as a defense against inimical forces such as Communism, Cultural Marxism, Islam, British Free Trade ideology, and Nihilistic Hedonism, is to engage in depth expeditions to recover the Western canon now resting and corroding at the bottom of the Atlantic with the bones of the jettisoned Middle Passage slaves murdered in response to the encroachment of Christian liberty. We need people who understand Christianity, the Bible, the Philosophers, the Artists, and the Scientists who comprise the soul of the West.

 

The Bible killed us, but the Bible promises a Resurrection.  Christendom has nearly perished before, and revived, so the modern world appears poised to perish, and may yet revive--if sufficient heroes can be found in time.

I kind of think your getting at the "concept" of Transcendence. Don't think I'd go as far as hauling up corpses and canon but if you know any expeditions I'm game. The explosion of alt-right media on Youtube is pretty interesting whether Clinton or some other candidate might censor it is yet to be fully realised. But even with alt-right media or more neutrally less biased media. Islam beats Communism, Cultural Marxism,  British Free Trade ideology, and Nihilistic Hedonism hands down. Whether Christianity is going to make a come back in Europe I doubt it. Nationalism I think is going to struggle simply because to an "R" predominant population there's not the ancestor reverence of the "K".

[Donnadogsoth]

What Christianity has on its side is the Crucifixion, which taps into the human nature of love as the fundamental emotion, the idea that Christ's love is God's is something we can participate in as being made in God's image--unlike Islam where man is not made in Allah's image, but is simply another toy.  It's not as easy to explain, but it's a distinct and eye-catching image attached to a more sublime concept than simply "OBEY!"  Christianity presupposes thought in application.

 

And outside of the presence of violence, whether the violence of migrants penetrating Western borders, or of terrorism, rape, and bullying once they're in, or of a media hijacked by anti-Christian secularists, Christianity does appear to trump just about everything.  It won Europe, Russia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Americas, and now is taking a sizable bite out of Southeast Asia.

 

So, now it comes down to Christianity versus Islam.  Or should I say Christianity versus everything, since Islam, like everything else non-Christian, is an official Ward of the State and so is shielded from critique.  In other words Islam already, in a sense, rules over us, like a malicious toddler wrecking our tea party whilst his big, mean older sister stands behind him glaring at us.