Self-Mythologizing

A Twitter mutual threw out a great term, “Self-mythologizing,” in relation to baby boomers and their relationship to certain 1960s icons, such as Janis Joplin: For the record, I think Janis Joplin is the most overrated singer of all time, but she represents a perfect data point for the collective myth that baby boomers tell about themselves and the years between 1967 and 1970. Growing up in the 1980s and 90s, I saw no shortage of references to Woodstock, supposedly the most important music festival of all time. There were entire documentaries about, aired regularly, history channel specials, and dozens…

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Materialist Inversions of Solipsism

Well, we’ve come full circle from gnostics believing the material world is an illusion to materialists believing that consciousness is an illusion. People are often unaware of the materialist assumptions they hold and how they affect their view of reality, even when they lead to absurd, contradictory conclusions. Even an intelligent person like Scott Adams can end up in a silly place because of such assumptions—the primary one being that the material world is all that exists. Having read his view on free will in one of his books, he was almost at a compatibilist belief regarding free will (his…

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Politics and the Alternate Utility of Time

Next time you turn on the news, click to open an article, or read a long post/Twitter thread on politics, consider what else you could be doing during that time. Time, after all, is the one resource you can’t get more of. Unlike economies of trade, it is a zero-sum game. The concept of alternate utility in economics deals with how resources are best used. For instance, a piece of land could be used to grow 100 units of corn or 80 units of rice. Another plot could produce 30 units of corn or 50 units of rice. If corn…

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Materialism and Gnosticism

Check out a great thread by author (and attorney) Alexander Palacio: It’s odd that the extremes of materialism (in the philosophical sense, the belief that only the material is real and of consequence) end up in the same place as Gnostic heresy in denying the importance and reality of the body. According to the materialist, you ARE your body, there is metaphysically no separate spiritual “soul” that ascends to heaven or goes anywhere else. Thus one would think that the body is, therefore, the only thing that can be sacred because it is all humans are. However, the disregard for…

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A Propagandized View of Debt and Forgiveness

Certain issues have been so heavily subject to political messaging that normally rational individuals will be unable to hear arguments outside the frame established by propaganda. Debt is one of these, and for some, the messaging surrounding the concept runs so deep that they will, during the context of the topic, forget the normal meaning of words. “Student debt forgiveness,” as the name should imply, involves the forgiveness of debt. And yet, church-going Americans who have a firm grasp of the forgiveness offered by God through Christ, suddenly forget its meaning entirely any time you mention student loans. They immediately…

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American Radical Religion: revolution as revivalism

The last year or two I have been doing research into the many Christian and Pseudo-Christian religions that have arisen in the United States, particularly those that had their birth in the first part of the 19th century—the so-called “Great Awakening.” This includes the ancestors of the modern-day Mormon churches, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, along with the many variants of Charismatic and Pentecostal Protestant Christianity. I’ve noticed a few patterns, though these are not universal, nor has my study been exhaustive. Generally, I see a sequence that goes something like this: A charismatic leader preaches novel heresy as a…

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A Propagandized View of War

A viewer asked me about Starship Troopers on Saturday’s stream. I’ve done several videos on the book and movie, and written at least one article about it, but it keeps coming up. That’s probably the power of Heinlein’s ideas, but again, I want to push back a bit. Before that, let me sum up: Starship Troopers (the book) is known for its ideas. There’s not much story there, and I don’t care for it as a result. It’s not a great story by Heinlein. Lots of the ideas are in pop culture, primarily “power armor” and the “bug hunt.” But…

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It’s okay to be alone

I’m not sure who needs to hear this (going live AFTER Valentine’s day), but it’s perfectly alright to be alone. I tend to promote family and I push back against those that say someone should NOT have a family. Anti-natalism is a Death Cult philosophy. Children are a tremendous blessing, and so is marriage, despite how both are often portrayed in popular media. However, these are not things that everyone needs to have to be complete, nor (more importantly) are they things for which everyone is destined. Being single can be a tremendous blessing as well, but either of these…

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The Modern “Pagan”

I put out a little thread the other day (actually 2, since I wanted to elaborate on Paganism). In one go: Mass hypnosis is a fun concept, but I think disordered religious sentiment makes more sense. Remember pagans never called themselves anything; so the followers of the Death Cult, State Cult, and Scientism only have those labels because we have found them useful. 1000+ years of domination in the west by Christianity and Islam has made people forget that religion doesn’t usually resemble these faiths, especially when it comes to self-identification. Milius was right when Conan asks, “What gods do…

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The Wages of Sin… And Student Debt

“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” Who is responsible for the fall of man? If you want to have a fun discussion in Sunday school (or anywhere where people know the fundamental creation stories of Abrahamic faiths), pose this question, and see where the debate goes. Very obviously, Adam and Eve are both responsible for the sin they committed by eating the forbidden fruit. Otherwise, they would not have been cast from the Garden of Eden and incurred the debt of sin which is fulfilled in death. But the snake is also present and were it not…

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