Sunday, March 1, 2015

The Bible as Good Practical Wisdom

I don’t look at the Bible so much as religion but as good practical wisdom about life, especially about the frailties of humanity. You can find the same wisdom in Aesop’s Fables, in fairy tales, and in any good novel, including popular ones, such as those by Stephen King.

Let’s take, for example, the Book of Proverbs. There are seven detestable things listed.
• A proud look
• A lying tongue
• Hands that shed innocent blood
• A heart that devises wicked plots
• Feet that are swift to run into mischief
• A deceitful witness that uttereth lies
• Him that soweth discord among brethren

These traits can be translated into hubris, lying and murder. “Wicked plots” can mean anything bad, be it murder, lies, theft, as can all the rest.

The Bible is in many ways “conservative,” in the sense of its depiction of people as inherently imperfect and flawed. Not surprisingly, all the better writers portray people as greatly flawed, be they Shakespeare or Conrad or Dostoevsky. As I mentioned, even the modern-day popular ones, such as Stephen King, portray people as very flawed.

The worst writers, such as Karl Marx (and what he wrote is fiction) portray people as not limited and flawed, as being potential gods, as them being capable of creating a utopia on earth.

It’s clear that many people fall for the belief there can be a Heaven on earth, otherwise so many people would not for fallen for Marx, or Stalin, or Hitler, with their beliefs that once you get rid of the bad people, only goodness will remain.

I’ve heard these people who promise Heaven on earth referred to as ‘the Children of Darkness,” and the problem with them is that they are far more clever than the Children of Light. If they weren’t cleverer than the Children of Light, they wouldn’t be far more able to manipulate and con people.

The problem is that people are flawed, in fact sleepwalkers, because if they weren’t, so many of them would not fall for the promises of the Children of Darkness. And what the Children of Darkness promise is far more than what the Children of Light promise. Far, far more, and that is the problem.

The promises of the Children of Darkness include not only utopia on earth, but getting rid of evil, which of course is an inherent part of utopia. When David Frum and Richard Perle wrote a book called An End to Evil, they immediately identified themselves as Children of Darkness, most especially since their “end to evil” involved long-term war.

I have come to the conclusion that the mass of people are sheep, they are asleep, they fall for the outrageous promises of the Children of Darkness, with their promises of utopia and an end to evil. It’s as if they’re children who never grew up, and look to leaders for them to worship, ones who believe will take them of their every need.

They want to return to the Garden of Eden, ignoring the fact there is a cherubim with a flaming sword barring their way back. That fact is also some of the good practical wisdom in the Bible.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

'And what the Children of Darkness promise is far more than what the Children of Light promise.'

They can promise more because their promises are empty and usually full of half truths (that's how they reel people in). God has always produces more and always backs up what He says.

Anders said...

"once you get rid of the bad people, only goodness will remain." for a season, how long or short that season lasts is up to the people who remain.
Evil Never Dies.

endwatcher said...

In Revelations after the Devil is imprisoned for 1000 years and the world is under divine rule of Christ the people rebel yet again.

The Divine King is literally the ruler of the world and they rebel.

Same thing happened as the Israelites wandered the desert after Egypt, God was in the camp as a cloud and a pillar of fire and they could not look past their desires to the divine. They murmured against Him.

People will not naturally pick good. Anyone selling anything on the foundation of faith in man is conning you.

Unknown said...

Besides the only person who will ever bring the utopia that will eliminate all evil is Jesus.

"The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Matthew 13:41-42

Anonymous said...


Humans are intrinsically good:

http://blog.kareldonk.com/on-human-nature-and-morality-humans-are-intrinsically-good/

Unknown said...

People are instinctively flawed. Not bad, not good. Flawed.

Anonymous said...

I read The Predatory Female by Lawrence Shannon and The Manipulated Man by Esther Vilar, both of these books changed my life. They really turned me off to ever getting married.

I think of women now as being men with female sex organs and much, much harsher and crueler personalities than men in reality. Women merely wear a mask of feminity that hides their true bad nature. I have never seen a man as callous, aloof and cruel, as the average woman. They are truly empty inside but only feign being otherwise. They only play the mythical, idealized woman. That is the essence of the nasty Scam. We all fell for it unfortunately.

Women's behavior is the core of the feminists movement. They want to use the government to force benefits from men, employers, and even other women. They do not care about the morality of discrimination, stealing from others, and manipulating the system for their own supremacy. They use their emotions to invoke the empathy from men, because they understand men have empathy, whereas women do not. Women will call other women on their bullshit, but most men will not. The reality of nature is men were born to be women's slaves, and women were born not to care about men, because it would be detrimental to female prosperity.

The vast majority of women are parasites, and nothing more. We can see this within the laws and their behavior. It is difficult for men to come to terms with reality, because their natural desires and love for women are counterproductive to reality, men's happiness, and men's well being. Women know what is going on and they almost universally support the destruction and subjugation of men.

Black Poison Soul said...

Who decides who is "bad"?

Who will watch the Watchmen?

Unknown said...

'The reality of nature is men were born to be women's slaves, and women were born not to care about men, because it would be detrimental to female prosperity.'

That's not how it was in the beginning. So this isn't the truth.

Unknown said...

Indeed it's not. It's the most twisted of Evo-Pysch, a fraud if there ever was one.

Glen Filthie said...

Vox Day is awesome! Even though the guy looks like a queer, he is well read and dispenses fairly solid manly wisdom to his dedicated fan boys - most of whom are geeks and wimps themselves. He writes dismal fiction and his arch enemy, John Scalzi (who is an even BIGGER wimp and a pussy than Vox is) - writes better than he does! LOL!

You don't want to read his stuff when he puts on airs of intellectualism to discuss immunology/vaccination or insurgencies and tactics...but in other areas he does passable social commentary.

Your blind spot, Bob, in my scholarly opinion - is with the military and realpolitik. It's fairly typical of the bloggers of your generation. Elderly hippies seem to think that money and power are no reason to go to war. They are wrong in that, but again, critical thought is needed to see the error.

I personally am a shit house objectivist with elements of the neoreactionary thrown in... and it seems to be a good mix. I can rapidly trouble shoot mine (and other people's) problems and hang ups, I can predict the consequences of actions and think ahead, and I am smart enough to concede that perception is not reality.
The manosphere is simply a predictable and reasonable response to feral womanhood, liberalism and feminism. It is a great place for men that have survived devastating relationships with failed liberal social experiments. It allows them to vent, seek counsel of others who have been through the same thing, and help them figure out what to do next.

Unknown said...

"The manosphere is simply a predictable and reasonable response to feral womanhood, liberalism and feminism"

Exactly.

Mindstorm said...

"They want to return to the Garden of Eden, ignoring the fact there is a cherubim with a flaming sword barring their way back."

Assuming that they perceive such claims as 'facts'. There is no return to a place that never was.

Are myths facts?