Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Sunday, December 3, 2023

INDEX - Process Thinkers of Note


click here for article


INDEX - PROCESS THINKERS OF NOTE



R.E. SLATER

Chatbot & I discuss why "Common Sense Is Not So Common"





ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD
Alfred North Whitehead - Biography




DR. JOHN B. COBB, JR.








DR. ANDREW M. DAVIS




ELVI BJORKQUIST, ARCHITECT / ARTIST




DR. MATTHEW SEGALL


Matt has many more videos and discussions. Simply look up his Index in
the columns to the right. He is one of my favorite process thinkers.




PROCESS STATEMENTS & CITATIONS


In physics, Ilya Prigogine distinguishes between the "physics of being" and the "physics of becoming". Process philosophy covers not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and science."


* * * * * * *


"It seems sensible to understand "process philosophy" as a doctrine committed to, or at any rate inclined toward, certain basic propositions:

1) Time and change are among the principal categories of metaphysical understanding.

2) Process is a principal category of ontological description.

3) Processes are more fundamental, or at any rate not less fundamental, than things for the purposes of ontological theory.

4) Several, if not all of the major elements of the ontological repertoire (God, Nature as a whole, persons, material substances) are best understood in process terms.

5) Contingency, emergence, novelty and creativity are among the fundamental categories of metaphysical understanding. 

A process philosopher, then, is someone for whom temporality, activity, and change─of alteration, striving, passage, novelty-emergence─are the cardinal factors for our understanding of the real.  Ultimately, it is a question of priority─of viewing the time-bound aspects of the real as constituting its most characteristic and significant features.  For the process philosopher, process has priority over product─both ontologically and epistemically."

-  Nicholas Rescher, Process Philosophy, 1928, p 6.


* * * * * * *


"The cycles that can ground us through our busy lives are: breath, rhythms of the day, weekly rhythms and Sabbath rest, waxing and waning lunar cycles, seasons of the year, seasons of a lifetime, ancestral time, and cosmic time. Each cycle encourages us to mindfully consider the time that passes as quickly as each breath and as slowly as the passing of generations."

- Christine Valters Paintner, Sacred Time, 2021


* * * * * * *


"Philosophers can never hope finally to formulate these metaphysical first principles. Weakness of insight and deficiencies of language stand in the way inexorably. Words and phrases must be stretched towards a generality foreign to their ordinary usage; and however such elements of language be stabilized as technicalities, they remain metaphors mutely appealing for an imaginative leap."

- Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1928, p. 4


* * * * * * *


"Process philosophy, a 20th-century school of Western philosophy that emphasizes the elements of becoming, change, and novelty in experienced reality; it opposes the traditional Western philosophical stress on being, permanence, and uniformity. Reality—including both the natural world and the human sphere—is essentially historical in this view, emerging from (and bearing) a past and advancing into a novel future. Hence, it cannot be grasped by the static spatial concepts of the old views, which ignore the temporal and novel aspects of the universe given in man’s experience."

- Encyclopedia Britannica, 2021

* * * * * * *


"Mind transforms the continuance of physical spacetime into moments (the absolute Now) and blends these moments into an apparent continuity through an overlapping of unfolding capsules. The flow of psychological time is an illusion based on the rapid replacement of these capsules. Each mind computes the measure of time passing and duration from the decay of the surface present in relation to a core of past events. As each new surface is generated, that surface, the rim of the immediate past, recedes in the wake of rising contents. This recession, an uncovering of phases latent in the original traversal, exposes layers in the past forming the content of the immediate past moment. The surge of the microgeny to a surface that dissolves the instant it appears, the priority of the Self in the unfolding sequence, the feeling of agency, create a Self in a state of becoming, a Self that travels in time like the crest of a wave, always in pursuit of a future just beyond the grasp of the present."

- Jason W. Brown, Psychology of Time Awareness, 1990


* * * * * * *


"The Huayan developed the doctrine of "interpenetration" or "coalescence" (Wylie: zung-'jug; Sanskrit: yuganaddha),[23][24] based on the Avatamsaka Sūtra, a Mahāyāna scripture. It holds that all phenomena (Sanskrit: dharmas) are intimately connected (and mutually arising). Two images are used to convey this idea. The first is known as Indra's net. The net is set with jewels which have the extraordinary property that they reflect all of the other jewels. The second image is that of the world text. This image portrays the world as consisting of an enormous text which is as large as the universe itself. The words of the text are composed of the phenomena that make up the world. However, every atom of the world contains the whole text within it. It is the work of a Buddha to let out the text so that beings can be liberated from suffering. The doctrine of interpenetration influenced the Japanese monk Kūkai, who founded the Shingon school of Buddhism. Interpenetration and essence-function are mutually informing in the East Asian Buddhist traditions, especially the Korean Buddhist tradition."


* * * * * * *

  • "Reality is a process: nothing ever stays the same.
  • The process of reality is creative, emergent, evolutionary, and social.
  • There is a profound relationship between creativity, beauty, and life.
  • All life deserves respect; nothing in nature stands alone; everything is connected.
  • Thinking and feeling are connected; mind and body are not separate entities;
  • aesthetic wisdom and rational inquiry are complementary.
  • Human experience begins by feeling the presence of the world and being affected by it.
  • Human happiness involves sharing experience with others and responding in harmony to these relationships."


* * * * * * *


"This sense of reality as a dynamic breath-force tissue is reflected in the Chinese language itself, and so operates as an unnoticed assumption in ancient Chinese consciousness. There is no distinction between noun and verb in classical Chinese. Virtually all words can function as either. Hence, the sense of reality as verbal: a tissue alive and in the process. This includes all individual elements of reality, such as mountains or people, and contrasts with our language's sense that reality is nominal, an assemblage of static things. A noun in fact only refers to a temporal slice through the ongoing verbal process that any thing actually is."

- David Hinton, China Root, 2020, p. 35


* * * * * * *

Some Principles of Whitehead's Thinking:
1. Question the assumptions of your community, your society, your religion, your science, your educational institutions, especially those that are rarely mentioned.

2. Question the dominant media, asking who controls it and what they want you to think.
3. Recognize that a serious answer to any important question brings into view lots of other questions.
4. When people appeal to mystery, consider that it may be mystification. Push critical thought as far as you can.
5. Recognize that the wider range of influences on an event or person that you consider, the better you understand that event or person.
6. Recognize that the broader you consideration of the context and of the likely consequences of your action, the better chance that you will make the right choice.
7. Realize that all your ideas and values are influenced by your particular situation, but refuse to conclude that for this reason they can be dismissed as merely "relative."
8. Recognize that there may be no actions that are completely harmless, but do not let that prevent you for acting decisively.
9. Understand that compassion is the most basic aspect of our experience, and seek to liberate and extend your compassion to all with which you come in contact.
10. Deepen you commitments to your own immediate communities, but always remember that other communities make similar demands on their members. Let you ultimate commitment be all-inclusive."

- By John B. Cobb, Jr.What would Whitehead Think?


* * * * * * *

"They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”

- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

* * * * * * *


The Core Doctrines of Process Philosophy for Circa 2020 CE:


"1. The integration of moral, aesthetic, and religious intuitions with the most general doctrines of the sciences into a self-consistent worldview as one of the central tasks of philosophy in our time.

2. Hard-core commonsense notions as the ultimate test of the adequacy of a philosophical position.

3. Whitehead's nonsensationist doctrine of perception, according to which sensory perception is a secondary mode of perception, being derivative from a more fundamental, nonsensory "prehension."

4. Panexperientalism with organizational duality, according to which all true individuals─as distinct from aggregational societies─have at least some iota of experience and spontaneity (self-determination).

5. The doctrine that all enduring individuals are serially ordered societies of momentary "occasions of experience."

6. The doctrine that all actual entities have internal as well as external relations.

7. The Whiteheadian version of naturalistic theism, according to which a Divine Actuality acts variably but never supernaturally in the world.

8. Doubly Dipolar Deism.

9. The provision of cosmological support for the ideals needed by contemporary civilization as one of the chief purposes of philosophy in our time.

10. A distinction between verbal statements (sentences) and propositions and between both of these and propositional feelings."

- David Ray Griffin, Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism, 2001, p.1-12, summary excerpts.

Process-based Eco-Community Links & Resources



John Cobb Bio
John Boswell Cobb, Jr. (born 9 February 1925) is an American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist. Cobb is often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology, the school of thought associated with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Cobb is the author of more than fifty books. In 2014, Cobb was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Cobb is a founding co-director of the Center for Process Studies and Process & Faith that celebrated its 50th anniversary February 2023. He also serves as Chairman of the Board for the Living Earth Movement established in 2022 to celebrate his 97th birthday. He has held many positions, such as Ingraham Professor of Theology at the School of Theology at Claremont, Avery Professor at the Claremont Graduate School, Fullbright Professor at the University of Mainz, Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt, Harvard Divinity, Chicago Divinity Schools. His writings include over 50 books including: Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology, God and the World; For the Common Good. Co-winner of Grawemeyer Award of Ideas Improving World Order.

John B Cobb - Seizing an Alternative
Center for Process Studies  |  Mar 9, 2015


Message from John B. Cobb, Seizing an Alternative Conference 2015



John Cobb - Whitehead's Model and Multiple Spiritualities
Center for Process Studies  |   Feb 13, 2015

Seizing an Alternative Conference John B. Cobb, Jr. "Whitehead's Model and Multiple Spiritualities" at the Center for Process Studies Seminar at Claremont School of Theology, Spring 2002.


Hi,

I’m putting together a series of articles for you online which I’ll forward asap. All of them will be focusing on process philosophy (and theology) across various industries and endeavors. For you, I imagine you may apply this into:

  • Environmental process ecology (and / or process-based agriculture) or,
  • Urban and rural process-based development (sic, habitat and social justice)
  • Process thought is perfect for this areas per John Cobb’s 3 minute video below.

If you go this route I can help mentor you in this area. Below please find a few books (there’s many more online and at my website; you’ll just have to search them out).

  • I suggest the full website and not the mobile platform where you may utilize:
  • the topical and INDEX lists;
  • the INDEXES are a compilation of topics on a topic… thus saving search time;
  • you’ll find these in the topical list as alphabetized

Suggestions below with more to come,

Enjoy,

R.E. Slater
November 17, 2023

* * * * * * *


Process-based Eco-Community
Links & Resources


1 - Earth Charter - https://earthcharter.org/

2 - (John) Cobb Institute - https://cobb.institute/about/

  • There are books, articles, and video resources here; 
  • I was fortunate to go through John’s Whiteheadian class five years ago qualifying
  • me as a third generation Whiteheadian (without John I’d be a fourth gen’er)



3 - Philip Clayton’s Institute for Ecological Civilization - https://ecociv.org



Amazon link


4 - Living Earth (International) Movement Videos (all 2023) (their wordpress website isn’t working):

Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr. of the Living Earth Movement
Introduces the Understanding China Program
Nov 8, 2023  |  1:46:04


Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr. and other members of the Living Earth Movement for International Peace and Cooperation on Climate Solutions Introduced the Understanding China Program and conducted a discussion on the first few China Papers. More details in Nov 9, 2023 newsletter at http://mailchi.mp/livingearthmovement...

INTRODUCTION: Many of us participating in the Living Earth Movement believe that the global problems we face in both the natural world and society are in grave danger of bringing our civilization to its end. Many of us believe that only well-led global cooperation can save us. We think that the real leaders today are the United States and China, and that their joint leadership would have the best chance of unifying the world in facing the desperate situation. 

Given the urgency of the United States working with China for the sake of all of us, the barrage of news and propaganda preparing us for war is deeply disturbing. If the priority of the United States is unilateral domination of the planet, then the nuclear destruction of China may result. but we believe that most Americans would prefer to partner with others in working for the survival of humanity than to dominate a largely uninhabitable globe. Cooperation with an enemy is hard to implement.

If civilization is to survive, enemies must be changed into partners. A major obstacle to partnering with China for the good of all is that American propaganda has dehumanized or demonized China’s leadership in the minds of so many Americans. Many cannot think of China as a partner in light of all its wrongdoings. It is that understanding of China that we want to see set aside by a more realistic interpretation of what has happened that makes Chinese actions understandable.

Our goal is not to persuade Americans that China is correct on disputed matters, that Chinese motives are always pure, that China’s actions have always been wise. We do want to persuade readers that Chinese actions and policies are understandable, and that they do not justify the judgment that China cannot serve as our partner in envisioning the changes required for survival.

We want human civilization to survive on a living Earth. We want China and the United States to co-lead the world to take the actions that will keep the planet habitable, We think that balanced and objective knowledge will show that China can do its part if it is treated as a partner. We hope that the information we offer will help Americans open themselves to the cooperation so urgently needed. After reading Chinese propaganda, we are likely to be less easily swayed by American, and, of course, vice versa.

Our project is different. We want to provide neutral information. We are writing for Americans. We think that misunderstanding China in ways encouraged by American propaganda blocks the path to the cooperation with China that would benefit all of us. Our task is to tell the truth about what China is doing and planning in such a way that Americans can understand, whether or not we approve. We hope that mutual understanding will enable us to cooperate for the sake of everyone rather than give priority to weakening and damaging China. This means that we are not “neutral” about everything. We really, passionately, want to save the planetary biosphere.

The papers we are sharing are the work of a group of a dozen persons who want peace and partnership between the world’s two greatest powers and polluters. A list of the initial 11 papers is provided. We hope we have freed our papers from error, and that they offer sufficient information to show that while China is far from perfect, it is as committed as any country to the survival of civilization. Its mistakes and failures do not justify crossing it off our list of nations with which we would partner to save the world.

If you find errors or distortions, please let us know. We are open to correction. If you find errors, please let us know. Also, if you feel that we are omitting or obscuring important features of what has happened, please help us achieve a more balanced account. Our conviction is that China and the United States working together could give great leadership to the world with respect to climate change and other matters. We believe that there are legitimate criticisms of both these countries and of all others. We do not believe that in the case of the United States and China the shortcomings and missteps indicate that one or the other of these two countries is incapable of giving priority to truly critical matters or working with the other.

Initial List of Understanding China Papers• U.S. China Cooperation Energy Grid• Difference in Thinking Between Chinese and Americans• Ecological Civilization• Economic Hitmen American and Chinese• The Two Mountain Theory• Taiwan• One-Child Policy• Hong Kong• Propaganda• South and North Korea• COVID Epidemic in the PRC

Why Cooperation Between the U.S. and China Is
Essential for World Peace and Climate Solutions
 Living Earth Movement  |  Sep 27, 2023  |  1:34:26

The Living Earth Movement (LEM) https://livingearthmovement.eco/ produced this program on Why Cooperation Between the U.S. and China Is Essential for World Peace and Climate Solutions for Peace Week 2023.
LEM founding members John B. Cobb, Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B.... and Charles Betterton https://oneworld.earth/members/11813678 share a presentation on why the LEM’s priority mission is encouraging cooperation between the U.S. and China. They describe how the organization came into existence, share their goals and strategies, and discuss how those relate to Peace Week.
The program also includes two moving presentations by LEM key participants Robert Detrano and Bruce Hanson on their recent visits to China They both are among the devoted members of the Understanding China program and each of them have made substantial contributions to the papers being written and edited collaboratively by members of the team.
Dr. Cobb, 98, author of 50+ books including the 50th anniversary edition of IS IT TOO LATE? A Theology of Ecology, will also share his vision of A Peaceful World As A Community of Communities. The mission of the Living Earth Movement is twofold. The short-term priority is to get the U.S. and China to cooperate for the sake of all life on this planet. Without their full and joint participation, the necessary changes will not be made in time. However, with their joint leadership, virtually all nations will follow.
The second and equally important priority is to promote the foundations for a new kind of civilization in which humans would learn to value and cooperate with the rest of the ecosphere. We need a world in which humans understand themselves as part of a living earth community. We call this an ecological civilization.
The ongoing activities of the Living Earth Movement include monthly Youth Dialogues with American and Chinese Youth Sharing from the Heart
and weekly meetings of the Understanding China program
that is developing a series of papers to help Americans better understand Chinese people, culture, and government.
Please join our grassroots activism by signing up today!
Climate change is no longer theoretical. We see its effects everyday with cataclysmic weather events in our own communities and those around the world. The time to act is NOW.

 

5 - Pando Ecological Society, Los Angeles, CA for building sustainable and equitable civic engagement programs - https://pandopopulus.com/


6 - Claremont Graduate School for Sustainable Futures (Pasadena, CA) -


7 - Institute for Postmodern Development of China - https://postmodernchina.org/
*FYI - John Cobb is meeting with Chairman Xi sometime soon as part of his 25-30 year school of process societies which is well attended by many university intellectuals. Of note, XI was part of this group (not Cobb’s) in his youth. Videos on the home page share the vision.

A Few Introductory Process Titles 

Fourth Generation Process Lectures,
Discussions, Papers, and Whatnot


The Collected Papers of Process II - of Philosopher & Theologian Andrew M. Davis
Published by R.E. Slater

Elvi Bjorkquist - Process Thought, Aesthetic Qualities, and Beyond
Published by R.E. Slater

Andrew Davis - The Becomingness of Cosmology
Published by R.E. Slater

Andrew David - Process Cosmology
Published by R.E. Slater

Matt Segall: Process Philosopohical Perspectives on Biology
Published by R.E. Slater

The Processual Complex Memory of the Universe Is Significant for Cosmic Life
Published by R.E. Slater

R.E. Slater & ChatGPT - The Purpose & Meaning of Life for a Christian Eugelion, Part 1
Published by R.E. Slater

*I included this latter article which I produced a week ago as a reminder to myself to focus on process philosophy as a complex relational iteration bearing integral novelty, compassion, and social justice. I used CHATBOT to help me speak my thoughts a bit more simply. 😊


Building Ecological Civilizations in Response to MAGA's Oppressive Kingdoms



Building Ecological Civilizations in
Response to MAGA's Oppressive Kingdoms

by R.E. Slater


6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7 [And] of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. - Isa 9.6-7


31Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. 33Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. 34A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. - John 13.31-35
* * * * * * * *


Across this series we've looked at how:

1 - To read the bible in its historical era by questioning its religious beliefs then and now:
2 - That MAGA is always an unhealthy Christian response for any nation to entertain:
3 - That France's many revolutions from monarchy to democracy was difficult to form:
4 - That the MAGA Church has oppressed all people over the millennias since Jesus:
5 - That the kind of God we chose is the kind of Society we get:
6 - And finally, today, the best cross-sect for a strengthening of democracy and for oppressed people around the world, is the national and international (global) pursuit towards building ecological civilizations:

* * * * * * * *


Firstlydemocracies born from the imperfections of monarchal kingdoms were  once perceived to be led by rulers place unto their throne by divine consent. But with Protestantism's Reformational rise helped by an era of European Enlightenment, the Royal Catholic Papacy died out to the newer strains of Constitutional democratic republics ruled by elected societal officers (also thought to be blessed by God) as humanity's preferred form of governance over earlier, imperfect kingdom forms.
  • That the bible's display of failed monarchy's and kingdom empires were no blessing to the people living under unaccountable throneship's to the people. That all thrones rather than being divine were consequently very human in the aftermaths of their very human and non-divined legacies.
  • That Israel's kingdoms likewise failed under the auspices of ruling kings begun by Saul, David, and Solomon, and concluded in a litany of evils and sins. That the bible's supposed "divine model" as projected by today's MAGA church is no more divine then as now... that all lead to forms of oppression and irresponsibility when separated from being accountable to the citizens and members of their realms.
  • That MAGA's stubborn belief that a "Theocratic Kingdom" is the best governance model is shown to be fatally flawed throughout its bible origination concept. That truly open democracies concentrating on social blending, equality, justice, and resource sharing are the better forms of governance. And that the standard for today's open democracies has become the common basis for addressing man-caused ecological collapses in his destruction of the earth.
To sum up, the whole inappropriate and antiquated biblical idea of "theocratic kingdoms" as best have shown themselves to be "variant models of oppression". And that other forms of governance via trial-and-error forms of economies from capitalism to socialism and back again, have also showed their failures.

That generally, for a society to form cooperative communes of locality interlinked to other local, regional, national, and globally interlinked communities of locality is a really, really, really difficult operational mode to obtain.

And finally, that a common harm to humanity - that of ecological disaster - is the most appropriate cause of response in pursuing open economies of resource sharing whether capitalist or socialist.

That the reality of building ecological civilizations of difference is the most common form of re-synching humanity across divisional lines of suspicion, pride and hate.

Hence, today's democracies are harmfully moving away from ecological societies when experimenting with various forms of hardline, rightwing authoritarianism bespeaking discrimination and oppression of migrants, minorities, women, gender, sexes, and civil disempowerment.

But by committing to the renewal of compassionate societal equality, cooperation, and unity, will give today's Gen X, Y, Z, and it's progeny the greatest futures when based upon (Whiteheadian) process forms of ecological civilization principles and behaviors.


* * * * * * * *


MAGA's New Words of Oppression are 
Unacknowledged in their Socio-Political 
Campaigns of Subversive Disinformation


Watching late 1700s France move between King's Fascist rights and People's Republic brought to mind the difficulty of becoming, and maintaining, a full fledged democracy. To some degree, the United States has achieved this rare distinction. But to another degree is still has a long ways to go. At present, we're falling into a half and half state of anocracy... part democratic and part autocracy.

In Russia, Putin is guilty on both counts of revanchism and irredentism ... put together Putin has acted as a despot chargeable for a power land grab of genocidal proportions.

Wikipedia Excerpt:
Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist thought and is often motivated by economic or geopolitical factors. Extreme revanchist ideologues often represent a hawkish stance, suggesting that their desired objectives can be achieved through the positive outcome of another war. It is linked with "irredentism", the conception that a part of the cultural and ethnic nation remains "unredeemed" outside the borders of its appropriate nation-state.

"...Ethnic homogeneity within a state makes Irredentism more likely. Discrimination against the ethnic group in the neighboring territory is another contributing factor. A closely related explanation argues that national identities based primarily on ethnicity, culture, and history increase irredentist tendencies. Another approach is to explain irredentism as an attempt to increase power and wealth. In this regard, it is argued that irredentist claims are more likely if the neighboring territory is relatively rich. Many explanations also focus on the regime type and hold that democracies are less likely to engage in irredentism while anocracies are particularly open to it.

Cobbled together Putin's ethnic land cleansing of Ukrainians from their home land is an attempted to join old Tsarist Russian back together in the imagined glory days of wealth and power (using other people's wealth and power, of course).

To justify his imperious mania Putin "persuaded" the Russian Orthodox Christian church to support his nefarious "conservative reformist" designs so that Moscow's perceive so-called heretical (liberal) Christian opponents might end:
  • (1) Ukraine's Eastern Orthodox Christian church located in Kiev, which is coupled together with...
  • (2) Its Eastern Orthodox Turkish Twin residing in the old Ottomon/Turkish Empire in Istanbul, Turkey.
Hence, Putin imposed his religious view that the Easter Orthodox Church is the heretical spin off from Russia's own Russian Orthodox Church. This, he thought, would provide adequate disinformation for his evil actions.

In summary, America's MAGA components see in Putin their model for a new imperial Kingdom in America... one that supports the evangelical Chruch as it sees itself and intends for itself to rule oppressively over all the elites, liberals, and religious in the way they wish to rule.

MAGA's theocratic kingdom... or church-based kingdom... is a farce and an evil to the land it wishes to rule over so as to usher in their imagined "Kingdom of God." A Kingdom I'm told, which has come in Christ and to his disciples to witness and minister, caretake and shepherd in love. But to which the MAGA Christian faithful believe are their to inherit to inforce all kinds of religious restrictions, jots and tittles upon their vanquished via MAGA-sponsored and unConstitutional Republicanism.

And so, we back where we started in Napoleon's day when the people threw off Louis XVI's reign, and with it, the papacy of the ruling church, to flounder in the muds and slimes of how to build an open society of difference and resource sharing.

America did the same with it's Royalists groups in its Colonies so that after an eight year rule it could build upon the Bill of Rights and Independence Constitution. Yet in its enactment if failed to remove slavery and nearly a hundred years later fought a bloody insurrection against non-Constitutionalists refusing to enact the Bill of Rights of another fully into America's economy.

Quoting Scripture and God these Christian erudites taught tyranny and rule over "inferior" races. Which lands us here today at the doorstep of Trumpian MAGA'gots imposing their religious ideations and rule upon an open democracy by acts of blashphemy and anathema in the eyes of God and man.

Proving once again that "Democracies" are less likely than "anocrisies" to exploit homogenous ethnic regions but yet, to the unenlightened religious troglodytes of America's white conservative churches, a "theocratic kingdom of God" is noised about by evil hands and sinful hearts.

R.E. Slater
Dec 3, 2023


Ahem, One last...

Do not think we, and the world, are any less guilty of the abomination going on under the rule of Israeli MAGA'gots in their hardline stances against Hamas and Hezebolla which conflagration has caught the innocents of the land of Canaan in Palestine and Israel in deeply grievous actions of loss and death. The world either learns to love one another and share with one another as we can or we will die the ugly deaths of our own destruction as illustrated by the book of Revelation in the bible. It's message is not of God's evil but man's own evil which God comes to save by redeeming actions (rather than the popular Christian opinions of divine vengeance and retribution). One way or another, earth and sky, seas and wind, will rise upon us to decimate and destroy as harshly as we did it's own biotic communities. The wisdom here is to see one-and-all, man and earth, as surviving participants with one another that each in its own way thrives and nourishes the other.

Sing to the Lord a New Song!
(Psalm 149:1-9; Isaiah 42:10-17)

1{A Psalm.} O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.

2The LORD hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen.

3He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

4Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.

5Sing unto the LORD with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.

6With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King.

7Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

8Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together

9Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.