Paul's Passing Thoughts

This post wasn’t on my schedule this morning, but I am nevertheless compelled to start my day by commenting on a link that “Carmen” has sent me. Carmen comments on PPT publically, and I continually get emails along the line of, “Hey, did you see Carmen’s comment? She really gets it.” Not only that, Carmen sends me research that flavors what is written here, and frankly, I fear that a lot of it will be lost in PPT’s 1 TB plus archives.

Therefore, starting with this post, and because she comments publically as “Carmen,” we are going to attach her relevant input on the bottom of posts where applicable to the subject. This will prevent her efforts from being lost in PPT electronic files and my 58 year old mind. This might include one of her comments that often contain research, or research that she sends us.

Furthermore, the research she sends influences the writings here to the point where it is becoming a borderline plagiarism issue. We know that she probably isn’t concerned about this, but we are. Therefore, whenever Pearl or the other contributors want to pad a post with her research, it will be archived along with the post at the bottom starting with this post where you can refer to the link that she sent me.

Let’s now address the link sent: a post on the TGC blog by Colin Smith concerning “change.” Let’s also be clear: Reformed thought disavows the idea that people change. When they write books like “How People Change” by the habitual liar Paul David Tripp, they don’t really intend to teach that people change. This should be obvious, no? How many of these guys have publicly proclaimed on the one hand that, “I am done trying to fix people” while on the other hand speaking of “change.” So, what’s going on?

“Cognitive dissonance!” That was easy. We have to go further than that; we have to discuss the most important element of CD, which is a mental form of ED. CD is functioning by two contradictory ideas or a series of contradictions, and in the case of CD, there is what psychologists call the “consonant” or “buffer.” It is the ideas that attempt to reconcile the contradictions and relieve the anxiety that causes it.

In the case of Reformed thought, the consonant is orthodoxy. What is orthodoxy? It is a dignified form of mythology which shouldn’t need  dignifying. Mythology is not a collection of ancient superstitions as many people suppose. Mythology is the teaching construct of spiritual caste. This is the most common philosophy of world history. It presupposes an epistemological pecking order between deity, or a natural force, and humanity. The deity, or force, preselects those who can comprehend reality to lead those who cannot comprehend reality. Sometimes, those who cannot comprehend reality don’t know they can’t comprehend reality and hinder the preordained from bringing order and wellbeing to humanity; we call that “war.”

So, mythology is simply parables written by the preordained to help those who cannot understand reality to understand why they should follow the preordained. Predeterminism is central to this common philosophy and dominates mythology in general. Plato articulated this construct in The Republic this way: philosopher kings, warriors, producers. The producers do not necessarily take mythology literally, though some do (now you can invoke “superstition”); they understand that it is a narrative tool to help the producers understand why they should function a certain way in society. It is no different than the concept of children’s story books, except mythology is for adults. We try to instill principles in children based on what we know they can’t completely understand through stories and narratives—it’s the same construct. Of course there isn’t really a “Little Blue Engine That Can.” The personification of a train is not to be taken literally.

Orthodoxy is the same thing. It is the traditional teachings of preordained “Divines” who write creeds, confessions, and catechisms for the great unwashed masses. In mythology, orthodoxy’s kissing cousin, we have what’s called the “noble lie.”  It is the misrepresentation of something cognitive that the producers understand in an elementary way. People don’t really change, but most producers are unable to grasp that, so the goal is to teach “change” in a way that produces the functionality desired by the philosopher kings.

Hence, the meaning of words in the minds of philosopher kings rarely mean the same thing to the producers. Philosopher kings allow the producers to assume they mean the same thing, but they don’t. And it’s not a lie because words that producers understand, and the way they understand them must be used in orthodoxy in order to lead the ignorant to green pastures of wellbeing; it is the noble lie.

And, the break point: the consonant is “paradox,” viz, contradictions only seem to be contradictions because the producers cannot comprehend what the philosopher kings can comprehend. And, this construct is appealing to the producer class for a number of reasons. If you want to see this construct in historical living color, study Nazi orthodoxy during the WWII era. The Bible makes it clear that there are some things God knows that we cannot understand, however, the bible also makes it clear that we are responsible for what we can know, and what we need to do in order to know it. In this construct, people are not responsible for knowing anything and many people like that idea for many misguided reasons not excluding good old fashioned laziness.

So, now we know the definitions of mythology, orthodoxy, superstition, and paradoxy in their true historical context.

The Colin Smith post is just another example of all of this. If you examine his sentence structure carefully, you begin to suspect that he really isn’t saying what he seems to be saying, and that’s the whole idea; he really isn’t saying what he seems to be saying. It’s a philosopher king thing, you wouldn’t understand. Notice that he subtly defines “birth” as an idea that can’t be dichotomized from the growth process. To think of a man as different from a baby is to deny babies because the growth that made the man is dichotomized from the separate concept of “baby.” Reformed elders constantly practice this cultish form of metaphysical two- stepping communication. It’s subtle, and very evil. It is often done by eliminating conjunctions/transitions and thereby making two different things the same. Their deceptive communication techniques are an identifiable system and complex.

Look, I am not going to dissect all of his nuance in the post; there is no need as others in his camp make it clear that people don’t change. Obviously, he is not saying what he seems to be saying, and you are supposed to accept it based on the Reformed CD consonant.

Don’t but it. It’s nothing more or less than Nazi Light.

paul

God Has Changed You and is Changing You.