Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Constituonal Amendment

The problem with the pro life amendment that
has been desired by us anti abortion people, is that it
doesn't go far enough. Simply affirming the fact
that life begins "at conception" will not, in the present
legal and social environment protect the unborn.

Firstly, "conception" though it originally and properly
refers to the joining of egg and sperm, has been
redefined to mean the implantation of the conceptus
in the womb wall. This doesn't occur for a couple of
days, and leaves the door open for the morning after
pill.

It also means that potentially, an in vitro fertilization
that has never been implanted in a womb, could be
declared not conceived, ergo can be produced at will
for production of materials and experimentation.

Secondly, the mere fact of being human will not in
itself prevent its being killed in an "ethical" way. The 
Journal of Bioethics has a paper that argues that a
newborn is no more of a person than a fetus and
therefore even a healthy child should be possible to
kill up to three years old, just like
a healthy fetus (or embryo) can be killed at the will of
the mother. As an opponent pointed out, such discussions
were the beginning of what later became policy in
medical "ethics." Bill Gates has said that if you euthanise
an old person you save money to pay a teacher advocating
death panels.  The supposed Obama death panels are a
joke, because they already exist under free enterprise
medical billing and insurance. What will your insurance
pay for or not? If you go for an expensive treatment, or
agree to be put on special life support, are you setting
yourself or your family up to lose the house to a bill
collection lawsuit later when you or they can't pay? Peter
Singer has advocated killing kids up to three years old.

The creep towards euthanasia is another example.
This is an argument that began on the battlefield and
should have stayed there. Plato phrased the problem
well, if my friend is dying slowly in horrible pain from
war and I don't kill him am I not being a bad friend,
but if I do kill him am I not being a murderer? This
is a paraphrase from memory, and as I recall he did
not answer the question.

The definition of death became "brain death" and
that defined NOT as total cessation of brain activity,
but as "higher functions" of the brain not active. The
life supporting systems still functioning, the person
was declared dead.

Why? Well, who gains? In what context was this decision
made? Heart transplants. This definition meant that a
still beating heart could be taken out, because the heart,
after the brain, is the first organ to die. It has to be fresh,
and I do mean fresh.

Ethics used to be based on the idea of, when do we say
NO to someone's desire or need, because it conflicts with
someone else's more important need or issues of fairness?
Nowdays, ethics is about figuring out how to make the
unthinkable respectable.

For instance, if you have a limited amount of life support
you don't take someone off because someone else needs it,
first come first served.

There is the principle of triage, developed in military
hospitals. Nowdays it just means who gets seen first in the
emergency room, but here is what it really means, the
three (the "tri" in triage) categories.

1. Those who will die, even if treated. These get no
treatment, because resources are scarce. They get pain
killers, that's it.

2. Those who will live, even if NOT treated. These get
no treatment either, because resources are scarce. (This
scarcity may be because they are actually scarce, or
there is not enough because of the number of casualties.
Resources may incl. not only medicine and equipment
but personnel.)

3. Those who will live, if treated. These are the ones who
get treated.

Now, on that basis, you might argue for taking someone
off life support who is comatose and put someone who
has a better chance of life on. MAYBE.

Now, we get to redefinitions again.

What is a coma? Originally this meant someone who was
totally unconscious, without motion, like dead asleep, no
responses. Usually breathing and heart beating on their
own.

Nowdays a person can be considered comatose who is
vaguely conscious, slightly moving, slightly responsive.

"Persistent vegetative condition," is defined in exactly the
terms that described Terri Schiavo. I noticed that in the
arguments to save her, the description given by her
supporters meets every common sense depiction of not
passing for a humanoid form of plant life, but I notice
also, that it was precisely the same description as the
medical industry calls "persistent vegetative condition."

In other words, the definition of these conditions, has
been increasingly changed to mean a person who is NOT
vegetative or comatose by original or common sense
meaning of the words.

Someone once asked if we are eventually going to hear of
"oxygenated corpses."

And some people who were organ donors, were not dead
and not comatose even by modern standards, but were
reacting and putting up a fight, grabbing the hand with the
scalpel, but were put down anyway.

The Hyde Amendment doesn't go far enough.

What is needed is stipulation that life begins at the joining of
egg and sperm, whether it implants or not.

That human life cannot be terminated regardless of
citizenship or other issues without a court hearing, and that
the reason for this termination must be threat to the life
of the mother, and that she must also be sterilized to prevent
this from happening again.

And that death is when the heart won't function any more.

And that coma and vegetative conditions are not in themselves
grounds for termination.

And that anyone in these circumstances, incl. a pregnant
woman in special care or a premie cannot be made to pay
for these services, nor anyone who signs them in or has any
possible legal or financial responsibility for them in other
circumstances, on the grounds that withholding or stopping
the treatment constitutes murder, so you cannot charge to
not murder.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Objects Out Of Place 1

""Physical evidence currently exists that proves man inhabited the earth while coal was being formed,....discovered between anthracite veins in Pennsylvania.
Since one of the golden rules of geology is that coal was formed during the Carboniferous -- a minimum of 280 million years ago -- it means that man has existed multi-millions of years before the ... insectivore from whom the evolutionists claim we eventually evolved." ...Ed Conrad


The other possibility, of course, is that coal is not nearly as old as modern
science thinks it is.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

AGENDA 21

The mindblurring babble of the new age similar (or identical)
local political action delphi technique managed and similar
public meetings and papers caused me to turn away and ignore
them.

But just this month I began to realize we have a serious problem.

Agenda 21 (I think it was superseded by the Earth Summit or
whatever it was called) is essentially a UN plan to use the
environment, whether in fact the proposed actions benefit or
harm the environment, and exploit real and fake worries to
railroad everyone in stages into high density housing, above
shops with minimal parking available underground and mass
transit which isn't necessarily taking you where you need to
be like cars do.

Private property while it would exist would be under extreme
controls, limiting your life choices and even ability to pick
food or grow your own, and in several California counties has
even made it illegal to use the water the rights to which came
with your land purchase, that runs across your land or is in
a well on your land, without paying fees, joining some program
the alternative being fines and jail time.

The procedures for this include "smart development" and
"sustainable development" and all sorts of buzz words, and
most especially non governmental organizations, without
any kind of accountability, outside the normal chain of govt.
to do all these things that radically impact land use, without
election and with everything mostly a done deal before the
fraud of pretended public opinion solicitation is even started.


This is on the face of it oppression, by manipulation and
deception.

And this is not just an American phenomenon either.

IT IS ALSO SEDITION, as it would essentially overthrow the
government by replacing it.


to some extent the old boy networks and corrupt games and
conspiracies and off the books activities do this anyway. But
these can be addressed by the existing government.


what Agenda 21 and its ilk would do, is make such the official
actual government, outside the chain of command and 
accountability of government and therefore of the people, and 
increasingly take its place.


this is exactly what is going on locally, and there is no reason
to assume this trend won't target everything else. overthrow of
the United States Government or of state governments and 
county governments, by simply replacing them in all or almost
all functions.


Imagine a world in which what is left of the official government
is by law staffed by people selected by such NGOs using the
delphi psychological warfare manipulation technique, in fake
nomination situations to get the predecided persons into office.


This is exactly what goes on with any supposedly public hearing
and seeking of public opinion on projects.


Inherent to all this is the phenomenon of the city master plan
or whatever it is called, long range planning that locks in things
for years, maybe decades, instead of flexibly adapting to
changing circumstances, or effectively resisting unwholesome
developments that instead are built into the long range plan,
and therefore almost unassailable.


I wonder if the wierd tendency of some police to treat some
things as "civil, we won't get involved" that involved stuff that
was a matter of law was a reflection of this sort of thinking.

Everyone from the right to the left is getting incensed about
it. Here are links to the subject and what to do about it.

These links also explain the Delphi technique, a kind of
dishonesty and con job that should be disdained by anyone
with integrity, with more in common with manipulative type
drug addicts and toxic parents, than with a democracy, a
republic or scientific focus. any time you have people break
up into groups in a meeting, or a "facilitator" is involved, you
are being delphied.

http://www.freedomadvocates.org/
http://www.postsustainabilityinstitute.org/
http://sovereignty.net/store/confront-A21-buy.html
http://tppatriots.com/tag/agenda-21/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEzbQotyu9k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rjoI7-esOw
search youtube.com for agenda 21 and delphi technique

Sunday, February 19, 2012

My Serious Doubts About Fatima Vision as Divine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIgOWCGUX0A

While I used to be open minded about Fatima, even while I was
still evangelical Protestant before I became Eastern Orthodox,
and dismissed the UFO theory about it as people fitting this
into their UFO obsession, I have read a book that persuades
me otherwise. Celestial Secrets goes into details incl. old
records of the inquiry locked away for 60 years, and other things,
that make me figure this was a UFO and/or demonic hoax.

The video only scrapes the surface. Meanwhile, whatever is in
the third secret or any other part of it, is nothing that couldn't
be cobbled together from existing Marian visions (all of which
I have doubts about, only at Lourdes was any effort made by
the visionary to test the entity appearing, which is essential,
something the Zambrano charismatic vision didn't involve doing
either, and which incl. very unscriptural elements, such as
ascribing to Jesus inability to do anything about the damned
dead even when they cry out to him, contrary to the Revelation
statement that Jesus Christ has the keys of death and of hades,
and the implications of St. Paul speaking of Christ descending
and then ascending leading captivity captive and St. Peter twice
speaking of Christ preaching to the dead one places uses
kerygma, announcement the other euangelion, the good news
incl. invitation), and also contain nothing that a sharp observer
of the overall world situation couldn't figure on, not to mention
that aliens and demons would know about nibiru incoming if
that is involved.

The Speech that got Judge Napolitano kicked off FOX



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fOaCemmsnNk

Friday, February 10, 2012

A repost of a Christian's blog about crime, poverty, wealth and greed

http://methodius.blogspot.com/2012/02/obscenity.html


08 FEBRUARY 2012

Obscenity

A new breed of South Africans is emerging, a new subculture, perhaps. It is composed of those who do not merely want to be rich, but who want be filthy, stinking rich; obscenely rich.

One of the things that one often hears is that crime is caused by poverty. But that is not strictly true. Criminologists who have researched the matter report that in societies where people are very poor, there is often relatively little crime. What causes the crime rate to rise is the income gap between the rich and the poor.

My blogging friend Dion Forster notes another effect of the income gap between rich and poor -- it can lead to genocide -- Wishes of youth and the winds of war - I was a soldier once - BLOG - Dion Forster - An uncommon path:
In Fiennes' book he notes, among other things, that the conditions that are necessary for genocide to occur include:
  • An impoverished population
  • A large gap between those who 'have' and those who 'do not have'
  • A clearly identifiable minority grouping that has access to wealth and power
  • The development of a racial or ethnic ideology that places groups of persons in opposition to one another
  • Corrupt, power hungry and irresponsible politicians
I wondered how many of these elements could be ticked off a list of criteria in South African society? We have much work to do in order to bring equality, overcome animosity, and combat false and harmful racial and ethnic ideologies.

A few days ago I noted in another blog post Black and white perceptions of South Africa’s problems | Khanya:
People sometimes like to talk about poverty as the cause of crime. But it is much less common for people to talk about it the other way round — of crime as the cause of poverty. Yet much of the poverty in places like Mamelodi is caused by crime — white crime.

Two of the ways in which people achieve their ambition to become filthy stinking rich are politics and crime. Criminologists who have noted that the crime rate increases where the gap between rich and poor increases have also noticed that criminals do not generally rob and steal to feed their starving families. They steal because they want to be filthy stinking rich. Their ill-gotten gains are used for conspicuous consumption.

As for politics, we all know about tenderpreneurs. Thabo Mbeki, the former president of the ANC and South Africa, spoke on this phenomenon at the very conference where the ANC voted him out as leader -- that unscrupulous businessmen tried to take over ANC branches, and get themselves or their favoured candidates elected at the branches in areas that controlled municipalitries, and used their position to get lucrative contracts and tenders.

This is not unique to South Africa, it is found all over the world.

There are those who still say that the ANC has not made the mental transition from liberation movement to a political party. But the problerm is the other way round. Those who remember what it was to be a liberation movement are a diminishing minority, and are being swamped by those who see politics as a means of becoming filthy stinking rich.

In writing this, I'm not being an investigative journalist. I'm not trying to dig up the dirt on corrupt politicians and businessmen. I haven't named names nor cited instances of these things in footnotes. I've written about perceptions, about gossip, about impressions. And the purpose is not to find and condemn the guilty.

Our struggle, as St Paul says, is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies (Eph 6:10-12).

The problem is not individual sinners, but sin itself.

And the problem is not merely individual sins, but rather the inversion of values.

As Isaiah says:
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isa 5:20)
Those who desire to be filthy stinking rich do so because of greed.

Christians in the past have seen greed and lust as passions that we should seek to control. But there are new ideologies abroad in the world that seek to invert this, and say that passions like greed and lust are good.

And so we find people, even people who claim to be Christians, saying that it's OK to help the poor, but not by taking money from the rich "at gunpoint". The "at gunpoint" is a peculiar code word among such people for "taxes". What they mean is that money from taxes paid by the rich should not be used to help the poor. That, they say, is "theft".

And so they invert Christian values; they call evil good and good evil.

St John Chrysostom says precisely the opposite:

"See the man," He says, "and his works: indeed, this also is theft, not to share one's possessions." Perhaps this statement seems surprising to you, but do not be surprised. I shall bring you testimony from the divine Scriptures, saying that not only the theft of others' goods but the failure to share one's own goods with others is theft and swindle and defraudation. What is this testimony? Accusing the Jews by the prophet, God says, "The earth has brought forth her increase, and you have not brought forth your tithes; but the theft of the poor is in your houses." Since you have not given the accustomed offerings, he says, you have stolen the goods of the poor. He says this to show the rich that they hold the goods of the poor even if they have inherited them from their fathers or no matter how they have gathered their wealth. And elsewhere the Scripture says, "Deprive not the poor of his living." To deprive is to take what belongs to another, for it is called deprivation when we take and keep what belongs to others.

Thus if the government uses the taxes paid by the rich to provide basic necessities for the poor, such as housing or health services, it is not theft, but rather the recovery of stolen property. To call taxes used in such a way "theft" is to invert Christian values, and to call good evil and evil good.

Adulterers may repent. Thieves may repent. Murderers may repent. And when we experience lust or greed or other passions we may repent and struggle against them.

But those who call greed and lust good cannot repent.

This ideological inversion was propounded by Ayn Rand in the 1940s and 1950s, and spread to the institutions of state and society in the West, especially in the 1980s, until it has now permeated much of society and people's values as the insidious propaganda for it continues and increases.

We may never be able to remove inequalities of wealth; we may never be able to eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor. But we can and ought to resist the ideology that says that it is a good thing, and that the passions that maintain it are to be encouraged.

__________

This post is part of the February 2012 Synchroblog – Extreme Economic Inequality | synchroblog in which different bloggers write blog posts on the same theme, and provide a list of the other posts so that people can follow the theme by surfing from one post to another.

Other posts in this month's Synchroblog are:

Thursday, February 9, 2012

You can't reconcile Ayn Rand and Jesus

"The new darling of the Republican Party is pro-choice and anti-religion."

comments from someone in a snail mail letter

I got this in the mail, from a retired professor friend of mine.
This is edited for space and other concerns and posted with his
permission, he prefers to remain anonymous.

"A few days ago, I had one of the largest shocks of my life....
I decided to research to determine if other subjects lead to
the same conclusion. They do.

"1. I had always thought observtions of UFOs were about 20 a
year worldwide. I don't recall any mention of humans having
interaction with the occupants of UFOs. A large book,
UFO Conspiracy by Carmen McLaren, published 2011 by
Schiffer Publishing is designed to show the extent the govt.
has suppressed information about the UFO phenomenon.

"For exampke, in 1965 there were several thousand sightings in
the U.S. alone, and when you add the [likely] number of sightings
not reported you can double that (p. 171). That says nothing about
the sightings in other countries.

"There have been many cases in which humans met these other
people, in some cases at least one of the people spoke English,
and sometimes humans were invited inside the UFO to see how
they were designed, and observe all the occupants doing complex
operations.

"All reports on the nature of the UFO occupants are the same:
They are 3 to 5 feet tall, have legs and chests half as tall as ours,
have heads 3 times as large as ours, small mouths, no hair anywhere
on their bodies, black eyes, and wear clothes with no buttons or
zippers. The UFOs are more advanced than our most advanced jet
aircraft, with respect to ability to change direction rapidly, and
 speed and capacity to accelerate.

"So why would the U.S. govt. want to prevent us from knowing
about this other civilization? Probably because our politicians
do not want us exploring the possibility of having people from
the other civilization replacing our politicians.

"The extent to which information about this is being suppressed
makes one wonder if there are a lot of other fields in which this
suppression is at work. Here are some examples of this being
the case.

"2. The Kennedy Assassination. Since this happened, there have
been suspicions that a large organization was involved. To indicate
the scale of that organization, of people who had any knowledge
of the conspiracy, 45 died suddenly and mysteriously, many by
being shot. (Chapter 18 in Conspiracy, the Plot to Stop the
Kennedys, by Matthew Smith, Citadel Press, 2005).

"3. Most people have noticed that while many books on "The Big
Picture" were published by scientists between 1960 and 1982, and
many of these sold huge numbers of copies in many languages,
since about 1985, most books about "The Big Picture" were
written by people whose training was in writing, linguistics and
literature, or economics, business, finance, banking or investment.
Could this have been due to some kind of accident, or a large
scale plot to control information flow?

"A very interesting book is 9/11 Synthetic Terror MADE IN USA
by Webster Griffin Tarpley second ed. 2006, published by Progressive
Press.

"This book probably more than any other relates 9/11 to a gigantic
international conspiracy, based in the U.S. Page 109 has the following
sentence, "Together with the axiomatic notion of overpopulation has
gone a profound hjostility to science and technology, especially
because of their egalitarian effects." This was the first time I had
ever seen this idea. The significance is that if a hidden assumption
of science is that all people are least potentially equal, this is
dangerous to people in finance, banking, investment and economics
who believe that they are superior to all other humans, and that it
is perfectly okay to loot them.

"4. which supports 3. I had two friends long ago who were
doctoral students in economics at major universities on the
two sides of the U.S. Both of them completed all the requirements
for the doctorate, then both handed in doctoral theses which
mentioned the significance of natural resources, such as crude
oil. Both of them were thrown out of the university without a
doctorate.

"5. By 2009, the U.S. Congress began to suspect that something
was going wrong with the U. S. economy and financial systems.
A gigantic research group was created to discover what this was
all about, including 10 members in The Financial Crisis Inquiry
Commission, with a supporting staff of 83. The report was 545
pages long, not incluiding the index of another component of
the result. It was published as THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY
REPORT. Financial Report of the National Commission on the
Causes of Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States.
Published by Public Affairs, New York. It is hard to tell the
difference between what seemed to be going on, and what was
actually going on. I seemed that experts in economics, banking
and finance did not understand the phenomena they supposedly
managed, and were not able to predict them, when in fact what was
going on in those fields was that the only goal of the "experts"
was to get rich quickly themselves, at a cost to everyone else.

"6. By now it may be apparent that different groups of people think
in entirely different ways. The subject has been more explored by
Dr. Edward de Bono who as of 1999 had written more than 40 books,
which had been published in 25 languages. The best to read first
to get a summary of his worldview was Six Thinking Hats. White
and Green Hat thinking is scientific: conclusions are based on a
scientific analysis of data describing causes and processes. Yellow
and Red Hat thinking is based on a sunny, positive and emotional
view (desires, feelings, beliefs and wishes).

"It seems that in the U.S., if you listen to speeches by senior people in
corporations, banks or govt., you don't hear any hint of White and
Green Hat thinking as of 2012.

"Given how many books he has sold, and the number of countries
in which his books have been sold, it is odd that he is NOT AT
ALL referred to in the U.S.A. popular media or books or speeches
by U.S. politicians. Could this mean that they don't want us to
know that a small rich group does not want us to know how they
think? (Or what their actual goals are: to loot us?)

"7. Another book that explains what is really going on in America
is The End of America by Naomi Wolf.

"8. In 1975 there were 7.35 Bachelors degrees awarded in the U.S.
in business, per B.A. awarded in mathematics. In 2008 there were
22.08 B.A.s in business per B.A.s awarded in mathematics. "

The prof. is interested in any comments, and any posted here will be
forwarded to him.

The Singularity Cult

The Singularity Movement
and read the links in the article as well. New Age elements of course aside from 
pragmatic this might not be a good idea considerations, even if conducted from 
a solid Christian perspective without the get back to Eden without going through 
God sort of mentality involved.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

My Critique of Philosophy part 1

Martin Heidegger
from wikipedia

"His central belief was that philosophy, and society as a whole, was preoccupied with what it is that exists."
DUBIOUS. I DOUBT MOST PEOPLE THINK THAT MUCH. UNLESS YOU MEAN INTERACTING
WITH AND UNDERSTANDING HOW IT WORKS, LIKE OBJECTS, CARS, TOOLS, ETC.
 "His belief was that we find ourselves "always already" fallen into a world that already existed."
WELL OF COURSE. 
"But he insisted that we had forgotten the basic question of what it is to exist, of what being itself is. This question defines our central nature."
NONSENSE. IT DOES NOTHING OF THE SORT. OUR CENTRAL NATURE IS WHATEVER IT
IS, REGARDLESS OF WHAT QUESTIONS WE ARE ASKING ABOUT IT. AND TO EXIST IS 
TO EXIST. AS DISTINCT FROM NOT EXISTING. REALITY VS. FANTASY. 
 "He argued that we are practical agents, caring and concerned about our projects in the world, and allowing it to reveal, or "unconceal" itself to us. He came to believe that ourproactive interference and manipulation of reality is often harmful and hides our true being as essentially limited participants, not masters, of the world which we discover."
AH, A TEACHER OF PASSIVITY. NO WONDER HE LIKED THE FUERHER PRINCIP AND SO FORTH.
HOWEVER ACTIVE AND AGGRESSIVE THESE PEOPLE ARE, THEY ARE ESSENTIALLY SELF
DEFINED AND PROCLAIMED TOOLS OF A MACHINE, A LEADER, ETC.
"Heidegger wrote about these issues in his best-known book, Being and Time (1927), which is considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century.[4]"
SO MUCH THE WORSE FOR THE 20TH CENTURY.
 "Heidegger's views have implications beyond philosophy, in literature,[5]psychology,[6] theology[7] and artificial intelligence.[8]"

NO WONDER WE ARE SUCH A MESS.
"He remains controversial due to his membership of the Nazi Party and statements in support of Adolf Hitler, for which he never apologized or expressed regret.[9]"
GOOD REASON TO REEXAMINE HIS IDEAS IN TERMS OF WHAT THEY MIGHT PREDISPOSE US FOR.
A book that does this is 

Modern Fascism: The Threat to the Judeo-Christian Worldview 

Romanticism and the Occult Philosophy Hijacking of Christianity

This is something very important, increasingly so. I noticed a long
time ago, that C. S. Lewis to a lesser extent, and Tolkien to a
greater extent, were easy conveyorbelts into paganism and witchcraft,
according to the statements of people on such egroups, who were
telling about how they became witches or wiccans or neopagans or
whatever, much the same way a Christian might tell about how they
became Christian.

While some themes like light vs. dark can translate into rejecting
evil, and the hobbit's longing for peaceful days when he had a
simple life and knew nothing of the gathering darkness that had to
be fought, there is a lot of darkness including the false light kind
in these books, and in Lord of the Rings and in all chivalric ideas
incl. the unfortunate Crusader image in RC and Protestantism,
and even specific knighthood organizations, there is a certain dark
allure to fighting evil.

The allure is the desire to have evil in order to have something to
give you identity as comparison to which. (pardon my syntax, but
that's how I often think.)  The desire to have evil in order to fight in
the first place, a glorious death being sought, and ultimately, 
never mind in the service of what, just so long as there is a great
cause to serve and die for.


to die for....wait a minute. Didn't wisdom say in Proverbs that "all
those who hate me love death"? Isn't there also something about
those who live strife love an evil thing?

It is wrong to shrink from the battle against evil when the issue is
present, and as St. Paul warns in Hebrews we are not yet in the
place of rest, there is yet a sabbath to attain.

But to seek death and strife as an end in itself means that one is
not loving good and truth and fighting evil and lies, one is glad
for the evil to appear so one can fight. As my confessor where I
used to live put it, when I was struggling to explain what the
problem was I was sensing in myself, not wanting demons around
yet somehow wanting them so I could cast them out, he said,
"you want to play."

I remember when I had a bit more wisdom I guess because of my
gut level reaction, when I read in a Sherlock Holmes story (and
that character is a load of problems centering on pride, vainglory
and haughtiness which God says in Proverbs He hates), that
Holmes was depressed because there was no crime going on for
him to work on solving!

That is the problem with the whole romance of knighthood and
fighting evil, like Nietzsche speaking of his overman said, a great
hero needs a great evil to fight or something like that.

The key problem is the romance of it all. A dance, and a dance
needs a partner.

There is a book criticizing the CIA, whose title says it all, "In
Search of Enemies." I don't recall a thing about the book, just the
title. That title is an important concept in itself, regardless of
anything the author had to say.

This mentality of course is real handy for recruiters for armies,
suicide bombers, etc. etc. Don't think for a minute, while you are
viewing yourself in this light, that your opponents don't have the
same identical view of themselves that you do.

That fact does not have any bearing on the issue of truth or falsehood
of the causes fought for (most causes are a mix of truth and falsehood
anyway), but rather on motives and on gullibility or rather, eagerness
to accept any cause provided it will get you an adrenaline rush and
maybe a quick, reasonably painless (except for some brief moment
like death scenes in a movie) and glorious (especially with a lot of
explosions and stuff) death.

back to the points made earlier about death wish.

In fact, a more pragmatic minded person once wrote (I think in a
mercenary mag, but he had a point) that someone with a death wish is
a danger to himself AND to his fellows.

Back to the infiltration of romanticism into Christianity, resulting
in syncretistic (i.e., partly false) belief systems in the churches.

Here are some VERY good articles on the subject. Mind you, C. S.
Lewis wrote a few really good things, but they are mostly not in his
fiction, except for The Screwtape Letters which is almost entirely
excellent, to be treated as material for reverse reading, that is, you read
it to see how NOT to be, do, or think or let yourself feel.
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/2012/nathan/romanticism.htm
http://www.crossroad.to/Excerpts/warnings.htm
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/006/nathan/romanticism.htm
more in depth than the first similar link

these articles have links on them you should pursue.