Episodes of terminal lucidity seriously challenge the materialist paradigm for some researchers

 The Strange Phenomenon of ‘Terminal Lucidity’: As they near death, some dementia patients recover mental faculties assumed to be long lost. Researchers want to know why. 

 In the spring of 2000, while completing his degree in psychology at the University of Vienna, Alexander Batthyany received an unusual call from his mother. She had just gotten off the phone with Batthyany’s grandmother. “I do not know what happened — but you should call,” his mother told him. “Somehow, she’s back again.” Batthyany was confused: His grandmother, who lived in a nursing home in Switzerland, had vascular dementia and, for the past year, had hardly been able to speak — let alone pick up the phone and initiate a conversation, as his mother claimed had just occurred.

Doubting his mother’s story, Batthyany nevertheless said he would call. He dialed his grandmother’s number. When she answered, it was in the refined, elegant German he remembered her speaking in his childhood. In shock, he found himself wanting to shout: Oh, you can talk!

His grandmother greeted him affectionately. She told him that for the past few months, she hadn’t really been herself. She had been, she said, “very, very, very tired.”

At the sound of his grandmother’s voice, memories came back to Batthyany, flashes of things they did together when he was a boy: hiking in the Alps, skiing trips in St. Moritz, a visit to the famed puppet theater of Geneva. His grandmother remembered it all. For 10 minutes, they reminisced in what Batthyany called “the most lovely conversation.” Almost whispering, his grandmother told him, “You brought so much joy to our lives.” This was his grandmother — gentle, caring, warm — the same as he knew her before she fell ill. But as the call ended, he sensed beneath the joy a painful finality — that this conversation would be their last. Several days later, his grandmother died. ... 

The Late Great Planet Earth in the news

 The Apocalypse Goes Mainstream

... What surprised me was how much of this came not from pastors, but from pop prophecy texts. The most recent example being the “Left Behind” books. Kids went to ordinary evangelical churches and then read these highly literalized, fictionalized telling of end times prophecy. In the case of the Weaver family on Ruby Ridge, it was reading Hal Lindsey’s, “The Late Great Planet Earth.” ...

 

 

 

How do you cleanse the land of the blood of the innocent Jesus when it is God himself who defiled it?

 

So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.

-- Numbers 35:33

 

New Testament "theology" is pretty clear that it is the Jewish god who is ultimately responsible for shedding Jesus' blood:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son ...

-- John 3:16

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all ...

-- Romans 8:32 

God sent his Son to be our sin offering ...

-- I John 4:10

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

-- Romans 5:8. 

The penalty for Jesus' murder is death according to the Law of Moses, but who could possibly kill God, the murderer, except God himself?

 

The Christian atheist Thomas J. J. Altizer, who died in 2018 at the age of 91, wrote in 1966 that the transcendent God of the Bible had truly died when he immanentized himself and entered human history through the Incarnation and was crucified. As a leading representative of The God Is Dead movement, the highly animated Altizer instantly became a pariah in America, which at the time literally wanted to kill him over it, as his obituary remembered:

 He even went on the “Merv Griffin Show,” a popular television talk program, though the event, held before a live audience in a Broadway theater, was a debacle. He was given two minutes to speak. “The response was a violent one,” he wrote later, “forcing the director to close the curtains and order the band to play forcefully, and after this event a crowd greeted me at the stage door, demanding my death.”

But logically one should really go a step farther than Altizer and say that the Jewish god actually committed suicide according to this God Is Dead "theology" because God did all this on purpose.

After all, Jesus allowed himself to be crucified according to the wide evidence of the gospels and the New Testament, which insists that Jesus went to the slaughter like a sheep and opened not his mouth (Acts 8:32). This is exactly what one should have expected of a truly Divine Man bent on death.

This problem again illustrates the limits of "theology", Aquinas' queen of the sciences.

Her rational talk about God goes only so far, which Tertullian recognized when he said that the resurrection is certain because it is impossible (certum est, quia impossibile).

There are more things than the resurrection which are impossible.

 

 

OMG The Week says Peter Thiel is a devout Christian ...

 He is most certainly not a Christian, devout or otherwise.

... neither adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind ...  shall inherit the kingdom of God.

-- I Corinthians 6:9f. 

And why did Thiel's boyfriend, with whom he was cheating on his so-called spouse, die just like all the people die who cross Vladimir Putin? On which see below. 

Meanwhile The Week here adds to this decidedly not Christian horror show by quoting a fornicating Episcopal priest who has the gall to call Thiel . . . heretical!

As an Episcopal priest, “I find Thiel’s warnings heretical,” said Kevin Deal in the San Francisco Standard. In the Bible, the Antichrist represents “a foil to Christ,” not “a tool to sow fear or division.” Thiel is cynically weaponizing “the language of faith” to serve his own ends. 

Mr. Deal, formerly Mr. Neil, adopted his girlfriend's surname when they married after living together for over a year, including while at seminary. They were married, of course, by a female Episcopal priest. All of which was celebrated, of course, by The New York Times.

Thiel is heretical to these people because he is Republican, not because he is a faggot.

The UK Daily Mail here. 

If you're looking for the Antichrist, look no further than these principals. Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the antichrist is in your midst. 

 

 

Doug Wilson inverts the reasoning of Paul the Apostle in alignment with the reasoning of his secular opponents who believe reason and science are making the world a better place

 

Doug Wilson practices a casuistry worthy of a Jesuit when he says that the world is gradually getting better because of the leaven of the gospel, whereas the originator of the leaven analogies, Paul, argued that the world is already very bad and getting worse because of the leaven of sin.

 

In fact, Paul says that enthusiasm for the Jewish law, which is basically what Doug Wilson's "theocracy" is all about, is itself an insidious leaven which speeds up the ruination of the whole lump. 

 

This is because Paul's main objection to enthusiasm for the Jewish law is that it revives sin and kills us.

 

But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 

 

-- Romans 7:8ff.

 

Doug Wilson and his ilk are basically the equivalent of Paul's opponents, the Judaizers. 

 

What is more, Paul is also an apocalyptic and eschatological thinker still emphasizing imminent divine judgment, and Doug Wilson is most certainly not that, either. Paul is concerned with keeping the Christian community in Christ under those dire circumstances, not with making the world a less offensive place for your children's children. 

  

 Doug Wilson’s political project to “stop making God angry.”

  

... Basically, what I want to do is agree with you about the part where the Kingdom of God is like yeast that is dropped into the loaf, and it gradually works through the whole loaf, permeating the whole. So when Paul preached the Gospel in Rome, the gladiatorial games didn’t end the following week — it took centuries. But the yeast worked through the loaf, such that the gladiatorial games were ended eventually, slavery was ended eventually, concubinage was ended eventually — all of which was good Gospel progress and postmillennial. That’s the way it works. ...

 

Yeah, none of that is from Paul, obviously.

 

Paul's view of living in the world is extremely negative. Wilson's is optimistic, like any good American's, which is the main problem with Doug Wilson.

 

To Paul, both Judaism's enthusiasm for the law and the world's enthusiasm for sin are dangerously infectious but are made obsolete because of Christ's victory over sin, death, and the Devil. But because human nature remains evil even Christian people are still susceptible to both leavens at the same time. And so Paul is vigilant against the corrupting leaven of them both.

 

Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators ... them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. 

 

-- I Corinthians 5:6ff, 13 

 

But this I say, brethren, the time is short ... the fashion of this world passeth away.

 

-- I Corinthians 7:29, 31  

 

Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. 

 

-- Galatians 5:7ff.

 

And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 

 

-- Romans 13:11f. 

 

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 

 

-- Ephesians 5:15f.

Interview with Religious Studies academic states right out of the box that many UFO experiencers learn from it that a bad end of the world is coming lol

Gee, where did they get that idea?

The possible answers to that are not seriously addressed in this more-ways-than-one frustrating podcast with Ross Douthat of The New York Times.

 

... Douthat: When people report having a telepathic connection, you said they get information from, or they feel like they’ve gotten information from, these experiences. What kind of information do they get? What does that mean when people report this?

Pasulka: A lot of the people would report the information as something that had to do with the future. They would have ideas of basically an apocalypse, a bad scenario for the future.

The people who I talked to at this conference were pretty convinced that we were going to face some type of cataclysm. So I talked to them a little bit about how people have thought that for about 2,000 years. [Chuckles.] ...

Pasulka: It appears to be a perennial thing. So there appears to be something that interfaces with humans and has been identified in the various traditional religions.

Douthat: Identified as what?

Pasulka: Well, I’m not going to name it, because in some traditional religions it’s named in different ways. So it could be bodhisattvas, angels, demons — things like that. ...

 

The whole thing is here in "What if the Government Believes in U.F.O.s More Than You Do?"

If you are looking for a religion scholar to say that the UFO cult is a human creation just like every other religion, you won't find that from Diana Walsh Pasulka, a practicing Catholic who wants to argue for the legitimacy of mystery and of people's experience of that mystery, even if they work for a government which cannot be trusted on UFOs.

It is telling that a member of a hierarchical religion which is imbued with deference to authority finds the belief in UFOs among government employees somehow more compelling than that belief among private individuals:

... they have various titles. They have quote-unquote “day jobs” as, say, a mission controller at Cape Canaveral, things like that. And almost all of them called it this: They said, “my hobby job.” They would call it their hobby.           

Elites also run in herds.  

Jesus wasn't killed for blasphemy but for challenging Jewish complicity with Roman economic tyranny

 

I'm glad to see this argument gaining wider circulation, even if it appears in an essay which more broadly is mistaken to think that Jesus imagined that terrestrial injustice could be overcome by anyone or anything short of the coming of God's celestial kingdom to earth. Not even the resurrection has done that.

The argument was first made by St. Luke.

And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.  

-- Luke 23:1f.

Palm Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession

 ... The next day, Jesus walked into the Temple, the heart of Jerusalem’s religious and economic life, and flipped the tables in the marketplace, which he described as “a den of robbers.” The Temple wasn’t just a house of prayer. It was a financial engine, operated by complicit leaders under the constraints and demands of the occupying empire. Jesus shuts it down. This is what gets him killed.

Jesus wasn’t killed for preaching love, or healing the sick, or discussing theology routinely debated in the Temple’s courtyards, or blasphemy (the punishment for which was stoning). Rome didn’t crucify philosophers or miracle workers. Rome crucified insurrectionists. The sign nailed above his head — “King of the Jews” — was a political indictment and public warning. ...

Oh, the pervert is dead . . .

 

Theodore McCarrick, Cardinal Defrocked Over Sex Abuse, Dies at 94

NYTimes

 

"... Three of the four bishops, it said, found that Mr. McCarrick had shared a bed with seminarians and young adult men, but said they were not sure there had been sexual contact. ..."

 

 

Oh, McCarrick is dead, and his boyfriend don't know it

His boyfriend is dead, and McCarrick don't know it

They both are dead in the very same bed

And neither one knows that the other is dead.    

-- Johnny

 

 

Rod Dreher's Crunchy Con Christian moms fall for human train wreck Robert F Kennedy Jr's Make America Healthy Again

  

 Anna Gleaton and her husband operate a small homestead on 60 acres outside Gainesville, Texas, a rural town just south of the Oklahoma state line. Their farm, which operates on the principles of regenerative agriculture, includes pigs, goats and a dairy cow, which Ms. Gleaton described as “an adventure.” Another adventure: home-schooling their nine children, ages 2 to 16.

Ms. Gleaton, 36, describes herself as a conservative Christian, and she voted for Donald Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. This time, she had not been optimistic that he would focus on issues that most concern her, including contaminated soil and waterways, factory-farmed meat and the lobbying by agricultural corporations.

But Ms. Gleaton now gets goose bumps when she looks ahead, largely because Mr. Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Kennedy faces Senate confirmation hearings on Wednesday and Thursday.

“It’s not very often that my world, my realm, is mainstream,” she said.

Ms. Gleaton is part of a growing crowd who question not only educational institutions for what they see as liberal orthodoxy, but also “Big Ag” and “Big Pharma” — leanings coded as progressive not long ago.

In that sense, Mr. Kennedy has been speaking her language for years. He has criticized ultraprocessed foods, warned about the dangers of specific food additives and questioned the safety of fluoride in the water supply. ...

But among home-schooling mothers like Ms. Gleaton, Mr. Kennedy has long been seen as a bold truth-teller, one who understands their skepticism about the education and health establishments, including traditional vaccine regimens. And his rising profile comes as this particular constituency is also coming into its own politically and culturally.

More.

 

Rod Dreher is quoted at the end of the story.

 

The ignorance of these people about this devil must be willful, pretending not to see.

Theories about Kennedy’s reckless behaviors abound. Long before it was reported, members of the family knew about the brain worm, which in court testimonies Kennedy conjectured he’d picked up from food he ate in South Asia. He said the tapeworm consumed a portion of his brain and led to protracted “brain fog.” But more often his family points to Kennedy’s 14 years as a heroin user, which began when Kennedy was 15 and didn’t end until he was 29. 

 

More.

Who needs The New York Times?

 Provok'd by those incorrigible fools,

I left declaiming in pedantick schools.

-- John Dryden

The comments to this are appalling:

The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be

A prophet without honor in his own country

The New York Times religion columnist Ross Douthat accurately predicted the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election. 

The commenters on election day, for the most part, weren't having it, notably the ones who thought it was invalid simply because it hadn't changed over time even though the Democrat candidate did.

Some people just don't get it that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

76% of American Christians are now the very antithesis of disciples of Jesus

Relevant Magazine, August 23, 2023, here:

76 percent of Christians now believe God wants them to prosper financially. That number rises among younger generations, with 81 percent of churchgoers between the ages of 18 to 34 and 85 percent of churchgoers 35-49 holding onto that belief.

Luke 14:33 :

So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own. 

      

Tara Isabella Burton traces the origin of this prosperity gospel heresy to a new England faith healer named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby who influenced Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science.   

Dubbed "the mind cure" and "New Thought" historically, it mushroomed into a diverse number of iterations over time both religious and secular beyond this humble beginning, not the least of which was in Norman Vincent Peale. Today it broadly goes by the term "manifesting, the art and quasi-spiritual science of willing things into existence".

The latter succinctly encapsulates what faith-healing, prosperity Pentecostalists like Kenneth Hagin and Ken Copeland styled "calling those things which be not as though they were" (Romans 4:17). They believe the Christian's tongue has the power to create something out of nothing, just like God.

Burton aptly describes it as

  the instinct to conflate spiritual forces, political and economic outcomes and our own personal desires.

Here, for The New York Times.