Cathedral as an Antidote To The Machine with Paul Kingsnorth
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 เม.ย. 2023
- Author Paul Kingsnorth joins me and Shari in a conversation about the what he and others have called the Machine and how we can overcome it's influence.
Follow Paul on Substack at Abbey of Misrule:
paulkingsnorth.substack.com/?...
Find more of his books here:
www.paulkingsnorth.net/books
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8:12 “something is using us to create itself”
That Hideous Strength
Start where you are: cancel cable, get rid of your smart phone, limit/eliminate TVs in your home, technology fasts, fasting from food, meditative prayer, giving alms, sincerely pray for your "enemies", truly connect in local community, find alternative food sources (local farmers), BUY LESS, and on and on and on... we all can do this. Do you want to be well? What do you want?
I need to work on that smart phone thing.
Sent through Android phone 📱
I don't know if Paul Kingsnorth is at this point yet -- yet! -- But I would look for him to say something like this, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and, if you haven't been baptized, be baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in a church that really does believe, teach, and confess the historic and Biblical Christian faith. Otherwise, you certainly may do some good with a self-improvement project involving frugality, disconnection from social media and processed images and processed foods, but you're putting on yourself a burden of self-renewal apart from Christ. You need to be united to Him and to receive His Spirit. This reception of the Spirit is granted in the washing of water with the Word (Ephesians 5:26)."
Please at least consider the possibility that you must be born again of water and the Spirit, as Jesus says so plainly in the Gospel of St. John 3.
This is more than psychology, for sure, but let me tell you that it's a great strengthening of the soul to start from something the Almighty has done -- since He is the agent in Baptism -- and not in my willpower. Because what we're talking about here is a long obedience in the Lord's direction, nothing less -- not my resolution to "do better" someday real soon now or even right now from this minute. Baptism is the basis of the daily struggle against our own weakness as well as against the horrible Machine.
Eastertide blessings to all who read this.
Yes, got the flip phone in the mail today. Gotta thank St. Croix farms as my local farmer and stocked up on a full deep freezer of meat Great advice Lance. Less online time as well now that I made my specific points to all these spaces one by one and have written to Orthodoxy clergy and influencers adjacent to them about what’s going down here and tilled the soil for the points, patristics, way of life, and arguments that are going to start showing up in the corners over the next year as Pageau is now talking with the Orthosphere. God bless, Lance.
@@Ac-ip5hd fantastic to hear … I’m implementing as many of these as I can too. My priest keeps hearing in confession and conversations people feel consumed in the “Machine” and he’s encouraging people to recalibrate in their lives. We can do this!
@@lancecleaver227 Yes! Christos Anesti!
I went to a pizza place because I really wanted a decent pizza. There was a self-service screen. I chose my pizza. The screen wanted my mobile number. This sudden and violent request bothered me somewhat but since I was already there...
The system works like this: when your pizza is ready, you get a pseudo-cheerful message. I suppose you could enter a fake mobile number and then just approach the counter after 10-15 minutes or so. But it can get confusing for you and the staff.
I think that food should be available without a mobile phone. I am aware that my thought might be radical. Possibly a hate thought.
I have started to use more cash than before. The world without cash horrifies me. I have never used my mobile to pay for things. It might be my red line.
I am esctatic Paul got to meet our sage from the Canadian bush.... God bless Seraphima Suter 🙏
The fear to destroy The Machine (read "ring") as all the _magic_ of the modern world will go with it resembles the melancholy of the elves in Tolkien's Legendarium. Their magic is tied to the fate of the ring. Our magic, our technology/science, way of life.
Christianity is as much a fantasy as Tolkien.
I need to make a correction……the long distance calls to Canada in 1986 were $4 a minute, not an hour! ☺️
@shari6063 Is there an email I can contact you through? A couple of things you said really sparked my interest.
Addicts learn a valuable lesson.... abstinence is the only way... that then opens up the doors to be able to seek God... aschesis is also teaching you through abstinence .... I don't like this but I know it to be an absolute Truth I have learned the hard way in my life
A good intermediate step for a lot of people could be a reduced function phone. I switched to one in 2020 and it made me happier.
The cost isn't removed from us, we're removed from the cost
I started to say the distinction doesn't matter, but I think you are right, and this is what underlies my claim that individualism is a necessary component of the machine's engine.
That’s what I was trying to illustrate but you just put all my silly ramblings in nutshell! Great job.
22:01 love this phrase - we don't destroy our passions, we bridle them. The same with evil - we bridle it in ourselves, because we cant root out the wheat and the weeds on our own.
That’s the point of Dante’s Commedia, the longing of the passions links to the longing of the eternal…when fractals seen and visioned and acted in the context of the great complexity. Everything is good in its place.
"power over people" that is the goal. People will use it to completely control others.
53:28 Exactly, exactly. You say the "barcode moment" and I'm usually thinking the "chip" moment - same thing. In either situation, I think we need to figure out about ourselves... are we willing to live an inconvenient life? A life of fewer opportunities? A life of more suffering? Because ultimately, when we choose to not live as the world, these are the consequences: inconvenience, fewer opportunities, and more suffering. God help us. 🙏📿
1:21:48 "[The Machine] doesn't care about beauty." Spot on. It may start to "simulate" like it cares, but ultimately, the people using it for money only use the machine for power and control, and simulating beauty may be simply a "means" toward that end. We are going to need to be very discerning and shrewd in these days.
1:33:50 "It confuses Information with Actual Knowledge." Wow. That's something to sit with.
Whoa
‘i don’t want this cell phone to be part of my body’….. wisdom, embodied truth.
we as humans need Beauty and Community and the machine can’t give us that…. Truth.
And Paul, thank you so much for your voice, keep it coming, keep sharpening your sword, we need it.
Thank you three. Blessings.
Absolutely great. I have listened to Paul quite a few times by now and I am so glad you went beyond talking to him about his coming to Christ and the Orthodox faith. Not that I do not love his story, I sure do, but it was so refreshing and delightful to listen to fabulous, deep questions and ideas discussed among friends I wish I could sit around a fire with the three with you just to mull over these things of life and beyond. Thank you for sharing this great conversation through the machine with all of us around the world.
Faith not hope. Faith is very powerful, we must retain our faith.
I'm not normally one of those "Hey man, have you read...." people - but I'm having fantasies about doing an 'Alan Moore's Jerusalem' book club with Paul & Nate rn
I’m in
Well, you can at least count me in my friend.
10:52 - John Gray had a really beautiful little book (as is typical - he keeps them short) called 'Soul of the Marionette', and to your point about the machine having been seen from a long ways off, there was a short story he dedicated a subsection to called 'The Machine Stops'' by E. M. Forster in 1909 describing a fully automated culture where everyone's separated into these little apartments where all their needs are met by automation and how that divorce from the human condition and instinct leaves people vulnerable to standard contingencies and messiness of existence should the program, or the system, break.
I can't help but think that the Hebrew observation of the Sabbath and not working had something to do with stopping runaway status races, social climbing, and having the society get so competitive that work became not only a thing of every waking moment but which cut into sleep (burning the future for present gains). 'Hustle culture' as we had it recently resulted in 'quiet quitting' or in China 'lying flat' when it became obvious that if everyone hustled then everyone was working that much harder to stay in the same place and the only people who benefited were their respective employers.
Fascinating discussion. I think where we have the control in making choices re our own personal use of technology we have no real issue (other than the accepting the consequences of refusing its use - as noted). Where we have difficulty is coming to an agreement around making community or society or country or global level ‘choices’ re which technologies to adopt & which to refuse. Who do we trust & cede authority to make these choices and what level of coercion do we permit? These are questions we cannot seem to come to agreement on - and therefore the conflicts seem to me to be inevitable and perpetual.
What an incredible conversation. Thank you. God has an annoying habit of pointing me in the right direction. It was difficult enough to leave the Atheist cult, never mind embracing the universe as it is.
So glad I took the time to watch this one. Each of you brought wisdom to the table and gave me much to think about. How might I go about applying ascesis toward The Machine? How might I become a sub-creator/gardener? These are such crucial questions and I thank you all for this challenge it brings to my heart.
I've been saying for a long time we need to build a new bigger and better pyrimid we can call it a cathedral
Dr Michael Levin makes a very interesting observation at the end of his most recent conversation with Dr McGilchrist and Dr Richard Watson. He describes the “incredible ingenuity” of an organism under stress, the creativity arising from a few fish, one might say.
My mind keeps coming back to this discussion over this past week, like a sore tooth, or perhaps a pearl of great price. I want more from this convo. I loved the poem of the machines referenced, and Im aware of the tragedy that is birthing our technology. Much bad is happening. But I'm with Nate... much good too. I see this decade and phase as a watershed time, like Moses and the Exodus prodding a Barfield-like shift in consciousness. Not many are getting it, and good may come about in spite of the emerging Ahrimanism, the same way Roman roads were crafted to serve military efficiency and funneling into capitals, but also became a nervous system that united an empire like never before. This is probably my own youth, but I feel in me a demand to dream hopeful of the future, and since this tech is -in so many respects - broken and uncentralized, I think we may be seeing a crop of cathedrals growing among a harvest of golems too. I dont know where this goes, but I'd really like a follow up convo on this.
I am going to forward this Conversation to my 20 something kids... I truly hope they will listen to it.
I sent an email to Paul on April 3. I'm one of those people who can get excited about technology. Congratulations to Shari and Nate for landing the conversation!
I think y'all needed someone like me to represent the other side of the conversation :)
Enjoyed hearing Shari mention bridling.
Good point about hidden costs.
Thanks for this talk. I have major differences with this channel, but this was good and should continue.
I have thought for many years that change can only occur when the young no longer desire what this society/civilization/technium has to offer them. I see no sign at all of that happening. I see the reverse.
Excellent! Guidelines are really helpful as the implementation will be varied and different, according to our life circumstances and personal decisions. Thank you all!
I want to give up my smartphone. But if I do it now, I would need to carry my laptop to a lot of places. I use my smartphone to replace my laptop. E.g. when I read in foreign languages, I need to look up words. A good example would be Paul Kingsnorth's book that is green like the girdle Sir Gawain did not give to the Green Knight in disguise. Maybe Sir Gawain and the Green Knight would have been able to read that book without a dictionary? I was not. So I sat in a comfy place, the green pre-Norman book in one hand, my smartphone in another and chewed through the text. With a huge glowing computer screen the reading process wouldn't have been that enjoyable.
So maybe the smartphone is often less evil than the big bad laptop?
But I do agree that it is bad to carry it everywhere with you. I try to leave it at home as much as possible. I also do not have mobile internet which means I cannot check my mails everywhere. My smartphone is often just a mobile phone and a camera. The camera aspect is bad. It can be difficult for some people to admire a beautiful flower without taking about 15 photos of the flower and 15 selfies with the flower on the background. Public parks with pretty flowers have become a nightmare. The park managements should consider a no smartphones policy.
When I lived abroad I sometimes had to see a doctor. Googling vocabulary while on my way was very necessary. Back then I also had a limited mobile internet package for such emergencies. Unfortunately it also let me quickly check my emails. Not a good idea.
Summary. There is no good solution. But I do envy those who have no smartphone. Maybe I can evolve to their level one day.
Be very careful with the idea that we couldn't build a cathedral today. We most certainly could from a skills perspective. There are stone carvers, wood carvers and incredible traditional carpenters all over the world. We would build it better. However there is definitely a discussion about why we lack the will to do it.
The Zac Stein interview on the Emerge podcast, touched on the same vein. More directly on AI, but he too pivots to some form of digital optimism, after tracing out the coming horror of AI. Well worth a listen.
Many thumbs up. Happy Easter!
At what juncture does the impulse informing the architecture & design of the Cathedral depart from that which informs the skyscraper?
Their similarities amount to their differences with the Aramaic & Luciferic in mind…
Thinking of Kathleen Raine’s lectures on “cities of the imagination” which is basically expounding on William Blake’s understanding of Jerusalem & his mythical London called Golgonooza: the ways in which our cities attempt to realize this Jerusalem by a synthesis of art & science.
A foot in two very different, but largely unavoidable territories.
36:14 - I remember Alain de Botton bringing up the 'Fable of the Bees' by Bernard Mandeville where the notion was that we could either be rich but shallow (buying fripperies, fads, trends, treating production as throwaway but keeping production going) or we could be deep but poor, even destitute. That does line up with Darwinian game theory if we consider economic arms races and in particular colonizer / colonized relationships (seems like the countries who externalize their Moloch best win, living in the US we're starting to turn it inward now both tribally and on future generations either unable to defend themselves or yet to be born). This is also why advertising is so sticky and deliberately destabilizing - ie. as is being mentioned the system can't run on asceticism any better than it could run on a nation of assiduous savers.
Accurate pricing - ie pricing which reflects real costs - might work; your mobile phone should cost a million bucks or so...
The lady has a lovely voice
1:24:00 re: cathedrals and house and architecture
JF Martel we (like insects and birds and animals) secrete out dwellings. The inside is outside. They are part of us.
As I listen to this on my phone (and leave this comment), I ponder not just listening to this, instead, on a stationary computer; but not listening to this at all, because I’m living a lifestyle that has much less time and priority for such an activity in the first place.
This was great! Kudos to all of you.
Lent is the road to the answer. Christ fully instantiates the angel who straddles the water and land. He descends into the depth and raises it up to heaven. The new Jerusalem is a city in a garden. Cain and Abel are united in harmony. Lent calls us to put off the whore of consumerism as the means of uniting with Christ that we may bridle, integrate the passions. We should be first off participating in that pattern that the liturgy offers as the highest embodiment of the solution. Then to family and community.
Well put.
Beautifully said! Thank you!
22:41 aschesis as the way out is brilliant Shari... the loss of hesychasm in the West also plays a pivotal factor too related to that point
You grossly underestimate the Rosary prayer.
@@grailcountry Rosary is a great prayer for this type of connection... sorely missing in Protestant practices
We also have a very rich tradition of practical mysticism with St. John of the Cross, The Cloud of Unknowing etc. In addition we have very living contemplative orders such as the Cistercians etc who teach ways of meditation, contemplation, and recollection.
Loved this.
Thanks Jess
Thank you Jess!
36:59 “what role does individualism play in enabling the whole thing?”
All of it.
Disintegrated Divided Man (the False self. The isolated, autonomous individual)
Vs
Integrated Divided Man (the true, white stone Man. The Divine Man. The Person)
When I heard this I pictured Luke walking off with a Breakfast Club fist pump outro
Present. But not present in the conversation itself. 😭😭😭
Great discussion guys. What / where is the John Milbank conversation you mentioned you and Shari's friend was able to do? Would love to see Milbank engage with this space and especially with Vervaeke, especially given their shared appreciation of Eriugena.
It was our mutual friend Michael Martin:
th-cam.com/video/Qp6hA9iWF7s/w-d-xo.html
I still very much am trying to get theologians in conversation with Dr. Vervaeke.
Excellent; I recommended Milbank's work to John at Rafe Kelley's retreat last summer after having several conversations with JV on my channel back when I was more involved with the AftMC server. I also recall you mentioning DBH was coming around to having a talk with JV after all too which would be great. Thanks for all you're doing Nate. I think the only interaction we had at Chino was failing to grab a taken seat at your table during the Signs and Wonders performance, but I hope we get the chance to talk sometime.
Great podcast.
Kingsnorth's "Machine" seems like it can tie into a lot of Augusto Del Noce's work, specifically in the Problem of Atheism where he discusses classical atheism's "desacralization as a mystical moment" as opposed to modern atheism/natural irreligion's complete absense of a mystical moment/desacralization from the very start
Strong Barfield vibes!
1:23:00 - Re: Parallel societies.
My question is one of proximity. Is the parallel polis removed from the polis, adjacent to, or one that emerges from within?
As an urban gardener, I work within the walls of Babylon with the vision this very place becoming Jerusalem.
You are already doing it. In the world but not of it. This is the key.
@@shari6063 your Underground Railroad insight answered this for me as well.
22:15 - 26:00 diesel generator to watch movies
What Shari says about aestheticism and living within a space that counts the cost… reminds me of Joel salatin and a consciously holistic, ecological symbiotic life. Harmony.
I don’t know the degree to which this is possible in a McLuhan “medium is the message” world. The technocratic world has colonized all participation. Or seems to. How to be “in the (technocratic) world, but not of it” without going homesteader/offgrid?
I heard Joel Saladin’s confess his appreciation for plastic once, but I still consider him a saint.
1:05:15 “Technology isn’t good or bad. It depends on what you do with it.”
I’ve never been on board with that either, Paul. I’ve always loved the distinction that Dr. gay makes in his book technology, and the human future btw contrivances and machine tech.
And then he brings up McLuhan!! 🥳🥳
It's sort of in this way: something existing in this world isn't good or evil(something is dangerous, but that doesn't make it evil in itself), but reason it exists can be good or evil
Pre modernity was a good that , naturally , contained much evil .
Whereas Modernity is an evil that , naturally , contains much good .
It would be absurd to prefer the latter to the former .
- Frithjof Schuon
Steiner left the blavatsky stream and went off to do his own thing because he wanted to include christian stream. Hopefully people can distinguish him from that.
Yes, I would hope so. And his Christology is significantly insightful.
1:12:46 - Re: Raw & Cooked barbarian.
Call me a poached barbarian.
Cooked on the outside & raw on the inside.
I love this.
None of God’s/Christ’s enemies are anything to worry about in the macro level.
All such mysteries of darkness and evil have no purchase beyond that which the Lord tolerates or perhaps uses for unseen reasons far beyond our individual pay grade of intelligence or comprehension as unlike God we cannot time travel… It is not for us to worry about these Biblical matters - it is for us to praise the Lord of Light - Lord of Love and Beauty - and to thank Him with more power than we can summon individually, so-to-speak.
I think you should allay your fears, Paul.
Your fears are perhaps not coming from the Divine. There is nothing to fear except for the failure to reject fear. That’s what I think… Fear must belong ONLY in your failures to love and honour God through JC…. including in our work (as creative men).
We all must pass.
But we pass through to eternal heaven in his Presence! He has us! C’mon!
The Machine may be interesting to God-for some “Earthly” reason in the future - WHO KNOWS?
LOVE thine enemies!
None of them can hurt you - because He has your back now.
Read your C S Lewis again! Read your Chesterton!
Have a Beautiful life - and live as a great example.
Beauty is everything now. Nothing else exists in the real world once you shed the rest of the rot… of course I’m talking in ideological terms - but that is the Christian path to the ideal/perfect self He wants of us, as far as possible for a sinner.
Maybe you guys, intellectuals as you are, are focusing a little too much on the gremlins and not enough on their sheer insignificance…?
Maybe there is no ecological concern to God whatsoever beyond your own INDIVIDUAL efforts to live the good life as a good steward and to refuse to hear the crap - focusing on the song of the thrush instead…
I enjoyed your conversation, guys, very much.
Anyway, God Bless.
Love from an English poet ending his life in Mexico. Adios!
Have you encountered the writings of Romano Guardini? Particularly The End of the Modern World and Letters from Lake Como: Explorations in Technology and the Human Race? Here is an insight from Guardini I think important in regard to this discussion:
"The longing for unnoticed nature is itself a product of culture originating in the over-artificiality of existence."
I haven’t read these. Might be worth a look! Thanks.
A great conversation, very clarifying about the temptations of technology. I think Shari's point about things becoming part of our bodies is particularly important, She mentioned a book by someone, Matthew ??. Can you give us the title and full author's name, please? I would like to follow that up. One minor point. You all kept mentioning 'God'. What about those of us who don't, can't 'believe' in God? Thanks to you all for this great contribution.
www.amazon.com/Psychology-Totalitarianism-Mattias-Desmet/dp/1645021726?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=34c29e17-118d-418e-ada6-878c6f44a8c5
I would say that all of us have a very weak propositional grasp on God. Ultimately we each have our own understanding ( taking a page from AA). I would say aim high, look up. Whatever you want to call it, we all have a sense (especially in times of trouble) that there are things operating out there that are much greater than we are.
1:16:00 Nate, but even the logging industry is in the Machine. It’s still not “inexpensive”. It’s just outsourcing the negative effects. Kicking the can.
And I know you know this. ❤
There is a sustainable level of logging. Are we all doing it? No but it exists.
I said the wood was plentiful because we had a lot of unemployed loggers because by the time I was growing up the logging industry was failing. Out of work loggers would often go into the firewood business. I didn't say anything about the logging industry being a good thing. But, since you bring it up. Logging is good. We need timber, timber is a manageable resource. The point of my story is that is was cheap and available where I grew up, that was all. Even now almost everyone has a wood stove where I am from.
@@grailcountry 👍🏼
44:08 “perhaps this form of individualism is for the other”
In my terms though, that’s not an individual. That’s a person, a servant of God and not Mammon.
Edit: Nate goes on to say exactly what I’m saying.
45:20 “individualism is the myth of the Machine”
Exactly. Individuals don’t exist. It’s the false self.
13:35 - Pinocchio's Pleasure Island pretty much.
The sin of sloth is not about being lazy etc. It is more about apathy and despair, I think. The modern equivalent is depression. And that is encouraged. First the society makes you mentally ill and then sells you hardcore medication you cannot quit just like that. Sloth is very profitable. Plus I constantly read online that we must learn to accept and love those who choose to suffer from sloth.
Despair is actually separate from sloth in the Orthodox Church. It is called the 8th deadly sin. I think the Greek word is acedia but don't quote me on that.
@@chadpilled7913 But acedia is sloth!
p.s. I agree that sloth is a bad translation.
th-cam.com/video/sTl9vOsB8_M/w-d-xo.html I think Loving your Enemies is at least a Standard Action, but some traditions may be able to lower it to a bonus action perhaps.
Dont know if this has been said, but i always think of the `the cost` as the way Renfield (the insane i Dracula) did his adding up of souls. dont remember foodchain, but he ended up eating a cat.
I'm careful about the rejection of technology. While very romantic I also have to acknowledge all my children would be dead at 4. Shari has a great life story but if she decided to die in the bush from a common infection I think she would be committing the crime of suicide.
I agree, there is another whole discussion here to be had. First, how far do we take medical technology? And secondly, how do we regain all the healing knowledge we have lost? Just as we have been made dependant on cell phones, we have also become dependant on pharmacology. There are often more healthy and holistic ways to be healed. Getting an infection wasn’t always a death sentence back in the day. And people’s bodies were far more resilient due to healthy food and lifestyle than they are today. I’m definitely grateful for medical advances as a recent recipient of heart surgery.
Maybe living holly 24/7 you wouldn't even have those bruises that you needed to be healed
8:52 - When you say 'Tomberg' are you talking about Valentin 'Unknown Author' of Meditations on the Tarot?
Yes
Any chance you could provide a link (if any) to M.L. Bock’s (Steiner influenced) interpretation of the Book of Revelation that was mentioned beginning at 12:15? Would be very much appreciated.
www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Saint-John-Emil-Bock/dp/0863155391
16:30 a spirit of systematizing techniques (which promises to give us our consumeristic passions) that leads to totalitarianism and collapse and miscommunion/miscommunication?!
The work you do with these timestamp comments should be done with the reapers at the Cl0ck Tower :)
57:23 A totalitarian Soviet state would have never been able to get people on board for that. A totalitarian capitalist state gets them to do it for free...
There is hope. If you are a very virtuous person, there is nothing bad against you. You can casually say: "No need to spy on me. Just ask and I'll tell you everything. I have nothing to hide." It is not even necessary to be without blemish. If you confess and repent before the machine catches you, you are safe.
That's a bit like the modus operandi of the actors and celebrities who did naughty things in the past. There can never be a scandal if they have talked about these things and repented.
Unless the government starts to hate virtuous people... That is a scary possibility... In that case we are in deep fecal matter.
Diesel Jar > Swear Jar
Who is this substack? I've heard it mentioned often.
substack.com/@paulkingsnorth
@grailcountry Thanks for that. Interesting that you saw fit to delete my other comment, now at least I know you for what you are and that truth is not important to you.
A question to us all?
Are we subverting the system with anti- Machine essays, podcasts, zoom calls or have we in fact by monetisation of this form of subversion managed to satisfy our passions wants and desires through our particular form of subversion.
This channel isn't monetized. It loses money by a wide margin, especially when accounting for my time. It is a labor of love.
☦ 🕊 ♾True that we are in a spiritual battle. We must grow in Christ noetically to have the spiritual powers necessary to fight evil and dark forces in our hearts and from external means. This world system would like to distract us from humbling ourselves to Christ.
The machine: cars, CB radios, analog and digital phones, youtube channels using the internet like this show, can be the means of service to mankind (i.e. use a phone or video chat to call a friend and encourage them,, share The Good News and encourage our growth in Christ such as Orthodox monastic and parish services, theological discussions, thoughtful presentations). All this is done more with programming and hardware.
The part about antichrist coming through the machine is well intentioned conjecture. Possible means of communicating evil and controls by spiritually dark rulers. But I can't help recall that originally TV and Hollywood asked Churches to communicate the Gospel through this 'new tech' in the early 1900s. Almost all preachers walked away from the opportunity out of fear of the devil :-(
God has not given us terror of the evil one. He conquered death & hades through the cross and resurrection. He has granted us The Holy Spirit to empower us unto theosis, transformed as our flesh decreases and Christ increases. Pray we can use neutral devices as means to lead others to our higher eternal purpose. Andrew Torba, GAB social media founder, is trying to encourage using AI to lead others to right answers. Orthodox Christians have The Truth in Christ more than others. May we unite to humble ourselves unto God and with the Grace and Power of The Holy Spirit, overcome the world and make disciples of all nations.
1:03:30 “how can we use our technology to open up the world instead of being trapped in the closed world of the sperent?”
I don’t know that we can, Nate. Because Mammon is smuggled into the question when you say “use”. And the open spiral involves death and resurrection.
Is it possible to have a technology that incorporates death and resurrection?
Toss out your tool box then, cause it's participating in Mammon. Clearly this can't be right. We can't ignore the human cost of our technological marvels and act as if they are morally neutral, Paul is right up to that point. But we can't stop imagining ways to make tools that benefit humans and glorify God. There is the huge divide among Christians, where I think most Christians think the eschaton is something that happens, and I would argue it is something we co-create in cooperation with God, and our genius for building tools that enhance our capabilities likely play a significant role.
@@grailcountry we can make art. We should not make artifice /
One seeks to control. One is outside our individual control.
For those that rail against wealth and have made ascetism their new god. The investment of wealth has permitted the printing press (which allows you guys to read and talk about all the books on your shelves), the spread of Christianity itself(missionaries and Jesus himself were supported by wealth), translations of the bible that we can read, the beauty/cathedral you speak of, the costly oil that anointed Jesus(that he accepted gladly), virtually eliminated starvation, significantly lowered infant mortality and women dying at child birth, and on and on. It is where you heart is that is the critical point. Any technology (store of value) can be used for good or bad.
Perhaps. Only time will tell. I think that there is much deeper sense to what Jesus says about wealth and the kingdom of heaven. And it mostly has to do with the kingdom of heaven. But that is a much longer conversation.
@@shari6063 Completely agree. It is about what is at the top of hierarchy. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." I frankly get pretty tired of the constant disparaging of money/technology in a lot of these circles. It can be used for great good or ill. Frankly, the individuals with wealth that developed and distributed antibiotics (Penicillin) have done far more to embody love for others, through the relief of an untold and unnecessary suffering of billions of people, than 99% of ascetics (devoted mostly to themselves) who decry wealth and live a solitary monastic existence. It is only because this wealth exists that the development of something like antibiotics can happen. It can serve as a multiplier of the good that can be done when the opportunity arises. The wealth of individuals led to the proliferation of Christianity by supporting Jesus, the apostles, church leaders (like PVK), missionaries, theologians, the printing/distributing of the Bible, building meeting places, etc. It is only out of our spiritual and material abundance that we can love and serve others. Jesus spent a lot of time relieving physical suffering.
@@amurdo4539 Yes, Jesus was a healer. And had the support of people who were in the position to do that, but if this is all true, then what do you think Jesus could have meant when he spoke of wealth in the way Paul Kingsnorth described it? Because the fact is, he did. I think of these paradoxes as a sort of Holy Ground, in which we should remove our shoes (humility) and tread carefully. We need antibiotics and we need ascetics too. One is not greater than the other.
@@shari6063 I like where you are going. There is no simple one-size fits all answer. Jesus qualified things. He said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." He said "rich man". He made the obvious observation that people tend to have a hard time giving up something they have spent time building up over time(it is hard for rich people to give away all their money that they have worked hard building up over time). But doesn't the same hold true for anything we set our ego/hearts on. It is almost impossible to give up anything our ego is firmly set on and that we have built up over time ("bear your cross", "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.") whether it is wealth, our job, food, work, sex, fame, beauty, family, health, security, looking good for others, looking knowledgeable, asceticism, righteousness, etc. Wealth is just one example of that he particularly pointed out for a particular group of people. He also pointed out many other potential stumbling blocks for people. "let the dead bury the dead", "do your alms to be seen of men", "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" and many more. Peter and the apostles put their own safety and reputation above following Jesus which is why they abandoned him in the crucial moment(Peter's thrice denial). Jesus told them they would. He knew what their hearts/egos were truly set on. When push comes to shove we almost always have some love that we have cultivated over time that we put above God. That is why his sayings are "hard."
When Jesus had the perfect opportunity to decry money he said give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Thus, money isn't inherently evil. It is the love of money that is. It is the priority that matters. It is choosing mammon over God instead of putting money in the service of God. But if a group of people have a tendency toward something (movie stars and fame, fashion models and beauty, etc) Jesus could have easily have interchanged the "rich man" for "movie star" or "fashion model"
I think it comes down to why you are pursuing these things. Are you pursuing ascetism as an escape, because you are uncomfortable with others, some sort of virtue signaling (being looked up to as saintly by others/guru worship) or are you trying to further the kingdom of God with what talents you have? As far as I can tell, Jesus never promoted perpetual monasticism (he had periods of fasting/going to the wilderness) and he certainly didn't live that way. Even as a child he was teaching in the temple. He seemed quite gregarious. On the other hand, he realized that wealth can be sought for its own sake, for security, to escape, to have power over others, and to accomplish evil ends. In either case, it is hard to give up things that you have invested a lot of time in whether ascetic practices, dogmas, or wealth. In my view, Jesus treated it individually. What is right for one person will be wrong for the other person. He told the rich man to give away his wealth but didn't tell the woman to sell the costly perfume and give it to the poor .He understood their heart. In the end, death will force our hand. We will be compelled to let go of all our accumulated egotism (Thy will, not mine, be done)
Any technology cannot be used for good or bad. That is a fundemanel misunderstanding. Technologies have a telos. Nuclear weapons cannot be used for good, to use just one example.
As for wealth: I think it's a false god. While some of what you say is correct, up to a point, it misses a lot. Crucially, it misses the fact that Christ condemned wealth in and of itself, repeatedly. To a Christian, then, this cannot be ignored: it is the teaching of God. If you are right, why does God teach the opposite? That is to be pondered.
One answer is the power of prayer. Your argument is pure materialism. 'What do monks contribute to the world?' They pray for it. No Christian would dismiss that. The power of prayer is deep and real, and it beats the power of the market every time.
More broadly, what is the point of the Christian journey? To create a comfortable world? To build a material kingdom here? Or to look beyond here, become a sojourner, discipline body and mind, live for God alone? It is the latter, and always has been.
A glance at the early history of Christianity will show that the missionaries who spread the faith were poor ascetics, to a man and woman, and that poverty was the reason people were attracted to them. Meanwhile, there are actually more people starving in the world than at any time in human history. Of course we can always measure the benefits of wealth. But in the end, it will kill us - culturally and ecologically and spiritually - as it is doing. The more I sink into the faith the more I understand this. Of course, it then presents a great personal dilemma.
8:25 "man is the sex organ of the machines"
Somebody has been listening to Rogan!
Jk. You’ve probably actually read a lot of McLuhan.
But that is the one quote from him that he keeps bringing up.
My friends who had come out of anthroposophy had a healthy dislike of the tyrannical potential of modern technology. There may be aspects of the Steiner movement that we can appreciate, but, as Kingsnorth remarked, we must not accept his aberrant theology, which is basically a development on the lies of theosophy.
I see my comments have been deleted as anticipated. Thank goodness I have curated them at radicalisedrabbi.blogspot.com/2023/04/paul-kingsnorth-thinks-going-to.html
Kingsnorth: "You can't use the Devil to do God's work."
God: Crucifixion.jpg
That’s God doing that use, not us.
@@Ac-ip5hd fair
Steiner lost me with his 'Outline of the Occult Sciences' and onward, just with how much a product of Victorian times the thinking and framing were along with age of the earth, description of Lemurians and Atlanteans (and all sorts of hypothetical / fictitious races with 7's, 3's, and 12's galore), so much of what he wrote almost reinforces the point Sam Harris would make that inner visions generally don't yield propositional knowledge unless its 'unknown knowns' hiding out in your subconscious and getting surfaced. For as much as I even felt like Dion Fortune was pretty straight-laced and empirical in her way of thinking Cosmic Doctrine had very similar Hebrew alphabet / Sefir Yetzirah indulgences, just not quite as obnoxiously as with Steiner or Blavatsky.
Yes, that's a tough pill to swallow, I agree.
Christ willingly goes to his death as the fool of History. Ecce Homo...is this how you want to end?
(See Miguel Unamuno:
(The Tragic Sense of Life)
Oh, the sin of sloth is very much a virtue in our machine society. "Sloth" is just not a very accurate translation. The condition is more like depression. And depression is celebrated and medicated.
Christ wins.
1:06:27 What about in Armageddon when they nuked the asteroid to save the world? The argument that a nuclear bomb can only be used for evil is the same logic that is used by the gun control types. Come to think of it I should be able to own my own nuclear weapons as well. For home defense, and maybe hunting.
Agreed. Nuke's have a role to play. Read Starship Troopers.
I have flashbacks of Al Bundy's hammer to crack a nut method of huntin' wabbits! Dynamiting the garden, as I recall.
Is this a bearded-guy cult?
Stop reading this sentence.