Greetings
The movie review of "Nefarious" at the bottom of this email is thoughtful and well-written.
To begin my commentary, I acknowledge that the vestigial “indoctrinated Catholic” in me responds to this review by saying, “Well, what if…? It could be…” (Sound like anyone we all know?)
Although I still experience occasional night-fright when the "witching hour" induces all manner of fear and apprehension, my Reason obliges me to make a few observations.
One is that Trump and his cult are primarily ignorant (and sometimes stupid) people, although I prefer to focus on their ignorance.
American conservatives have sealed themselves off, deliberately self-isolating in “silos” of know-nothing dimwittery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing
And within those well-guarded silos, they refuse to learn anything that has been rigorously demonstrated, instead, exhibiting ferocious, determination to keep the “Devil”-of-enlightenment at bay by strident rejection of any liberal impulse.
One very intelligent Christian conservative I know, says (and I quote) that “Liberalism is satanic rebellion against God.”
St Paul Observed: "The Wisdom Of The World Is Folly Before God." Who, Exactly, Is Going To Hell For "Satanic Rebellion Against God?"
Obama rightly observed that “It’s as if these people are proud of being ignorant.”
And this self-isolation (hermetically sealed within the right wing echo chamber) has resulted in nearly half the population of the “United” States of America, celebrating ignorance.
As they go about their lives, they miss no opportunity to let the world know that they are aggressively, boastfully, evangelically ignorant.
Ignorance is their mission, their raison d’etre, their divine ordination.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, I know that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy.”
But I also know I am not dreaming when every day evidence piles up (in confirmation of Aristotle) that evil arises from an absence of good.
And so, the people who refuse to practice the goodness of learning, who refuse to participate in any honest pursuit of truth, become morally degraded while thinking they are paragons of virtue.
And thus they create a void in themselves.
And because Nature “hates a vacuum” - their emptiness sucks into itself all the debris and detritus that requires no discipline, not even the discipline of keeping that shit out of their lives.
And so, they tend to live shitty lives.
What could be shittier than the Trump world’s normalization of cruelty?
The Normalization Of Cruelty During Donald Trump's Administration: A Compendium
What could be shittier than QAnon’s normalization of falsehood?
To use a grotesque image (that may make you wish you had not read the rest of the sentence... and please feel free not to) it's as if Trump, in his nakedness, squats over the mouth of God, and shits directly into it.
Let’s not forget that “on the right side of the aisle,” cruelty is no longer an exception or an aberration.
Cruelty is now the rule.
Cruelty is now the norm.
The Normalization Of Cruelty During Donald Trump's Administration: A Compendium
In the view of these vacant, vapid people, cruelty has been divinely ordained under aegis of scripture inerrant observation in "Revelations" that only 144,000 souls will be saved, and that God will damn the rest of them to an eternal lake of unquenchable fire without possibility of surcease or reform.
We become what we perceive.
These folks also perceive a vengeful, punitive God, a “creator God” who chose to create a world in which eternal torment is a fundamental component; a world in which “The Saved!” look over the ramparts of heaven and delight in watching the Damned experience endless torture.
Read this and gag: https://www.missiodeicatholic.org/p/why-dont-the-saints-pity-the-damned
Just as the insurrection of January 6 is viewed by MAGA world conservatives as an inimitably admirable act of patriotism, so too has cruelty (predicated on the perceived behavior of their punitive, torture-loving God) been redefined as virtue.
Trump Comments On Voter Fraud: People Can Only Be This Stupid When Their Identity Depends On Being Stupid
(In this post, I draw your attention to the meme about "Identity Politics.")
Now I suppose it is possible that “The Devil” — as a Real Being — is “behind all this.”
But the provable evidence tells me that the diabolical milieu in which half of all Americans are embedded, is the same milieu that envelops and informs the very people who are certain that the devil is a Real Being. And therefore they exert tremendous effort to exclude The Devil — at any and all cost — from their lives.
They will NEVER, EVER "give the devil his due" and so they NEVER, EVER compromise with their political opponents all of whom have already shown that they are hell-bent and hell-bound.
All of which leaves me with the realization that “fear of the devil,” coupled with relentless, obsessive efforts to “keep the devil at bay” — or even to definitively vanquish the devil — end up making people unusually susceptible to the diabolical worship of cruelty, which they swear is just their small contribution to divine retribution in the overarching battle between good and evil which will play itself out in "the end-times," a battle that makes them drool like Trump watching porno.
Christianity: A Compendium Of "What Went Wrong" And Current Worship Of The Wrongness
https://newsfrombarbaria.
https://newsfrombarbaria.
Why "Conservative" "Christians" Are All Going To Hell (If There Is A Hell...Which I Don't Believe)
https://newsfrombarbaria.
https://newsfrombarbaria.
Although it has been said that the devil delights in being dismissed-as-a-reality, an even stronger argument can be made that belief in the devil as a Real Being results - at least now, in our culture (and perhaps throughout history) - as the chief propellant of diabolism.
The energy that Christian conservatives put into Conquering the Devil “once and for all,” and the energy they invest in “cheerleading Armageddon” as the necessary prelude to the Second Coming -- when, blessedly, Jesus will “put everything right” for us -- are energies that could’ve been used to do good, which, in turn would have built these self-professed Christians into real human beings, characterized by kindness, and the willingness to do good, without first determining who is a worthy recipient.
Recently, I had this realization: “If you spend any time trying to determine who is saved and who isn’t, you’re not.”
And finally, here is the link to the movie review of "Nefarious" which I mentioned at the beginning of this post: https://www.thecatholicthing.
PS The last few days my computer has been acting up. And today it refuses to connect to the Internet. Therefore, I am unable to email this letter to myself for proper editorial adjustment “on the big screen.”
"How Self-Taught Philosopher-Longshoreman Eric Hoffer Judges A Government, Or A Way Of Life"
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