Contemplating the Non-Problem of Evil

The Tree of Woe contemplates four theodicies and finds none of them to his satisfaction:

An answer to the problem of evil is often called a theodicy, a term coined in 1710 by Gottfried Leibniz in his book Théodicée. A number of theodicies have been developed over time. In chronological order:

Isaiahic: Evil exists because God created it (and/or compels or permits his subjects to create it). Named for Isaiah 45:7, where God states “I form the light, and create darkness: I make good, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” Isaiahic theodicy rejects God’s omnibenevolence to emphasize His omnipotence and omniscience. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” is an Isaiahic platitude. Isaiahic theodicy is accepted by many Jews and Muslims, but most Christians reject it, believing that God is all-loving.

Irenaean: Evil exists for our own good. Goodness develops from the experience of suffering. In the words of contemporary theologian John Hicks, our world is a “vale of soul-making” that enables us to become spiritually perfected. But Irenaean theodicy leaves unanswered the question of inexplicable evil. If a mother dies in childbirth and her infant starves to death, with none to mourn for them, whose soul is being “made”? Irenaean theodicy asks us to just trust that God has configured our world to be the best possible world for human development. “God always brings good out of evil” and “God works in mysterious ways” are Irenaean platitudes. Irenaean is the main theodicy for Orthodox Christians and some liberal Protestants.

Augustinian: Evil does not exist except as privation from, or absence of, God. When humans freely chose to reject God, committing Original Sin, they thus introduced evil into the world. Augustinian theodicy leaves unanswered the question of foreknowledge. Why would an omniscient God create Adam and Eve knowing they would commit original sin? Isn’t a father who puts his curious child in a room with a loaded gun, knowing the child will pull the trigger, responsible for the harm when the child pulls the trigger? Augustinian theodicy also leaves unexplained why original sin is inherited. Even if the child is to blame for killing someone, why should the child’s great-great-great-great-grandson still be in prison? Questions like this split Orthodox from Catholic and Reformed into Calvinists and Arminians and continue to plague all denominations. Because of this critique, Augustinian theodicy has in practice tended to either collapse back into Irenaean theodicy or progress into Boydian theodicy, depending on whether omniscience or omnibenevolence is emphasized.

Boydian: Evil exists because of the free-willed choices of the beings over whom God has given authority over the world. Named for theologian Greg Boyd, this theodicy is distinguished from Augustinian theodicy because it denies God’s omniscience. Boyd is the creator of open theology, which asserts that God is not all-knowing about future contingent events. When God created Satan, Adam, and Eve, He delegated to them a libertarian free will that enabled them to make choices He would not know in advance that they would make. Because God vested great power into Satan (“the prince of this world”), and gave Satan free will, Satan causes great harm. Satan, not God, is responsible for 200 billion dead fetuses and 50 billion dead children. But Boydian theodicy is troubled by this question: why God doesn’t intervene to stop Satan now that Satan has chosen evil? If God cannot stop Satan, then He is not omnipotent. If God could stop Satan, but doesn’t because Satan’s evil actions are part of His plan, or because Satan’s free will is mysteriously part of the greater good, then we’ve reverted to Irenaean or Isaiahic. If God could stop Satan, but doesn’t because he made an irrevocable covenant to let Satan be prince of this world, then God is not just lacking in omniscience, he’s lacking in heavenly legal counsel — who writes a job contract without a termination clause for wrongful behavior?

If you are satisfied with any of those four theodicies, you should stop here. You have my gratitude for being a reader of this blog, and I do not wish to challenge your faith. The rest of this essay is just for troubled souls.

It’s an interesting and intelligent essay. I will share my thoughts on it in a future post, and probably on a future Darkstream as well. In the meantime, it’s no secret that I incline toward the Boydian theodicy, although in doing so I think it is necessary to distinguish between three types of evil: primordial, spiritual, and material if one is to seriously address the topic. The mere fact that there is a Lake of Fire and Outer Darkness into which Satan is to be cast is sufficient to distinguish between the first two, and the fact that humanity links the latter two indicates a need to distinguish between them.

But, as I have repeatedly stated, there is no such thing as a “problem” of evil for the Christian in the first place. To the contrary, Christianity is entirely dependent upon its existence; if the world is not fallen, there is no need for salvation. One need not believe in God to recognize the reality of evil, but once one begins to grasp the material existence of evil and the extent to which it permeates the world in which we live, the absolute necessity of God’s Son becomes readily apparent.

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Boris Johnson to Resign

Another of the many Clown World governments collapses.

Boris Johnson resigns LIVE: PM will QUIT and address the country TODAY after cabinet urged him to ‘go now’ and dozens of Tories fled his sinking government.

The Johnson regime is among the first to fall, but it won’t be the last. And while it’s not because of the UK support of The Empire That Never Ended’s war on the sovereign world, Johnson’s attempt to nail himself to the Ukraine cause certainly didn’t help.

UPDATE: He’s trying to hang on post-resignation until October. What a clown!

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Joe Rogan is a Narrative Puppet

If his Spotify contract wasn’t enough to prove it to you, his recent comments on President Trump should suffice to do so:

Podcaster Joe Rogan has said he will never host ‘threat-to-democracy’ Donald Trump on his podcast despite having been asked multiple times.

During a Monday airing of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan vehemently shut down the possibility of interviewing the 45th President of the United States.

‘I am not a Trump supporter, in any way, shape or form,’ Rogan, 54, said. ‘I have had the opportunity to have him on my show, more than once, and I have said no every time.’

The controversial podcaster weighed in on the devastatingly polarized political spectrum in America and said he was not interested in giving Trump a platform because the former president is an ‘existential threat to democracy itself.’

Donald Trump was, and is, very far from perfect. While I now understand why he didn’t cross the Rubicon after the 2020 election fraud – not much point in doing so when you don’t have the legions with you – I will never understand why he didn’t pardon the January 6th demonstrators. But regardless, he was the greatest US president since Andrew Jackson, and for a pint-sized nobody like Rogan to disrespect him so publicly only underlines what a useless talking hand puppet Rogan is.

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Dutch Uprising

The Dutch farmers are leading the charge against the Wicked Evil Fascists and their attempt to starve the nations of the West:

The Dutch people are rising up to protest destructive WEF climate law. We are going to share their story with the world.

The World Economic Forum controlled Dutch government announced last week an end to modern farming – putting harsh controls on nitrogen, and spelling the end to thousands of family farms.
In response, Dutch farmers took a page out of the Canadian Freedom Convoy playbook. They took to the highways, blockaded borders, and launched massive protests.

So far, the global media has vilified the farmers, brushing aside their concerns with the New World Order-style policy, and propagating government lines.

People are finally beginning to figure out that the self-admitted global population depopulationists actually, really, and truly want them and their children dead, and that they are willing to use a broad variety of tactics designed to do precisely that. And, Russia excluded, they haven’t even begun to fight back yet.

Karl Denninger’s skepticism notwithstanding – I’ll address his points directly in a future post, but for now will merely observe that his perspective is proof of how even the smartest, best-informed secularist can’t possibly grasp the entirety of what is happening – the vaccines, the war in Ukraine, and the ongoing collapse of the energy and food supply channels are all various elements of the depopulationist agenda.

As hard as it is to believe, some people literally seek Hell on Earth, because they believe they will serve their master with honor and privilege in Hell.

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Jordan Peterson Rolls Over

I told you, repeatedly, that Jordan Peterson was steeped in the occult and was a servant of evil. I warned you, repeatedly, that he never was, and he never will be, on the side of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. I pointed out, repeatedly, that excessively charitable Christians have been saying that Peterson has “been moving toward Christianity” for four years without ever getting anywhere that even remotely resembles the genuine faith.

A recent podcast discussion between Dr. Jordan Peterson and ‘married’ homosexual Dave Rubin titled “Gay Parenting: Promise and Pitfalls” further demonstrates that homosexuality and homosexual marriage have conquered nearly all conservative elites.  

Just seven years and one week since the U.S. released its decision in the Obergefell same-sex ‘marriage’ case, the impulse among high profile conservative thinkers and opinionators is not to preserve the immutable definition of marriage, but to justify mutilating it to include two men or two women as “married.”  

“This is a political issue. We’re trying to sketch out a pathway … I mean, our culture appears to have decided that gay marriage has become part of the structure of marriage itself,” Peterson stated at the outset of the hour and a half discussion, waving an enormous white flag of surrender. .. Peterson casually tossed the definition of marriage into the dustbin of history, claiming that “Marriage is the union of two people,” not the union of a man and a woman. He nonchalantly trashed civilization’s understanding of nature and biology and the understanding of every society and religion around the world for thousands of years.   

Jordan Peterson failed as both a gatekeeper and an intellectual before his descent into depression and drug addiction. His second coming is as a neoconservative figurehead, featuring a shiny new leash held by Ben Shapiro’s master. Now he will bark and perform conservative tricks on command. This recent discussion is a useful reminder of two things: a) the total uselessness of “high profile conservative thinkers” and b) the fact that the devil cares nothing for those who serve him and is particularly cruel to those who fail him.

Those who fall from the devil’s high horse seldom fare well.

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The Sins of the Debtors

There are evils beyond your ken. And there isn’t any doubt for whom Boris Johnson works anymore.

Families could be offered “multi-generational” 50-year mortgages allowing parents to pass on outstanding debt to their children, under plans being considered by Downing Street.

Boris Johnson revealed that he wants lenders to offer extra-long mortgages as a way of getting more people onto the property ladder. The prime minister told reporters that he was keen to find “all sorts of creative ways to help people into ownership”.

No 10 is understood to be looking at ways to create a market for intergenerational mortgages, letting buyers borrow over terms of 50 years – or even longer – if offspring are signed up to inherit property and pay the rest of the loan. The proposal would allow more people to buy a house in their forties and fifties, knowing they would not have to finish paying it off during their lifetimes.

It could also let more buyers keep moving into bigger homes, if they are able take out larger loans over longer time-frames.

Having run out of native debtors, the bankers turned to mass immigration to create new ones. And having subquently discovered that populations with lower time preferences are considerably less inclined to service their debts, they’re now desperately casting about for ways to seduce more people into debt servitude, with or without their consent, or even knowledge.

This is obviously all coming to an end soon, even without the external pressure of the BRICSIA forces on the foundations of the neo-liberal world order and its proxy armies.

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Security = Empire

Russia recently responded to NATO expansion and aggression. Look at the map below and it’s not exactly hard to understand why China and most of the rest of the world has taken Russia’s side against the NATO-Nazis and their Ukrainian proxies.

The Empire That Never Ended cries out as it engages in proxy war against you.

The US has reportedly used a secretive authority called ‘127e’ to launch at least two dozen proxy wars since 2017, according to an article published on Friday by The Intercept. The outlet claims to have obtained never-before-seen documents and spoken to top officials with intimate knowledge of these programs. The Intercept received the documents through the Freedom of Information Act, claiming these papers are the first ever official confirmation that at least 14 so-called ‘127e programs’ were active in the greater Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions as recently as 2020. In total, the Pentagon reportedly launched 23 separate 127e programs across the globe between 2017 and 2020, which cost US taxpayers $310 million.

The program allows the US to arm, train, and provide intelligence to foreign forces. However, unlike traditional foreign assistance programs, which focus on building up local capacity in partner countries, 127e “surrogate forces” are expected to follow US orders and conduct Washington-directed missions against US enemies to achieve US goals, essentially serving as the Pentagon’s proxy armies.

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It’s Going to be So Bad

How to demonstrate you don’t understand the work of JRR Tolkien in three words or less:

Season 1 has a $465 million budget. Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke stated in May 2021 that she was “pretty confident” that the show will draw the required viewership to make the money worth spent.

Back in 2017, when it was reported that Amazon had bought the rights to “The Lord of the Rings” — winning a bidding war against Netflix — the number reported with that sale was $250 million. That number alone made it the most expensive television series ever, but later, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the whole series would end up costing more than $1 billion, due to production expenses (casting, producers, visual effects, etc.). “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy’s own Elijah Wood reacted to that particular figure during an interview, saying, “That’s crazy to me.” For context, the Peter Jackson trilogy grossed $2.92 billion worldwide. The combined budget for all three films was $281 million.

That $250 million rights deal for “The Lord of the Rings” also came with a five-season commitment for the series. A guaranteed five seasons should also guarantee at least one full story told from beginning to end, even though there’s always the possibility of more, depending on the series’ success. The deal also allowed for the potential of spin-off series, which could mean the potential for even more of Middle-earth outside just this adaptation. In November 2019, Deadline confirmed that Amazon had officially ordered a second season of the series and that it was already in the works. According to the report, the official early renewal means that there will be a shorter wait time between the first two seasons come release.

However, the series may not ever get out of the Second Age — which is, again, 3,441 years long, so it’s got a lot to work with — as, according to Tolkien scholar and “The Lord of the Rings” consultant Tom Shippey, the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien has refused to grant Amazon permission to film anything other than the Second Age, as to not alter the history of the more fleshed out Third Age. “But you can add new characters and ask a lot of questions…”

The tagline of the newly-released trailer? “Nothing is evil…in the beginning.”

When you already suspect – no, when you already KNOW – that the series is going to be a converged abomination wearing the title of the books as a skinsuit, you shouldn’t be surprised by anything the Hellmouth producers come up with.

And yet, to begin with a marketing tagline of “Nothing is evil…” is really going a bit far even for a collection of inverted anticreatives. No matter how it is subsequently modified after the ellipsis.

It’s going to be bad. It’s going to be so bad, it’s going to make THE WHEEL OF TIME and the last season of A GAME OF THRONES look good by comparision.

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Lugansk is Liberated

Today, on July 3, 2022, the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation General of the Army Sergey Shoigu reported to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, V.Putin, on the liberation of the Lugansk People’s Republic.

One down, one to go. It’s fascinating, is it not, that the USA, which once claimed to have sent its troops “over there” in order to defend the self-determination of peoples, is now fighting a war to prevent self-determination on the part of the people of the Donbass.

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