The fire at Notre Dame in the context of Good vs Evil.

The fire at Notre Dame in the context of Good vs Evil and the decline of Europe

In the past month we have had:

• a terrorist attack in perhaps one of the most unlikely places, Christchurch, NZ
• The journalist and founder of Wikileaks,Julian Assange, has been arrested in a manner that violates every existing law – manmade or moral

All of this is totally shocking and earthshattering – I am still trying to get my head around it all.

Now, yesterday one of the greatest symbols of Western civilisation, Notre Dame de Paris caught on fire and for all intents and purposes burnt to the ground.

Interestingly, the age o fthe cathedral – 800 years – says a lot about just how young European civilisation is – compare that with structures destroyed by ISIS in the Middle East that are much older than that!

A mere 8 hours after the cathedral caught fire the French authorities were able to rule out arson as a cause of the fire.

The flames are scarcely extinguished and the authorities don’t yet know the exact cause of the fire but they are able to say that!

But that is a story for another video.

The language used by the French state to describe the meaning of Notre Dame is along the lines of “architectural monument”

The headline of Democracy Now! is “France Mourns as Fire Rips Through Historic Notre-Dame Cathedral That Has Stood for Centuries”

So, in the view of the liberal pundits in the West who are telling us what to think, is that its sole significance is one of architectural achievement or as a historical monument.

Well, that’s what the Soviets called their own treasures – they were “pamyatniki arkhitektury” - “architechturial monuments” and on this ground they looked after their historical heritage quite well – those churches that weren’t looted and dynamited and those palaces that were allowed to fall into disrepair.

In some significant cases they restored palaces such as Petrodvorets that were destroyed by the nazis.

This is how it looks to me. Macron is like a Leonid Brezhnev who wants to maintain “architectural monments” every bit as much a liar (probably more) and certainly every bit of a philistine.

I have not gone through all the commentary in western media but I awoke to this piece from Russian TV and an assessment that is more informed and far more heartfelt than anything I have seen in western media

She says it – Notre Dame is not just an ‘architectural monument’ but it is a REFUGE and s symbol of Christian Europe.

She also talks of the moral decay of Europe, how it has given up on its roots and

“is an indication that sin and perversion walk victoriously in the street”

This is very accurate because sin and perversion exist everywhere but we have the very social conditions in the west where perversion does not just exist but is put on a pedestal and promoted by every newspaper or TV and radio station.

It is very different from what happened, say, in the Soviet Union because, for one the propaganda is not crude like Soviet propaganda but incredibly subtle. The Soviet Union, at least instilled in its citizens some form of morality and civic pride but this is talking to the most base elements of human nature.

Here is a short segment that reflects the same in similar words. They are certainly not my words , not my language but I am more sympathetic to this view than anything that is coming from the mainstream in the West.

There is no doubt in my mind that the West has turned its back on its Christian heritage and is committing a kind of suicide.

This is Douglas Murray talking about this. He is, before someone points it out, NOT from Prager University but a thinker and writer for the well-regarded British conservative publication, the Spectator

VIDEO (Suicide of Europe)

Europe is dying and there could be no better symbol of this than a fire at Notre Dame and the reaction to it.

All of this brings us to the question of good vs evil.

Between the ages of about 17 to 21 I would probably have identified with the materialistic, atheistic messages of today’s media.

Then I developed an interest in eastern spirituality and my philosophy was one of non- dualism in which I rejected the concept of goods vs evil, certainly as presented by conventional Christian teachings.

Today, as I confront the realities that confront us today I have modified that view and recognise that Evil does exist and walks among us.

The recognition of the rise of psycho- and sociopathy as well as the recognition that the human species is on the way out has made me more morally and ethically “conservative”and I certainly reject any form of moral relativism.

To understand this I went to Alexandr Solzenitsyn, a Christian and a conservative – certainly not a moral relativist!

Solzhenitsyn knows the nature of Evil better than almost anyone on the planet. But he says that

“the line dividing good and eveil custs through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

This took me back to a book I read 30 years ago called “No Boundary” by Ken Wilber. In some ways, looking back now, it is New Age psychobubble but it does have something to tell us.

Wilber has what he called a “spectrum of consciousness” which is essentially a spectrum of consciousness based around where the individual draws the line between “self” and “not-self”

The ultimate mystical realisation is of “unity consciousness” - an identification with universal consciousness.

This describes the possible spiritual evolution of the individual. However, I want to use this to illustrate a point about western consciousness.

In every society there is Evil and bad things go on. The healthy society will not suppress this but realise that it is an inevitable part of human beings – who hold both light and dark within their hearts and souls.

The healthy society can recognise this and deal to the dark parts.

Every institution of human beings contains both light and dark- right up to institutions like the Church which contain both great Good as well as unspeakable Evil.

Christianity threw up the Sermon on the Mount which should be a guide for us all. It gave us great philosophers – like Thomas Aquinas – as well as great mystics such as Meister Eckhart.

But it also gave us religious wars, the Inquisition and in the modern setting, rampant sexual abuse of children.

The post-modern approach is to thrown out the baby with the bathwater and argue that mortals can somehow come up with something much better.

But Christianity gave us “do not steal and do not kill”

What happens if we throw out the Christian baby with the bathwater?

I would argue that, rather than embrace all aspects of the human experience we have entered a stage in human evolution (or rather Devolution) where society is stuck at the very lowest level of Wilber’s spectrum of consciousness.

We have a society which refuses to embrace its own Shadow, those aspects it doesn’t like within itself and projects it out onto others.

It is an atmosphere of anger and hatred in which those who are the most hateful are ascribing ”hate speech” to others who are often pointing to very uncomfortable aspects of human life today.

Those voices have to be excised and exorcised – and include philosophies and religious messages that have for millenia served to provide some social cohesion within a society beset by contradiction – while at the same time as

“sin and perversion walk victoriously in the street” and the most satanic views are put on a high pedestal as something to follow.

At the very least we are in incredibly uncertain times – at worst we are devolving and moving towards the end of human civilisation.

I would argue that as we career towards our common demise that we not try to search for some new manmade structure in a world without structure but hold onto that which has, with all the imperfections of anything human, helped to sustain humans for millenia.

I am not putting in a plug for Christianity per se. We could just as easily look to the ancient philosophers of Athens or any aspect of the Perennial philosophy

Put in a different way how about “at the edge of extinction only Love remains”

P.S. Obviously truth and morality are not subjects for discussion on You Tube! I got the following message flash across my screen AS I WAS UPLOADING THE VIDEO!!

Meanwhile, the entirety of my Vimeo account has disappeared along with all the content built up over time.

The last item I uploaded was a mirror of an interpretation from a Christian and moral perspective.

It seems to be a crime to be opposed to satanism.

The strange thing is that although others can't see my video I still can.

I have got round this by READING a transcript of the item.  I hope to do something to be able to bring the rest of the video. I have to learn to use editing software to do this however.