Agree with one condition. That we return to the practice and belief of the original esoteric Christians that flourished before Constantine and his paganizing of Christian belief and practice.

And would require root and branch reform and the jettisoning of some belief and pagan ritual with the full restoration of the do unto others and insomuch as ye do unto the least among you, ye also do unto me.

And those changes would mean that the church would return to core practice and stop being a political organization or a judgemental religious court.

Simply put, Christianity has little to do with belonging to this or that religious order, but by the way one conducts one's life and one's treatment of others and difference!
Alan B.

From my observations the problems with religion began when Christianity & non- Europeans became Westernised !

Poor old Winston was not such a great Cassandra when it come to, how the Allies would defeat the Turks in WWI, just ask the ANZAC's.

There is no doubt that the loss of interest in and belief in Christianty and the study of history in Australia has inhibited people's ability to see what is coming.

Dear Alan,

«Agree with one condition. That we return to the practice and belief of the original esoteric Christians»

The dictionary definition of 'esoteric' is:
"intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest."

You can definitely take care of your own soul, but don't expect miracles to happen on a large social scale, not in this dark age anyway which we presently live in.

History will keep repeating itself, endlessly, but you have the capacity to extract yourself from that cycle once you had enough.

---

A correction to the article:
"another 40 or so years later, the Romans got so angry with the whole Jewish nation that they marched in and marched them all out"

No, the Jews were only expelled from Jerusalem, many continued to live in the rest of Israel for centuries after.

ttbn. What is coming is conflict that sets brother against brother and sons against fathers and another great depression.

Can't pump prime with so much debt and what we do have in the locker, i.e., MSR thorium, cooperative capitalism that makes every one dollar do the work of at least seven and keeps the money in the local economy until exhausted, are never even considered by the idealogical idealogues at the helm! Be they Labor or liberal/conservatives!

Because that would defranchize their conies and bedfellows? And because divide and rule are the only model for the acquistion of power they can consider, given the straight jackets they have locked their tiny mind in!
Alan B.

Early Christians were a small bodies of former Jews, Greeks, Romans and a medley of other races. Who also believed in reincarnation as a core belief, i.e., to reach unto the kingdom of heaven ye must be born again.

It is endless reinterpretation to put new meaning into original text for base political purpose and the wielding of power that is the undoing of the original teaching of the plain speaking master. Who never spoke in riddles, but used descriptive story telling (parables) to make misunderstanding impossible.
Alan B.

Graham has written a very interesting and thought-provoking article. it is very important to consider our current history in the light of our past history.
It is wonderful to read the opinion of someone who is not frightened to discus faith and religious belief.
Well done Graham.

Your article , regrettably , is beyond the comprehension of modern educators . The same educators who are feeding an even more dismal radical 'education ' into students today .

I cannot see the return of a study of an untainted , non political history in the future , let alone a new version of a classical history .

The western civilisation is being led like lemmings to it's future doom by the educators of today , both is schools and universities.

Frankly , I am glad of being my present age , without children.

Yes lets learn from history, & make sure we never have another Churchill. He had read too many of the old "Boys Own Adventure" comics, & was too full of daring do. Those great noble gestures bound to fail, but to fail glorious. Well gloriously if you are the commander in your underground bunker, rather than the commando doing all the daring.

It wasn't just the ANZACs Paul, there were plenty of things like Dieppe as well.

Then again lets not have any more Douglas MacArthurs either. Lorded for his promise to return to the Philippians, "I shall return" & all that histrionics, it's just a pity he had to kill a couple of million Philipinos half a million Japs, & a hundred thousand yank causalities, when the place could have been easily bypassed as were so many other Jap strongholds.

Yes knowing some history should protect from such megalomaniacs, if we let it.

Here is a very "cassandra" real time assessment of the humanly caused situation in 2022

A summary statement:
"The humanly created world is ego-mummery.The world is mad.Humankind is in a constant state of extreme psychosis - don't you know? Therefore, knowing that, choose to take the cure."

The leading edge of that psychosis is of course Western man (in particular) - this includes the Russians.

http://www.beezone.com/beezones-main-stack/ontranscendingtheinsubordinatemind.html

http://www.dabase.org/not2p1.htm 100 or so summary statement - note the first statement re how the old "order" (such as it was is now kaput)

http://www.nottwoispeace.org/excerpt-reality-humanity

http://www.beezone.com/whats-new the dark force/engine/pattern that controls the humanly created psychosis that is now being dramatized all over the world.

Meandering and at times a little disjointed but I actually enjoyed the author's reflections in this article.

I will note that if Churchill is deemed a Cassandra where does that leave Menzies with his sometimes effusive praise of both Hitler and Mussolini”

Just a small nitpick if I may.

This quote” “I teared up when I thought of those young men (and some not so young like my great-grandfather) who were standing in the landing barges about to charge up a beach under savage gunfire.”

Is a little hard to reconcile with the flimsy timber landing boats which the ANZACs squeezed into 30 at a time. They weren't barges and there was very little likelihood of the soldiers standing in such a small craft.

http://joyofmuseums.com/museums/australasia-museums/australian-museums/museums-in-melbourne-australia/shrine-of-remembrance/lifeboat-from-the-ss-devanha

And the famous No.6 from the Ascot.

http://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/gallipoli-landing-boat

And I fully agree that we “need to think about how we reintroduce imagination into our culture”. The task is to imagine a future where we treat our indigenous people and the history of colonisation with the respect acknowledgement it deserves. And some of that is happening in our school right now, much to the chagrin of the culture warriors of the author's party.

Or is truth and beauty and goodness only to be found in the classic fed to our private school attendees?

Related to Christianity i.e. Orthodox in both Russia and Ukraine (effectively had their own schism), while Catholic Pope Francis takes the lead in calling out war (plus Russian Orthodox Priests down the food chain & Ecumenical Fener Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul).

It's not a 'good look' for Russian Orthodox Christianity which is presented as central to Russian identity; like other supposed 'Christian values' nations e.g. Hungary and Poland. However, increasingly most of the population do not practise and increasing numbers do not believe (but many oldies will vote for such perceived 'values', Govts. give financial support to Churches, hence, electorally important).

However, as we observe in Australia, Christian churches or more activists in media and politics, demand more rights and protections for themselves i.e. special treatment, but too often at the expense of another community (become very political).

Non mainstream Christians maybe good for a 'conservative' vote, but they are not very libertarian and too many maybe moral and ethical actors vs. following charismatic political and/or religious leaders?

Thanks Graham for your article. Kudos to a Cassandra.

Cassandra was fiction. Always right, never believed. No actual person can be always prescient. The most they can hope for is to temporarily insightful. Churchill's Cassandra moment occurred in the decade from 1933, recognising the threat from the rise of the Nazis and then that Britain alone stood in the way of the victory of darkness. (Roosevelt encouraged Churchill's bodyguard to protect him because he was the most important man in the world at that time).

(as an aside, the Dardanelles strategy devised by Churchill was sound and brilliantly conceived but incompetently implemented by the British General Staff not Churchill).

Graham write: "We're used to the rule of law: politics and lawfare rather than warfare.....yet Putin and his troops have piled on the massacres one after the other."

I have written here before that many people fail to see just how unique our period is in world history. Rulers from Sargon the Great to Peter the Great and all in-between, would have fully understood and concurred with what Putin is doing. Its only been the last 300 years or so, when British notions of the rule of law, human rights and the sanctity of all life have held sway that we saw laws to try to limit the worst impulses of nations.

Slavery is only frowned upon in the world because of the supremacy of the Anglosphere's way of viewing the world. Equally, open imperialism and the open slaughter of the enemy to achieve imperial aims, is only held in check in a world under the influence of British liberalism. The second that liberalism is no longer the dominant force in the world, will see the reappearance of imperial warfare, great nation rivalry, slaughter and slavery. Even now it can be argued that Putin's Ukrainian adventure is predicated on the notion that the US, so incompetently lead, is in decline and with it the power of the liberal world order and therefore Russia could revert to kind.

Unless the Anglosphere reasserts the primacy of the Liberal world order, expect to see many more Ukraines in the decades to come.

I've only just read Graham's article.
And I found it to be "inspiring," to say the least.
I also read what mhaze posted just recently. I
was equally impressed.

Sometimes people can and do suprise.
That's why I love the forum!

Thank You Graham - as editor.
And mhaze - on behalf of those who post here.

Both contribute a great deal.

mhaze- Kudos. I don't think that Graham Young was wrong- he was painting a picture- you just layered some clarity and context and relativism. I've been trying to say what you just said for a while but haven't been able to come up with the right words. Still Locke Liberalism has fundamental issues because it's based on profligacy- and so I would say that many aspects of the Liberal Order is based on Aristotle's seventh form of government that of rule of law- despite John Stuart Mill's- On Liberty as being the basis of so called modern views of freedom- and perhaps the associated John Locke the so called father of Liberal (Representative) Democracy. Aristotle (or as Paul1405 calls him Arsethrottle) probably believed in positive freedom/ virtue rather than Mill/ negative freedom. I suppose that Liberal Arts includes modern forms of Liberalism as a subset. Again Kudos mhaze.

"Attend, and possibly invent more secular ceremonies that commemorate the past......And let's all join the movement to reintroduce a modern form of the classical education – Socratic, stoic, and universal, exploring the true, the beautiful, and the good. Let's rediscover the meaning of citizenship"

Is this not what the Nazi's did, invent more secular ceremonies with 'torchlight processions' and rallies of the faithful. Was not Hitler searching for the greatness of a past Aryan Germany. Did not the philosophy of National Socialism allow for truth, beauty and all that is good, whilst rejecting all what was false, ugly and bad, as defined by the edicts of authority. Classical education, what, reading approved authors, burning the works of the unclean, whilst listening to Wagner. In this way the right people are idealised as good and wholesome citizens, the wrong people are cast out and eliminated.

In the wrong hands;

The only thing the "modern version" may lack is the uniforms, but I'm sure that would soon be remedied.

I enjoy a bit of Stoicism- Marcus Aurelius, Senecca- Letters to Lucilius- better than the party at the end of the world Epicurus style- or Defoe- Moll Flanders.

I think the left communists do a fair bit of book burning of their own- given that they seem to be a big fans of destroying the past in order to engineer culture.

While classical liberal arts education may constrain the material in secondary and tertiary education it's rare that they destroy books as I understand. Maybe Paul1405 can correct me on that point. I'm sure that the Catholic Church would have had a list of banned books- especially after the Reformation.

But rarely it may be necessary to ban material in order to protect the culture- like progressive Robespierre was complicit in the banning of the Marquis de Sade.

This is interesting...
http://www.waggish.org/2014/robespierre-the-incorruptible-and-the-daemonic/

Parents should have a say in the books that are made available to children in schools.

As is said "moderation in all things even moderation".

Krumpet CM,

Are these people personal friends of yours, Aristotle, Socrates, Hercules and now add Robespierre, or are you just a big noting nothing name dropper. What do you thing of ARSETHROTTLE and the sayings of CONFUSION? Two of my favourites.

Dear Paul,

I was only saying to the Queen the other day
how I hate name dropping.

(Douglas Fairbanks, Jr).

Canem wrote: "Parents should have a say in the books that are made available to children in schools."

I kind of agree with that. Except that I say parents should have THE say in what books their kids read. At least up to the point where the kids can make their own choices, by which time they've hopefully been educated enough to make appropriate (to them) choices.

Paul wrote: "ARSETHROTTLE"

How very clever. The kiddies in 3rd grade must consider you a real hoot.

If you read Aristotle and Plato it is possible to consider them personal friends. I suspect you won't understand that.

Mr and Mrs Kudos along with Grandpa Old Fart in the kindy classroom.

"TEACHER! we note you have 'Noddy and Big Ears', and 'The Gumnut Babies' on the shelf, but not a single copy of the Fuhrer's 'Mein Kampf', how can you expect the children to receive a wholesome education with only unapproved trash to read. This calls for a book burning, and we're going to burn you as well..TEACH!"

mhaze, given the nonsense you post I'm sure you must read Daffy Duck comics. Do you consider Daffy a personal friend, I'm sure you do."

"Do you consider Daffy a personal friend, I'm sure you do."

Sadly, Paul thinks this is the height of intellectual discourse.

Thanks mhaze- You're on the mark with your above comment. Yes I often try to see the world through the eyes of the greats- so yes they are as personal friends- it's difficult to talk about history or philosophy without historical and philosophical figures- often context is important. I've been a bit busy the last couple of days- so sorry I didn't post sooner. I thought about replying to Paul1405 and Foxy but I decided to pass- it stands to reason that they are going to disagree with most things I say- to answer just lowers the standard- and we all end up sounding like idiots. There are many here that I respect too much for that

Lampooning the pretentious is a legitimate pursuit CM. and you along with mhaze are prime targets for such an undertaking, with your air of superiority and pompous claptrap you make yourselves perfect targets. From history, that's my history of fifty years of politics, I have found nothing more annoying to crusty old conservatives than humour, they are folks who, to paraphrase Andrew Peacock, take life oh so seriously, always downcast, always fearful of others and the future.

As for this forum, you like to treat it as a trip to the opera, I treat it more like a trip to the circus, that's the difference.

Keep well, keep safe, and Krumpet to you.

"I have found nothing more annoying to crusty old conservatives than humour"

That might be true. You should try it one day, rather than your 3rd grade name calling.

I'm sorry that you find the great authors of the past inaccessible. But it does explain a lot.

pass

Kudos Kid,

That last post, it is your most BRILLIANT ONE YET. Were you not quoting the great Arsethrottle there.

Krumpet CM