Human Sacrifice and Postmodern Culture: a Reverie United for Death
By Joseph Andrew Settanni
Postmodern culture manifestly revives and restores the important and defining place of human sacrifice as now being a completely normal human preoccupation, as it was, in fact, among most of the ancient peoples, within the scope of recorded history and, most likely, even before records existed.
To now be, thus, truly culturally postmodern requires, moreover, an obsession about and very solid dedication to such a procurement of death, a solicitation for Thanatos, on as great a scale as may be possible and practical. This pertains to an ideological dedication to such a value.
The ways and means of human sacrifice are, moreover, ever expanding to better so accommodate the increasing demand for massive amounts of blood to be shed and as liberally as may be found possible in this fallen world of fallen creatures. Many wondrous technologies of death as a part of thanatology are increasingly creative, inventive and, one may not really need to add, notably now very widespread to an amazing degree, including the related efforts and wondrous exploits of Dr. Kermit Barron Gosnell.
Related reading would interestingly include Wesley J. Smith’s Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America. Mature minds ought to come to reflect upon the fact, therefore, that the primary social focus of the postmodern age, as to a representative postmodernity, is the generation, either directly or indirectly, of human sacrifice done under various guises and rationalizations, names and pretexts.
However, in contradiction, the subject of death is usually covered, in the Western world especially, in a maudlin, sad, melancholy, or gloomy manner, though the joy of it is rarely mentioned. Is that an odd thing to say? One may here suppose that if a person had, e. g., a simply great childhood or, perhaps, extremely fulfilling (young) adulthood, then maybe the good desire to retain the memory of an earthly satisfaction of some kind might dissuade thoughts of how not to live longer.
Moreover, it is easily conceivable that some individuals may truly wish, in effect, to live on earth forever, meaning if they could but somehow or other do so. As is well known to thanatologists, the greatest fear for most people is, of course, death, for most wish to lead a long and, hopefully, healthy (and secularist) life until the ending of it, whether coming naturally or by choice for increasing numbers of people into the future.
Immanentism and Postmodernity: A Partnership for Death
Nonetheless, tens of millions of people, all over the world, do not hesitate to inflict death upon others mainly through various forms, kinds, and rituals involving human sacrifice of different types. And yet, admittedly, still other folks think that they are so valuable as earthly creatures who do deserve virtually unended or seemingly perpetual lives, if ever possible. Such extremes do exist.
Therefore, intramundane hopes directed toward immanentism, in this debased day and age, cognitively trump any merely traditional or classical thinking regarding eschatology or even teleology, for that matter. Although this is supposed to be the era of the post-Enlightenment, it is amazing how modern Enlightenment melds well, especially when popularized, with the ancient Seven Deadly Sins. In addition, moral corruption significantly increases with cultural Marxism as with the PC attitude that successfully enforces such ideologically-based enslavement, which is the worst kind of slavery because it is truly self-inflicted, self-imposed.
Anyone speaking the truth, therefore, concerning any of the lies perpetrated by cultural Marxism gets denounced for not being PC as to such thoughts, opinions, beliefs, etc. expressive of the truth, as to modern existence as such; all of this expresses why America as a once free country is basically finished in terms of the future, meaning within the next two generations (or less).
Life qua perfectionism is, not unexpectedly, often pursued by the supposedly sophisticated or, perhaps, ultra-sophisticated denizens of the expanding technocracy, an ersatz substitute for metaphysical order found or thought to be suitable enough for diverse contemporary purposes. And, it is also known that modern consumerism, e. g., treats sex just like every other commodity. As a then further appropriate thought, moreover, the (pubescent) quest for la dulce vita (aka the good life) never really ends.
Cryogenics, for instance, is still developing as a supposed means of extending life if, in fact, the body or body part(s) preserved, such as a person’s head, could in some still unknown future be later successfully resuscitated back to life and put on to another body or, perhaps, the remaining body itself made into a permanent cyborg of some kind. The hope is that advances in scientific technology will correct the many mistakes that exist in the natural world for extending the quality of life for such worthy people (meaning for those few who have the money) for extending their presumably worthy lifetimes.
But, this then would, if ever genuinely perfected as such, take away the genuine joy of death (aka the final departure, the passing on). Another means suggested, by creative science fiction writers, is to be able to acquire new/unused body parts, whenever found needed, so as to then, in effect, become fairly immortal, meaning to all practical intents and purposes. Actually, various kinds and types of “organ farms” either exist or are surely in development to service better the needs and desires of those who can financially afford the contemporary luxury. Nonetheless, all of this suggests a struggle between secular versus religious attitudes or convictions.
As to death itself, e. g., all sincere and believing Christians should not, ought not, to fear the termination of their lives, especially if they have lived holy lives and, for Catholics, if they can so better assure their chance to get to Heaven by receiving the Last Rites from a priest. A happy death is possible. After all, Christ on the cross was able to turn toward the Good Thief, St. Dismas, and promise him, then and there, admission to Paradise, after the thief asked to go and had, one presumes, fully repented of his life’s evil, his sins; the Good Thief achieved the Baptism of desire (he, it has been poetically said, “stole” Heaven at the last moment) and was assured admission by Jesus Himself no less.
But, nevertheless, he did not obtain nor expect nor demand release from his temporal punishment as to his known capital sentence for crimes, which is a significant point not to be ever simply overlooked or just minimized. The Savior did not coldly reply to St. Dismas’ sincere request by saying: Our existential discussion still means that you are to be situationally annihilated due to the mortal nature of the human condition. Jesus, rather, had lovingly said: This day you will be with Me in Paradise.
Mortal life, as compared to the incredible extent of the rest of eternity, is but less than a mere fraction of a second, so the Penitent Thief was, indeed, very wise to have then made such a useful and beneficial request, as to the life of the world to come. It can be highly instructive, nonetheless, to expand upon the subject at hand. Compared to ancient or medieval times, however, modern people do not spend much time contemplating death; centuries ago, European scholars and clerics would, for instance, typically have a skull or two in their study rooms to help them focus better attention upon so vital a subject.
Both moderns and postmodern people, in rather sharp contrast, tend to want to substantially forget about or minimize their ultimately terminal conditions, including natural causes of what could be simply called life failure moments. Many wish to childishly forget that their (more fragile than they know) lives could, in fact, end at any hour of any day, including, of course, an accidental death, which could be due to any number of diverse reasons.
By the time someone reaches 30 or 35 (though sometimes sooner), a fairly sentient person notices the initial signs of the inevitable aging process; by the late 40s, 50s and certainly in the later years, those clear physical indications become, more and more, definite landmarks on the sure way toward the ever final stop on life’s proverbial highway. Decade by decade, man’s mortality can increasingly be noticed. Infirmities and debilities generally do occur to plague the body, especially as the effects of aging tend to logically and normally intensify over the course of time. Aging is the body’s sometimes not-too-subtle way of saying to itself: drop dead!
Normally speaking, nonetheless, bringing up the odd subject of death is mainly regarded as being quite morbid, though it is, in plain fact, just a natural phenomenon and happens, sooner or later, to everyone. It can be said, admittedly, that most people do not generally long for their terminations.
However, for someone who has mostly lead a painful life, whether physically and/or psychologically-emotionally speaking, one would fairly think that it would be normally welcomed as a blessed surcease from (great) pain, agony, suffering, torment, torture, anguish, etc. Suicide is not being advocated here nor is euthanasia being recommended or suggested, in case some may terribly misunderstand the tenor of this article.
It is sociologically and historically well known that homogeneous societies, such as Japan, do have high suicide rates, (though, admittedly, the suicide rate in America, especially among White, middle-class people, has been noticeably increasing in the last ten years) and that politically liberal and leftist societies usually legalize euthanasia as a preferred means of suicide; both do, of course, accomplish the same end of termination, undoubtedly.
Nihilism, regardless of the euphemism involved, necessitates this, in effect, directive worship of death; it and the shedding of (copious) blood is then demonic in that Satan requires his worship to include these features, especially whenever possible the release of the precious organic fluid that presages human life (which the forces of Hell naturally hate in their being so anti-life).
All of God’s creation is, thus, hated quite unendingly and is why abortion, as was notably practiced so assiduously by such adepts as Kermit Barron Gosnell, is to be truly seen as a vital secular sacrament for Feminists, the daughters of Satan, and all of their nihilistic and radical/evil supporters. Feminists rejoice in the expeditious murdering of the innocent and most defenseless, i. e., helpless babies in wombs; and, abortionists should be appreciated as being the high priests of the venerated death cult.
It is not excessive to say that one ought, furthermore, to come to rightly see that such thinking as is found in eugenics, racism, and Social Darwinism have all contributed toward this clearly death-oriented ethic, which is now fairly normative for the peoples in the advanced parts of the world.
One can readily perceive that America and the Western world in general is dedicated aggressively toward furthering the intensely evil Culture of Death, including all of abortion-on-demand, infanticide (aka so-called partial-birth abortion), euthanasia, and those sexual practices that do encourage the shortening of life spans. Obama and the Democrat Party and most, on average, of the Republican Party (its hierarchy especially) are avid supporters of this legal carnage, as to such an anti-life attitude.
Much, admittedly, has surely contributed to this attitude, including the compartmentalization of life, rationalization, urbanization, modernization, industrialization, and more than those others, one must seriously add feminization that has then come to determine what kind of life is worthy, to decide that potential welfare children need to be “saved’ from having underprivileged, impoverished, lives through abortion, to think that euthanasia is always humanely preferable to a life of continual great suffering, etc.; thus, human sacrifice qua death results in raising that nihilistic value over and against any mere human life itself, which could be an inconvenient existence.
Equally, such factors as the bureaucratization, mechanization, and routinization of life aim toward a sanitized existence favoring both fundamental ideological conformity and cognate standardization of belief, though all these (rigged) conformists yet proclaim themselves, of course, to supposedly be true individualists and, one may guess, independent thinkers with PC attitudes no less.
Proponents of the advancing death culture, as noted by Donald DeMarco and Benjamin Wiker in their intriguing and informative book entitled: Architects of the Culture of Death, have included such very prominent names as Alfred Kinsey, Margaret Sanger, Jack Kevorkian, and Peter Singer, for “quality of life” as an invented categorical and imperative mandate is, thus, to be made ever the natural enemy of human life, of the sanctity of life especially. Or, as America’s greatest philosopher of the 21st century, Hillary Rodham Clinton, could say: What difference at this point does it make?
Some time ago, Paul Krugman, a conspicuous leftist and Nobel Laureate economist no less, had publicly written, after all, that it ought to be made known that actual death panels [which thought Sarah Palin had been wrongly and stupidly denounced and dismissed as just a mindless rightwing crackpot for noting] will be a most logical and very much needed requirement for the both proper and requisite implementation of Obamacare. It seemed to be his rather definite thanatologistic surmise. Rationing of government medical care must, therefore, be a logical requirement because no level of public funding is ever really inexhaustible nor easily tolerable (forever) by the taxpayers.
Equally, human self-extinction/self-extermination is rapidly and obviously occurring as birth ratios, in most countries, increasingly fall below the absolute minimum replacement rate of 2.1% within each population. It is simply an empirical fact that not enough taxpayers can exist to pay all of the crescive medical bills of the increasingly demanding social parasites, as is then promised through Obamacare. Additionally, it can also be easily noted, moreover, that today’s technological and communicational mastery has proven itself to go well with such massive and widespread human depravity and allied vile degradation, inclusive of widespread abortion-on-demand, of course.
Related to the matter at hand, promiscuity and fornication gets publicly encouraged by extending sex education into the grade schools; this is besides the FDA’s permission for just allowing Morning-After pills made over-the-counter for children as young as fifteen years of age, while sterility surely increases as does extensive artificial contraception to, thus, better insure the above noted birth dearth. The sure interrelationships involved, therefore, ought to be rather obvious, by now, as to their aiming toward a massive and quite predictable demographic disaster, which is favored by cultural Marxism.
Oddly, though death is not really much talked about, except, perhaps, mainly, e. g., in those social circles concerning terminally-ill patients and their friends and relatives, the contemporary world, nonetheless, is quite substantially obsessed with death and its, in effect, ongoing celebration as with, among other cited and evil instances, abortion, as a most prominent example, in its ever far-ranging magnitude.
For the ideological Left, pregnancy is a disease that the Big Nanny State must guard against by assuming parental rights and responsibilities for all children since they, it is thought, actually belong to the State from cradle to the grave. That last destination is, really, of greatest concern within the overall anti-life parameters of the modern polity, of its social order in particular.
But, contemporary society tends to be notably hypocritical on this subject in not generally wanting to discuss it, though partaking of many acts in firm support of the Culture of Death that is so regnant and so much a clear and rather defining part of current “civilization” itself. Although celebratory divorce parties are increasing in number and frequency, there are still (almost) no abortion parties held by the women and their supporters. One wonders why?
Nihilism is pervasively prevalent, regardless of how much it gets denied, as a sure factor to consider as to primary human motivations, though both divorce and abortion are legal. The nihilistic quality of life satanically wars, however, against the sanctity of life. Of course, the positive viable alternative to be embraced, for all those who are intelligently willing to do so, is the righteous Culture of Life, which is only best represented by (orthodox, traditionalist) Roman Catholicism and not any brand of (general) Christianity, as G. K. Chesterton would have cheerfully agreed.
Most of the mainstream churches, in the Western world, have either basically accepted or are tolerant to varying degrees of the now basically normalized death culture and its so quite horrid and, therefore, truly bloody requirements of human sacrifice. The murdering of the young, therefore, did not end with the ancient Carthaginians. So, one ought not to be ever surprised in just being told plainly that the surely genuine hallmark and substantially defining feature of the true distinctiveness of postmodern “culture” is the societal and political reinstitutionalization and psychological reification of (demonic) human sacrifice.
It is, thus, an indispensable price to be immorally paid for the then wanted normalization of nihilism as a mainstream human value held, in effect, to be inviolable and sacred toward the achieving of social and cultural goals fully congruent with the desired glorification of human sacrifice and its cognate bloody demands. What exists today as the reality confronted is, nevertheless, something rotten to be called “dys-civilizational” in overtly proper terms of the substantive repaganization of the Western World properly to be seen as only neopaganization because of the truly massive apostasy from Christianity that has so obviously occurred.
There cannot really be simply again the once existing purity of true pagan innocence, therefore, as to the verifiable and historical realities of the past Christianization that had, in fact, occurred long ago. Most of the Western world wishes to just forget that Christendom used to exist, especially prior to the fullest working out of Protestantism with its later baleful results of societal individualism and cognate secularism, which, through the past four centuries, had become more and more obvious.
What is being now witnessed is a gross horror of monumental dimensions due to the aforementioned apostasy, which makes those people, whether they know it or not, confirmed immanentists concerning the temporal order of reality that gets equated often with advanced civilization, though its progressive barbarism often get conveniently ignored; in addition, the pursuit of Utopia, of the New Eden, never ceases, especially aided now by cultural Marxism and its ever axiomatic PC thinking.
Every God-defiant people, thus, find an end by lustfully embracing demonic excess as the new pseudo-cultural norm for all sophisticated society, as was easily witnessed by the doings of the (notoriously) celebrated Kermit Barron Gosnell, a Philadelphia butcherer-cum-physician, (though why was he picked on, it may be fairly asked, when thousands of abortionists have and will do, more or less, the same things?) Abortion is, after all, completely legal and, moreover, a very liberally defended form of human sacrifice, of course.
Some useful contextual term may be appropriately needed, moreover, that then further better clarifies the precise meaning of dys-civilizational, which could be, perhaps, exemplified by use of the word “neobarbarism” to more justifiably describe the horrible range, scope, and extent of the anti-cultural phenomena still present and active in the highly secularized contemporary world, meaning, in short, aggressive de-Christianization; and, its many dire implications and ramifications are rather manifest.
Thus, human sacrifice, inclusive of abortion-on-demand, infanticide (aka partial birth abortion), and euthanasia, is societally acceptable since it has become normalized, due to its nature as a widespread human practice, as also has sodomite “marriages” (aka the manifest oxymoron known as same-sex marriage). Within a generation or, at most, two generations into the 21st century, both pederasty and even incest will simply become normalized because of increasing social acceptance as such.
All this superbly reflects easily upon the neobarbarism (aka Weimarization) that can be so noticed through the degradation and disintegration, decline and decay, of what had been once a civilization.
What had been formerly obvious perversion has gone through a subjectivist and pragmatic process of normalization for the creation of new relativistic norms appropriately suitable to the constant defining of deviancy down, as it had been denominated about two generations ago. Even about sixty years ago, sodomite marriages (which are, as of 2013, legal in at least ten states) would have only been thought “unthinkable” as to both their actual legality and major public acceptance.
Consequently, one sees that Weimarization, the process of ongoing moral degeneracy and decline, of this country and the Western world in general is speeding up more and more rapidly. Legalized incest, bestiality, and pederasty will, as with same-sex marriage today, come about because they will then be perversely interpreted as supposedly denying civil-rights to certain human beings qua citizens, within the core context of the aforementioned Weimarization, of the institutionalized and quite normalized depravity; mainstream society has, therefore, lost its moral compass by adopting and adapting to what had been once the counterculture; the latter is basically now becoming rapidly mainstream.
Almost anything, as history has then empirically demonstrated time and again, as with, e.g., the modern Civil-Rights Movement, can get itself both legalized and normalized, after it has been granted civil-rights status in America. Civil-rights are regarded, by the intelligentsia, literati, cognoscenti, academics, and other such degenerates, as being, in a strange sense, secularly sacred and put beyond all the limits of any rational, reasonable, common sense, or logical questioning.
Opposition is condemned as being just stupidly reactionary and terribly closed-minded; any cause labeled civil-rights becomes beyond debate, as far as progressive opinion is concerned, e. g., to be denounced as a homophobe today is almost as bad as being called a racist. Many political, sociological, cultural, and psychological supports will, no doubt, be suitably found for easily manufacturing new (civil) rights, within the very aggressive realm of such clearly ideological obsessions: deified Man becomes the substitute for God, for Man is then the measure of all things: Protagoras defeats Plato.
Merely pronouncing some matter to be covered by that liberal God-term (civil-rights), furthermore, gives it enormous credibility and, in fact, helps greatly, over time, toward sustaining its then welcomed route toward fundamental normalization in society and, of course, the political order as well, no matter how morally regressive and disgusting or repulsive the matter.
In short, nothing, aside from a religious revival of a tremendous magnitude (which is just unlikely), can now really come to halt the naturally expected and ongoing manifest development of such atavistic neobarbarism, in the contemporary world of valueless value and hollow morals, aided notably by situation ethics and many pragmatic attitudes.
The debased un-culture and dys-civilization can only logically produce sordid varieties of neobarbaric people thinking that their materialistic and naturalistic attitudes and opinions are the very height of pure normality and rationality; according to sophisticated people, those who may strongly disagree with any such moral savagery or barbarity are to be then viciously denounced as mere ignorant Neanderthals or crude reactionary morons, especially those cretins who ignorantly defend the right to life; and, thus, there is no secular, meaning nonspiritual, way out of this spiraling downward, ever further and further, into the rancid cesspool of history prepared by de-Christianization.
There is to be the degenerate postmodern order resulting that will, therefore, be a nasty glorification of the existence of a societal cesspool, unworthy of the formal name of it being a genuine society, because of a process of dehumanization on the level of indiscriminately fornicating beasts, so existing in a secular dystopia. Sadism, masochism, and sadomasochism can, moreover, all surely act as fairly adjunct colors stirred wildly into this quite hellish picture of the early to mid-21st century’s ever stinking and glorified New World Order.
Mercy, humility, and especially virginity would have to be logically outlawed as deviant attitudes unfit for this brave new world. As Godlessness spreads its perverse logic abroad, both sentimentality and brutality, as Richard M. Weaver knew so well, must increase greatly to so inform the thinking and acting out of the corrupted masses and their morally-senile opinion leaders and corrupt politicians.
One can, interestingly, note that Weaver had critically understood how, e. g., Joseph Stalin’s noted sentimentality helped, thus, to better empower and further inspire his also well-known brutality. One can understand all this best through critical observations pertaining to the defining characteristic of premodern, modern, and postmodern governments or regimes as to social behavior and its outcomes, in the area of what can be called temptations, regarding the nature of the wanted political order, of the body politic.
As to certain political theorization put succinctly, classical/traditional or premodern governments sought to aid the people, the social body, in basically trying to avoid temptations, e. g., by making prostitution illegal. Modern governments, however, seek to minimize barriers that the social body might encounter on the basic way toward temptations, e. g., by legalizing prostitution, abortion, artificial contraception, and/or liberalizing divorce.
Postmodern regimes do actively seek to promote the enhanced ability of their people toward the ever wider attainment of their gross desires by removing many barriers to temptations, e. g., promoting (in effect, legalizing) sexual promiscuity for 15 year old female children through the legal availability of the Morning After pill and institutionalizing sodomite marriage, again, by its legality. There is the political institutionalization, in effect, of what the Roman Catholic Church defines and denounces as mortal sin, which seems to delight the basic majority of the people, as there are, e. g., no massive, nationwide demonstrations as protests loudly or otherwise objecting to such an evil and ugly course of cited events.
The Absolutization of Naturalism Gone Mad
The postmodernist toxic contention is that whatever (abnormal) human beings can conceive of must be, by definition, natural to humans in general concerning such a view of absolute naturalism. More to the point, it is often the case that such a belief as deconstructionism can explain all. With such an insane tautology kept firmly in mind, everything and anything imaginable, as to the very heights and depths of psychological aberrations and emotionalism, in the spirit of both Rousseau and the Marquis de Sade, can be then said to be so fully natural; (former) abnormality gains respect as a new normativity, as with sodomite so-called marriage.
Deconstructionism and its surely protean habit of always being capable of infinite reinterpretations can, thus, very skillfully reinterpret, e. g., the motivations, moreover, of the depraved inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah from being clearly sodomite predilections, known preferences, into becoming a “sin” of mere inhospitality shown toward strangers. Such mental gymnastics are truly amazing to behold, as fallen creatures living in a fallen world gets endlessly denied as the true realty confronted, besides the consequences of Original Sin, which are categorically denied by the regnant cultural Marxism that so grossly pervades the Western world.
One then leaves the realm of what used to be considered plainly right reason or just common sense and enters into the wild frame of mind of an Alice-in-Wonderland speculative-exercises process dedicated to convoluted mental gymnastics of inordinate dimensions geared toward nihilism. Therefore, whatever could or might be done by human actions is simplistically and axiomatically equated with that which ought to be interpreted as being simply natural; there then being, by definition, no truly or actually unnatural acts or demonic activities participated in by degraded/debauched human creatures.
This hyper-subjectivism reinforcing the coarse explicitness of such bald-faced reductionism to the nth degree ought to be fairly amazing to behold, though the raw nominalism in philosophy upholding it dulls any such common sense response, or even righteous repulsion within the scope of secularism and its terrene values so celebratory of thanatology; such an attitude is pervasively pro-death in that life has become disvalued when it interferes with such matters as, e. g., someone’s convenience, lifestyle, or pursuit of quality time, as with a preference for abortion-on-demand (aka being pro-choice), which was gladly provided by such worthy practitioners as Dr. Kermit Barron Gosnell.
Naturalism of this kind becomes not really better than Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism in the secularist desire to equate the good with pleasure and the bad with pain; even sadism and sadomasochism get fully accommodated by creating inverse ratios that can so redefine these predilections or preferences through reinterpretations that still create suitable enough categories of good versus bad; ultimately, the basic general rule gets so enunciated as: If it feels good, do it.
And, this naturally brings forth a quite vacuous regard for either (traditional) ethics or (classic) morality, which is simply to be disregarded in any event.
All urges of whatever nature are, in effect, declared as being just natural in that any “morality” gets reduced into mere conventional or arbitrary mores having no truly prescriptive power over anybody in general; such a reductionistic paradigm is accepted as positively normative; this is because nobody in particular needs to obey what gets denounced and rejected as being unnatural to (satanic) human desires, wants, lusts, aspirations, ambitions, etc. Again, the sybaritic PC mantra is: if it feels good, do it (and to Hell with God and old-fashioned morality—who needs it?!?!).
The tautologous cognition is wondrous to see in that anything can be rationalized as needed into then conforming to the relativist-subjectivist dogma; oddly, people who ironically would be always among the very first to be appalled by and ready to ever abjure religious dogma practically seem to fall to their knees worshipping such naturalist dogma. The worst dogmatists become revealed as those fanatics, being intolerant of dissent, who demand absolute obedience without question to the absolutization of naturalism to the nth degree and, also, the inherent evil that must logically ensue.
Those who do not, for instance, fully conform and accept such clearly dogmatic beliefs are then typically denounced savagely as evil homophobes, misogynists, reactionaries, rightwing crackpots, intransigents, etc. Tolerance is, of course, regarded as a good value and virtue, except for those who are intolerant because of their ideological persuasions or, perhaps, (poisonous) faiths. Eric Hoffer’s true believer can be cited as the, by definition, worst offender. However, evil, thus, gets nihilistically redefined as being the intolerance of evil by moral and political reactionaries.
The toxic rationalization of all manner of very gross and sordid perversion, as with same-sex marriage, becomes complete, within the dogma-obsessed minds of these true believers on the ideological Left, who hypocritically preach tolerance, while being so increasingly and adamantly intolerant of and toward any (unfortunate) dissenters or nonconformists; there are then definite implications and ramifications that do, consequently, exist. But, one can reasonably guess that Hillary Rodham Clinton could still say: What difference at this point does it make?
Nonetheless, the secularization of human values and attitudes has no choice in this matter, as with the cognate and logical need for affirming human sacrifice as a value, which goes well with the Culture of Death that is, unfortunately, not recognized correctly as actually being an anti-culture, though seemingly a quite natural situation to its adherents; it becomes for them, moreover, as “normal” as sodomite relationships are now supposed to be, with its consequence of more societal sterility not far off the picture.
A deranged naturalism’s endpoint, as to its tendencies and basic orientation, must lead to nihilism and its dystopia or, perhaps, one suspects, its much desired thanatopia; this is by which the rationalizations for human sacrifice are put into positive language, as in being “pro-choice,” whose bold accents seek to retain progressive overtones versus those opposition voices so deemed to be just reactionary, as in being denounced as anti-choice, meaning anti-abortion (aka being pro-life).
Oddly, of course, the atavistic practice of making such human blood outpourings, human sacrifice, is really, in fact, backward-looking toward ancient times and used to be considered a barbaric practice unworthy of truly civilized people, or the practice of a decadent Carthaginian culture.
However, neobarbarism within postmodernity has successfully redefined morality toward having a naturalistic bent that can justify and rationalize the lust for blood as having redeeming social and cultural benefits such as, e. g., how abortion reduces the welfare population and “saves” children from lives of poverty and depravation. This is, surely, how the proverbial road to Hell is paved with good intentions, PC thinking, and cultural Marxism.
That such people who support abortion have, thus, become rather integrally coarse and debased by ethical, moral, and spiritual poverty and depravity does not seem at all to occur to them, unless they might, perhaps, get a good change of conscience by, in fact, developing one.
In any event, one can note that millions more people have been exterminated in the West, by the noted reintroduction of human sacrifice as a renewed societal norm, than have all of the modern acts of Islamic terrorism combined, which ought to make sapient minds take notice, through much profound reflection, as to its horrid meaning.
It should be no real surprise, as to the ramifications involved, how efforts at intramundane salvation (by whatever euphemism, including the welfare State now braced up with Obamacare) do end with an expanding of various ways and means oriented toward death and a genuine lust for it.
Only those determinedly ideologically blind to the truth cannot see the truly evil and harsh realities and do, instead, prefer lives lived ignorantly, in squalid terms of their sophisticated glittering illusions, prior to reaching the most inevitable and terminal reality of them all. Any possibly attendant pain, anguish, or suffering from choosing naturalistic preferences is usually blamed on society, institutions, and other external realities, never one’s self, of course. Determinism reigns supreme.
Self-responsibility, because anything such as free will is then denied, becomes a kind of secular sin by those who normally do not believe in any such thing as (religiously defined) sin; various forms and kinds of determinism, therefore, rule consciences as an excuse for the natural choices simply made. But, this can raise questions as to just what is natural for man. Some scientists, though still a distinct minority, seriously propose that, e. g., the aging process ought to be looked at as a kind of disease; if so, then it could hardly be thought of as being truly natural for the human body, since disease is normally thought to be an abnormal condition versus the normality of (wanting) health, of seeking to be free of disease.
Nevertheless, both death and dying (and aging is, in truth, really the slow pace of what will so lead to dying) are yet regularly expected and quite natural conditions connected to living organisms; whatever gets born or created presumes that, sooner or later, it must eventually die as a simply general part of the nature of reality.
Thus, even Christ’s birth can be rightly perceived as being, in effect, His first crucifixion; thus, physicality and the cognate mortality of creatures is the standard or natural presumption. One needs here, thus, to properly understand, therefore, that it often depends upon whom is philosophically (or ideologically) defining, in particular, what human naturalism is and why.
Human sacrifice is, thus, seen as part of the natural order concerning the doings and activities of such nihilistic mortal creatures who seek control over other humans, regardless of such matters as obedience to God and the right to life; moreover, immanentism is then granted, by the modernists, as having a higher and more urgent value than adherence to requisite metaphysical order, as the anthropocentric viewpoint comes to ever surpass any theocentric attitude in fundamental cognition and allied moral order.
But, greater epistemic specificity may be still needed. The term “near-death experience” (NDE) was coined, in the year 1975, by Raymond Moody, MD in his book entitled: Life After Life. Interestingly, while at least many tens of thousands have come forth proclaiming their own NDE, there has been no wide speculation and associated equivalent writing about any near-life experience (NLE) as to human life realities. Let there be an end to such nonsense, however.
Only someone who has, in fact, indisputably and, thus, truly died is, by definition, really dead, not a case of someone who, perchance, might have been allegedly or otherwise partially or slightly deceased; one ought then to perceive that semantic legerdemain goes on with NDE stories; otherwise, NLE accounts ought to be so held as being just as legitimate, meaning as a supposed topic for serious discussion, study, analysis, writing, etc. Of course, such is definitely not the case.
For upon profound analysis and when semantic nonsense is put under cognitive control, there is no such thing as a true NDE, meaning especially in terms of someone being able to talk or write about it. One illustrative case is that of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus’ (1936-2009): As I Lay Dying: Meditations Upon Returning. As a mature convert to Catholicism, he really ought to have known better. He was not (hint hint) any kind of a modern-day Lazarus.
He had the same psychological problem as William F. Buckley, Jr.; both simply had to think out loud; every thought needed to find its weary way, sooner or later, into print, awaiting further emendations or qualifications ever after the thought got so publicly expressed.
True death is an actual finality regarding mortal existence as to a distinctly terminal reality, not ever a NDE, which is almost as bad a term as something being classified as a living fossil, an evolutionary oxymoron of the worst sort. If something is truly living qua life, it cannot possibly, in terms of logic, be a fossil; if it is actually a fossil, it is not alive; it must, by definition, be logically classified as dead. Thus, similarly, the NDE situation remains neither fish nor fowl. It is a supposed intermediate circumstance that presupposes a finality that does not, in fact, arrive to make the condition become specified as a real death qua terminal condition.
If one is dead, therefore, then one does not come back, meaning as a mortal being, to ever talk or write about such a (merely presumed) experience. Terminality is, by definition, absolute mortal finality, the soul has separated from its body, only the corpse, the cadaver, remains. Since the corpse of Neuhaus did not, in fact, arise from his hospital bed, any suggested NDE becomes an absurdity. Unfortunately, in this sad day and age, all of logic, right reason, and common sense do not seem to really count for much anymore.
One can guess, furthermore, that this former Lutheran pastor never became any kind of great or good Catholic theologian; he absurdly was, in so many ways, a somewhat light-headed pontificator of much unmitigated nonsense. He was also illustrative of a major failure of Western intelligence and, more so, of Catholic intelligence in the late 20th and into the now 21st century. The important defense of human life has been made difficult whenever any moral principles set in its defense get bent out of recognition or are compromised for political, social, or economic gain, besides the many truly horrendous effects of cultural Marxism and its ever evil PC thinking.
As a surely direct consequence, human life has been, increasingly, cheapened. The raw degradation of social and cultural order as well as humanity itself then goes mainly unabated. Millions of innocent lives are lost.
The brutally cold focus is upon a sure willingness for death to increase, while rationalism, pragmatism, and positivism keep so many minds easily enthralled to endless excuses for the horrible exercise of evil through its acceptance, as based upon various convenient rationalizations for the ongoing killing, for the human sacrifice galore, though, of course, Hillary Clinton would nihilistically insist in her permanent and infamous retort on all of Benghazigate: What difference at this point does it make?
This rather morally callous or heartless interrogative statement is, therefore, ideologically emblematic of the clearly nihilistic basis of postmodern thought as seen, especially, in the sarcastic desire to vilely then excuse a multiplicity of horrors. The four dead Americans, as with millions of aborted/murdered babies, are to be treated as mere political trash and, thus, swept conveniently under the nearest proverbial rug. If it is held out of sight, it is (supposed to be) out of mind as well, meaning in true PC fashion.
Conclusion
Nothing seems, however, to greatly dissuade the majority of the human lemmings rushing on toward their final mortal ends, meaning as they willingly adhere to the positively urgent need for human sacrifice, inclusive of its noted reinstitutionalization, as an earthly means, one suspects, of crudely satisfying some sort of quite primal blood lust. [Archeological and anthropological excavations and studies are significantly yielding the notable conclusion, e. g., that human cannibalism was much more common during prehistoric times than had, in fact, been previously suspected.]
The obsessive PC naturalism qua nihilism of the Western world manifestly prefers the obvious demonic path of decisive self-extinction, instead of embracing, as the alternative, the righteous Culture of Life, as is represented by orthodox Catholicism; this is, of course, because the worship of deified Man, so widely celebrated by cultural Marxism, precludes belief in God, as Malcolm Muggeridge would have correctly understood.
Neopaganization, it can be easily noted, goes well with the practiced neobarbarism that logically leads away from shallow degrees of spiritualism and more surely toward a clearly rampant and excessive secularization of the social order; this is since both materialism and reductionism are, therefore, true complementary values aimed so freely and broadly at many naturalist-secularist orientations and oh-so-sophisticated habits of thought, such as encouraging the massive depopulation of the planet.
But, after all is actually said and done, what is, in fact, really going on here? The perceived presence and sanctification of human sacrifice is, of course, a raw manifestation of the Nietzschean will to power, a dedication service done to Satan, as a very degraded and dissolute mankind leaps willfully and blindly into the nihilistic abyss while, quite defiantly, yelling non serviam at the Creator, as did Lucifer, the first Nietzschean himself.
It is not insignificant, moreover, that Saul Alinsky, Obama’s supreme ideological mentor, had so openly dedicated his first edition of Rules for Radicals to his great hero, namely, Lucifer. At least, one can say that he was very honest, for a time, about what really inspires Liberalism and Leftism (though all later editions of that Machiavellian book slyly removed such a much-too-revealing statement).
The Devil works best, as can be guessed, through much concealment and misdirection, especially when humans, in rebellion against the Lord Almighty, think that they are doing good deeds, as with, e. g., Bill Gates and his philanthropic foundation that is, in fact, so highly pro-death in its orientation and efforts.
Bibliography
G. K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils.
Donald DeMarco and Benjamin Wiker, Architects of the Culture of Death.
Stefan Kühl, The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism and German National Socialism.
Paul A. Lombardo, A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human
Genome Era (Bioethics and the Humanities).
Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life: Evangelium Vitae.
John Senior, The Death of Christian Culture.
_____ , The Restoration of Christian Culture.
Wesley J Smith, Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America.
Rick Stout, Demographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family, DVD product.
Peter Hung Manh Tran, Advancing the Culture of Death: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide.
Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany.
