Russel Brand's False Religion

 

https://rumble.com/v1qlgp8-god-war-cancel-culture-and-more-with-russell-brand.html

For a long time, I’d been hoping someone would ask Tulsi Gabbard about her faith. Gabbard is a Hindu; I wonder if the Hindu concept of ahimsa, for example, is behind her strong stance against foreign engagements.

Russel Brand finally asked her. But he got the essential concept of religion wrong. He seems to think, or claims to think, it is about tolerance and forgiveness. On this basis, he blames both right and left for not getting along.

This is a common but sinister claim. Religion is about righteousness and justice. It is a struggle against evil; not an accommodation with it.

Hitler and the Jews did not get along. So you would blame the Jews? Somebody raped and stabbed Kitty Genovese in a Brooklyn stairwell. So you would blame Kitty Genovese for not being able to get along?

To insist that religion is or ought to be about forgiveness is the sure and final refuge of the scoundrel. It is what you fall back on when you are caught red-handed. A recent example: an article in the New Yorker suggesting it is time to “declare an amnesty” on everyone’s mistakes during the pandemic. Convenient for those authorities that now have been shown to be wrong, on masks, on lockdowns, on the origin of the virus, on the side effects of the vaccine, on its efficacy; but they offered no amnesty so recently to those refusing the vaccine, or masks, or lockdowns. Putin now wants peace talks in Ukraine. Sure—now that he stands to otherwise lose the land he’s purloined.

You see how this works.

The proper Christian principle, made clear in the New Testament, is a duty to extend forgiveness and reconciliation if and only after the guilty party has both admitted wrong and done their sincere best at restitution. The aggressors always leave out that part.

If you do not stick to this principle, you are not just aiding and abetting evil; and joining in harming the victim; you are frogmarching the person you forgive into hell.

Blessed Are the Persecuted

Kurelek, "The Hound of Heaven"

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

This Beatitude strikes some folks as strange. Righteous people are beloved by everyone, right? Who is persecuted for righteousness?

Just read the New Testament. Did everyone love Jesus? How did he end up crucified?

Just read today’s news: the Wuhan doctor who first raised the alarm about the COVID-19 virus was hauled in and berated by the authorities, and forced to sign an admission that he lied. He has now died of the virus—or perhaps through government action.

Social groups of all kinds are predictably less moral that their average member—on the premise that more selfish people are going to fight harder and less scrupulously for power over others. And bad people who have a guilty conscience will viscerally resent others who do not.

Good people, when they sin, feel bad about it, try to make amends, and to do better. They will admire the righteous. Bad people commit to continuing to sin. For these latter, relative sinlessness in another feels like an implicit rebuke. Worse than that--they are dangerous. They might start speaking truth out loud, and so wreck everything.

This is why, for example, it was never enough to legalize gay sex or gay marriage. It had to become illegal for anyone to criticize it, unacceptable to refuse to participate in a gay pride parade or a gay wedding. This is why it was never enough to make abortion legal. It had to become tax subsidized, implicating everybody. It had to become intolerable to speak out against it.

And so the righteous will often be persecuted rather than rewarded. They will always be persecuted by some. How severely they are persecuted is a good measure of how morally depraved the society or group is in which they find themselves.

Confucius advised that, when appointing an official, “if he has no friends, it is necessary to make enquiries. If he has no enemies, it is necessary to make enquiries.”

Either is an indication, although not proof, of a bad person.

Someone who has no friends is probably a cutthroat; although he might just be extremely introverted—or extremely righteous.

Someone who has no enemies is probably someone who simply agrees and goes along with whomever he is speaking to. He is duplicitous and has no principles.

A good person will be loved by good people, and persecuted by bad people.

Which is no doubt part of the divine plan. If one were being righteous only for the hope of worldly rewards, there would be no particular merit to it.

Righteousness

Fighting for truth, justice, and the American way...

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; for they shall be satisfied.

This beatitude implies that those who seek righteousness, who most eagerly strive for the moral good, are those who have themselves been treated unjustly.

One does not hunger and thirst surrounded by food and wine.

So this beatitude describes someone whose overall experience of the world is one of injustice.
This again puts the lie to the “Hallelujah” chorus of some contemporary Christian thought.

It also puts the lie to the common modern psychological claim that being abused causes one to abuse, and being favoured causes one to treat others better. This idea, now so widespread, is social and spiritual poison.

This is also an argument for Purgatory.

A bad person fears punishment.

A good person, one who hungers for righteousness, does not fear punishment as much as injustice.

Such a person could not accept entering Heaven and the divine presence without atoning for any wrong they had done.