Triune Love

 

Let me tell you my belief about the triune nature of love (from my book on love). There are perhaps three elements to successful romantic love; passion, depth and security. Passion is the fervour that characterises the emotional energy behind love, and this is often stirred early on, and should continue to intensify in a healthy union with God at the heart. Depth is that adventure of intimacy, closeness and understanding that augments over time, and continues to bring beloveds towards an ever more intimate connection - with each other, and with God. And security is to passion and depth as wisdom is to knowledge and reason – it is the trust and confidence in the union that has been established over time, creating something so well rooted in God that beloveds are, as the Lord says, inseparable (Matthew 19:6), perhaps like a large oak tree is inseparable from its roots as a live organism.

Passion can arrive quickly between two beloveds, but depth and security take time. Passion might be thought of as the desire for the beloved in totality, and the establishment of a commitment to each other. Beloveds’ personalities become intimately connected, and this starts to deepen further, where each becomes the central part of the other’s priorities under God, establishing a secure union under God’s providence and blessing.

Deep Genesis

 

Before eating the fruit, Adam and Eve were in a state of innocence. They knew only good, as they lived in harmony with God and creation. When they ate the fruit, their eyes were opened, and they realised they are naked, and they hid because they were afraid and ashamed. Eating the fruit gave them experiential knowledge of evil, which included shame, guilt, and separation from God.

This is obviously a very deep story, that can be unpacked for days without reaching the bottom. You may wonder how the historical writer could have thought so deeply about the human condition, but that’s not quite the right question, because the story is more than just the work of a single writer (as all stories are, to some extent), it is a symbol of aggregated evolved wisdom passed on throughout the ages. That’s why I think it’s imprudent to try to impute a single meaning to the story, because it is profound enough to contain multi-layered meanings.

In part, it conveys the truth that, in eating from the tree, Adam and Eve sought to define good and evil on their own terms, rather than relying on God's definition. In part, it conveys the truth that irresponsible autonomy as an attempt to usurp God's authority leads to the disruption of the created order. In part, it conveys the wisdom that eating from the tree made them aware of another deep truth; that badness was not just to be found in the snake (in the evil ‘out there’) but deep in our own hearts (‘in there’). In part, it speaks profound wisdom about the consequences of disobedience to divine authority, the consequences of being able to resist temptation, and about the nature of free will and responsibility. And, lastly, it conveys the most powerful truth of all; that choosing self over God is the greatest act of folly an individual can commit, because if we are not on the right path with God, we are not ultimately on the right path in any area of our life.

This is deep storytelling, containing multi-layered levels of wisdom that speaks profound truths about every human that has ever lived – and that is no trivial thing.

On Critical Thinking Part II: Sssshh......It's What They Don't Say

 

In addition to my previous blog post on Four Steps To Sharpen Your Critical Thinking, here’s some guidance on spotting the underlying mistake that most commentators make when they get an argument bang wrong. It’s a form of reasoning, a category of pseudoscience, where what is left out is just as important as what is included – and if what is left out was included in the argument, the argument would be undermined. This observation is as old as the hills; the Socratic method of dialectical questioning focused on, among other things, exposing what was not being considered in an argument, revealing hidden assumptions or contradictions, and was developed further in many subsequent philosophers’ work, especially Mill and Popper. Mill argued that strong reasoning requires considering all relevant causes and counterarguments, not just selective evidence, and Popper famously highlighted how scientific reasoning depends on looking for what might falsify a theory, not just what supports it.

But despite this understanding being as old as the hills, it remains one of the most common problems with arguments made in the mainstream ideological movements, where selective reasoning fuels misguided conclusions. Let me offer examples of what I mean when I identify where what is left out is just as important as what is included – and if what is left out is included in the argument, the argument would be undermined.

People will make an argument that says “If X believes Y, then Z must follow.” But clearly, X might actually believe something more nuanced than just Y leading to Z. There is a misrepresentation of X’s position. Therefore, if we accurately included what X truly believes, the argument would show that the conclusion Z doesn't necessarily follow from Y, as X might support a different conclusion or qualification. Here’s another one; people will make an observation of a small sample (X and Y), leading to a conclusion about the whole set (Z). What’s omitted is that the sample is too small or unrepresentative of the entire set of Z. Clearly, if we included a larger, more representative sample of Z, the conclusion drawn from X and Y would likely be invalidated because the generalisation would not hold for all of Z. Another common mistake; "X happened before Y, so X must have caused Y." What’s omitted in that case is the consideration that Z (another cause) might be influencing Y. If Z (another factor) were included, it would show that the correlation between X and Y does not imply causation.

If you’re partial to a game of bulls**t bingo, you can spot these all day long; some more examples would be; either X or Y must be true; X is true because of Y; Y is true because of X; since we cannot demonstrate X, we must conclude Y, etc - the list goes on. It’s painfully easy to see how this plays out in the real life nonsense spoken by – to take my frequent standard examples – creationists, socialists and climate alarmists.

Climate alarmists often argue, “If carbon emissions continue to rise, then global catastrophe must follow.” But this ignores the possibility that technological advancements (Z), such as carbon capture, nuclear energy, and climate adaptation strategies, will mitigate the effects of emissions. If these factors were included, the argument would be less fatalistic, and a more nuanced discussion about solutions would emerge. Similarly, socialists may claim, “Capitalism causes inequality, so socialism must be the solution.” This argument fails to consider other variables (Z), such as natural power laws, revealed preferences, political corruption, regulatory inefficiencies, and socio-cultural factors, which contribute to inequality. If these additional factors were acknowledged, it would become clear that socialism would not justifiably resolve disparities. Creationists frequently argue, “There are gaps in the fossil record, so evolution must be false.” This omits the fact that an incomplete fossil record is expected due to geological processes (Z), and that many transitional fossils do exist but are selectively ignored. If this missing evidence were included, the argument against transitional fossils would collapse.

These patterns of selective reasoning appear repeatedly, where what is left out is just as revealing as what is included, and we could go on and on naming more of them. It’s also amusing to me how extreme erroneous beliefs in one category feed into the acceptance or rejection of extreme erroneous beliefs in another category – like how most climate alarmists are socialist because it’s many of the same errors repeated, how most creationists often won’t accept climate alarmism because of their fundamentalist religious conservatism, and how many liberal socialists reject the rigidly conversative nature of creationism, that sort of thing – you can observe how clusters of beliefs converge in a kind of ideological package deal, but that’s material in past blogs, so I won’t elaborate on that any further here. 

We’ve seen that when the doyens of pseudoscience try to sell their snake oil, you can spot their deception or blatant mistakes by looking at the content of their propositions and the omissions, as I did in the above examples. But you can also observe it in how they conduct themselves in speech or writing. For example, scratch the surface of what they say or write, and you’ll see attempts at argumentation when they are little more than sparsely educated in the full complexities of the subject under discussion. You’ll see they’ve frequently made no attempt to comprehend if what they are citing is offering the full suite of material that would change the very argument they are making. You’ll see them accepting literally any proposition that aligns with what they want to be true, and either rejecting it or being unaware of propositions that undermine their position. You’ll see entire arguments based on not knowing the very basic things about science, economics, epistemology, logic or human history, where cherry picked data is pliably absorbed into their extant tribalistic confirmation biases. You’ll see fabricated and distorted propositions being passed off as science, economics or morality that actually gets these disciplines blatantly wrong. You’ll see them attacking straw men and in their place building an ideological fiction tailored to how they merely think the reality presents or how they want it to. You’ll see propositions that are devoid of even the basic consultation with experts in the field, or that consist of material that has skewed the material of the experts to fit their own narrative.

For them, reality is whatever they think it is without informed justification, or what they want it to be without critical accountability. And, as we’ve seen, a large part of this deception or ignorance is underwritten by this key error in critical thinking; not merely in what is included in an argument or purported evidence but in what is left out or omitted. The essence of critical thinking involves looking at what is missing in an argument, as the omission of relevant data or alternative explanations can be just as misleading as presenting false information. The reason this tactic is so widespread is because it’s harder to deceive people with outright, blatant lies than it is with half-truths or substandard selective viewpoints. If the truth is north, many of the successful deceptions that gain widespread traction are north-west or north-east, not south.

Politicians probably do this most of all – and with such readiness that politics has really become the world’s greatest performance scam. Politicians don’t get everything wrong, of course, but even what they get right is absent key evidence, arguments or explanations that would alter the argument being made. It’s usually what they don’t say that matters most – most politicians are either masters of selective reasoning, carefully curating information to craft narratives that serve their interests, or they say things that are evidently substandard but align with what the majority of their party voters want to believe – so get away with it in either case.

All that is to say, if my Four Steps To Sharpen Your Critical Thinking was offered to help individuals who wish to… er….sharpen their critical thinking, this blog post invites readers to be alert to when others are misleading by ignoring that which is not being addressed or explained, and where crucial evidence or perspective is being left out that would invariably change the conclusion.

Ratio of Suffering to Eternity

 

Published earlier today on Network Norfolk:

First, a brief disclaimer; this intention of this article is not to explore the deep topic of the growth that comes from suffering - I have lots of material on that in my other blogs - this is more of a niche article in response to sceptics who say they can't believe in a God who allows so much suffering. Therefore, the narrowness is somewhat deliberate in that regard, and shouldn't be seen to contradict the truths about growth and transformation through suffering.

If you were offered three seconds of pain in exchange for 100 years of bliss - filled with joy, security, pleasure, and contentment - you’d likely take the deal without hesitation. The offer seems almost absurd in its generosity. And yet, the span of a human life, with all its joys and struggles, is even more fleeting compared to the infinite glory of eternity than three seconds compared to a century.

The promise of eternal bliss in Heaven doesn’t scrub out the intensity of the suffering we face (although God’s peace and comfort is profound throughout), but if, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:17, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all”, then even the instant we step into eternity and become aware of our Heavenly state in the presence of God will astronomically eclipse the whole totality of our earthy hardships.

For we have to conceive that the good and the joy we find in God’s presence, His love and His glory will be so astoundingly good beyond what we can currently imagine that it will utterly redefine our understanding of the creation story, rendering even the greatest earthly suffering insignificant in comparison.

I think the above is both comprehensive from a rational and logical perspective, but also modestly understated from an experiential and spiritual perspective. Because the corollary of the above is that every day we live our lives with the potential awareness and available joy that our Creator God is more awesome and more for us than we can possibly comprehend. And that His plan for those who love Him and seek a deeper relationship with Him is so much greater than what we could hope, that it should transform how we approach each moment, filling even the ordinary with a profound sense of purpose and wonder, knowing that our ultimate destiny far surpasses anything we can currently imagine or hope to experience.

The Art of Fulfilment

 

There’s an interesting human phenomenon that one could associate with writing (or music, filmmaking, painting, even sport), whereby there would be dissatisfaction in each element of the whole, but in their combination, they create a sense of integrated fulfilment that none of the constituents could deliver alone. If a writer couldn’t write at all, they’d be dissatisfied; if they could write, but no one would ever read their outputs, they’d be dissatisfied; and if they couldn’t write, but they were magically given all the spoils of having books to their name (and the money, fanhood, critical esteem that goes with being a best-selling author), they’d still be dissatisfied.

Each constituent point is desired, but inextricably connected to the other two. In isolation, there is not full satisfaction in the writing, or in the having written, or in any recognition divorced from the reality of those things – it’s like we create or produce or explore to pursue an end destination, only to find that it’s the interplay of creation, acknowledgment, and an extended sense of artistic accomplishment that gives our pursuits the full suite of meaning and purpose.

The Narcissus Paradox: Suffering Through Excessive Self-Focus

 

I’d say one of the most interesting things Jordan Peterson has said is that “self-consciousness is so tightly associated with suffering that they're not conceptually distinguishable”, and that “the more you think about yourself the more miserable you are”. I think the topic raised here is very interesting, and would be even more compelling with the right amount of nuance, because it’s true that self-consciousness is associated with suffering in some cases, and thinking about yourself more can easily lead to increased negative emotion. But it depends on HOW one is thinking about oneself. Excessive self-focus and unhealthy self-centred preoccupations at the expense of thinking of others are expected to cause increased unhappiness, depression and anxiety, because it’s a terrible way to live. On the other hand, thinking about ourselves in terms of constructive self-awareness and active self-improvement, in a balanced way, is mostly beneficial.

I think it’s worth exploring the former – that excessive self-focus and unhealthy self-centred preoccupations at the expense of thinking of others makes us miserable – because it’s one of the fundamental truths about human nature, that it’s psychologically impoverishing being the primary objects of our own attention. You can see in people who live this way that their life becomes little more than an echo chamber of dissatisfaction – it breeds disconnection from reality and from others, and eventually one’s whole sense of meaning becomes distorted out of shape.

Paradoxically, it is only through positive outward focus – on God, on others, on love, on grace, on gratitude, on kindness, on purpose, on meaning, on beauty, etc – that we get to truly find ourselves in the process, and tap in to the riches that life has to offer.

On Forgiveness

When we act well, we tend to be acting more responsibly and with greater reasoning; and when we act badly, we tend to be acting less responsibly and with less good reasoning. Acting well usually means something like doing good, reasoning competently, believing a true thing, making the world a slightly better place through some action, that sort of thing. Acting badly usually means doing something ignoble, reasoning incompetently, believing a false thing, making the world a slightly worse place through some action, that sort of thing.

What the above means is that by a small margin we are more responsible for the good we do than the bad we do, because we were on better form and reasoning better when we did the good thing than the bad thing. You know what I mean, I think; when Jill spent some time and effort working out how to help the local charity shop arrange its window display, she acted better than Jack, who acted impulsively in a moment of anger and smashed the window with a brick - but she also acted more responsibly and with better reasoning. Good acts usually require careful thought and good reasoning, though they can arise from well-formed character and instinctive virtue - whereas acting impulsively, in haste, is usually the precursor to bad actions (there are, of course, plenty of exceptions in both cases - but the rule of thumb holds).

And on those times when you acted less well than you hoped, you yourself know that you weren't at your best, and that if only we could see what was going on inside you, and have full access to the struggles within your soul, we'd be very forgiving. Well, it's great that that is what God is like, and probably why He created a world in which we are encouraged to forgive easily and be circumspect in judging others.

Let's Be Honest: Charles Manson is Shallow and Dull

 

“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints.”
C.S. Lewis

That insightful observation from C.S. Lewis came to my mind about halfway through watching Chaos: The Manson Murders on Netflix. I’ve also seen several of Manson’s prison interviews on YouTube, and thought the same thing each time – behind the curtain of his dreadful legacy, as an individual, this guy wreaks of monotony.  Manson’s name is synonymous with manipulation, violence, and the horrifying murders carried out by his so-called "family” of easily brainwashed cult members. Yet, despite the seemingly endless fascination with Manson, especially in the media and pop culture, there's a striking truth when you actually listen to him speak. Despite his bombastic delivery, and obvious twisted narcissism and absurd self-delusions, he is almost entirely devoid of anything remotely smart, insightful or interesting to say (as are, unsurprisingly, the individuals who made up his cult). 

I’m saying this about Manson because it’s generally a good insight about similar figures like him. Behind the mask, we find a very insipid character, whose power wasn’t derived from any remarkable intelligence or charm, but from a carefully cultivated aura of mystery and control over very pliable followers. His speech is often disjointed, filled with rambling, incoherent phrases that sound more like a string of non sequiturs than any profound wisdom. Any philosophies or insights he claims to have are really a sad and pathetic mix of paranoid delusions, racial conspiracies, and half-baked ideas about societal upheaval.

Sure, we are talking about one of the most notorious events in 20^th Century America. But absurdly, very interesting events like this do not mean that Manson himself is a very interesting person with interesting things to say. When stripped of the myth and spectacle, he was little more than a manipulative man who used fear, confusion, and his faux-charisma to exploit vulnerable individuals. Behind all that, his nature is that of a dull, self-absorbed man whose ideas were far from revolutionary, and his supposed “charisma” was more about creating an illusion that is only likely to be persuasive to disillusioned, insecure, easily manipulated young people who are even less interesting than Manson.

When you watch Manson carefully, and look closely at his demeanour and facial expressions during interviews, you are observing a man who, in my view, knows full well how unenlightened he is, especially when he’s in the presence of smart, competent interviews. This is a man who knows his own façade – painfully aware that he is not a visionary leader.

In the end, the real irony is that truly bad people - the ones who inspire fear, revulsion, or even fascination - are often the most mundane. Their evil isn’t the result of genius or depth, but of repetition, pettiness, and an inability to create anything of real value, relying on deception rather than originality. Meanwhile, good people - those who create, inspire, and uplift - are usually the ones who live the most interesting lives and have the most interesting things to say. They challenge the world, push boundaries in meaningful ways, and leave behind legacies that enrich rather than destroy. On this, just as on most things, C.S. Lewis was right; the most profound stories don’t belong to the tyrants and the ignoble manipulators; they belong to those who found the courage to be good – those who dared to build instead of tear down.

Don't Forget To Love Yourself

Christ’s Golden Rule is “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12)

It’s true that we should treat others as well as we wish to be treated, but this taps into an even more profound truth. If we should treat others as well as we wish to be treated, then we should treat ourselves as well as we should wish others treat us – and further, we should treat ourselves and others with the standard we would hope reflects God’s standard of perfect love. And the same applies to the other great commandment, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:31) – we must also love ourselves as we love our neighbour, otherwise we might not treat ourselves as well as we need or deserve.

And all that is bootstrapped with the primary instruction: “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” (Mark 12:30). This commandment comes first because our love for God is the foundation of everything else. If we do not love God fully, our love for ourselves and others becomes misaligned. Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength means we get to see ourselves as He sees us - as infinitely valuable, worthy of love, and made in His image. And this enables us to treat others and ourselves with the same grace, patience, and kindness that God extends to us – because we sense a shared unity in understanding how infinitely loved and valuable we all are.

The reason Christ says about love God and love neighbour that “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” is because we can’t truly live if we don’t love God, and nor can we love ourselves if we don’t love Him first. And if we can’t love ourselves properly, we can’t love others properly either. This is the only Divine equation that fulfils the design of love: 

❤️ Love God > Love Yourself > Love Others ❤️

By loving God first, we receive the true measure of love - one that is holy, pure, and self-giving. That love then teaches us how to love ourselves in a healthy, godly way. And from that place of wholeness, we can truly love others as ourselves - reflecting God’s Divine love in our relationships.

 

Owning Our Preferences

 

One of the big factors behind social, political and domestic division is the habitual mistake of confusing correct policy with preferences – that is, people are constantly asserting something as being the right way things should be done when all they are really revealing is a personal preference. For example, environmentalists declare moral outrage when green space is proposed as a good site for a road or industrial estate; socialists declare injustice when a favoured domestic business is not protected from foreign competition, northerners cry outrage at lack of investment in their regions compared with the south, that sort of thing. But while these propositions do involve value judgements, they are not implicitly moral considerations, they merely convey preferences about how money and resources are allocated.

Consequently, one of the best pieces of wisdom we can learn is to be alert to when we are dealing with preferences and not axiomatic truths, empirical facts or moral propositions. In formal economic terms, a preference is the order that an individual gives to two or more options based on their relative utility. With two considerations, x and y, it will be the case that x is preferred to y, or y is preferred to x, or x and y are preferred equally (this can be measured using an indifference curve, which is a line on a graph showing all the combinations of two goods that give an individual equal utility ). X and y can relate to pretty much anything it is possible to prefer over something else (pieces of fruit, places to go on holiday, online or in-person banking, you name it) – and those preferences are dynamical too (they can change according to context).

Understanding this, and mindfulness of straying from its wisdom, are important home truths that can help bless a marriage too, because if a couple doesn't understand or acknowledge when their views are really preferences, there can be contention that doesn't get negotiated properly.

On Trying To Master Love

To master anything - a musical instrument, a sport, running a business, etc - we're going to require a lot of essential qualities: learning, commitment, devotion to the task, resilience, patience, humility and passion. It must be a continuous effort and a journey of growth. We need to be disciplined in staying present and deeply engaged with the task, we need the ability to immerse ourselves in the activity, and the discernment to understand that progress is gradual and requires enduring setbacks or periods of slow improvement as part of the journey toward mastery.

Trying to master love and being the best beloved are no different – they both take all of those things, but they require understanding something else too. Just as we don't become happy by trying to be happy, or original by trying to be original, we don't master love by trying to master love. You know that what causes happiness is not trying to be happy, it is through cultivating a particular mindset, attitude, and way of being. Happiness should not be pursued as a destination, but as a by-product of seeking truth and goodness. When chased directly, it remains elusive, like someone who seeks wealth for its own sake never truly enjoys its value. True happiness emerges through noble pursuits like kindness, courage, and personal responsibility, not as an end in itself.

Similarly, the journey to mastering love (and being the best beloved) is not an attempt to try to master love, it is the attempt to master the qualities that prioritise, nurture and sustain love - such as truthfulness, trust, self-awareness, honesty, patience, empathy, generosity, kindness, vulnerability and respect. Like any art or discipline, love is a by-product of living with Divine intention, cultivating virtues that support its growth. We don't master love by trying to master it, but by fostering the qualities that enable love to grow and thrive. Love flourishes when we focus not on the intrinsic mastery, but on the process of becoming the kind of person capable of being a continual blessing for your beloved.

 

Trade Makes Us Better People

You may have come across a social experiment called The Ultimatum Game. In this game player A (Jack) is given some money, say £50, and asked how much, if any, he proposes to offer to player B (Jill). Jill can accept or reject Jack's offer - but if she rejects it, neither of them gets anything. If Jack and Jill were rational income-maximisers, Jack would offer just £1 and Jill would accept it, because 1 free pound is better than nothing. But this very rarely happens, because humans are not rational income-maximisers.

Having a voracious appetite for fairness, the Jills of this world often reject free money from the Jacks of this world if the offers are not perceived to be an equitable distribution of the £50. Such sensibilities play out more broadly in society, which is why there is a correlation between trade and fairness. This was demonstrated in an interesting study from Herb Gintis that I read about in Matt Ridley's book The Rational Optimist:

"People in fifteen mostly small-scale tribal societies were enticed to play the Ultimatum Game. Those societies with the least experience of dealing with outsiders were the most hard-hearted, ungenerous and narrowly ‘rational’. Machiguenga slash-and-burn farmers from the Amazon most often offered just 15 per cent of the sum to their co-subjects, and in all but one cases, the second player accepted. Likewise, a Hadza hunter-gatherer from Tanzania usually makes a very small offer and experiences few rejections.

On the other hand, players from those societies that are most integrated into modern markets, such as the Orma nomads of Kenya or the Achuar subsistence gardeners of Ecuador, will usually offer half the money just as a Western undergraduate would. The whale-hunting Lamalera of the island of Lembata in Indonesia, who need to coordinate large teams of strangers on hunts, offer on average 58 per cent – as if investing the windfall in acquiring new obligations. Much the same happens in two New Guinea tribes, the Au and Gnau, whose members often make ‘hyper-fair’ offers and yet see them rejected: in such cultures, gifts can be a burden to the receiver because they carry an obligation to reciprocate.”

“The lesson of this study is that, on the whole, having to deal with strangers teaches you to be polite to them, and that in order for such generosity to emerge, costly punishment of selfishness may be necessary. Rejecting the offer is costly for the second player, but he reckons it is worth it to teach the first player a lesson. The argument is not that exchange teaches people to be kind; it is that exchange teaches people to recognise their enlightened self-interest lies in seeking cooperation. Here, then, lies a clue to the unique human attribute of being able to deal with strangers, to extend the division of labour to include even your enemies.”

As well as the progression-explosion of individual well-being and higher standard of living that capitalism has bestowed upon us, it's also essential to note how good capitalism has been and continues to be for the collective benefits of human society, not just in more than material gains, but in corporate kindness too. A society that relies on trade relies on cooperation, respect, fairness, justice and mutual toleration - the whole edifice depends on it. The free exchange of goods, services and ideas does not just make us materially better off, it makes us nicer, more respectful, more tolerant people to be around too - and those collective benefits play out in our living in all-round better societies.

And the kinds of society we have created through increased trade are uniquely human too. In the animal kingdom there are all kinds of cooperation and collaboration within a species - between other primates, between ants, between lions, between wolves, between elephants, between bees, between birds - you name it. But as a rule, cooperation and collaboration between unrelated strangers seems to not occur very often in the rest of the animal kingdom - there are almost no cases of unconnected animals involved in mutually beneficial transactions in the humans are when we trade. There is even a ratchet-type pattern of trade occurring with the development of farming in various countries independently at different times in history when the right conditions were met - Peru first, then China, then Mexico, then North America and Africa, and then Europe.

Perhaps my favourite example of the joy of trade is when I buy an Indian takeaway. People with whom I have little in common cook incredibly tasty food that I value much more than the money I pay to consume it. At the same time, I help the people that sell to me to make a living, and both agents are made better off. In feeding me, the proprietors get to feed their family too. And this extends right across the marketplace.

We are all making each other better off by trade. We are contributing to a nicer, safer, more respectful, more tolerant society, in which our own personal pursuits are helping enrich total strangers too - and when aggregated, it is sufficient to make everyone in that society richer and more prosperous.

Commerce has done more to combat racism, sexism, and unfair discrimination of any kind, and the alleviation of poverty for billions, than any government program. How bizarre then that we live in an age in which trade has done more than anything else to tackle poverty, hardship, injustice, corruption, prejudice, bigotry and disunity, yet the generation that has been the biggest beneficiaries are the most vociferous opponents of it in history.

Counting the Colours of Prime Ministers

A friend once pointed out to me that there has never been a black Prime Minister in the UK (this was pre-Rishi Sunak), and he asked how I can be sure that that it isn't down to institutional racism. I wouldn't say we can be sure, but I'd say we can be confident. I'm confident because the sample space as a ratio of the population is too minuscule to infer such a dubious causality. A single role, like a Prime Minister, constitutes about 0.000001% of the population, and there are only a few every decade. The set of preconditions required to be a Prime Minister are complex, and there’s no reason to believe that colour of skin is a direct factor.

Last time I checked the UK demographic a few years ago, I found that for every 100 people, there would be 82 white people, 9 Asians, 4 black people and 5 others. If 82% of the population is white, and being a PM requires a set of skills that are rare in the population as a whole, then even purely on arithmetic, it’s not surprising to me that until recently we hadn't yet had a black Prime Minister.

Moreover, even if we had had a series of black Prime Ministers, that wouldn’t show that we are not a racist society. Consider Society A, which is very racist, and Society B, which is not. Because people in Society A know they live in a racist society, and because they feel that black people need a helping hand, 4 of the last 9 Prime Ministers have been black. Because people in Society B know they do not live in a racist society, and prefer to select on merit, they feel that black people do not need a helping hand, and none of the last 9 Prime Ministers have been black. Purely on number of black Prime Ministers, Society B could seem like it’s the most racist one, not Society A, when in fact the opposite is true.

There may, of course, be other non-racist factors that are contributing to fewer black people being candidates for the role of Prime Minister, where ‘racist’, lest we forget, means unfairly discriminating against someone purely on the grounds of skin colour or ethnicity. Think of Easter as an illustration. Bank Holiday Friday and chocolate eggs occur in the same weekend, without either causing the other. The cause is Easter. So it may be that in the scenario above, other things are playing the Easter role, making the society appear more racist than it is.

My own view is that we don’t live in an overtly racist society, because the vast majority of people don’t unfairly treat people based on skin colour and ethnicity. There are many people who perceive our society as racist, but that’s mostly because they miss the likelihood that apparent overt discrimination is usually based on Easter-type factors other than skin colour and ethnicity (see my Blogs on Discrimination on the side bar).

Here’s another factor to consider: humans are built for survival in the Savannah, where other tribes could have alerted us to threats or insecurity, so we are evolutionarily primed to be a little bit discriminatory against other tribes, and be alert to differences in other humans. When tested, the amygdala, which plays a key role in processing fear and aggression, reacts to different racial groups, even when we are not being consciously racist.

I can recall reading studies where people were put in a brain scanner and shown brief flashes of emotionally neutral faces, and the amygdala was activated more prominently if the face was of someone with a different skin colour or ethnicity. I also remember reading about car salesmen who offered better prices to white people than black people. I also recall an experiment where volunteers played a video game showing people holding either a gun or a mobile phone, and were instructed to shoot only those with guns. When white participants were shown black people on screen, they tended to shoot faster and were more likely to mistake a mobile phone for a gun when a black person was holding it.

However, the good news is that studies also show that it’s fairly easy to snap out of prejudices, and treat people like valuable human beings with a unique individual identity, and thereby not lazily categorising them according to skin colour and ethnicity. It’s no surprise that experiments show that people brought up in more racially diverse settings are less likely to be racist, less likely to mistake a mobile phone for a gun when a black person is holding it, and much more likely to be tolerant and accepting if they have a broad exposure to a diverse range of people.

In summary, if we define racism correctly - as unfairly treating people based on skin colour and ethnicity - then I don't think UK racism is anything like as rife as many people think - and it's highly unlikely that racism is the reason we'd never had a black Prime Minister until Rishi Sunak.

The Rule of Distributed Stupidity

 

Groups like Answers in Genesis and a lot of climate groups and social justice groups conform to the principle of what I call the distributed stupidity model. One con artist starts it off, influences a second person, then a third, and so on, until the racket has gained enough traction to distribute its stupidity more widely - a bit like vectors acting to spread the cult's influence. The distributed stupidity model is one of the most effective for influencers at the top to get what they want and grow their own platform (financial and status) by pulling the strings of those at the bottom. Ken Ham is raking it in while folk like you do most of his bidding for him, and blindly dance to his tune. 

But at some point, once a group like that starts to grow, and its blood has trickled for enough time, it inevitably bleeds into haemorrhage, and at this point it becomes externally pervasive and internally overwhelming. The only distributed stupidity groups that can survive this are the ones where the emotional appeal of their indoctrination strategies are such that the members feel the emotional duress of leaving or questioning it, for fear of heretic-hunting.

A good rule of thumb with the majority of the members of these groups is, always assume blithe cowardice, weak-mindedness, lazy indifference or wilful individual ignorance before you assume a thought out collective philosophy, because they are a lot rarer than you think.

Character & Operation Types of Thinking

 

I started pondering the “character and operation” model I write about in two of my books, and how it is in some way to do with the left and right brain elements of cognition. Broadly speaking; the left is the logical and analytical, and the right is intuitive and relationship-based - but not only is there overlap, there is also distinction in how those outputs manifest themselves. So, propositions about belief in God, attitudes about the economy, politics, the climate, even love with a beloved, are nested in a duality of cognition based on reason and intuition. I know my wife loves me (operation) and I sense she loves me (character); I know capitalism works better than socialism (operation) but I know we have a responsibility towards the underdog (character). But it works in reverse too; socialist Jack reasons that capitalism works better than socialism (operation) yet still becomes emotionally attached to socialist policies (character) even if they do not yield to reason and evidence. Ditto climate change - Jill believes that climate change is a problem that is too complex to solve with simple off-the-peg solutions (operation), but she gets a sense of belonging from gluing herself to the road (character), so this instinct supervenes on her rational ones, that sort of thing.

There's some stuff in my books about this in relation to belief in God. Christians tend to believe in God because of a weight of empirical justification and rational consideration (operation) but also because of the functional fulfilment of deeper needs related to relationship, belonging and responsibility in the world (character). It's analogous to love, with it being a set of propositions that yield to reason and evidence - if my wife didn't love me, she wouldn't do x, y, and z (operation); and it being a set of deep sensations associated with relationship, belonging and responsibility (character). 

Consequently, when we are talking about God with unbelievers, we have to be alert to the ways that the mind oscillates between character and operation outputs, and steer them back on track when they criss-cross (a bit like how we have to when politicians disingenuously oscillate between two different types of fairness - the Marxist type and the Aristotelian type - at their own convenience).

How To Define And Identify The Supernatural

 

I've been having a brief online exchange with atheist Richard Carrier regarding his rejection of the supernatural. I've previously written about similar errors he's made (see here, and more generally here), but after he sent me five or six articles arguing why he believes supernaturalism is false, I thought it would be worthwhile to explain why I believe most atheists begin with a flawed assumption about the supernatural - an error they continue to repeat, no matter how many articles they write to expand on it. Before proceeding, I’d first encourage you to read (or re-read) my previous blog post on How Economics Can Solve The Supernatural Problem, because it has key passages that will supplement the below.

I think most atheists agree with me that science studies the natural world using empirical methods, but what they often miss is that a proper definition of ‘supernatural’ means it won’t conform to those same constraints. Their argument assumes that if a natural explanation exists, it must be the correct explanation – but the problem is, the term ‘natural explanation’ is the initial error, especially when they use it to conclude that “the observed base rate of the supernatural is zero”, as Carrier does in one of his articles. If the whole thing is supernatural – that is, created by God – then the category distinction won’t manifest in a way that is scientifically testable, making it impossible to determine a true base rate in the way Carrier is attempting. His base rate is faulty from the start, which undermines a large proportion of his work on this. For many, "supernatural" is typically thought to be something outside of or breaking the normal laws of nature, but it’s more accurate to state that everything within creation is inherently supernatural because it originates from God. There are, of course, embedded narratives within the grand narrative – that we can justifiably refer to as miraculous events – but ‘embedded narratives’ is a better way to discern them rather than making false distinctions between natural or supernatural (as we’ll see in a moment).

Carrier thinks that the idea that "we should have found at least one verified supernatural event by now" assumes that the supernatural, if real, must behave in a way that is detectable and repeatable under controlled conditions. But my response to him was; it’s akin to fish looking for wetness – it’s an embedded narrative in their ocean life. I will expand on this analogy here, because what we need to understand about the supernatural is that it is a qualitative categorisation, not a quantitative one. This realisation also undermines the general atheistic mistake that because science has explained many past mysteries naturally, we should see the world as entirely natural – which is mistaken logic. 

Richard Carrier seems to have arrived at a figure he plucked out of the air – that the probability of supernatural claims is "billions to one against". Erm…you can see from the Blog link above that I’ve had issues with his grasp of probability before, but this is to ignore the necessity of probability assessments requiring a well-defined sample space and clear methodology, neither of which Carrier provides. Carrier is misassigning probabilities without a valid methodology or an established framework for measuring supernatural events. It’s a bit like a fish saying the probability that this ocean is wet is a billion to one because it can only perceive the ocean. It assumes its limited perspective is the whole of reality. In other words, the fish is trapped in a mistaken local perspective that it confuses with absolute reality, because the ocean is both water and wet, depending on how it is being defined.

Similarly, nature is created by God, so it is all supernatural for those who know God is the Creator, whereas those who call it natural are just stating it as a proxy for not knowing it is actually supernatural. If the fish could see the full picture, they’d understand that ocean, water and wet are three ways to describe the same properties of their environment. Similarly, calling everything ‘natural’ doesn’t refute the supernatural - it just assumes, without justification, that what we call ‘natural’ isn’t ultimately part of or defined as a supernatural reality created by God. If natural means not created by God (i.e. God doesn't exist) then a creation created by God must be called supernatural, because it is more than just natural - it is fundamentally contingent on and sustained by the Divine. Under these superior definitions, natural can only mean not Divinely created, so a reality that is wholly dependent on God cannot be natural - it must be supernatural by necessity. It is ‘super’ because it is created by God and ‘natural’ because it is not God, therefore it is supernatural.

So, I must reiterate this essential point that underpins most errors people are making when they talk about natural and supernatural – it’s not the right way to think of creation. As God is the Creator of all that exists, then what we call nature is, in reality, the supernatural at work - it is simply creation operating in a consistent and orderly manner. Calling something natural or supernatural ultimately depends on how one defines the entire structure of created reality. It’s similar to how Jack might call Everest a mountain, while Jill refers to it as a big rock - both descriptions are acknowledging the same thing, just from different perspectives. But if Bob, viewing it from a great distance where it appears no larger than his index finger, calls it a stone, that doesn’t change the fundamental nature of Everest as a mountain. It simply means Bob isn’t perceiving its full scale and gravitas. In the same way, calling creation ‘natural’ doesn’t negate its Divine origin; it just reflects a limited perspective on a much grander reality to which we become accustomed once we have the Holy Spirit.

Those who recognise God as the source of all things understand that nothing is truly natural in the sense of being independent from the Divine creation. If there are only two categories – God and creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) – then everything that isn’t God belongs in the same category (created). The only real category division is between God and His creation, not between natural and supernatural within creation – which becomes clearer once we get to grips with the idea of creation being one grand narrative with embedded subset narratives – which is also where we get to understand the fact that reality is interfaced with through varying lenses of apprehension (with science being only one lens). Those who refer to the world as natural are merely using the term as a placeholder for their lack of awareness or recognition that what they observe is, in fact, the ongoing work of God. If you don’t know God, then everything in creation might look natural, just as if you remain distant from mountains, they may all look like small stones.

 

The Resurrection and Bayesian Reasoning

 

A friend asked me, in terms of Bayesian probability, what are the chances that Jesus actually rose from the dead? My response:

I'll write this in the most accessible way I can. Bayesian probability helps us update our beliefs based on new evidence - so the more supporting evidence we have, the more rational it becomes to believe a claim. We have to apply some caution when using Bayesian probability in relation to God, because Bayesian probability typically requires a prior probability (P(H)) that is determined independently of the specific evidence being evaluated (this is known as a common prior) - and this is tricky without a clear statistical or empirical basis to quantify it (it's not like calculating the probability of rolling a 12 with two dice). But as long as we keep the above caveats in mind, we can have a go. So we are considering four primary things:

P(H | E) = Probability of the hypothesis (resurrection) given the evidence
P(E | H) = Probability of the evidence if the resurrection happened
P(H) = Prior probability of the resurrection (before considering the evidence)
P(E) = Probability of the evidence occurring in general

P is probability, H is hypothesis and E is evidence - and obviously from a naturalistic perspective, if there is no God, the probability that anyone would rise from the dead is near-zero. But Bayesian probability from a scientific perspective changes radically as/if we know there is a God who loves us, and was willing to suffer and die for us, and rise from the dead to give us eternal life. Therefore, this won't be easily measurable in terms of the Bayesian ratio of favourable cases to total possible cases. The P(H) (prior probability of resurrection) is extremely low in naturalistic terms, but high if we believe Jesus is who He says He is; and the P(E | H) (likelihood of the evidence if resurrection happened) is high, because if it happened it would be the most remarkable, earth-shattering, life changing event in world history (and it is).

I'd also add that, if there is a God, we’d expect Him to make Himself known – which is what Christianity claims. It’s the only religion which claims with any justification that God Himself has made Himself known in person (in Christ, and through the Holy Spirit). And we know from 1 Corinthians 15 that the resurrected Christ appeared to over 500 people. It's not easily conceivable that Christianity would have been the biggest and most important alteration of human history if Christ had not died and risen, especially under the conditions and culture of the time, where it was very much not in people's interest to promote Christianity, and in many cases, doing so presented a danger to their own life. In fact, from the impression I get from reading New Testament history over the years, I think I would be bold enough to state it even more stridently - not only did Christianity spread, but in worldly terms it did so among people who had little to gain and so much to lose - domestically, socially, politically, physically, you name it. Unlike other movements that thrived through military conquest or political weight, Christianity grew in the most remarkable way - through self-sacrifice and love, radically defying the patterns of history that went before or since.

Moreover, in terms of the credibility of what Jesus actually said and did, many leaders and cult figures have deceived many willing adherents over the years, but Jesus demonstrated all the opposite traits of typical false leaders. False leaders usually seek power, status, and control in a way that serves themselves. Jesus showed His humility and power by serving others, giving up His life for us. False leaders use lies, manipulation and falsehoods to maintain their power and influence, but Jesus spoke only the truth. False leaders operate through promoting division, separateness and fear, but Jesus preached love, inclusivity and togetherness. Jesus spoke the wisest and truest words ever spoken about God, because He is God. He is unique in history and in personally revealing God's love to humankind, and that is why Christianity changed the world in the way that it did, in a way that's unparalleled in human history. Not only is there nothing like it, there is nothing that can even be spoke of using the same type of language. It's as different from the false religions as the sun is different to a candle.

So, in summary, Christians have confidence that God exists, that He has revealed Himself in history, that He loves us, that He was willing to die for us, and that when all the evidence for His resurrection is considered in light of that (namely, the sheer weight of historical testimony, the transformation of Jesus’ followers, and the unparalleled impact of Christianity), Bayesian reasoning points to the resurrection being a historical event, not a made up one. And, of course, this logic works in reverse too - if it was merely made up, it would be far more improbable, contrived, historically unexplainable and philosophically unsatisfying than if it really happened.

The Damning Irony of Creationist Parody

 

When it comes to the science, evolution-denying creationists are not just unaware of the errors of the bogus concept of “creation-science”, they are unaware of the broader problem of misunderstanding science itself, especially the nature of Bayesian probability, which is a statistical method where accumulated evidence keeps adding to the overall probability of a hypothesis being true. They are so unapprised of how the whole body of science (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc) provides multiplicative validations that they are not aware of just how absurd it is to reject most of mainstream science in favour of their creationist pseudoscience (as you’ll see in a moment, in a preposterous act of intellectually self-sabotaging parody they don’t even know how they are actually rejecting most mainstream science). It’s very easy to apply Bayesian probability to evolution and an old universe regarding how accumulating evidence affects our confidence in the theory. Fossils showing transitional forms, comparative anatomy, nested hierarchies in the phylogenetic tree of life, the coancestry coefficient (genetic relatedness), endogenous retroviruses, vestigial traits and atavisms, embryology, radiometric dating (of the moon rocks as well as the earth), cosmology, light travel and distant galaxies, the cosmic microwave background radiation, the expanding universe and Hubble’s Law, stars in different life stages, nuclear fusion in our sun, spiral galaxies, and so forth. All of these combined demonstrate comprehensively that the universe is billions of years old, and/or that life has been evolving on our planet for several billion years.

Now, not that creation science does proper science, but let’s pretend for a moment that it did. If creationism was true and the universe and earth were only about 6 thousand years old, we would have accumulated a similarly impressive array of evidence like the above. The scientific consensus would show that the Earth’s geological layers are only thousands of years old with no indication of millions or billions of years of sedimentation, radiometric dating would consistently yield ages of thousands of years for rocks, fossils, and meteorites instead of millions or billions, ice cores would show only a few thousand years of accumulation, the fossil record would lack any indication of gradual transitions, with all species appearing suddenly and remaining unchanged, DNA comparisons would not show nested hierarchies or molecular clocks consistent with deep time but would instead suggest all species were created independently, human and dinosaur fossils would probably be found in the same rock layers, light from distant galaxies billions of light-years away would have reached us instantly or the universe would be demonstrably much smaller, the cosmic microwave background radiation would not exist as a remnant of a Big Bang billions of years ago, stars in different life stages would be absent, with all stars appearing to be of the same young age, no supernova remnants older than a few thousand years would be observable, the Earth’s magnetic field would show no signs of past reversals or gradual decay over millions of years, comets and planetary rings would show no evidence of replenishment mechanisms, radioactive isotopes in the Earth’s crust would be consistent with a young age rather than billions of years of decay, genetic diversity in species, including humans, would indicate a severe genetic bottleneck only a few thousand years ago without the expected mutational load of much longer timescales, and nobody alive would laugh at the claim that the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses a barrier to the formation of complex biological systems.

If creationism had got it right about a universe of only a few thousand years old, the majority of the scientific community for the past few hundred years up to the present day would be in full agreement that creationism is correct. Of course, a creationist would just dismiss all that with some ridiculous platitude like “Scientists are just interpreting the evidence through their secular, evolutionary worldview instead of accepting the truth of God's creation.", or “No amount of so-called ‘evidence’ can disprove what the Bible clearly teaches.", or “God's ways are higher than our ways, and scientists are always changing their minds, but the Bible never changes”, completely side-stepping the facts – but I’m sad to say from years of experience that there is little hope of a rational conversation with someone like that.

But for anyone who wouldn’t be so easily manipulated, or who rightly has doubts about the integrity of so-called “creation science”, we might be able to appeal by remembering that creationists do actually know what it’s like to be part of the consensus for mainstream science – they are part of the mainstream in many more ways than they are not. In keeping with the above lists, I assume all (or nearly all) creationists believe that the Earth is spherical, and accept Newton’s laws of motion, the atmosphere protects us from harmful space radiation, water boils at 100°C at sea level, bacteria and viruses cause disease, antibiotics can kill bacterial infections but not viruses, the speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles per second, the laws of thermodynamics govern energy transfer, metals conduct electricity, the heart pumps blood through the circulatory system, photosynthesis allows plants to convert sunlight into energy, earthquakes are caused by the movement of tectonic plates, sound travels faster through solids than through air, combustion requires oxygen, the moon orbits the Earth, objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum regardless of mass, the freezing point of water is 0°C at standard atmospheric pressure, the established principles of aerodynamics, and that friction generates heat when two surfaces rub together. I assume that most of them also accept that Maxwell’s equations accurately describe electromagnetism, quantum theory explains the behaviour of particles at the smallest scales, Einstein’s theory of relativity describes how time and space are interconnected, sound waves require a medium to travel, and that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

So, creationists do mainstream science – they do most mainstream science – they just happen to revert to pseudoscience when it conflicts with their narrow interpretation of the Bible. And if they suggest that the above scientific facts belong in a different category of science to evolution over millions of years, then they are engaging in special pleading - applying one standard of evidence to mainstream science they accept while demanding an entirely different, unreasonable standard for evolution and an old universe. To understand the fabric of the universe properly is to understand that the category distinction is bogus; that there is no separating the scientific facts on the creationist shopping list from all the others – they all nest together in one integrated, consistent, mutually complementary set of laws and facts about the universe that confirm evolution and an old universe, and undermine their own creationist pseudoscience.

For example, they trust Newton’s laws of motion and gravity, which describe not only how objects move on Earth but also how planets, stars, and galaxies formed over billions of years. The same gravity that keeps us grounded explains the orbits of celestial bodies and the gradual formation of planetary systems from collapsing gas clouds - processes that undeniably take way longer than thousands of years. They also accept the laws of thermodynamics, which govern energy transfer and decay, yet reject radiometric dating - even though radioactive decay follows the same thermodynamic principles. The predictable decay of isotopes is used in everything from nuclear power to medical treatments, and those same decay rates allow us to measure the Earth's age at 4.5 billion years, as well as confirm that the Sun has been burning through nuclear fusion for a little bit longer than the earth. Creationists accept Maxwell’s equations, which describe electromagnetism and light, when they utilise electricity, yet they reject one of the strongest confirmations of the Big Bang: the cosmic microwave background radiation. This comprehensively attested residual radiation is electromagnetic in nature, precisely what Maxwell’s equations describe, and it serves as incontrovertible evidence that the universe originated approximately 14 billion years ago. Similarly, creationists acknowledge that the speed of light is a constant 186,000 miles per second, but reject the clear implications of this fact – whereby if light has been traveling at this constant speed, then the existence of galaxies billions of light-years away means their light has been traveling for billions of years, proving an old universe beyond dispute.

In the field of biology, creationists accept that DNA carries genetic information, but deny the molecular clocks that prove common ancestry among species. The same DNA comparisons that confirm paternity in courtrooms or evidence in crime scenes also demonstrate our evolutionary relationship to other primates, with shared genetic markers that could only exist through common descent. They trust the conservation of energy - the principle that energy cannot be created or destroyed - but ignore how this same law governs nuclear fusion in stars, leading to observable stellar lifecycles that unfold over billions of years. We can actually directly observe stars in different life stages, proving that they age and evolve over millions and billions of years, not merely thousands.

And in geology, a subject in which I’m not so well-studied – but I do know that creationists seem to have no issue with the fact that plate tectonics cause earthquakes, yet they reject the undeniable evidence that continents have been drifting for hundreds of millions of years. As any creationist could learn on the fabulous Life On Our Planet series on Netflix, the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean is measurable today at just a few centimetres per year - and basic mathematical calculations confirm that Pangaea, the vast landmass that predates separate continents, existed hundreds of millions of years ago - far beyond the 6,000 year timeline creationists propose. Moreover, I think creationists would acknowledge that radioactive isotopes decay at measurable rates when used in medicine or industrial applications, but they deny those same decay rates when conveniently applied to radiometric dating – which, as it happens, independently confirms an old earth. When they go on their holidays, creationists gleefully accept aerodynamics to explain how planes fly, but fail to apply the same physics to the equivalent laws in space travel and orbital mechanics, which prove the vast distances and timescales of the universe.

From all this, you can see that creationists are participants in mainstream science - they accept most of it and rely on all of it for daily living. Which leads to the inevitably damning question; surely any self-respecting creationist, when faced with the proposition that the only elements of science they happen to reject also happen to be the few that they have been told conflict with a literal interpretation of Genesis, must eventually summon up enough honesty and integrity to admit that they have succumbed to the most absurd selective rejection, and that their unwillingness to reflect on their own Biblical interpretation smacks of gross arrogance, wilful ignorance and the most ridiculous surrender of the mind to indoctrination. In fact, we can go further – the willingness to cling to such a deeply flawed and selectively applied stance, in the face of overwhelming evidence from multiple scientific disciplines (a perverse avoidance of the very principles they otherwise embrace and rely upon in every other area of life, we saw earlier), exposes such a profound intellectual cowardice and satisfaction with foolishness that it ceases to be mere ignorance and becomes an act of pitiful wilful self-deception - a stubborn defiance of reason so extreme that it borders on parody.

A Great TV Show To Cherish

 

Humanity has been blessed with many fine art forms, four of the most commercially influential being visual art, music, literature, and film. At its best, TV drama deserves to be the contemporary equivalent of high art, as it seamlessly weaves together the essence of visual art, music, literature, and film – potentially elevating storytelling to new heights.

I think, at their best, TV dramas (and some sitcoms for that matter) are some of the finest creative achievements in human history, and I think Netflix’s Hannibal could be a contender for being one of the best of them all. I don’t always watch or read things when they first come out, but I’ve just finished all three seasons of Hannibal, and I’ve been utterly gripped and monumentally impressed with how it brilliantly fuses those four great artistic disciplines; the visual grandeur of its cinematography, the emotional depth of its music, the literary brilliance of the dialogue, and the immersive storytelling of film - into a singular evolving narrative that absolutely captivates both intellect and emotion.

It’s a psychological labyrinth of a crime thriller, plated with the most exquisite and unsettling human drama, and underwritten by one of the richest scripts ever brought to the screen Like Kubrick’s best work, it submerges the audience in a world of manipulation, fantasy, morality, and yearning – an unrelenting game of cat and mouse, and a disturbing yet compelling distorted love story built on understanding the darkest corners of the human psyche.

What I also liked about the writing is that I don’t recall a single word of bad language in it. Sure, in places it’s visually dark and sinister, but the writing has an impeccable, unsettling, literary sophistication without resorting to demeaning itself with expletives. I’m not sure it’s the best TV drama ever – I’m reluctant to claim that there is such a thing. But it’s certainly the most satisfying psychologically slow-burning, operatically nightmarish, and erudite literary masterpiece I’ve seen in a long time.