Mad Rant: God Ain't Fuzzy!

An interesting essay on why MM like such people as the Mad Baron.

From The Mad Monarchist (6 January 2012) 

Believe it or not, some people think I tend to go overboard or be some sort of extremist (I know right?). Of course, really, I just go a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. But seriously, this may, in fact, simply be evidence of an established defect in my damaged mind. One of the (many) “ailments” the medical professionals diagnosed me with was, to put it in layman’s terms, a black/white personality disorder. Let me state for the record that, as with many of their findings, I am inclined to contest this (which of course they take as further proof that they‘re right and I‘m mad as a hatter), but this related, they claimed, to my propensity to view everyone and everything in absolute terms. They seemed to think I had trouble with gray areas, odd, as I’ve always been rather fond of the color. However, though I don’t like to talk about this stuff (and it has usually been a way of whistling past the bone orchard when I do) I thought it important to mention today, before I get to my main point, because I have no wish to ruin the reputation of anyone other than myself with my ranting. I speak for no one but myself. As I’ve said before, even most monarchists don’t like me. Remember that what I say is one man’s opinion and should not be your only basis for forming a point of view. Keep that in mind.

It is true that when it comes to monarchists many of my favorites tend to be those considered by the vast majority to be the absolute worst. They are the bogeymen who haunt the nightmares of revolutionaries and who even most monarchists consider shameful and subjects to be condemned for damaging the reputation of the cause rather than defended. This includes a wide array of figures and organizations from my friend the “Mad Baron” in the Far East to the Black Hundreds of Russia, the White Guards of Hungary, the Chetniks of Yugoslavia, Tarleton’s Legion in America or Colonel Dupin and his “Red Devils” in Mexico. All of these groups have, to varying degrees, been deemed “excessive” by most histories. Of course, in some instances their reputations are very much un-deserved, but in any event let me say that I am not so far gone as to admire such groups because of “excess” alone. I also have the greatest admiration for such royalists as the counterrevolutionaries of the Vendée who were saintly and even their worst enemies can usually say nothing more about them than that they view them as being on the wrong side of history or fighting in a noble way for a cause which (according to them) was horrible. However, I can say, that even if the Vendée martyrs had a reputation like some of those named above, I would still admire them just as much.

Again, speaking only for myself, the cause of monarchy cannot be separated from the cause of religion and it seems to me the western, formerly Christian, world particularly has an increasingly warped view of religion. That includes many Christians themselves in my view and not simply the secularist opposition. In fact, when I watch some religiously-themed or spiritual-type horror movies I sometimes think the secularist crowd understands at least some aspects of religion better than most religious people do. It comes down to this; most today view religion, Church, God etc as something all warm and fuzzy. You’re supposed to be inclusive and tolerant, love everyone and everything and if someone does something wrong you better fall all over yourself to assure them that while their actions may present an occasion for possibly doing something incorrect or being “morally disordered” (I love that one) that that doesn’t change the fact that you love the guilty party ootles and ootles! Warm and fuzzy. Cute and cuddly Christians. Well, I am sorry but I cannot go there. God ain’t fuzzy. Jesus is not supposed to just be your “bff” in the clouds, religion is not a fun hobby for those so inclined and Church wasn’t created to encourage social justice and champion democracy.

Religion is not about some idea of a parallel or alternate reality. It is about the ultimate reality and when you’re talking about “God” you are talking about an entity (for lack of a better word) that is more great, more powerful and yes even more terrifying than our puny little half brains could ever comprehend. In older forms of language words like “terrible” and “dreadful” were often used. Religion is about the ultimate conflict between good and evil. The evil part we don’t seem to have too much of a problem comprehending. Our blackest nightmares have concocted some images so frightening that we could imagine they come fairly close. The good, frankly, we cannot comprehend at all. So much suffering pervades the human condition that our concept of goodness is rather limited and even our wildest dreams of paradise fail to measure up. Ask a human to describe Hell and you get Dante’s Inferno with lots and lots of excruciating detail, each horror more spine-tingling than the last. Now, ask a human to describe Heaven and you get something like the Elysian Fields or a cloud and a harp. Notice the difference? God is the greatest good and we cannot fathom what that means. Even today the term itself, “greater good” almost invariably carries negative connotations.

If you think God is fuzzy, read about the Prophet Elijah in the Bible who, on divine orders, killed 500 prophets of the god Baal. Consider that one of the sins of King Saul was that he showed mercy to the Amalekites when God had ordered him to kill everyone and everything. As it was, King Saul spared only the Amalekite king and his best livestock and even that was too lenient for God. There are numerous other examples of God smiting people, devastating nations and showing no mercy, taking no prisoners and all of that stuff that atheists these days love to point out and Christians try to gloss over by uncomfortably saying that the Old Testament stuff doesn’t really count or something of the sort. All of that changed with the New Testament and Jesus -right? Not so fast. The Apocalypse is in the New Testament and the enumerated horrors there that come with the return of Christ makes even the harshest punishments of the Old Testament pale in comparison. The point I am trying to get at is that God is so far above us that we cannot judge those sorts of things. I think of I Corinthians 6:12, “All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any”. Not a good context perhaps, but that is the phrase that leaps to mind. We are not to say that what God does or wills is good or bad, we define “good” as anything God does or wills. It comes from God, God is not subject to any judgment.

We are not to say that everything God does is good but that God is goodness, a goodness beyond our understanding. To quote Isaiah 55:8, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord”. When it comes down to the ultimate good versus the ultimate evil, I have no compunction about saying that the standard rules for dealing with puny little people and our puny little squabbles do not always apply. In the cases of most of those “unsavory” types mentioned above (not all, but most) we are absolutely dealing with good versus evil itself. When you are opposing something like the Bolshevik Revolutionaries, I have no qualms about saying they are not in the same league as fighting someone over simply a difference of political opinion, some tribal spat between nations or even something as limited as national interest. You are not even fighting about religious differences (at least according to them). In other words, you are not fighting someone whose god is not your own but a movement opposed to the very concept of God, people who are adamantly opposed to whatever it is you uphold as the fundamental core of all existence. They don’t care if your God is that of the Apostles, Mohammad, Buddha or if it is Jupiter and pals -they want to destroy that entire concept.

So, to my damaged mind, when you are openly and actively putting yourself on the side of absolute evil itself, the very definition of evil, of anti-religion in any form, anti-God, anti-goodness, anti-the ultimate reality I do not see how you could be entitled to any mercy or anything other than an Old Testament style smiting. After all, the Devil doesn’t use Marquess of Queensberry rules -trust me. It was not for no reason that I placed at the very bottom of this weblog a quote from Baron von Ungern-Sternberg in which he said, “The evil which has fallen upon the land, with the object of destroying the divine principle in the human soul, must be extirpated root and branch. Fury against the heads of the revolution, its devoted followers, must know no boundaries”. Such a struggle cannot be viewed in the same way as one a person or a nation might have over a mere political dispute. As the Baron also said, "They cannot understand as yet that we are not fighting a political party but a sect of murderers of all contemporary spiritual culture”. And of course you will see that quote at the top of every page here. I emphasize them because I heartily agree with them.

That may sound harsh, it may even sound incoherent and incomprehensible but that should be taken for granted with … The Mad Monarchist.