Well now that was a long post. An interesting read. I agree with some of what you wrote there and disagree with other points. Below are a few highlights.
... government and religion are synonymous with collective dependence, psychological control, and thus enabling corruption by those are handed the power by these collectivized paradigms.
Summarizing my prior post upthread, the Bible and the government are both centralized paradigms, where the collective depends on each other. We need decentralized paradigms where the individual is empowered.
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If we do evil, we increase our risk greatly of being destroyed within this life.
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I too fell into this psychological trap of believing Christianity because of my idealism and desire to belief in an order that protects good from evil. But my understanding has become refined and more astute (I believe although I am willing to entertain counter logic that is worthy).
Religion is not synonymous with dependence. In fact I would argue that the opposite is true.
Henning Webb Prentis, Jr., described the importance of religion when he described what would later come to be called the Tytler cycle.
Speech By Henning Webb Prentis, Jr:
"Paradoxically enough, the release of initiative and enterprise made possible by popular self-government ultimately generates disintegrating forces from within. Again and again after freedom has brought opportunity and some degree of plenty, the competent become selfish, luxury-loving and complacent, the incompetent and the unfortunate grow envious and covetous, and all three groups turn aside from the hard road of freedom to worship the Golden Calf of economic security. The historical cycle seems to be:
From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more."
It is no coincidence that the critical ingredient Prentis links with freeing humanity from bondage is spiritual strength. It is that same strength that when cast aside for selfishness, apathy, and hedonism facilitates societies decline into dependency and bondage.
...you will not stop the State from spiraling into the abyss, because the majority is going to demand expropriation. You can't suddenly change the situation of the majority. The majority has no other option and all the (political or even violent) fighting you do can't give them another option.
The economic reality and trajectory was written into stone decades ago. It can't be altered. The economic reality is what it is.
My advice to everyone is pay off all your debt because in a deflationary collapse that is underway (see oil under $50 today!) the government can take your assets and leave you with debt to pay but no assets to pay with. And debtor's prisons are returning. Even though I was reduced to near pauper, I prioritized paying off my credit card debts in 2014 and did pay $20,000 of it off for less than $10,000 by accepting best offers for negotiated settlement. I only have about $2000 of debt remaining (except that my ex took out a $25,000 student loan recently and I don't know if the USA will try to pin that on me).
Also radically reduce the risk to unjust IRS audits and assessments, because these will become more common.
Also radically reduce the risk to lawsuits, because these will become more common as westerners get desperate.
Then the next priority is to align your vocation with the Knowledge Age and so you have income even during global economic collapse and your skills are transportable to any location you might choose to move to as the chaos takes form.
Anonymint's advice was correct but incomplete. When you couple a mechanism of progressive and increasing dependency (socialism) with a fundamentally unsustainable financial system (fractional reserve fiat) the probable result is a system who's declared role is helping the poor but who's insolvency dictates policies geared towards sterilization. Such a result requires a certain degree of cognitive dissonance and a government who believes it is helping you while it works to ensure you do not reproduce.
Toxicity of the Modern World In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley envisioned a future where the masses were rendered infertile and controlled with pleasure and drugs. Is that the world we live in now? Anyone over that age of 25 may not realize how far traditional courtship and dating has been undermined by modernity. The tinder generation is being conditioned to swipe right on their onscreen app and meet up later for random sexual gratification. This phenomena has been described by Vanity Fair as nothing less than
a dating apocalypse.
In Colorado long acting implantable contraceptives which a render women infertile for up to 10 years and require a doctor’s visit to remove have been
implanted in 26% of young women age 15-24 as of 2013.
In 2015 an advisory body to the US Department of Health and Human Services recommended that Medicaid examine
how often doctors are using “most effective” or “moderately effective” contraception. Only contraception deemed “highly effective” or “moderately effective” (Long acting implantable or long acting injections) would be included in the proposed measurement. Doctor’s with a low percentage of young patients using such contraception would presumably be rated as giving lower quality care.
We appear to be living in a “Utopia” of declining fitness and capability. An age of existential exhaustion manifested by an ageing, hedonistic society characterized by declining marriage, and near zero children.
Add to this data the very real possibility of more direct government action. The Catholic church in Kenya has accused the government of secretly injecting young women with an anti-fertility vaccine disguised as a tetanus vaccine. Either the Catholic bishops are lying or the Kenyan government is.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/01/19/kenyan-bishops-call-for-no-more-tetanus-vaccines-until-further-tests/The situation can be looked at abstractly as the sudden and dramatic restoration of extreme selective pressure on mankind. Unlike our ancient history when we were subjected to violence, starvation, and disease the new pressure comes in the form of dependence, hedonism, and sterilization. As a species we have never been subjected to this kind of pressure before and are likely to be highly susceptible. Halting the reimposition of selective pressure is economically impossible and perhaps even inadvisable for it is the restoration of selective pressure that will ultimately prevent
'mouse utopia'. Astute individuals can avoid 'government help' by actively working to avoid dependency a task that will become increasingly difficult with time. Intellectual adaptability alone is not enough. It is also necessary to resist the decadence, hedonism, and social decay peddled by modernity. In
Atheism and Health I argued that faith provides the best chance of success but other strategies may also be viable. Socialism will burn itself out gradually over time. Until it does the best course of action is avoidance of the inferno. It is the ashes of socialism that will pave the way for the knowledge age outlined in
The Rise of Knowledge. When dealing with the proponents of socialism the proper emotion is not anger but pity.
