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“The Narcissist actually HATES HIMSELF - and it is from this self-loathing that his hate for others derives.”

Spirited: Yes he hates himself, more precisely, something about himself which he perceives as deficient. This comes about because he (i.e., Cain) has compared ‘self’ to ‘other’ (i.e.,Abel)who appears to have been more greatly blessed (by God) than “self.”

To understand Cain’s hatred of self think of an ungrateful, selfish child who ‘hates’ and disrespects the gift he has been given because he believes he has a right to something better which has unfairly been given to Abel instead.

Though it seems paradoxical it is nevertheless true that underlying hatred of self is preference for one’s self to God and all others (narcissism). This reveals that ‘self,’ the self-deserving, autonomous, imperial “I” deserves something more and this is the seed of envy.

If ‘self’ is primary then ‘self’ deserves everything it can get. The Bible however, does not argue from a human-self point of view but from a thoroughly theocentric worldview in which mankind deserves nothing.

‘second reality’ ping

“.....what I’ve seen in local churches that I’ve been attending is actually a move towards getting BACK to solid Scriptural teachings.”

Spirited: And thank the Lord that my family attends one of them!

Prayers up!

VIMHO, I’d say that Satan’s “tools” of “’congregation [”body count”] growth’ expectations” and “meeting (ever-expanding) budgets” lie at the root of this creeping perversity.

Spirited: St. Augustine rightly pointed to pride as the beginning of all vice. It’s pride (ambition, making a name for oneself, etc.) that underlies and inflames all of the stated “tools.”

“I fear much of the blame for that “watering down of the Gospel” can be laid right at the feet of our ?deservedly? failing seminaries... “

Spirited: Certainly blame rests there. But something else is at work-—the spirit of our age speaking persuasively in terms of the church’s need to accommodate to our thoroughly degraded culture and why compromise is a ‘good’ thing.

Excerpts from “The Fellowship of Trendy Catholics and Contemporary ‘New’ Evangelicals”

In a Biblical reply to those who prefer a trendy, compliant church, Msgr. Charles Pope notes that during the recent Papal Conclave the media had a field day interviewing various degrees and types of disaffected Catholics,

“... who all presented their wish list (or list of demands) of how the Church should change to be tenable and relevant to modernity and regain their “loyalty.” Most of the demands of course had to do with sex and power: that the Church should approve contraception and promote it, homosexual activity and same sex unions should get the thumbs up, divorce and remarriage should be approved, women and active gays ordained, priest should be able (sic) to get married, abortion approved, euthanasia applauded, etc.” (Is the Church a Thermometer or a Thermostat? A Biblical reply to those who prefer a trendy and compliant Church, Msgr. Pope, Apr. 11, 2013, Archdiocese of Washington)

Though Msgr. Pope’s reply is primarily aimed at disaffected Catholics, it speaks as well to ‘new’ evangelicals, the youth-idolizing seeker-sensitive contemporary and emergent evangelicals who are traveling the same broad, smooth highway to destruction taken previously by liberal mainline Protestants.

Both disaffected Catholic and contemporary ‘new’ evangelicals are united by the demand that the Church update her teachings,

“….be more modern in her thinking, teachings and structures.” She needs to “Listen more to young people and speak their language and share their vision.” Put more in a hostile way, the Church, “needs to abandon her medieval ways, cease being hostile, judgmental, intolerant, bigoted, sexist, homophobic, hateful etc” (and the usual list of modern accusations that reflect more the accuser’s personal issues than the Church). (ibid)

If the Church does all this, said Msgr. Pope, then our parishes will be filled again and all will be right with the world:

“Never mind that the Liberal (mainline) Protestants have tried all this for decades, approving whatever the people and the polls demanded, and with that approach their numbers have plummeted, far lower that any Catholic Parish. Never mind too that the only Protestant denominations that are growing at all are the more biblically conservative Evangelical Protestants who reject a good bit of the list of demands above.” (ibid)

As Msgr. Pope points out, only the more biblically conservative evangelical churches that reject the contemporary influence are growing at all. As for the rest, their fall into irrelevance and death is happening with breathtaking speed, said Michael Spencer:

“Collapse....will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and that will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. I believe this evangelical collapse will happen with astonishing statistical speed; that within two generations of where we are now evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its current occupants, leaving in its wake nothing that can revitalize evangelicals to their former “glory.”

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In “Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture,” Herbert Schlossberg exposes the timeless seductive promise underlying the mindset of accommodation:

“....the antinomian idea that Christian love can be used to nullify the requirements of the law and so free autonomous man to determine good and evil for himself (which) repeats the serpent’s blandishments.” (p. 48)

read more: http://patriotsandliberty.com/

Prayers up!

That’s why they despise and ridicule anyone with standards

Spirited: True. But look at the evil thing lurking just beneath the surface of their criticism: scapegoating. Unable to bear the burden of their own sin they transfer it to the innocent man, most generally the one who holds to standards. Upon casting the innocent as the guilty party the scapegoater feels free to crucify him.

“The human mind is very plastic, malleable, flexible and adaptable”

Spirited: One who chooses to psychologically manipulate, control and dominate another person shapes desired reactions either by massaging pride and then stoking the fires of jealousy, covetousness, resentment, envy and hate or by inducing a false sense of guilt.

During the 60’s, leftist “Cynthias” were accusing our soldiers of being baby killers and calling our police ‘filthy pigs.’ Now we’re to see it as “common sense” that Americans should be disarmed and weapons collectivized in the hands of cops?!?

Cynthia and her leftist cohort are very seriously unbalanced. Rather than a public ‘dialogue’ about conservatives and guns it ought to revolve around the questions such as: What is wrong with leftists? Why is it that every time they open their mouths they advertise their moral imbecility?

Yet they go on touching the hot plate.

Spirited: Yes, and taking all whose minds have been captured by their vain babbling with them....into the void.
Indeed, some of the lost describe themselves as biological machines. How utterly tragic!

Atomism, or scientific materialism as it’s known today, has not changed much since the time of Greek and Buddhist Atomists. Having scrubbed the cosmos clean of every trace of God and ‘self’ (soul/spirit) it was not until our own age that the fools discovered they could no longer account for life either. This is why Francis Crick and some other materialists have moved away from abiogenesis toward the idea of panspermia.

Materialism is metaphysical nihilism, meaning that without God, soul/spirit and an ultimate source for life, all that is left for Hawkings, et al, is the unreality of existence.

I’m going to “steal” that sometime.

Spirited: Please do! I say that because deep within the psyche of the envious is shame and fear of exposure. Exposure is what’s needed for the same reason that dark things shun light. Exposure brings shame. Shame at the very least, leads to fear of repeat offense for fear of exposure.

Envy is a spiritual pathology that can and will lead to murder, as it did with Cain who envied Able. The cycle begins with transference of guilt from the envious to the object of envy followed by psychological bullying (crucifixion of spirit) and taking of things (destruction of spiritual virtues, theft of good name, temporal goods) then comes physical crucifixion.

Only our Lord the Physician of souls can heal the envy-bitten soul. But until and unless the spiritually sick soul seeks healing we must resort to strategic deterrence methods, i.e., exposure.

“Their claim is that there are people who are not able to better themselves so the rest of us must restrict ourselves to their standards.”

Spirited. Yes, but look what hides behind their pseudo-concern: green-eyed envy. Envy is comprised of pride (self-love), jealousy, covetousness and hate, and is the great leveler of socialism, redistribution schemes, progressive taxation, hate crime and speech codes and much more.

Who is so naive to think these people are Christians...come on get your discernment working. Phonies!!

Spirited: Exactly! Dig into the so-called “Christianity” of “Leftism” and you’ll discover that their god is the cosmic energy of evolution, their Christ a great teacher like Buddha, their heaven a socially, environmentally, economically just, gender-neutral worldly paradise (socialism).

By any name their ‘Christianity’ is neo-Gnostic mystical pantheism.

Nietzsche predicted that sometime during the 20th century the death of God would result in a world turned upside-down. And so it is. Today self-righteous finger-pointing is the ‘new’ moral law, truth is lie, the unnatural is natural, death is life and apostasy and heresy are Christian.

betty: The loss of this “ineffable” reduces man to the status of an animal, or worse, to the status of a machine.

Spirited: Dying seminaries and dying churches point to the loss of faith in the living God and Christian Truth which had sustained our souls and culture.

Death of faith means no heaven above and no hell below. And this is nihilism.

Nihilism is the logical assumption if the God of Revelation does not exist. If there is no heaven above and no hell below, then neither does man’s soul/spirit exist.

Nihilism is spiritual, moral, and intellectual suicide, it is the absolute abyss.

For over two hundred years, nihilist philosophies have been working their way through our culture, embedding themselves, often unconsciously, within our psyches. This means that not only is the way we see ourselves and America colored by nihilism, but to the degree that our minds have been polluted are we immobilized by apathy, the spiritual emptiness that says in reaction to our peculiarly twisted, degraded culture, “Why bother?’

The strangely twisted atmosphere of our age is the “death of God” made tangible and it is Nietzsche who describes our meaningless, disordered, ugly, atonal, brutal, upside-down climate of nothingness:

“We have killed him (God), you and I! ...But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? ...Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray...through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? ...Does not night come on continually, darker and darker?” (Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age, Eugene Rose, p. 108)

Such is the theater of the absurd in which there is neither up nor down, male nor female, right nor wrong, true nor false, normal nor abnormal because the living God is dead, and while America and the West drift aimlessly in “infinite nothingness” nihilism progressively dissolves the foundation of soul, mind, worth, morality, family, and individual liberty.

America and the West are swirling ever downward in a spiraling vortex issuing into the abyss.....hell.

Do you worship the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Spirited: Pride (inflated perception of self) is the ‘perfect’ anti-God, anti-Truth, anti-higher authority condition. Pride however does not inflate in isolation from hatred of truth, covetousness, resentment and lust for power and domination over others, hence its’ resort to violence.

Violence is not merely the physical but rather always begins within the nonphysical, the mind and will. Thus resentment of ‘other’ (i.e., God and all who worship Him) necessitates the use of psychological violence which takes the form of lies, Big Lies, propaganda of the lie, coercion, terror, slander, ‘politics of personal destruction,’ and destructive ridicule and criticism aimed at deconstructing and/or unmaking the spiritual virtues of ‘other.’

With respect to the God of Revelation, the resentful individuals’ violent, evil intent can be heard in its’ voice, which dripping with contempt, ridicule and derogation speaks in scorn-filled terms such as the ‘Great Flying Spaghetti Monster.’

Your sister will be a glorious addition to heaven. Just think of the unimaginably beautiful things she’ll do there with celestial colors!

Prayers for all of you!

Imagine the imposition of Catholic doctrine in Catholic schools!

Spirited: Even worse: requiring that the creature submit to the Moral Laws of his Creator.

Dear Mr. Valastro,

It is a fact that the man whose hands are habitually begrimed with garden soil actually possesses the real-world knowledge required to grow vegetables and not the guy in the pin-stripe suit whose manicured hands push a pencil in an office.

With respect to the issue under discussion, you are the pencil pusher in the pin-stripe suit, hence your woefully ignorant, pompous remarks.

As a teacher it is your responsibility to be factually informed, but you obviously are not. You can however, become truly informed about Islam by taking yourself and your family-—including your girls-— to Egypt or even a more moderate country such as Turkey and live for one year off of the local economy in a local village.

One year of real-world experience in a Muslim village will not only deflate your ‘pomposity’ but will teach you the real meaning of words like hate and intolerance.

To all who know that God transcends His creation, is all-powerful, and neither co-equal with or limited by matter, Gen. ex nihilo is abundantly clear. But for all who worship matter it is apriori not clear.

You have made it very clear that you worship matter and a limited god-man who supposedly emerged out of matter over time much like the Egyptian Sun-God Ra. The god you call holy, and who perhaps you hope to become like, is merely an idol you speak for, so of course your idol speaks against creation ex nihlo but wholeheartedly approves of pre-existent matter.

“throughout this discussion I’ve referenced only God’s Holy Word...”

Spirited: A limited deity that emerged over time out of self-generated or so-called pre-existent matter is not holy. And no matter how often one communes with it, it cannot respond because it cannot think, speak, or move since it is a nature deity.

From the Babylonians, Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Upanishad Hindus, Luciferian Theosophists, high degree Masons, dialectical materialists, Joseph Smith/LDs, and occult spiritist New Age, the worship of matter is a constant. All of these nature systems have exchanged the truth about God for the Lie of matter worship (Romans)

1010RD does not understand Paul’s meaning in Romans. If he did he would see that Paul is describing not just the Epicureans, Stoics, etc. but LDs as well.

If you really seek the living, supernatural Holy Word then you must repent of matter worship and seek Him in communion with true Christians. Doubtless ejonsie would gladly help you in this.

Let’s see, first you self-righteously reject the words of men (Church Fathers) and then you hypocritically apply your favored interpretation, pre-existent matter, an ancient concept secretly revealed by disembodied, malign intelligences to MEN, not God.

It is not that Our Lord did not create ex nihilo but rather that proud, willful men who prefer pagan concepts, i.e., of a limited deity and pre-existent matter, reject Truth in preference of the Lie.

” Does the Bible say what you think it says? No.”

Spirited: As pointed out previously, what you “personally” believe with regard to creation, God, and the Bible depends upon your worldview presuppositions, which you refuse to define.

But though your cowardice keeps you from making known your worldview, your unrelenting attacks upon creation ex nihilo reveal that you embrace the only other option: materialism.

By embracing materialism you affirm naturalism (neo-paganism) as the foundation of your belief system. As a modern pagan you have nothing either truthful or useful to say about God’s Revelation.

“Let’s stick to the Bible. I don’t accept the beliefs of men ...”

Spirited: Before this discussion continues, you need to come out of hiding from behind your ‘covers’ and very clearly identify your worldview propositions, for example, do you argue from an LDs belief system, or perhaps an evolutionary theist, pantheist New Age, dialectical materialist or Luciferian Theosophist position?

Every one of these stances hold to some type of thinking regarding a deity or lack thereof and the Bible, hence your lead statement, “Let’s stick to the Bible,” has meaning according to each position.

Your comprehension skills are very sorely lacking. “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” means that “before” God created,

“God was all that there was - there was no empty space or a dark void or non-existence, and he himself is both “pure and eternal existence and the source of all other existence, which is derived from and dependent on his existence.” (”Is Creatio Ex Nihilo A Post-Biblical Invention? An Examination Of Gerhard May’s Proposal,” Paul Copan, Trinity Journal 17.1; Spring 1996)

With Irenaeus, the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo was well established. He also argued that the world (matter) was not coeternal with God:

“But the things established are distinct from Him who has established them, and what [things] have been made from Him who has made them. For He is Himself uncreated, both without beginning and end, and lacking nothing. He is Himself sufficient for this very thing, existence; but the things which have been made by Him have received a beginning... He indeed who made all things can alone, together with His Word, properly be termed God and Lord; but the things which have been made cannot have this term applied to them, neither should they justly assume that appellation which belongs to the Creator.”

The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 formally declared:

“We firmly believe and simply confess that there is only one true God ... the Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal; who from the very beginning of time by His omnipotent power created out of nothing [de nihilo condidit] both the spiritual beings and the corporeal.” (ibid, Copan)

The Westminister Confession of Faith (1646) asserts that,

“It pleased God ... in the beginning, to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein” (IV.I; ibid)

Whether you are sincere or not, in your presumptuous ignorance you are blindly leading however many souls you have influence over, right into the pit.

If she gets that wrong why trust what else she says?

Spirited: If she got that wrong, hence cannot be trusted, then the early Church Fathers got it wrong, as did Moses who received it as revelation from God, thus none of them-—including God-—can be trusted. Since you presume to know why ex nihilo is wrong then perhaps you will tell us why you believe it is wrong and what you believe is right?

“they are fulfilling the goals of the communsit manifesto...”

Spirited: It was Bakunin who said ‘we’ll unleash the devil in them,’ Marx who championed the devil, the Frankfurt School that systematized “unleashing the devil” and American progressives who set the “unleashing” program in motion.

Yes, progressives and their camp-followers are fulfilling the goals of Luciferians, but at best only a handful really know what they are doing. The rest of them are useful idiots.

You sure blather a lot in trying to bash the ONLY true Christian religion now on planet Earth!”

Spirited: According to the simple-minded, the ignorant, the unstable and desolate, such “blathering” is the work of hateful, backward, anti-scientific, narrow-minded bigots. By this reckoning, you are the greater “blatherer” (in this thread) than I :-)

That LDs and/or Mormonism is in fact a very cleverly disguised nature religion outwardly dressed in Biblical language is definitively revealed in its’ embrace of pre-existent matter together with its’ rejection of creation ex nihilo.

In Romans Paul distinguishes nature systems from supernatural Christian theism when he points out that there are only two ultimate sources for all religious and philosophical beliefs around the world and over time. Paul differentiates these two when he says that men will either worship and serve creation (which includes the cosmos and the planet on which the LDs deity supposedly exists) or they will worship and serve the supernatural God of creation.

LDs then is a nature religion while Marx’s dialectical materialism is a nature system. Communism is heaven brought to earth, making it a nature ideology. Darwinism is grounded on philosophical materialism, hence it too is a nature system.

Shouldn’t people be steered away from false religions, if possible?

Spirited: You’ve gone to the heart of the matter. As there really is life after death of the body, then what we believe about eternity is of utmost importance.

As Mormonism has been shown to have no answer to the origin of life, it follows that it cannot account for the existence of its’ man-god. So at its most fundamental level, Mormonism is a lie. And as with all nature systems down through history, it’s through the dumb-lips of this non-existing man-god (invented idol)that the Mormon hierarchy speaks, commanding believers to submit to an onerous system of pseudo-morality and good works in hope of achieving godhood upon death of their bodies.

Mormonism cannot account for either life or soul/spirit, so it logically follows that it really cannot account for its’ promise of godhood after death. Therefore we ought to earnestly expose this false religion and steer souls away from it.

Wow, going straight for the personal attack right out of the gate

Spirited: You are confusing angry emotional outbursts (personal attacks, name-calling)with an unemotional observation. To look upon a pile of blocks and then describe what one sees as blocks is not a personal attack but an observation.

“That is a rather odd conclusion to come to, especially since she already discussed something rather different here:

Mormon scripture states that he is merely a physical, exalted man.”

Spirited: Yes, Mormonism speaks of an already existing man-god, but because Mormonism cannot account for the origin of life it omits any account of how and where this man-god came to be and depends on its adherents to simply accept on the face of it that he exists.

However, analysis reveals that the answer to the man-god’s existence is found within the ancient concept of eternally existing matter.

Even though Mormonism dresses itself up in Biblical language, analysis of its’ metaphysical foundations reveals that it is a variation of nature religion.

Here’s a radical idea: Pick a church YOU like, and go there. Let your neighbors pick churches THEY like, and let them go there.

I think that concept is embedded in some old document this country used to pay attention to.

Spirited: Yes of course people are free to choose to worship a man as god, Gaia, the devil, mystical matter and genes or nothing at all. However, ideas really do have consequences and the founding generation understood this harsh reality. Thus while people were free to worship ‘whatever,’ they were not allowed to hold office in our Christian-based society for the reason that they would interpret our Constitution, Rule of Law, and personal liberties through whatever worldview lens they wore.

But like the ancient Greeks and their pantheon of deities, we have in effect set up one of our own, and in our madness allowed occult pantheist Gaia-worshippers and witches, authoritarian Muslims, worshippers of man-gods, the libidinously decadent and so forth to hold office and interpret law, etc. through their worldview lens.

Your idea only has merit within the larger context of this nation’s founding worldview.

Spirited: In light of the penetrating analysis provided in the essay, only a very small,very cramped, very hostile mind would react thusly: “Gee, yet another Mormonism-bashing thread.”

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Having gotten away with declaring the death of the living God, Big Brother is now in charge of creating and uncreating man, thus if he decides that incest, rape, sodomy, and pedophilia are neo-genders then that is exactly what they are, and as he informs the collective conscience of the omniscient god-State, then his rulings (politically correct pseudo-morality)become state-policy.

“They deny the very thing that brought them into existence.”

Spirited: Yes, and because they do they have reduced themselves to dead bodies that somehow speak and walk.

Ideas really do have consequences.

Sherman: “I assume you will agree that “facts, principles, theories, suppositions, presuppositions” are all matters of opinion? That there is no way to “prove” that any of them are true or untrue. By which I mean proof with the certainty of a mathematical axiom.”

Spirited: If as you say, all theories are matters of opinion with “no way to ‘prove’ that any of them are true or untrue” with the “certainty of a mathematical axiom” then Darwinism, materialism, empiricism, and naturalism are nothing more than someone’s opinion, an opinion that originates in the unseen realm of the mind rather than in the senses.

Like your dreams, aspirations, and misplaced belief that physicalism is our only source of knowledge, opinions originate in the spirital dimension (mind) and cannot be sensed.

Empiricism, Darwinism, physicalism and naturalism are absurdities. All are devoid of life, consciousness and soul, hence all are self-refuting theories. They self-anihilate because all are forms of nihilism.

“We cannot demonstrate the existence of God or his nature to the same level of factual certainty.”

Spirited: Neither can you demonstrate your dreams, memory, and thoughts, yet you accept their existence.

Furthermore, facts, principles, theories, suppositions, presuppositions, etc. are of the unseen realm, they occur within mind which is spirit. They are not things we can see, touch, smell, weigh, measure, etc.

How very bizarre that on one hand, empiricists deny things of the unseen realm while on the other they are forced to utilize mind to make their utterly absurd claims.

Science is merely the art of observation, of weights, measurements and hypothesis. It is in fact the lowest order of knowledge, metaphysics being of the highest.

Natural science can tell us nothing about anything it cannot see, touch, hear, etc. Nor can it tell us anything about events that occured before life, consciousness and time even existed. If it presumes to say something about these events it has encroached into metaphysics.

HP: What IF....... Obama is proper and just PUNISHMENT for the United States..

Spirited: Not just Obama but the entire narcissistic, mentally-disordered, amoral “liberal” Leviathan drowning our society in lawlessness, drugs, decadence, pathological lying and so on.

The major difference between our situation and that of the Jews attacked and overcome by Assyrians from without is that the Assyrians of today are homegrown.

Our ‘education’ establishment together with our media have been churning them out for years. Once they’ve attained critical mass it’s all over.

“a nation as great as the United States once was cannot be overcome from without until it has been destroyed from within....”

Spirited: America’s founding generation warned that only a self-controlled, morally-informed, well-informed, selfless people whose wills are in submission to higher truth, fixed meaning, purpose and personal accountability are capable of being a truly free people.

But by and large this description no longer applies to increasing numbers of Americans for whom ‘self,’ willful ignorance and gratification of appetites, desires, whims, caprices, dreams, etc. takes precedence. As long as their ‘bellies’ are filled and their “itches” scratched they don’t care what happens.

And though many of these people (including Obama, Clinton, et al) may speak of God or Christ their gods are of their own invention for whom they speak.

For such people the living God is dead. And in a world without God, fixed meaning, higher purpose and accountability, why not lie, cheat, wed ‘gay’ couples, plunder and kill? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2976705/posts

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“I think some folks are afraid of being thought of as backward hillbillies if they don’t give the nod to evolution.....it’s easier to give in and go along.”

Spirited: Agreed. I find myself continually amazed and at the same time dismayed by how easily many theologians so easily accept evolution. Evolutionary thinking has captured and continues to capture theologians beginning with Protestant Liberals and then on to Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Evangelical.

It seems they fear man more than our Lord.

“What I mean is that while there is still a relative balance between those who ascribe to God and those who deny or live as they want the society will continue to be as we see today - relatively safe in areas split but in areas already past the tipping point, dangerous for everyone.”

Spirited: Creeping moral decay serves the same purpose as heresy, that is, a thresher separating the chaff from the wheat until finally, the tipping point is reached when the unrighteous far outnumber the righteous.

At that time it will be as you said, the Godless will consume each other and the society they’ve created.