Yesterday, someone asked: "Tell me what a "black pill" is...
Red Pill, Blue Pill, Black Pill, White Pill
(H/T to Dr. Zeus)
A black pill builds on the metaphor of the red pill and the blue pill in the film, The Matrix.
The red pill is the one that Neo must take in order to wake up from the Matrix. It carries a tracer program that finds him in the matrix hardware and disrupts his input/output connection. On the other hand, while never fully explained, the blue pill appears to have carried something that will allow Neo to forget what he knows, and to live life oblivious to the falseness of the Matrix.
Metaphorically, the Red Pill represents information that reveals some truth about the facade of lies that the Cabal and Deep State has built in order to keep us, the population, asleep and in trance. The Matrix itself is a metaphor for that Façade of Lies.
The Blue Pill metaphorically represents the fake propaganda information that the Deep State / Cabal disseminates via its propaganda machine, fake information that perpetuates the lies that people must believe in order to ‘not see’ the truth.
In this context, a "Black Pill" is thus a metaphor for information that triggers disbelief, doubt, despair, depressing feelings, discouragement, "dooming" etc. The information inspires the opposite of hope.
If you take a "black pill", it means you are accepting in to your mental framework information that causes loss of hope, loss of vision and loss of positive expectation.
But that "Black Pill" only has power when it is ingested. In other words, it is the attitude and heart with which you engage that information that activates its negative power. For others, the very same information may actually form a "white pill", one that inspires hope and encourages.
There are many "white pills" out there, as there are "black pills", "red pills" and "blue pills". Which pills you take, and which ones you digest and make use of, this is affected in a very big way by your intent and your character.
What Activates the Nature of the Pill (Information)?
What the metaphor of the "pill" shows us is that there is an element of intention that is necessary to activate the power of the information.
Information (pill) + Intent (attitude) = Effect
This is why some people can see X information and ignore it. It has no effect on them, because the intent to see the truth, the desire to find the truth is not there. If the person 'desires' comfort, staying asleep, then they will ignore the information, even if their unconscious mind realizes that they are lying to themselves. Some people will willingly choose a lie if it appears that it will make their lives comfortable.
With others, however, the intent, the desire to see the truth, even if it is painful, is present, and this activates the information and creates the "Red Pill" effect.
So while information is a thing in itself, it is only when it is coupled with the human element – intent or purpose - that it delivers it's effect. So how is the intent that triggers the power of the information activated? How is the effect of Truth triggered?
There is a part in every human being that desires truth, that resonates with truth. Let us call this the Original Human Element, the part of each person that comes from God and is rooted in God's own nature.
Historically, that part of us has been suppressed, oppressed and attacked by another part within us, a part that does not come from God but which derives its origins in the being or cause that Christian belief refers to as "Satan". This part of us is not original; it is foreign. It grows through sinful action, action that contradicts God's nature and which resonates and binds with Satan's nature. It engages with lies and half-truths and is activated by them.
Just as lies have a way of activating the false, foreign satanic element, the Truth has a way of activating this Original Human Element (the original human heart). Thus, the Deep State / Cabal tries to prevent the truth from being spoken about, talked about, shared, because it inherently has the effect of eliciting our original human impulse and inspires us to seek even greater truth.
The War Between Truth and Lies
The war between the Original Human Heart and the corrupted Satanic heart is a historical war, and Truth vs Lies is the nature of the battles.
God works in two ways: from within to trigger and elicit that desire for truth within us, and outside of “me”, to have more and more truth revealed externally. This forms a two-pronged attack: God working within our heart and mind, and Truth working outside our heart and mind, in the form of information and understanding.
By contrast, Evil seeks to set up shop and maintain its stronghold inside, us. Lies are what evil seeks to perpetuate inside, assisted by lies, half-truths, and other 'black pills' outside our heart and mind. So, when we say the information war is a spiritual war, this is what it means. That war is being waged within each and every human being. It is a war between Goodness & Truth on one hand, and Evil & Lies on the other.
The Two-Pronged dimension of the War for Truth
Evil has had the upper hand since the start of our history. That’s what all scriptures (not just the Biblical scripture) teach in some form or other. From this angle, the history of religion, for example, is one record of God's work to increasingly reveal the truth about the spiritual dimension and inner reality, albeit with evil seeking to undermine and corrupt that action. Philosophy and Science is another record, of the truth about the external world (material world) being increasingly revealed, and evil also attacks on this front, as seen to unprecedented levels during the Covid Scandemic.
But step by step, over time, God has increasingly revealed truth in all its forms, and today, the historical "upper hand" that Evil has had is about to collapse. Once people start to wake up to how evil has been running the world, this inherently helps create an environment that is conducive to a greater desire for, and corresponding revealing of, inner and outer truth.
Two Aspects of the Great Awakening
In this sense, the Great Awakening has two complementary aspects. One is the waking up to the mechanisms and systems that evil has been using to rule the world and maintain its control over humanity. The other is an internal waking up, to the inner mechanisms and thought systems within our own hearts that limit us, keep us in a comfort zone, and which limit our capacity to love and be loved.
In other words, from this angle, we could say that there is the external Great Awakening and the internal Great Awakening. One is a waking up to the reality of the world around "me", outside of "me", and the other is a waking up to the reality within "me".
These two aspects are complimentary. They can and should reinforce each other. They naturally do. As any anon knows, it takes internal fortitude and courage to digest certain 'red pills' along the path. Meanwhile, facing ourselves and deeply buried traits, faults, limitations of heart is at least equally as difficult, and often more so. It's often easier to see the evil outside us than it is to see the evil hiding away inside us, in the form of certain lies, untruths about ourselves or others that we hold on to, including the limitations of our hearts and the capacity to love and be loved.
And just a note on that point for fellow believers: Those who have faith are at a distinct advantage in the Great Awakening, but I would encourage all believers to contemplate the idea that Jesus is the START of waking up, not the END. Doctrine, personal or religious, is not the same as the Truth. One might even say that the Bible itself is not The Truth. The Truth is Jesus himself. Jesus is Truth Incarnate.
The Bible is true in the sense that it points us towards, and testifies to, Jesus. Truth then, is not mere knowledge. Ultimately, it is ONLY when we build and develop our capacity for relationship that Truth takes hold. And, ultimately, the basis for all enduring relationship centers on love. Aka our capacity to love unselfishly (including respecting others, having compassion, being just, etc) and receive love, too. That is where Truth truly takes hold within us.
Where Are We Headed?
Seen from this perspective, the overall objective of the Great Awakening is not merely or simply the realization of the Truth. It is a rebuilding and pioneering of the capacity for relationship (love) in the spirit of true freedom.
External freedom will liberate the capacity for us to engage with each other in a world and society not controlled or dominated by the lies of the Cabal. That external engagement may take many different forms: political, economic, social, cultural, academic, etc., and it will be governed by freedom: aka self-governance.
Internal freedom will liberate our capacity to love each other, unselfishly and with pure hearts, as individuals, families, communities, societies and nations.
If you think about the Great Awakening from this angle, I'd say that this constitutes a pretty big WHITE PILL.
:)
Disclaimer: the ideas shared in this post are not intended to be doctrinal. They are simply one perspective, my own perspective, on the topics being discussed. I encourage frens to take the post in that spirit. If you find disagreement, then let that be, and share your own view. In my view, we find the Truth together, not in isolation.
Gen 3:17 "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree..."
For Adam, it wasn't a choice between believing God or the Devil. The poor guy was 3rd party to this.
And this is the immediate failure of God's creation, which He knew would happen in let's say week or two previous of Adam being created, establishing the curse of original sin from there out.
Seems broken.
Would you have eaten the fruit?
You're right in that the choice for Adam wasn't directly God or the devil. Eve, having fallen with the devil then become the devil's proxy to Adam. But the choice for Adam was still: believe in what God told me, or not believe in what God told me.
Adam had that responsibility. If scripture is accurate (if it's message and meaning are truthful), then it was Adam to whom the commandment was given. Why? Adam was to be the central figure to the world as God was to Adam. Adam was responsible to convey the truth to Eve. So even though Eve was the first one to fall, and the conduit by which the devil then tempted Adam, Adam bears the ultimate responsibility. And this is exactly why the Messiah must come as a man. To restore Adam (the man)'s failure.
When Adam and Eve fell, they inherited Lucifer's fallen nature. One aspect of that nature is NOT taking responsibility. So when God asked Adam, Adam basically said "not my fault; it was the woman that YOU made who tempted me". Even did the same: "Not my fault, it was the devil who tempted me". While factually true, they both failed to take responsibility for THEIR choice.
OK. That's a BIG presumption, and one that it would seem informs a lot of your downstream conclusions. Would you agree with that?
Well, yeah, when you frame it like that with that presumption in place....
I have a very different perspective, but it hinges around the purpose behind the creation, and how that purpose was to be accomplished.
Actually, I would say that one of the key missing keystones in Christian belief / theology until now is the inadequacy in defining the purpose of Creation. Defining the purpose of creation requires a clearer definition of who God and and what God's nature is than theology has been able to provide, historically speaking.
And this is the thing. Starting from "God created the world", one can layer in hundreds and thousands of subsequent postulations to arrive at almost any conclusion that is dictated by the selection tree of postulations. And if you consider that we've been working with (clearly) limited information, it's not difficult to conclude that the wide variety of conclusions reached are going to be limited in accuracy or perspicacity.
In other words, unless one's starting premise is clearly accurate, all derivatives from that starting point are going to miss the mark to some extent. They may reflect truth in some aspects, but will also contain problematic limitations.
Sorry if the above is a rather lengthy, but I think in unraveling the issues at hand, there is really no getting away from these issues.
I don't know if you have any real interest in such things or not, but I've been engaged with such things for a loooong time now, and I always like to encourage people to reflect on the conclusions they have drawn in these areas, perhaps because more often than not, I myself have arrived at very different conclusions.
But in case you are interested....
If I skip the requisite foundational points, and state in brief some of the core development points (omitting the articulation of certain necessary logical foundations for the sake of brevity), I'd say this:
Real Love is something that can only exist in an atmosphere of freedom. It cannot be forced or coerced. Also, the experience of Love only arises when there is an object that is loved, someone or something that reflects the very nature of the one who loves. (i.e. One may love a pet because the pet, on some level, reflects the owner's own character and nature. This is what makes the pet's nature 'attractive'.)
Love requires an object that the lover can relate to. If God's nature is love, then that nature would inherently compel God to create an object of love, because love needs an object to be truly experienced. The object God created was "Adam".
But God has creative nature. So it was also NECESSARY for Adam himself to have creativity, so that A) he would reflect God's own creative nature, and B) he could qualify to inherit God's authority to rule over the creation and C) he could stand as God's actual child and not merely as a servant.
All creativity involves choices and choice inherently involves responsibility. Whether one accepts the responsibility for one's choices or not does not negate the responsibility itself. It exists, as part of the fabric of the universe. We see all the time that abandonment of responsibility results in tragedy and suffering, whereas the opposite, being responsible, results in wholesomeness and prosperity (not necessarily material prosperity, but certainly mental / spiritual prosperity).
God created Adam in such a way that Adam himself had a role and a responsibility in his own creation. How?
All living creatures in God's creation reach perfection and maturity via a growing period, from genesis (aka conception or birth) to full maturation. A tree begins as a seed. A wolf begins as an embryo. Likewise, logically, we can understand and logically assume that its the same for Adam and Eve.
Adam, as the blueprint for all humans, had TWO dimensions: not only a physical form, but also a spirit. In the case of all beings, the physical form grows automatically as long as the necessary conditions are provided: water, warmth, nutrition, exercise. But human beings also have a spirit, a heart, and the growth and development of the spirit and heart was crated to require certain choices on the part of the person themselves.
Despite popular belief, it's illogical to thing that Adam was created perfect and complete. He clearly wasn't, because if a perfect and complete being can fall into corruption, that logically dictates that God himself could fall into corruption. Even scripture itself testifies that Jesus was not born complete but grew through his life to reach perfection in his relationship with God. ("through his sufferings, he learned obedience, and thus .... was made perfect" (aka perfected.)
Adam and Eve were created in an immature state, and like every other being, had to grow to maturity and perfection during a growing period during which they were immature. During that period of growth, that period where their sense of truth and love was immature, they were vulnerable to be diverted if some force stronger than their innate conscience assailed them (i.e. tempted them).
And THIS is why the commandment was necessary. If Adam (and Eve) maintained faith in God during his period of immaturity, he would have grown to maturity and reached his completion through the exercise of his OWN faith and intent, thus qualifying to be co-creator with God, by co-creating his own perfect self.
How? If an unprincipled force of temptation was directed to Adam during his immaturity, the power generated by his faith would have kept him on course, and he could have completed his growth to reach perfection. But this was Adam's portion of responsibility: only he could maintain his faith. God could not do it for him. Otherwise, Adam would be like any other creation and NOT a co-creator and therefore NOT capable of truly returning God's love as a free being.
Being omnipresent, God knew all possibilities, BUT God himself trusted in and believed in Adam, and trusted that Adam himself would have faith. But it was Adam who had to choose, and so while God KNEW it was possible for Adam to fall, it was NOT a foregone conclusion. Not by any means.
Some christian theology has attempted to resolve the apparent paradox between God's 'omniscience' on one hand and free will on the other by actually postulating that free will doesn't exist. God knows everything that WILL happen, and it is all predetermined.
But this makes it impossible for humanity to be co-creators with God, and to inherit God's position as lords of Creation. Moreover, it makes it impossible for human beings to be true objects of love for God, because they would have NO choice in whether they love God or not.
The only logical framework is one where one postulates that God's own purpose of creation involved Adam himself playing a role, so that the accomplishment of God's purpose is a joint project between the Creator, God on one hand and humanity (aka Adam and Eve) on the other.
Otherwise, it makes NO sense why a being of love would let the history of suffering and tragedy drag on so long. If he could change it all with a magic wand, why not? Because the purpose for which he created the world involved more than just him calling all the shots. It involved cooperation and unity from his children, humanity.
The only logical framework that takes into account the postulations that God is love and that human beings have free will is that God created human beings with a portion of responsibility to achieve their own perfection by faith in God's word (like a child believing in what their parent tells them while they are growing to maturity), during a period of growth from birth to full maturity. Perfection of the human being, created as the object of God's love, means perfection of the heart: the ability to give and receive love full, perfection of heart that would then reflect perfectly God's own heart.
While Adam failed in that, with tragic consequences, Jesus succeeded.
We do not know what choices our children will make as they grow up. We do our best to guide them, but we also know that to prevent them from being able to make their own choices would destroy them. So, we might see certain potentials and possibilities, but which ones manifest, this hinges on the child's own choices (aside from other factors).
It's the same with God. God's purpose and will is not accomplished unilaterally. It was designed in such way that human beings have an integral role to play, so that we would be co-creators in that purpose, the creation of a world of love. We play that role by successfully 'co-creating' our mature perfected selves.
If Adam and Eve had only just kept faith during that period of vulnerability, then they would have reached their own perfection, and God's presence in the created world would have been direct, direct through Adam, and all his descendants would have inherited that blessing and built on that foundation.
But that process was derailed by Adam's failure, making it necessary for a Messiah, Jesus, to come to begin rectifying and restoring that process. But clearly it is not over yet, because we still do not have that world of love.
I'm unclear here, and I'll get to the rest of your text in a sec, but are you saying it's a big assumption to think that God would know Adam and Eve would disobey him?
Well yes.
I find it reasonable to presume that God knew Adam and Eve MIGHT disobey him, but not that he knew they WOULD disobey him. Because that presumes that their disobedience was a foregone conclusion, predetermined (by God no less), and that would mean that neither Adam nor Eve can be responsible for that action.
God would be responsible, and that also means that God is responsible for all the suffering humanity has experienced since. That's completely inconsistent with the concept of a God of love.
In my view, God knew it was a possibility, but he did not expect it. In fact, he expected them NOT to eat the fruit.
Historically, theologians have grappled with the question of the fall and the fruit, and come up with various explanations, but it is still something that has not been widely resolved. For example, some people think that the commandment not to eat the fruit was a test.
However, it also make no sense that the fruit issue and the commandment were a test. It makes no sense that a loving Father would create his children to destroy themselves, or to put them in a situation where the outcome of a mere test was death (spiritual or otherwise). If you or I laced a chocolate bar with cyanide and put it in the middle of our living rooms, then went out and told our children "Don't eat that! If you do you will die!" just to test if they would be obedient or not, if you or I did that we would be thrown in prison or executed for murder.
This points to the fact that the commandment was not a test. It was there to preserve Adam and Eve, to protect them. This raises the question of what the fruit itself actually was. What was there that necessitated that they be protected from 'eating the fruit'?
That's what needs to be unpacked.
First off, I must sincerely thank you for taking the time for long form conversation and debate. It's becoming harder and harder to find folks who will and can engage in good faith.
I think you're making my initial point for me, probably better than I initially laid it out - but my point entirely hinges on God being omniscient, which it would seem you do no subscribe to?
If God is omniscient, then yes, he knew they would disobey him, and chose to move forward with Creation anyway, and is culpable in all suffering since.
I don't, from a logical or rhetorical standpoint, have a problem with free will and an omniscient God. Knowing the outcome of a choice does not negate the act of making choice, but I know some philosphy-bros will debate endlessly on that point ;)
You expound on the very wrinkle I have with the Creation of Man in Genesis that I find disturbing, but seem to side-step it in entirely by saying God was surprised by their actions, which I think you might agree, is not a wide-held belief in Christianity?
The only reason 'original sin' is a curse is because the universe was designed by God so that blessing can be passed forward. If Adam had not failed, there would have been no 'curse of original sin', but instead there would have been 'the blessing of original goodness'.
But Adam and Eve were the origin point, the original blueprint. The landing pad for God's love and purpose. So when they themselves were lost, there was NO foundation for recovery, so God had to painstakingly eke out a foundation, starting from the very beginning, to 'recreate' Adam, and this became the process of preparing a way to bring the Messiah, the second Adam. That's essentially what the scripture is a record of.
I'm highly sympathetic with anyone calling into question the very precepts and theological frameworks adopted by most of mainstream Christianity. Because the discerning mind is going to come up against a LOT of entanglements that have not yet been resolved.
I also have a lot of respect for believers who, despite recognizing their own limitations in understanding, resonate with God's love and adhere to what they feel or know to be true. It all helps.
I used to be 'anti-Christian', until I came to the realization early on that Christianity, as a faith and as a people, is like my own parents: not perfect, flawed, but they tried to love me as best as they could. And, I only exists because of the foundation they laid. When I realized that, I learned to embrace it for what it was, without feeling the necessity to ignore the shortcomings or failings.
I adopted a perspective that sees faith as something that also grows through a 'growing period'. To my thinking, there are three stages:
Faith of a child, which is blind faith, unquestioning and unblinking faith.
Faith of an adolescent, which is questioning faith, struggling faith. Faith where the critical faculty kicks on and tests the limits and robustness of the belief system.
That's where a lot of people are derailed, much like Adam and Eve who I believe were in their adolescence when they fell. If one can pass through that stage, one arrives at adult faith. mature faith.
Faith of an adult, which is faith with understanding. It is faith where logic & reason uphold faith, after having been tested and trialed. Adult faith recognizes its own limitations but is not restricted by them. It is open-eyed faith.
Anyway, that's my experience.
I strongly believe that God and Christ are perfect, but I am also firmly convinced that humanity so far does NOT have a perfect or even fully accurate understanding of them. We are still on the long walk of restoration to fully recover that which Adam lost. And, we suffer the consequences of what Adam (and Eve) did and what they failed to do.
Ultimately, each of us is destined to confront the same core issue: human responsibility, and how it needs to be fulfilled. What we're able to accomplish and restore, those who come after us will benefit from.