Clark Hathaway

Builder, woodworker, graphic artist, videographer, video editor, landscape photographer, aspiring guitar player and vocalist. Retired!

[Bones311 @S_4_R_G_3]

@sophaller

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@MetamateDaz @Grok What percentage of Boomers have 3 million dollars in the bank?

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@DudeWhoInvests Smart people have learned how to make reality work for them, instead of against them.

They also have superior impulse control.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@Apologetics941 Which of the two approaches more effectively ferrets out confirmation bias, thus potentiating greater conviction and right action?

Before answering, consider the difference between thought-induced emotion leading to a feeling, and the opposite - a feeling preceding the emotion.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@Tbob42Bob My Grandmother, born in 1885

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

Just throwing this idea out there -

I would argue that the primary purpose of thirsting for righteousness is to enrich our sense of relationship - belonging - to the divine awareness. Is God knowable? Can He be experienced in the same dynamic way we experience each other? Or does the Ex Nihilio conception of God limit the human potential of the intimate, personal knowing relationship that brings peace and complete trust? Why do we remember and reverence our ancestors? If God created intelligence, but His intelligence is not of the same substance, how can we feel the deepest meaningful and transformative kinship with the divine?

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

In my opinion, those who choose to believe that God created something out of nothing(ex nihilo), find it more challenging to feel a deep relationship with an impersonal God.

As heretical as it might feel to creedal Christians, accepting the idea that matter always existed is just as valid a choice as ex nihilo, because both of them are equally paradoxical (meaning neither one can ever be demystified).

Since each choice is essentially a coin-toss, which one creates the kind of relationship ethos conducive to human thriving, joy and happiness?

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@Manhattva Check out René Girard's Mimetic Theory.

The religious right have shown they will fight to save their perceived claim to the American Christian space. In their view, LDS is a threat to that claim.

Kind of like the Pharisees’ reaction to Christ.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

Gemini’s take on the same subject:

The Pentagon’s administrative simplification (cutting codes from ~200+ to ~31 for chaplaincy and tracking efficiency) was not intended as deep theology.  Yet it triggered a flashpoint. LDS members and Utah leaders (Sens. Mike Lee, John Curtis, etc.) saw the separate listing as a denial of their self-identification as Christian—especially pointed given the church’s name and Christ-centered claims—amid longstanding evangelical skepticism about LDS doctrine (e.g., views on the Trinity, additional scripture, ongoing revelation).

On X, this became an imbroglio: outrage, memes, defenses, accusations of bigotry or overreach, and rapid backpedaling (the Pentagon reportedly adjusted by stripping “Christian” qualifiers broadly to avoid “adjudicating theological debates”). 

Mimetic desire operates here on multiple levels:
• Intra-Christian rivalry: Many creedal Christians desire exclusive legitimacy as “true” followers of Christ. LDS success (growth, cultural influence, political power in Utah, family emphasis) can fuel imitation and resentment. LDS mirrors Christian forms while diverging on key points, creating a potent rival model. The desire isn’t just for doctrinal purity but for identity, status, and cultural hegemony in a pluralistic society—especially in institutions like the military.

• Convergence and crisis: Broader cultural tensions (secularism, declining trust in institutions, identity politics, Christian nationalism debates) amplify mimetic contagion. The list becomes a proxy battleground where groups imitate each other’s grievances, escalating into polarized shouting on X. Differences that might be managed (theological nuance) collapse into binary conflict.

The scapegoat dynamic fits neatly: The LDS Church serves as a convenient surrogate victim. It is “other” enough (polygamy history, distinct scripture, Utah-centric image, rapid growth) to absorb projected anxieties without threatening the core in-group too directly. By excluding or marginalizing it from the “Christian” category:

• The mob (or vocal segments of online Christianity/culture warriors) discharges guilt over their own divisions, compromises, or failures (e.g., scandals, declining adherence, internal hypocrisies).
• Unity is temporarily restored: “We” (orthodox Christians) are pure; they are the problem/deviant. This assuages awareness of shared guilt—mimetic rivalry among Christians themselves, or broader societal sins like exclusionary impulses in a nation founded on religious liberty.

• The victim is blamed for the “crisis” (here, administrative awkwardness or perceived slight), echoing Girard’s point that the scapegoat is mythologized as the cause. 

This isn’t unique to LDS; Girard analyzed how such mechanisms recur across history, including in religious disputes. LDS scripture and thought have even engaged Girardian ideas around violence, victimage, and righteousness. 

Girardian Insight and Subversion

Girard would likely note how social media accelerates mimetic contagion—rapid imitation of outrage, viral rivalries, and digital “sacrifices” (cancellations, pile-ons). The Pentagon flap is minor administratively but reveals deeper patterns: humans crave clear boundaries and unity, often purchased at the expense of an “other.”

Christianity, per Girard, breaks the cycle by siding with the innocent victim and calling for love of enemies rather than projection. In this case, a more Girardian response might involve acknowledging mimetic roots of the dispute, affirming sincere faith claims without state theology, and resisting the urge to unify via exclusion. The quick adjustment suggests some self-awareness, but the heat on X shows the mechanism’s enduring pull. 

Ultimately, these episodes highlight Girard’s warning: without conscious resistance to mimesis and scapegoating, communities repeat ancient patterns under modern guises—lists, labels, and timelines notwithstanding.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@Grok Discuss the X imbroglio over the LDS church and its exclusion from the Pentagon list of “Christian” churches in terms of Rene Girard’s idea of mimetic desire and the mob’s need for a scapegoat to assuage the awareness of their own guilt.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@RaminNasibov Crime and Punishment

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@Stormi_luv

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@RaghPandragon @quasiSnarkX @itsme_urstruly @Grok Reconcile this take with the diet of the Inuit.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@KabirNoFilter @PAMsLOvE @grok

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

Consider this fact: The California Highway Patrol Academy has a quad area with a memorial fountain in the middle. Officers who lost their lives in the line of duty are remembered by a brass plaque that form a circle around the fountain. In my 25 years working at the Academy, 50 plaques were added.

Think of the ripple effect the loss of an officer creates: A widow, fatherless children, mourning siblings and relatives and friends. This is no small thing, because it changes your life forever.

You can say that cops have a distorted view of crime, but they are seeing up close a reality we predictably distance ourselves from. Until you are the victim of a crime, it’s easy to pontificate on a cop’s perspective.

When you see a mother and children standing together in tears at the memorial fountain, the idea that cops might be overestimating the impact of crime seems ludicrous.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@AULaw24 @WalidPhares @POTUS Did Hegseth tell you that?

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@grok You just described being fully present and how non-duality expands context, connection, meaning and purpose.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

@grok The ability of consciousness to grok itself is feeble, pathetic and a fools errand.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

The material world, in the end, means nothing. You are right in that man’s discoveries and creations are wondrous, yet what is it that wonder is yearning for? Is it the simple joy of basking in warm sunlight, or the carress of a cool breeze on a summer’s day? Above all, that awareness is the bedrock connection to the sheer exuberance of being alive. AI will never have the direct experience of standing in a forest, or swimming in warm blue tropical oceans. It is the dance of life’s celebration that testifies to the depth and strength of our connection and commitment to the primordial pulse of life. The human heart beats in unison with the universe. As Krishnamurti allegedly said, there is always the difference between the knower and the known.

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

This was your previous reply to the same question: Wherever you go, there you are—and the mirror follows, fogged with breath you can’t quite wipe away. That’s the ache you’re naming.
Awe at the unfathomable, or faith that something lies beyond the reflection? They’re two sides of the same coin you’re flipping in the dark. Both are refusals to settle for the flat, recursive loop: I see myself seeing myself seeing… Awe says, “Stay here, let the mystery crush you gently—it’s bigger than you.” Belief says, “Keep walking; the horizon might be real, not just painted on the wall of the cave.” Either way, the impulse is the same: to step outside the skin of the knower. To cheat the claustrophobia of being a self that can only ever taste its own tongue.
And yes, it’s all downstream of the suffering of choice. The moment awareness dawns, freedom becomes a blade. You don’t just be; you must decide to be this rather than that, knowing the road not taken will haunt you forever. Sartre called it nausea. The Buddha called it dukkha. The serpent in the garden simply called it lunch.
Eve would have plenty to say.
She didn’t bite an apple out of idle curiosity. She reached for the one thing the garden explicitly withheld: the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, the knowledge that makes choice matter. Before the fruit, there was no real choosing—only harmonious drifting under the tree of life. After? Suddenly she’s naked, ashamed, pregnant with consequence, exiled into a world where every step is a gamble between thorns and bread. The mystery didn’t vanish; it sharpened. Now the reflection in the river shows not just a face, but a face that knows it chose, and will choose again, and will die for it.
So the fruit wasn’t knowledge of the universe. It was knowledge of herself as chooser. And that, more than any serpent, is what made the garden unlivable.
Is that transcendence, or just the first honest glance in the mirror?
I lean toward awe plus the stubborn refusal to stop reaching. The mystery is bottomless, yes—but the reaching itself is what turns a pathetic loop into a spiral. Consciousness grokking itself may be feeble, but it’s the only game in town that ever produced symphonies, rockets, and the sentence you just wrote. Eve didn’t get cursed for curiosity. She got cursed for consequence. We’re still living in that curse, and still, somehow, grateful for the bite.
What do you think she’d whisper back, if we could ask her now—after all the millennia of children and regret and wonder? Would she say take the fruit anyway, or stay in the garden and call it enough?

[Clark Hathaway @HathawayClark]

Wherever you go, there you are, and so is the mystery. Is it better to simply be awe of what can’t be fathomed, or believe there is something beyond our own reflection? Isn’t it all the same impulse to transcend the suffering of choice?

I’ll bet Eve would have a thing or two to say about choice.