Constantine looked at clouds, saw a cross, and established Christianity in the world with Rome as its capital.
He also built himself a colossus, which today rests in pieces that may be stepped around.
As regards the psychology: https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/facsimile-bipolar-political-sociopathy/ (Ain’t no one else tootin’ my horn).
In so many cultures of interest, evidently, contemporary psychology has been either rejected, unknown, or cynically or innocently (such may be the state of affairs with bipolar disorder) overlooked. Note that while the story gets our attention, our encounter sees it in another and probably more accurate and reliable way. Religious warfare needs to be finished, over, done, erased from off the face of the earth, and the whole better managed. However, as Putin might illustrate, religion has provided man with a sense of grandeur borne out and sustained in its enclaves, whether by the appearance of the gathered or the presence of extraordinary architecture. How nerdy dull should anyone wish the future? We like glory and dreaming, and wouldn’t it be glorious if (insert vision here) . . . . .
The source of inspiration was a story about “Sister Linda Ngaoja” of Sierra Leone conveying a vision:
According to Linda’s revelations, all Catholics and Muslims are going to hell.
She also had a message for President Ernest Bai Koroma (a Christian), to replace all mosques in Sierra Leone, which is a Muslim-dominated country, with churches.
The Sierra Leonean girl who met Gaddafi ‘in hell’: Special Reports-africareview.com – 3/22/2013 (old news! Sheesh! I need a gallon of coffee before surfing Facebook in the morning). 😦
Still . . . .
I believe in God but also believe that much related hocus pocus — or plain madness mistaken for divine guidance or inspiration (“divine madness” then) — gets people killed for literally nothing.
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Putin, huh?
Because he has sallied forth from the atheist Soviet tradition to perhaps suggest to mankind, if not God, then Gold!
Aye, me hearties, the wave of the future has arrived, greed is “gooder” than ever, and he who dies with the most mansions wins!
(Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Friday the Orthodox Church should be given more say over family life, education and the armed forces in Russia, as he celebrated the leadership of its head Patriarch Kirill.
Faith runs deep in Russia after the fall of the officially atheist Soviet Union and Putin has looked to the largest religion in Russia for support since he began his third term as president after a wave of protests against his rule.
Church should have more control over Russian life: Putin | Reuters – 2/1/2013.
I would not be so cynical to suggest that for Putin the promotion of the Church is part of Control, even though it may be that. More centrally, the relationship acknowledges the recognition of organizing principles in social arrangements, and, indeed, mankind orients daily to business, which organizes money, the church or attitudes and beliefs about the nature of things, and family, which definition may range from one’s own self to blood relations and out to all the friends we’ve made on Facebook and who are like family to us now.
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Also Referenced: Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy