In defense of nihilism

The KJV and many other translations are available online. I use blueletterbible.org but crossway is another site. I see no heatedness in the following: The snake is still with us, though defeated by Christ on the cross and simply waiting for his final judgment. He no doubt smiled slyly when you said you missed him.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-30-2005 11:45 AM

When the state sentences a man to death for a crime, does it do so angrily or is it just carrying out the punishment the befits breaking the law in question?Whether or not you see the offence (one little biddy apple) as befitting the punishment is neither here nor there

Thanks for the KJV text, Faith. Yes, flicking his cute little air-tasting tongue, too.I have always liked snakes. It's a shame that mythopoeic literatures like the Edenic story have helped to justify the persecution of animals that do us a great deal of good. Of course, I prefer to hold human ignorance responsible rather than a deity's calm, rational curse upon an innocent creature. If the snake is simply Satan in disguise, what sense does it make to punish snakes?Besides, if the snake is responsible for making wives desire their husbands, he should be greatly esteemed by husbands everywhere.The Garden? To me, it is a mish-mash of myth that did no harm until it was enshrined as revealed truth by a power-wielding priestly caste to justify the subjugation of woman and the hard lives of exploited peasants.This message has been edited by Omnivorous, 11-30-2005 12:17 PM

Judges do the sentencing not the State; they are usually pretty ticked off in proportion to the offense--in my limited experience, of course .So what makes God wrathful, iano? You, too, have argued the rightness and necessity of a wrathful God. If He wasn't wrathful in Eden, at the time of our Fall, when was He?

The Bible in fact has influenced the correction of all abuses, the abuse of women, the abuse of the underprivileged and the abuse of animals in our fallen world. All are endemic to fallen humanity, but God teaches otherwise and that teaching has come to us in the West through the Bible. Funny how the devil has managed to convince people it's the other way around.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-30-2005 12:57 PM

You look like you're mixing your metaphors on this installment Robin On the one hand you paraphrase the bible but at the critical juncture, stray into speculation as to whether any of it is true. If the man only 'supposedly' sneaked back into town (your source material says he did) then maybe he only supposedly had a son and an adopted daughter. How is the poor reader to know what to believe of you taleI was looking forward to seeing how you would deal with parodying the sacrificing of self (including the foreknowledge that it would happen). The climax, the raison d'etre, the piece de la resistance, the candle on the cake, the ... and you fluffed it..Shame...

Well, you have your agenda and I have mine. I was eager to get to the present day, so that I could bring in some of your and Faith's ideas. That's what this is really about.

In mine too. Some of them in the lower courts especially are fond of the drink and the sentences can er...vary? I say a bloke get 6 months for driving with no car insurance and another who had stolen a car get off. I was next up and I was up for no insurance. O'er But in principle, Justice is blind and unemotional. When it exercises wrath it does so on a punishment fits the crime basis. Wrath is not about emotion:

quote:

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Wrath 2 : retributory punishment for an offense or a crime : divine chastisement

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Although there are other definitions of wrath (mans wrath can include anger) this one compares unemotional application of justice with divine wrath. And this is Gods wrath. It does involve anger but not in the sense that we understand it. Gods anger is always 100% righteous. It is never out of pique or to cover his mistakes or because he got the wrong end of the stick. If he is angry with us it is because we have done something to deserve it. His anger is in complete proportion to what we do.When I say his anger is unlike ours - thus we cannot understand it - I mean that at the same time that he is full of wrath and hating the sin we commit, he is full of love too. The closest a person can come to understanding this is with their own child. Whilst they are furious with them, love is not at the forefront - yet they don't cease to love their child just because they are angry. But God loves and is wrathful at the same time"While we were sinners (objects of wrath) Christ died for us (God sacrificed him - act of love)"One should never lose sight of that. God cannot set aside wrath or justice. Sin must be punished. Every single last one. But as the flamethrower is started up and prepares to cook the sin (and the person to whom sin is attached in limpet-like fashion) God in an act of love diverts it and aims it at his son instead.That's effectively what the person asks God to do. And he would do it in a flash. Now if that is not love - punishing your own begotten son - for the sins of your enemy - then I don't know what is.Would you cook your son for Pol Pot. Didn't think so

Aha! Bated breath. Or is that baited breath

I grant there are some sound ethical guidelines in the Bible; Christ's injunctions on love and kindness are more than sound. Like the Edenic story's roots in Sumerian mythology, there is nothing philosophically new in the Bible, including claims of divinity and resurrection, or even eating the consecrated blood and flesh of the God.But the impact of Christianity has been--to put it mildly--a mixed blessing to the West: intolerance, torture, crusades, political oppression of other religions and even other Christian sects. I think we owe more to the Greeks than to the Bible for our Western notions of human dignity, and more to the brave women of the past several centuries for improved conditions for women in the West, improvements largely condemned and resisted by Christian ecclesiastical authorities and congregants alike.Even if we hypothetically grant the existence of Mr. Bones, there seems to have been no need of his efforts to make the world suspicious of Christian actions and motives.As for abuse of animals, please feel free to visit my By their fruits shall ye know them thread. I'd be interested in your take on what the Christian profiteers are doing to the natural world.I know you're busy elsewhere at EvC (and I am now sincerely trying to stay out of the way there, despite my lack of humility ), but do drop in sometime.

MEGO with dogma and doctrine, iano.Whether or not the biblical God's anger is like mine, it is manifestly anger.And love is not the term I would use for punishing one's son for the sins of others.

II--"In the Mind of the Old Man"The old man, back in the mountains, mulled over his experiences with his extended family for a long time. From the very top of the tallest mountain, where he sometimes went to ponder, he could see off in the distance the faint beginnings of the desert, where his people lived."I could," he said to himself, "hire a band of mercenaries and easily conquer that hideous little hole they call a 'kingdom.'" He laughed to himself at their pretensions. "A kingdom? Ha, Ha! They don't know what a kingdom is. Behold my great halls of dining--my tables inlaid with marble--my arbors and luscious gardens where the fruits grow and the birds sing, and all is comfort and delight. The air is filled with the delicious scent of herbs and the faint mist from the great waterfall--all this against the backdrop of the majestic mountains wherein I dwell. They could have had this too, but they lost it, and look at them now.""I might have brought a few of my relatives back with me if I could have found any who were the least bit civilized. But they are all dirty and corrupt to the core. Beggars running in the streets, children's hair filled with lice, rats in the houses, disease everywhere--it's horrible to remember. O my people, what have you done to yourselves? Did I not divert the stream into the desert so that you might drink? Did I not often supply you with fresh meat? Would your wheat have grown without my water?""Oh, yes," he muttered later, walking up and down the Grand Walkway, servants in attendance--"there will come a time when I will conquer this so-called kingdom and they will surely pay for their ingratitude and their degeneration. But that time is not now. I am going to give them another chance.""I cannot physically go back to the little kingdom, for they will hate me and want to banish me again in their utter ignorance. I tried to teach them when I was among them. I tried to show them the way. I made many charitable contributions. I fought their crooked lawyers and politicians. They should have known who I was, if they had eyes to see or ears to hear. But it all came to nothing."I must devise a plan, some way to communicate with them without confronting them face to face. Because if I see them--if I see again what they have become--I might grow angry. And the worst part of it is, they feel no shame. They live in their sewers as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Do they not know whence they came? Do they not recognize their lineage?"A few days later, he was sitting before a warm fire--it was the first cold spell--in a quite different mood, for he was a man of many moods. [down in the little kingdom, the street urchins searched for cover from the wind]: He said to himself, "I want them to know that I am their benefactor, despite their wrong doing, but I don't want them to revere me simply because I have taken care of them all these many years. I want them to love me for myself. I want them to freely choose to love me because I am lovable, not because of what I can do for them. I'll have no sycophants about me, that's for certain. I want them to love me, and revere me, and greet me as their beloved king."

Of course, every nihilist won't have unique objectives. Like all humans, many will think alike to organize and achieve power so as to reach their like minded nihilistic selfish goals with disregard for any moral responsibility, inhibitions or accountability, so long as they have the power. Call it a nihilistic monarchy if you wish.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

The nihilist is free to pick and choose morality calls. Hitler had no objective basis for morality. That was obvious from his conduct. He had one nihilistic goal which was to empower, enrich and please himself, enforcing his personal will on everyone and willing to go to any measure of brutality and suffering on the world to achieve it. The same could be said for Stalin and other likeminded mass murderering tyrants. The only people of power and prosperity in communist nations were those who ruled. If somehow the Biblical golden rule were built into the minds of nihilists, there would be no problem, but alas, humankinds don't come from the womb complete with the rule of "do unto others as you would have them do to you."This is not to say that all nihilists are bad. It's good luck to those around them as to what morality their nihilistic neighbor will choose at any given time or for any given situation. Some, no doubt, either because of good parents, et al, choose good morality and regard for others.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Edited to delete double post. First attempt showed unable so hit submit again with double post.This message has been edited by buzsaw, 11-30-2005 07:29 PM

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw