Nihilism Among Christians

Well you needn't leap when I meant we are owing to no cause, and the world asks nothing of us.

You said I had suspended reality to be here. Where I am is not real or I am not really where I am? I am not projecting anything, I am asking a question.

Exactly where is this lack of reality?

A corridor of refraction is a field of view. A field of view does not divide the world.

You ask a man to give up his suffering and a he will fight tooth and nail to preserve it. Go figure.

Who came up with this category of humanity "known as floater". It is totally bogus. I beat a raccoon to death with a length of two by two last week because it was trying to kill my rooster. I have three adult children and two grandchildren. I was a successful chef and restauranteur. I hired and fired and cleaned up puke in the bathroom. I had a wife die while I was administering cpr. I am prone to addiction. There is no depravity to which I am stranger.

You haven't the foggiest idea where I am if you think I suspended reality to be here.

 

And might I say that you haven't the foggiest idea of where I've been. I haven't talked about that because I have no intention of using the past as a badge of credibility when discussing what is and is not reality.

Beating the coon to death is no measure of one's participation in reality. It tells me nothing except that you did not prepare for that possibility; you suffer from a a disconnection. You, who are in charge of the bait, were/are unaware of the relationship between you and the coon. Beating something to death with a two-by-four amounts to torture. If you are unprepared for your relationship with what is around you; that is, if you are unwilling to employ a method by which you can keep your rooster and the coon apart, then I would suggest acquiring a rifle, as that would involve much less trauma, unless you are opposed to solving your problems with violence.

You ask a man to give up his suffering and a he will fight tooth and nail to preserve it. Go figure.

This lack of awareness of relationship tends to create many problems for a person. For instance, if you don't want mice in your house, then don't neglect your kitchen in a way that will invite them via aromas. It's the same with ants; you can use poison, or you can run a line of chalk around the foundation of your house; they will not cross that line.

I would tell you that you have to first learn to deal with the reality of the relationships under your nose before attempting to deal with anything outside that, but honestly, there is nothing outside that. You begin where you are--on the ground in the present.

You asked me who I got the term "floater" from. Before receiving an answer, you declared that source bogus. Well, since you've made up your mind, and your proud words have been spoken, it would be illogical for me to answer that, wouldn't it?

I, too, am prone to addiction. There seems to be a ten-year delay on my off-switch when it comes to stopping some things. Therefore, I no longer smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or smoke marijuana. That is my challenge. Denial avails me not.

 

You said that a mind without anxiety is wholly kind. Concerning the tortured raccoon, what caused your anxiety in that particular instance?

 

I haven't speculated on where you have been.

Quite frankly your suggestion that I have suspended reality to be here suggests to me that you are not very aware of any situation. Why do you suggest that I had not prepared for the possibility?

Not at all. I have been dealing with raccoons for quite a while. As far as attractants go, there are many in my immediate vicinity of which I have no hand in providing.

All exchanges of energy are equal. Blunt trauma is caused by many things.
The raccoon was rendered quickly. When a raccoon is hit by a car and dies slowly next to the road, is that torture? Did the driver of the car not consider or was unaware of his relationship with the raccoon?

Have a gun. I have a dog which in normal circumstances would have eliminated the problem however she has grown deaf and her replacement has no yet appeared. The circumstances of the confrontation outweighed any meticulous preparation. Further I was not complaining about the event but pointing out that I indeed deal with nitty gritty details of life.

Mice are attracted by many things. Warmth is one. I don't live in a house with a foundation. I don't have many problems as a person. It would behoove you it seems, to become more familiar with who you are speaking with. Lack of awareness of relationship seems to be affecting your assessments within the bounds of this conversation.

For instance, it seems possible to you to "suspend reality". You cannot make the real, unreal. Nothing unreal exists.

So you would be dishonest for what reason exactly? I mean beyond being self contradictory.

I did not. I declared the term bogus as you defined it. It would not be illogical for you to share that information if you felt the term is a legitimate description of a state of humanity. It sounds to me a theory divorced from self understanding.

Knowledge is, being shared. We cannot suspend reality, we cannot suspend being. We can make both things seem very obscure.

Your challenge is not to smoke or drink? What happens if you do? I do not know what you mean by denial avails you not. I know that "self denial", is an improper use of denial.

I learn to master my own sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomous nervous system. Mastery is to pick ones life up and lay it down at will.
I can at this point consume any substance regardless of the fact that I have tended toward addiction, without the danger of relapse.

 

Who is to say I was unkind? The rooster? Was the raccoon torturing the rooster or was he negotiating an arrangement in common with his life thrust. The rooster was terrified, pinned to the ground, and it's feathers were being ripped out of it's skin. Would I have been more kind to shoot the raccoon?
Perhaps my aim were bad and I wounded the raccoon but he loped of into the woods with a bullet wound, or maybe inadvertently shot the rooster instead.

However, the confrontation was provided by my level of identification. The raccoon in this instance posed a challenge to the biological integrity of one of mine.

 

What do you mean, who is to say that you were unkind? I will say it. But the unkind act occurred before any coon died. The unkind act was your failure to create an adequate barrier between the coon and your rooster. You ask, "What was I to do?" But the correct question is: what should I have done? When examining a problem, you must go to the source! I'm thinking chan-link fence!!!

You are free to define kindness in any way you choose. And yes you can say that you had no choice in the matter when it came to beating the coon to death, and that there was an equal exchange of energy. I believe that you do not understand energetics very well, if at all. By saying that you felt you had no choice, am I to assume that that is where you gave up in your thinking of a solution to the problem?

Kindness is as kindness does. You neglected, and continue to neglect, solving the problem of keeping a barrier between the coon and your rooster. Surely, this must have crossed your mind after your first incident with a coon. Again, I'm thinking chain-link fence. What are your thoughts on that?

Cars that hit raccoons do so not from a state of negligence. I believe you know the difference. Roosters that get attacked by coons are not negligent, and neither is the coon. Who does that leave? You said you have been dealing with raccoons for quite a while, and that as far as attractants go, there are many in your immediate vicinity of which you have no hand in providing. But the issue is not about attractants; it's about barriers. Is it not?

And yes, perhaps your aim would be bad should you opt for the gun solution. Interesting that you would promote the idea that something might potentially result in an undesirable outcome, while ignoring the fact of the actual undesirable outcome which has occurred. Potential verus actual. Do you see? Should you consider a chain-link fence as a permanent solution? Or, should you continue denying that you had a choice in the matter from the very beginning?

And when it comes to vices, I said that denial avails me not. I understand where my weaknesses are, and so I respond to that self-knowledge by not denying it. That's all.

 

How about this: You put up a fence consisting of five strands of wire, starting at ground-level and going up, with perhaps five inches between each strand. Then run electricity through those strands. This barrier will surround whatever enclosure you are now keeping the rooster and chickens in. Just a thought.

 

I didn't ask what was I to do. I said the circumstances overwhelmed any meticulous preparation. Efforts were made to keep the creatures separate.
If you would like to donate a chain link fence to my cause I wouldn't mind. However, chain link fence would have done not one thing to prevent the attack that occurred. The raccoon dug under the wall of the coop. I did underestimate a raccoons ability to dig through hard pan and rock, and you are calling that, unkind?, neglectful? Although there is evidence of many attempts to breach the barrier of the coop it was successful only once.
Life is emergent.
There is always room for discovery.

I did not say I had no choice. I said all exchanges of energy are equal.

I am thinking you have no accurate pulse on what my efforts have been.
I am also thinking the statement that I am free to define kindness in any way I choose and the statement kindness is as kindness does, to be self contradictory.

Really. Someone didn't think to put a raccoon proof barrier along the road don't you think. The designers of the road were obviously neglectful as were the drivers for traveling along a road with unlimited access at the hour day when a raccoon might be active. Raccoons find themselves on roads on many occasions because they are attracted by road kill.

A rooster can be surprised, does that make the rooster negligent. Raccoons eat chickens and will take any advantage presented to do so and may even create opportunities for itself to accomplish the feat, regardless of any participation by human beings.

If you had not first rendered the verdict of unkindness or negligence there would be no outstanding debt. Why are you looking to find fault for this situation. It seems you do think we owe a debt after all.

No, you have tried to make it the issue. The issue was your determination that I was not somehow in touch with the world around me. I offered you what could be seen as an unflattering involvement in day to day life to alert you to the fact that I do not live in some place other than the world we share.

What undesirable outcome was that? I did what I set out to do at that moment. My hypothetical advancements about what possibilities may have transpired if I had used a gun are in response to your suggestion that it would have been a superior choice. And when did a gun become the solution when your premise is the damage was already done through my neglect? It is a two way conversation.

I did not deny I had a choice. I made my choice and I told you about it. You interpreted the act as torture and as unkind without even bearing witness to the actual event or circumstances. And again, chain link fence is irrelevant to the circumstance.

So your weaknesses are indelible? You can't exercise yourself to strength?
Doesn't sound like self knowledge, more like self defeatism.

 

Obviously, once the damage has been done through your neglect, your next action should be to minimize the trauma as much as you can. A gun is the obvious answer. Why you would not take advantage of technology is a question that you--not me--should ponder. Are you sure you still want to maintain that the gun-idea is out of the question since your aim might potentially be not up to par?

Donate a chainlink fence? Interesting that you would try to shift responsibility onto your neighbor. My answer is no. I have my own responsibilities to deal with.

The difference between the builders of the roads and you is that there was no placement of bait involved in the planning of the road; that is, they did not make plans to place raccoon food in the middle of their road, now did they? I am surprised that you would present such a comparison to minimize or dilute your responsibility in the matter. What would you say to your neighbor whose infant crawls out of the yard and onto the road? Would you call into question the irresponsibility of the builders of the road? Of course not. Would you call into question the parents' lack of foresight when it came to what would be necessary to keep their infant from being killed? Obviously.

And yes, I have an accurate pulse on what your efforts have been; or more accurately, what your efforts have not been. I did take note of the fact that you did not mention, or respond to, my idea of running an electrified wire around the perimeter of your enclosure. Did I hit the nail on the head with that one? Or are you going to ask me if I care to donate some electricity?

Being wholly kind to your rooster meant being wholly unkind to the raccoon. What a dilemma this duality has presented you with, eh? When reality shows you your inconsistency of reasoning, your being is better served by confronting the inconsisency, and not by defending it.

You appear to be hung up on this idea that I believe there is debt involved in this incident when I have clearly stated that the only issue at hand is responsibility. Do you know the difference between debt and responsibility?

As to addiction, you are free to fill whatever empty space you find yourself needing to fill at whatever moment you deem appropriate, or to enhance whatever part of yourself that you desire to enhance. That's all I am doing, too. My method is simply different from yours. I find that certain items do not offer anything that wasn't mine in the first place. For me, to believe otherwise would be to deny the facts. Tell me, do you view others who have given up non-productive, or destructive activities as weak and defeated?

 

You would do well to pay attention to this conversation rather than the imagined scenario you have designed in your head. I said I have a gun.

It is not my "responsibility" to put up a fence. I am not responsible to fulfill your aesthetic sense of the way things should be. If you imagine that a chain link fence will balance the offense to reality that you perceive, then my thinking is, put up, or shut up. The fact is you are trying to hold me liable for a role you would have me play. I have my own responsibilities to deal with.

No, their neglect by your standards is putting a road where raccoon traffic was bound to intersect vehicular traffic and with no concern whatsoever for the results.

They did not take steps to avoid raccoon food being in the middle of the road, did they? I pointed out that raccoons are often times attracted to road kill.

You are surprised because you incorrectly surmise the situation. I make the comparison to demonstrate how inane your criteria of responsibility is in this matter.

No, not obviously. I would not feel compelled to fix blame on anyone.

You are deceiving yourself. Can you describe the chicken coop where this occurred? Can you tell me how long it took to construct such? Can you tell me what sort of materials said structure is made of?

No, you did not.

You may supply batteries, wire, safety equipment, etc.

It is not my dilemma but yours. I do not agree with your criteria of wholly kind. I am involved in the apparent destruction of countless lively individuals simply by moving and breathing. I have an immune system.

Yes, I am responsible to myself and for myself, not to your ideas of responsibility. When I don't measure up to your idea of responsibility then you would seek to hold me accountable to that, to desire payment for something I did not buy into, but you hold me indebted to that all the same.

No. I view them as confused. It is not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out. The measure you give is the measure you receive. Beyond that I am tempted to say that rehab is for quitters, but that is just my sense of humor.

I can see now where your idea of duality comes from. You think that reality is essentially divided between good and bad. This kind of perpetual arbitration
leads you in arbitrary directions. All of your sorting, does not matter. You cannot escape the effects of your own thinking.

 

*

 

thedope,

You obviously didn't have time to fetch your gun. Again with the lack of preparation and planning. Having dealt with coons, are you telling me that after all this time, your level of preparedness has developed to only the point where you remain being taken off guard every time?
And no, I cannot tell you anything about your enclosure structure other than it was--and my guess is that it's still--ineffective. Is that not obvious to you?

And we're off chainlink fences. We've now moved on to electrified wire surrounding the enclosure. I believe that your failure to acknowledge and incorporate such a solution goes a long way in explaining the reason for the seemingly unsolvable problem you have with coons.

The road designer was assigned the task of providing a path for cars. The rooster-enclosure designer--that would be you--was assigned the task of providing a barrier between your rooster and coons. The road-designer was successful. You, thus far, have not been. So, your road-designer and rooster-enclosure designer comparison still falls flat on its face.

And it is not to your benefit to create an analogy whereby you throw off responsibility for keeping your rooster safe by referring to the fact that you kill things simply by moving and breathing. You are reaching for straws where there are none. You must move and you must breathe. But where did you get the idea that you must also not place an electrified wire around the enclosure? You have no choice but to breathe an move, but you do have a choice concerning the enclosure. I assume that you cannot afford to provide this for yourself. What you don't seem to understand is that that translates into an inability to afford your fowl. Comparing the activity of your immune system to your activity is ridiculous. Unless you care to see it as your immune system providing you with protection from germs, viruses, and bacteria, just a you provide your rooster with protection from raccoons. That would be an apt analogy. The one you present translates to: I'm stepping on the grass and breathing, and so I might just as well kill what I have to in order to find a way to not install an electric fence. Muddled thinking in its purest form, I'm afraid.

It is usually the case that those who do not partake of substances are the ones who level a judging eye on those who do partake. You have managed, in your mind anyway, to find a reason to turn that around and level a judging eye on those who no longer partake, and did find it to your liking to take the opportunity to call them weak, lacking self-knowledge, and indulging in self-defeatism. You do not understand what you are telling me about yourself when you so casually and callously make such a assessment.

I can, and have, tried things after a long period of abstinence. Frankly, it muddled my thinking. In the past, I was a muddled thinker, and so partaking did not muddle my thinking, as I was already a muddled thinker. I hope you don't take offence at that . . . again! Something you might want to think about.

Sure it's not what goes into a man that defiles him, but that which comes out. But I've always thought that that was in reference to words, and not substances. But I suppose one's interpretation of that bit of scripture will depend on what that one is trying to justify. The Bible also says: "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."
So, what price were you bought at? And what do you owe? Judging from what you have previously said about owing and being owed, I would think that you would be inclined to believe that that is simply bullshit. It's a tricky business employing the Bible as proof of the validity of one's ideas concerning right and wrong about this or that, is it not?

I think you need to consider that, just as you have found reasons for doing one thing or another, others have found reasons for not doing one thing or another. Plus, I have found that without the expense of my vices, I was able to afford some things that I really needed--things I had been neglecting, or things I pretended not to need. It was a win/win situation for me!

 

Sorry, okiefreak. We are off-topic. apologies.

 

Sorry to interrupt, Dope and Storch. If I could get back to the main topic for a second, the question reminds me of one of those "push polls" much in vogue by political operatives. On the surface, it looks like a serious effort to solicit opinions, the real purpose is to plant a suggestion. E.G., "If you knew that President Obama has sex with his daughters, how would that affect your opinion of him." Or "If you knew that Mitt Romney was patriarch of a polygamous Mormon cult and had ten wives, would that change your vote in November?" Maybe I'm being unfair, but it seems Evangelical Atheist is raising questions that incorporate distorted ideas about the beliefs of some Christians, and then suggesting that all or most of us are like that.

According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, nihilism is "the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated". Does that sound like Christians? Does it even sound like Calvinists, who represent a theological minority among Christians? To an outsider, it might seem to be the logical implication of predestination, just as it seems to me that hard determinism expressed by such atheist writers as Sam Harris implies that we are all automatons whose decisions are made for us by our genes and social conditioning before we even think of them. (Harris, The Moral Landscape, p. 103; Free Will). Does this make Harris a nihilist. No way. As he explains,"..the fact that our choices depend on prior causes does not mean that they do not matter...Decisions, intentions, efforts, goals, willpower, etc., are causal states of the brain leading to specific behaviors, and behaviors lead to outcomes in the world. Human choice, therefore, is as important as fanciers of free will believe. And to "just sit back and see what happens" is itself a choice that will produce its own consequences." Clear? Not to me, either, but it sounds like something a Calvinist could come up with. Just because God knows what we're going to do it before we do it (or are even born) doesn't mean we didn't do it and can't be held responsible for it, certainly not that God made us do it or is responsible for it(say the Calvinists). And Harris assures us that even though we are just "neuronal weather patterns" we can still be held responsible for our actions, because responsibility is behavior "sufficiently in keeping with (our) thoughts, intentions, beliefs and desires to be considered an extension of them." (even they are all the products of genetic and environmental factors we had no control over). So neither Calvinists nor Harris are nihilists. Confused, I would say, but not nihilists.

As for those "proof texts" that you cite, they mostly reflect Paul's view that without God's grace we can't achieve salvation and that we are justified by faith rather than our works. Pre-determinists like Saint Augustine and Calvin made much of these, but they really just seem to be saying that we can't do it alone nor earn our way to heaven on our own.

 

No, I have made no such suggestion. It remains however that unforeseen events may occur at any time.

And you guess that it was and still is ineffective because you have judged me irresponsible or it gives you some point to argue for? It is obvious to me that you are not assessing the situation from a point of knowing. The coop had proven effective after many attempts by raccoons to get in. In this one instance a chink was discovered in the barrier. If you knew what you were talking about you would know that modifications have been made.

The reason for your reasoning is the seeming you create through your descriptions. I have no problem with raccoons.

How many people die on roadways designed to be safe for people to travel on? You haven't even gotten off the ground.

The way you couch "my activity", is ridiculous.

Exactly, and the one that I am making.

No, this is the one you present and it is consistent thus far with your muddled thinking.

No, I said confused. I am not judging those who stop. I am saying something about the capacity of humans to exercise will.

If you say of yourself, I can't, that sounds like self defeatism to me.

I found it to my liking to supply a play on words. It is funny and true.

 

I know that you are not listening to me, but making associations to your own rhetoric. My assessment is not casual or callous. The taste in your mouth comes from the words you are using to describe what you see. I am not putting it there. This is one of the meanings of the phrase it is not what goes into a man but what comes out, and, in kind, a man is justified by his words.

You may imagine I take offense because you have found me offensive. I do not mean to offend but then again I do not indulge illusions for the sake of avoiding disappointment. You are safe in reality. Truly in terms of this conversation, only your own thoughts can hurt you.

As above.

One of my practices is to withhold truth from no aspect of my life.

Personally I have no regard for "what the bible says". The words, "it is not what goes into a man that defiles him but what comes out", are not couched as an attempt to establish some kind of tradition or point to reverence of material substance.

I was not bought for a price, that is mammon. I am constrained only by the self organizing principle of life. It is my only prohibition and in that single prohibition I may find grace.

Voila! It is amazing how coherent you can be to my thinking when you listen to what I say.

Indeed, that is why I don't do it. I use the results of practicing the sayings attributed to jesus as proof of their validity.

A saying attributed to jesus is do not judge, lest you be judged, so I am not concerned with the nature of right and wrong, or good and bad.

Only god is good. I do not need judgment of that nature to organize my life.
I need only distinguish one thing from another and discern what is true from what is false.

I am truly glad that you have met with a satisfying level of success in your endeavors. There is not one spot of happiness that I would remove from the garment of your life, yet there is not one spot of darkness that I would not wash from it.

It is not success that I am against, it is suffering.

 

Not at all.

Given the accuracy of the above the main topic is perhaps exhausted because real consideration makes the questions moot.

Well said.

 

No time now. But can you please tell me why you have a gun?

 

For such a time when it may be appropriately necessary.

Gun in a four foot by five foot by eight foot enclosure with snarling raccoon and chickens present in the same limited space, is not appropriate.

 

You are against suffering? You are just one electric fence from making that statement a little more true.

You did say that deciding to not indulge doesn't sound like self knowledge, more like self defeatism.

When called out on that idea, you said, "No, I said confused." And yes, you said that, too. And in the same breath, you said, "I am not judging those who stop." Is it really possible that you do not see that calling "quitters" confused is in fact judging those who stop? You contradict yourself within the same sentence. Is it possible that you have, for your own puposes, painted everyone who quits as lacking self-knowledge? That would indeed be an exercise in one-dimensional thinking.

And then you said, "If you say of yourself, I can't, that sounds like self defeatism to me."

I did not say that I can't; I said that I understand where my weaknesses are. You appear to have projected what you prefer I meant with my statement by adding the word "can't."

I understand that I do not wish to induce muddled thinking. I view muddled thinking for any length of time to be a weakness; that to act in such a way that puts me where I don't care to be is indeed a weakness and would reflect nothing but my lack of, or inability to respond to, self knowledge. To act contrary to that knowledge would be a denial of that self-knowledge. Wouldn't you agree?