Anslem, Nietzsche, Goodness, Nihilism & The Good News

Anselm

I wrote in a  previous post here about how we Christians are responding to the incessant attacks on Christians and our Church. Mostly we respond as victims, the zeitgeist of victimology infecting even us.

I recently read an article by a guy, T L Jernigan ("On Anselm's God & the Virtue of Existing"-Touchstone), contrasting St Anselm and Nietzsche. The ideas here are his, I take no claim to them, only my response to the article.

 Nietzsche we all know said God is dead. Anselm we don’t know so much about. He was the 11^th Century Archbishop of Canterbury. His main thing was to prove the existence of God by combining science, logic and reason with experience and knowledge of the Divine.

He said, God is good, so reality is good. I remember a sermon or reading from awhile ago, that said at each stage of creation, God saw it was good. So what could be better than good?

Anselm: “We believe that you are the thing than which nothing greater can be thought…it is the one thing to have something in the understanding, but quite another to understand that it actually exists…And certainly that than which nothing greater can be thought cannot exist only in the understanding. For if it exists only in the understanding, it is possible to think of it existing in reality, and that is greater.”

Existence is good. It’s great in fact!

Then here comes Nietzsche, who considered existence horrible and horrid. It’s something inflicted on us.

Nietzsche: “Oh wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach; not to be born, not to be nothing.” Jeeeeez, sad to be him.

Life is tough, and maybe some sometimes would like it to end. Augustine thought: “while [the suicidal man’s] error make him believe that he will no longer be, his nature makes him wish for rest, that is to say, an increase in being. It is why, since it is impossible not to love being, the fact that we are must not be a reason for us to show ingratitude toward the goodness of the creator.” (Being and Nothingness) I'll just bet you Nietzsche loved persons and sometimes even life. I would suggest he loved life so much he spent his life trying to understand and explain it. Volumes worth!

Sometimes we just need a break. We need to lie beside still waters. God provides it when we need it. Nietzsche isn’t wanting a rest, he wants it all to end. Nihilism. Would one expect anything else when one thinks God dead? With God dead there is no redemption, no rest, only endless suffering.

Now we live in a Nietzschean world. Euthanasia is good. Abortion is good; what better than to snuff out existence before a soul is aware of it? Suicide is good, we’ll even murder you while telling you you’re committing suicide.

A universe created by goodness, surrounded goodness, inhabiting goodness. We are created in His image, and it is good. I’ll be anti-Nietzschean, thank you very much. I think one of the things that moved me out of Buddhism is that it’s nihilist. From nothing to nothing. Ultimately I couldn’t accept that.  

John Paul II: “…the first and basic good for every creature…All other good derive from this basic good. I can only act while I am. Man’s multifarious works, the reasons of his genius, the fruits of his holiness are only possible if the man-the genius, the saint-comes into existence.”

I came from these ideas in the article heartened, and know that we mustn’t fall into Nietzschean thinking that life is horrible at its base, and it’s best if we snuff it out however we can. Sorry for the sad man, he’s a bad man.

We can’t whine as Christians, bemoan our plight; especially here in the New Amerika where it’s lawsuits, harassment and government suppression and threats, and we aren’t getting slaughtered like in the Middle East, or imprisoned/murdered like in China.

To back into our Christianity with just a taint of Nietzschean nihilism, or defeatism is to exhibit a weakened faith, a not serious belief of redemption. Not a serious knowledge that Life is Goodness and that God will not forsake us, Christ will return, and all we have to do is live scriptural, Spirit-filled lives.

Witness sensibly by showing understanding and talk to people from their perspective using their language, be careful of our words, listen to them (you have two ears and one mouth), be of service. James: “If you are wise and understand God’s ways prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.” By this way we can take control of the helm and move the ship of humanity back to God, by sharing the Good News.

Bullying, Homosexuality, Traditionalists, the Jurassic Media

That anyone commits suicide is tragic. That level of despair breaks the heart to even think about. The media this past week has been all over the suicide of six kids, three homosexual. 

Not to my surprise, Conservatives and Christians are to blame, because we are homophobic, and promote the hatred of homosexuals. 

From “Huffington Post” blogger John Shore, on his personal blog:

"It's a fact that gay teenagers are about thirty percent more likely than straight teenagers to take their own lives. It's a fact that the vast majority of Christians believe that being gay is a profound moral failing, a foul aberration, a repelling, unnatural offense against God that fully warrants as punishment an eternity spent in hell. Asserting that those two facts have no relationship cannot possibly be anything but intellectually dishonest."

This is of course a vile hateful lie. There may be a few wacky extreme literal people that think this, but it’s marginal, and it’s certainly not mainstream Christian thinking. What he says are facts are not at all; they are made up by him. 

To the bullying issue, are the kids that do this to homosexual kids, doing it because the Bible told them so? Doubt it. Doubt they are being raised in the church, doubt the are being raised in the Christian tradition. 

There are bullies going back to the beginning of time. I dealt with them until high school. One guy used to lay into me on a regular basis at the school bus stop, before and after school. Sometimes he got his buddy and they both would lay into me. I fought back and got my ass kicked. Eventually, I went to the guy’s Dad and told him what was going on, and that if his son even touched me one more time, I was going to the police. As I walked away from the house, I could hear the Father yelling at the son and knocking him around. Violence ran in the family. After that the other kid laid off too. I dealt with it on my own. I grew up, weighing about ten pounds and terminally shy, but dealt with all the bullies; there were several. 

There are options to deal with knuckle dragging jerks, and suicide is not one of them.

The other part of the story is the knuckleheads in the media that use this story to attack Christians and Conservatives, and other people with traditional values. The Jurassic Press drags out intellectually knuckle dragging jerks like the hate spewing Kathy Griffen, or Rosie O’Donnell (why’s she still around?), the incredibly intolerant Wanda Sykes who said that she hoped Rush Limbaugh would die of  kidney failure. That’s what passes for comedy now. Griffin said she would like to push Sarah Palin down the stairs. Peace and Love dude. 

What is this thing, come to think of it, of hate filled alleged comedians being interviewed on alleged news programs for political and cultural commentary, or the knucklehead Stephen Colbert testifying before Congress on immigration? Mostly, I think, because that’s about all the intellectual heft the Left can bring to bear on any issue. Can’t win any argument, facts are against them, so let’s make a mockery of everything.

It’s not bullying that’s the problem now, any more than it was in the past. It’s the breakdown of the culture, the destruction of the family, and the total rejection by half the population of traditional values. Other people are not valued so much. Part of it is about kids manning up and fighting back. It’s part of growing up and dealing with some of the crap we’re all dealt in life. 

It’s about stupid statements like Kathy Griffin’s on this:  "I think that the way that we had trickle-down economics in the '80s, this is trickle-down homophobia. And I really want people to connect the dots. And that's why I believe there's a connection between Prop. 8; Don't Ask, Don't Tell; and now the string of teen suicides."

Or the unfunny Sykes: "In the laws and everything else that's out here, in the churches that they preach that homophobia is wrong. You pretty much have given kids permission to disrespect and, you know, and to cause harm to the gay and lesbian community."  Really Sykes? What churches preach that? Of course she believes this is mainstream Christian thought, but she's so unintelligent and uninformed, so blinded by bigotry and hatred, that's all she knows. 

These idiots talk about tolerance yet bash Christians, Jews, traditionalists, Conservatives, anyone trying to live a moral life, on a regular basis. They are vile stupid people, and I have to wonder why and how it’s possible they have any public platform other than the stage to practice what they criticize.   

I'm sorry and saddened by these suicides. I'm saddened too that intolerant vile hateful people use these tragic deaths as a platform to attack values and beliefs different from their own. Really...who's intolerant? 


Some advice from Queen:

Mia Farrow's Brother Committs Suicide-It's Bush's Fault

Bush Derangement Syndrome is still running strong with the Statists. Mia Farrow's brother committed suicide, the cops are saying under suspicious circumstances, and it's under investigation. Farrow's brother was a 66 year old sculptor.

What's Bush got to do with this? A nephew; Patrick Farrow who had spent nearly 20 years in the Army was killed in Iraq is the connection. Remember that military service is voluntary and this man was a career soldier.

Patrick Farrow told The Associated Press after his nephew's May 25, 2008, death he felt as though he had been "kicked in the stomach."

"I've been opposed to this war since the beginning," Farrow said then. "This lying Bush administration has gotten into this thing that has now killed my nephew. It's up close and personal, and I am deeply angry."

Suicide. It's Bush's fault. Good grief.