Why are you quoting a preacher?
I quoted this passage from Washer’s sermon for a few different reasons.
It is a wonderful illustration that clearly outlines the Christian doctrine of total depravity over and against your humanistic assertion…while staying true to the initial statement about babies.
I also saw that this discussion has moved into territory that I allude to in the blog that I linked to.
If you’re suggesting that it is somehow “wrong” to quote preachers, then I would have to assume that you mean it is “wrong” in this objective sense that you hint at in your statements about babies.
Is it true? Is it objectively wrong to quote preachers?
That certainly isn’t a Biblical standard…
That’s not even a real post.
I’ve met children before and most of the time they are allot less cruel than when they get older and corrupted by conditioning. A baby grabbing at your wrist watch doesn’t mean it wants to kill you.
Now it’s pretty obvious that the preacher guy is corrupt.
There’s alterior motives under all of that biased highlighting.
I’ll bet that you’re corrupt, too. Everything you say has an alterior.
I knew I’d get this kind of garbage if I posted at ILP, but I’m so depressed and screwed over that I post anyways, just to try to distract myself away from the pain. I know I was wrong in posting, replying, etc. I’ve made this mistake, this futile and counter-productive waste of energy, because I don’t have a choice.
don’t worry dan i think it’s corrupt too.
it seems the preacher is trying to highlight the fact that we are born sinners in the christian gods’ illustrious eyes. (making humans out to be innately evil, even a baby!)
i said this earlier… “what better way to sell you something than to make you think you need it”?
they make you think you’re a bad person, then sell you the solution. it’s straight business.
my advice to you, who is overwhelmed with pain, is to experience more pain.
let the dam break and hit rock bottom.
why?
because everything tastes soo much sweeter from the bottom… You need to make some pain/pleasure ratio changes. (IMO)
Dan wrote:
I knew I’d get this kind of garbage if I posted at ILP, but I’m so depressed and screwed over that I post anyways, just to try to distract myself away from the pain. I know I was wrong in posting, replying, etc. I’ve made this mistake, this futile and counter-productive waste of energy, because I don’t have a choice.
[/quote]
This is your perception at the moment. And the wonderful thing about perception is that it changes moment to moment.
You have not made a mistake and it is not a counter-productive waste of energy, if their is awareness.
If you don’t see yourself as having a choice, why the words above?
There is NOW, this moment, this all you have, and the only question is "where am I now? 
TPT: When I say I threw my life away to pursue my degree, I mean to say that I used to have a job, a steady place to live, and friends. Anyways, this is a sidetrack.
Dan~: I knew I’d get this kind of garbage if I posted at ILP, but I’m so depressed and screwed over that I post anyways, just to try to distract myself away from the pain. I know I was wrong in posting, replying, etc. I’ve made this mistake, this futile and counter-productive waste of energy, because I don’t have a choice"
K: remember the world is a tragedy to those who feel: a comedy to those who think.
I too have scraped the bottom and it is no fun, but you have a choice.
Turn your pain into something. Create, shape, mold your pain into some form, be it art, science, philosophy, or
writing. Nietzsche said it best, learn from our experiences. We grow as human being from our pain, from our despair,
from our hitting the bottom. Don’t let your pain be the final word, let it be the beginning of an act of creation.
Pain is rarely the end of matters, but the beginning. Pain, despair, hopelessness can crush your soul if you let it, but
it can be the catalysts of profound change within yourself. I like millions of people have survived my pain, my despair,
and you can too. It is not a question of faith, or of logic, but a question of turning that pain into something else.
Turning that pain into wisdom is the greatest lesson you can learn. For all that pain and despair and hopelessness
is really just another lesson learned. Like touching a hot stove and learning that shit is hot and trust me you never did
that one again. So it goes with pain and despair, simply lessons learned.
Kropotkin
Hi Kropotkin, nice to see that you’re still alive.
Well, some degree of my pain, maybe a large large degree of it, is from my true Will.
I don’t want to be a painless vegetable without aversion, I want to say NO to the shit that I don’t like. That can equate to pain of many kinds, but, oh well. It’s not a guilty “I’m sorry” kind of pain. It’s motivational, and full of intentions. It’s a lively bitch and you’re right about the creativity part.
Thanks for the correct posting.
Yes Dan…take Nietzsche’s path…
Consider the following:
"The one philosopher who faced more or less frankly the nakedness of the natural man was Nietzsche, who dispensed entirely with the attempt to borrow from God. As a result, he faced nihilism. Every attempt to give meaning became purely his own truth and had no meaning apart from himself. Believing God dead, he destroyed in turn every meaning he himself attempted to establish, recognizing that no God means no meaning, not even life. His insanity was the outcome of his philosophy; the antithesis was between cosmic meaning and completely personal meaning, between Christ, the principle of divine interpretation, and Antichrist, the negation of meaning, between Dionysius, the affirmation of self as meaning against all meaning, and the Crucified, the interpreter and the Word. The choice is clear cut; no God, no man; no God, no meaning." – Rushdoony “By What Standard: An Analysis of Van Til’s Thought” page 17.
Meaning or no meaning, right or wrong, I will be as nice and good as I can to the ones I am able to, before I die.
The lesser values of logic and thought do not outrank the deeper force of the core of our life and Will.
This Will exists as the unified benificiary union of the cellular compound, the literal substance of our being.
The body is of only good will, on a certain direct cellular level.
I love and approve of the state of living, especially in the context of it being improved, but I refer to the real parts and not to the defilements of it. I refer to Good Will. I’m not describing something “Nietzschien” when I say that, I’m just saying that I still care about people, in more complicated word crap.
Who ever wrote the words in your last quote didn’t even know who Nietzsche was.
I’ll tell, incase anyone had forgotten :
He was a real human person, whom was unique and tried out whatever he had reach of in his whole causal resource. It all happened. He had thoughts, and friends, and he could hold and feel things in his hands. His mother probably loved him. I believe there was some degree of love. It was not a meaningless nihilism, or some figure and words. It was the actual, real life, more than derived meanings. It was not about the petty. When he lived and thought, it was not easy, either. His struggle to be alive, carried over to his writings in which there was the ideal of embracing real nature, and understanding it more deeply. Mindyou he was not the embodiment of what he wrote, but these were efforts, attempts, etc. He tried. That is what he did.
A non-separatory value system is still a value system.
Will is value. Will and creativity are focused on, because they are the primaries which made the other things such as values, intentions, thoughts, etc. It was not flawed to place the producer as more fundamental than his product, that the painter was actually more of an art than his painting. Therefor, the creation and destruction of a value, as common as we know that is, is not the creation or destruction of all value, but the transient true nature of all value.
The baby is innocent.
The person saying “no” is the corrupt one. Why are you denying the child’s investigation? You’ve lured the child in with false gesture of love by cradling it, then scolded it when it tries to share with you in the joys of the world. Sounds like lustful possessiveness on the part of the person holding the baby to me. Why should you value a shiney watch so much that it would cause you to verbally assault an infant? Because human laws say it belongs to you? You are the secular humanist, placing the laws of men above the love of an infant. The baby didn’t reach for the watch with malice, only curiosity, so you are also the one initiating the hatred in the story. The child’s response is appropriate. It is only defending itself from an unjustified attack.
The Bible (not that it matters) says we’re born into sin, not that we are born sinful.
Babies are innocent because they have no knowledge, and by extension, no knowledge of good and evil. They have not eaten the apple yet, so to speak. They act only on the movement of the spirit, which is the definition of innocence.
Mr. Knox…
My point in presenting Paul Washer’s brief exposition of the Christian doctrine of “Total Depravity” was not to provide a “real life” case in affirmation of the doctrine, but to merely show Mr. Dan that, contrary to his position, the Christian posits a man who is morally depraved from birth.
If you would like to have a debate about the total depravity of man…I might consider it, just ask me nicely.
As it is…you have merely displayed your “spin” on a given set of particular experiences, with the added bonus of an attempt at explaining the doctrine of man from a Biblical perspective. While it may say something about you personally…it doesn’t really add to, or refute the case I was making.
To Mr. Dan:
You are aware that Nietzsche, having realized the ultimate epistemological failure of his system, advocated suicide…right?
Before you try to correct R.J. Rushdoony, you should read what he said (at least the bit that I quoted) and attempt to understand what he’s getting at.
God bless you folks.
Shot
EDIT*
Oh…and P.S… Yes…the Bible does matter.
Regardless, the illustration is porous.
So says you.
Perhaps you’d like to present your view of man, and why it has more validity than the traditional Chistian view of total depravity?
I’ve already stated that I’d be willing to debate you on the issue. This particular thread is not the place for it though.
Yes, so says me. And, yes, I provided an alternative interpretation of the allegory. I suppose it’s up to the readers to decide whose interpretation is more convincing.
And, no, at the moment I’m not really interested in presenting my view of man. Not trying to be a jerk, but my dog needs to go to the park soon. I only wanted to criticize the illustration, and show that it presents an opposite interpretation of it’s intended meaning, and that I find it a failed illustation.
Well, whenever you do feel like submitting your statements to debate…I’ll be here for you.
Rushdoony lays forth the awful misplaced statements about Nietzsche actually. He did not truly believe God was dead. He believed that the institutions and faults of man have destroyed objectivity. This lack of Absolutes does not lead to nihilism. The belief to “become what you are” had/had a huuuge following from before Christianity until today.
The shock of the loss of Absolutes teaches one to become self reliant. The “angst, nausea, and emptiness” felt become over time new goals and a pervading sense of FREEDOM. I am simply stating one set of philosophers the existentialists which Nietzsche was a proto of.
His insanity was actually due to a history of mental illness and/or possibly syphilitic infection. His belief that der Ubermensch was the next step in evolution. A being who was above the Absolutes.
He is not the only philosopher to do this. Almost all great philosophers after him were following his tenets. The lack of God is nothing new to mankind. Many Eastern religions exist without God.
This is a classically flawed statement. Life can and does have meaning without God for others. Much of the world manages and thrives in the absence of traditional Judeo-Christian thoughts.
Double postie
Nietzsche takes the will to power as an absolute.
Also, self-reliance in the face of the loss of absolutes assumes that the self is absolute.
Ultimately, something must be absolute, else nothing could exist.
[/quote]
The problem is that we experience phenomenon relativity, and so can’t identify things accurately. There are two ways to attack this problem, you can assert an absolute (God) and say that everything exists relative to God, but that’s problematic because it becomes impossible to identify God. The second approach is to say nothing is absolute, and all things are relative. But that begs the question, “relative to what?” Each other? In that case existence becomes the absolute.
Neitzche wasn’t the first to use the second approach. He wasn’t revolutionary at all. This stuff has been around as long as people have been around.
You are correct Knox, I meant the loss of the former Absolutes i.e. God, Justice, morality.
I agree with the end statement about Nietzsche and his lack of sheer originality. But one cannot deny the power behind the statements of the time and place.