nihilism

[Immanuel Can]

What you really mean is that I know my position, and I don't give you ground on it. I have good reasons, and you don't like them. That does indeed make the debate become "futile," but only if your own position is intransigent and not open to data. Only you can decide whether that's the kind of position you wish to hold.

Thanks, I say sarcastically, for your restatement of what you believe I mean, but which is really what you'd like me to be saying.

Debate and argument only become futile when one of you is being irrationally intransigent. I'm not. So who does that leave?

I believe that you certainly have reasons, but it is not that I do not like them (exactly).

Exactly what, then? Since you realize I have reasons, what's a proper motivation for your kind of preclusion of discussion...especially on a philosophy site?

In any case, we are in agreement about the particulars of Catholic requirements...why not discuss those?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Exactly what, then? Since you realize I have reasons, what's a proper motivation for your kind of preclusion of discussion...especially on a philosophy site?

In any case, we are in agreement about the particulars of Catholic requirements...why not discuss those?

You make a valid point (about being on a philosophy site). It is simply that I do not feel a need to hash things out in regard to those differences of understanding that are fundamental to Protestant and Catholic disagreement. It is too laborious and time consuming.

I am not sure if we are in agreement "about the particulars of Catholic requirements" except that we seem to agree that a Catholic's commitments must be continually reinforced. To me, that seems healthy. It is true in this sense that *the state of Grace* must be worked at through renewed commitments. But that is different from implying that it is 'salvation through works'.

The full program of *Catholic commitment* is extraordinary in my view. That is what I believe since, for a long time now, and when I have time, I have studied the material.

I also want you to know that I did order The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and one other title you recommended. Your classical *Protestant arrogance* is not offense, necessarily, yet I would say it is a bit bothersome or perhaps enervating is the word I seek.

Still, I can find many areas where I *share agreement* with you. But it is the areas where I am starkly in disagreement with you that make it hard to cooperate with you. The reason I say *cooperate* is because, in this climate, it is better to seek allies rather than to seek to be alienated from (potential) allies.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Just how successful is any Catholic in either achieving or maintaning his own salvation? We might add, how successful is the average Catholic in preserving himself from sin? If the answer were "Very successful," then what need would a Catholic person have any longer for confession, for absolution, for penances, for sacraments, for rosaries and appeals to saints, and ultimately, to the fiction of Purgatory?

There is room for discussion here, perhaps. Not sure that now is the time. But it is a very interesting and worthy area for examination.

[Immanuel Can]

Exactly what, then? Since you realize I have reasons, what's a proper motivation for your kind of preclusion of discussion...especially on a philosophy site?

In any case, we are in agreement about the particulars of Catholic requirements...why not discuss those?

You make a valid point (about being on a philosophy site). It is simply that I do not feel a need to hash things out in regard to those differences of understanding that are fundamental to Protestant and Catholic disagreement. It is too laborious and time consuming.

Fair enough. But then, it has been you who keeps raising them. I'm just talking about what I actually believe...and what, in good conscience, can a person do on a philosophy site except that?

I am not sure if we are in agreement "about the particulars of Catholic requirements" except that we seem to agree that a Catholic's commitments must be continually reinforced. To me, that seems healthy.

How successful do you think it is?

It is true in this sense that *the state of Grace* must be worked at through renewed commitments. But that is different from implying that it is 'salvation through works'.

Not really. Because this "renewed commitment" -- by whom is it to be done? Is it not by the Catholic himself/herself? But if so, then the success of that depends on the attentiveness, fortitude, vigilance and success of the individual Catholic person. And again, if that were so successful, then would not they cease to need all the Catholic routines and sacred practices? For once they had managed to make themselves perfect, what need would they have of confession, or absolution, or penance, or sacraments, or petitions to saints, or rosaries, or rituals, and so on?

Is not the constant repetition of those things the clearest evidence we need that Catholicism fails in that? It tells people to be good, but they just don't succeed in doing it. And the recourse to those things is the clearest testimony they could give against themselves, that once again, they've failed and had to turn back to those sorts of practices, is it not?

The case of this is made in Hebrews, by the way. The author writes, " For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the form of those things itself, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually every year, make those who approach perfect. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year..."

Now, in the context, he's speaking about Judaism, of course: but is not exactly the same true of Catholicism? Does it not also have repeated recourse to rituals of self-abasement and repentance, precisely because of the failure of each last attempt? And do we need clearer testimony that the Catholic person is still wracked with guilt and consciousness of failure?

So from what have they been saved? And what's their certainty that their very next sin won't plunge them into Purgatory, or worse?

I also want you to know that I did order The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and one other title you recommended.

Well, that's a very admirable step on your part. The BCNT is neither cheap nor easy. But it is good. If you want to grapple with the core issues in apologetics, I don't believe you could find a better volume. Good for you.

...it is the areas where I am starkly in disagreement with you that make it hard to cooperate with you. The reason I say *cooperate* is because, in this climate, it is better to seek allies rather than to seek to be alienated from (potential) allies.

I agree. But being a genuine ally means that the two speakers are not only compliant with one another in matters where they can be, but also free to disagree with one another, or to take issue with each other's claims. It would not be a free exchange if it were otherwise. So if agreeing is made the sine qua non of "cooperation," then no free and genuine "cooperation" is even possible -- only grudging compliance, and obligation toward a false agreement at all times.

[henry quirk]

I was not aware you were expecting a specific response from me Henry.

Generally, when someone quotes a person, he's lookin' for a response from that person. But, mebbe, that's just my cockeye'd take on it.

Anyway, yes, I would appreciate a response to my last post.

[Alexis Jacobi]

In context: we're talking about the Creator, the Prime Mover, literally The First Principle. It's not right, then, to say morality extends from, or issues from, or was established by, God. God is morality. He is the Measure.

My own view is tinged with a type of dualism. I have written about this a lot. It runs through all my thinking. I see it like this:

If we say *God created this world* we have to accept that God created a rather terrible, violent, uncompromising, cruel world. That is, the world of Nature. It is a world where creature consumes creature in a terribly process where energy, and being, is consumed and which cycles in what we note as *the ecological system*. In that world there is no morality -- not in any sense comparable to our human, social moralities. It seems to me that this is plain as day, and as such it is a frightening truth to face. Gary, it seems to me, struggles mightily with this problem. It is a dog eat dog world. Or, as the Rishis of ancient India thought, it is a fish eat fish world.

Now, our morality, and our sense of supernaturalism, always has to do with a countermanding Idea. That Idea, that sense of what is right and good, directly opposes *the way of the world*. It is established, in this sense, as operating *against the world*. And when the world is seen in that light, the world is *the domain of Satan*. The more that one gets subsumed into the *world*, the more one becomes naturalistic, as opposed to supernaturalistic. The more earthly you get, the more realistic you get in naturalistic terms, and the more involved in real power-dynamics.

In a nutshell, that is how I interpret Nietzsche's rebellion against the supernatural order. He recognized that this Christian (and Jewish) morality is an idealistic rebellion against *reality*. He could not find or see *God* insofar as he focused on the fury and immorality of the earthly systems, the biological order into which, like it or not, we are all subsumed.

When IC says that that Earth is *good* and it is man who screws things up I think he is quite mistaken. His view, and the Christian view, requires that belief in a *fall* from a ideal state that was said to exist and toward which we must incline again. And that the fault is all man's.

But this is just a superimposition of an Idea over the reality that we live in a violent system:

“And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms striving toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self- creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself— do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

When I refer to *the metaphysical* and *the supernatural* I am referring to that imposition that comes from outside the world and makes demands on it. I.e. makes demands on us.

Now, how do we reconcile the God who fabricated The World as it actually is, with the God of *goodness*? It is certainly just a wee bit of a problem!

As I say: The metaphysical principle is the rule.

In my view one must awaken to the principle by awakening "intellectus". But note that I have a strong streak of dualism, as I have just pointed out.

Further, to the degree we play interpretation games with this metaphysical principle, we distance ourselves from the principle. More concretely, borrowing from a post I made sometime back in the Christianity thread: when we focus on the jar -- it's ornamentation, let's say -- we ignore the jar's purpose (holding life-preserving water). We're dying of thirst as we dicker on filigree.

I do not quite understand what you take away from this statement. All that I would say is that one must either awaken to that *metaphysical principle* (supernaturalism) and choose to the degree one can, to live through it, and mold the world by it, or to choose to return to *naturalism*: the power-dynamic, the realness of the will to power.

Now, if you wanted to get really the the heart of this conflict you could reference Fr Denis Fahey and, say, The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism. Christ is the embodiment of the supernatural principle, and Christ operates against naturalism and the Domain of Satan (as Christians understood the world for about 1,000 years). It must be said, because it is true, that the influence of Fahey is undeniably visible/audible in a person like Candace Owens. The implication in the recent renewal of the statement Christ is King has all sorts of implications.

[Alexiev]

As an aside, the term "nihilism" was popularized (and perhaps invented) in Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons. Bazarov, a university student, calls himself a "nihilist" to the amazement and incomprehensible of his friend's parents.

Carry on.

[Immanuel Can]

If we say *God created this world* we have to accept that God created a rather terrible, violent, uncompromising, cruel world.

Why? Because it's that way now?

Why not say what the Bible says about it: that God created it good, but mankind sinned and ruined the Creation? Or would it just be utterly unthinkable to take that as a serious possibility? If so, why? We are surely owed some kind of reasons, if an even potentially viable alternate explanation exists; and clearly, it does.

That Idea, that sense of what is right and good, directly opposes *the way of the world*.

Does that work for Islamism, too? Do you think that slitting people's throats on a beach "opposes the way of the world"?

And when the world is seen in that light, the world is *the domain of Satan*.

But didn't you already just reject the possibility that anybody but God is responsible for the way the world is?

The more earthly you get, the more realistic you get in naturalistic terms, and the more involved in real power-dynamics.

Okay, but you've said that this "earthiness" is bad. So why would you, and Nietzsche, presume we should plunge into that, and embrace power as if it were the deep truth about everything? If selfish power is the problem, then how can embracing more selfish power be the solution?

In a nutshell, that is how I interpret Nietzsche's rebellion against the supernatural order. He recognized that this Christian (and Jewish) morality is an idealistic rebellion against *reality*. He could not find or see *God* insofar as he focused on the fury and immorality of the earthly systems, the biological order into which, like it or not, we are all subsumed.

Yes, that's what he thought. I think you have that approximately right.

And if one shares his entirely presumptive belief that God does not exist, that is very well what one might think. But Nietzsche never did anything to demonstrate, evidence or prove it in any way. He just assumed his interpretation was sufficient and correct, and then proceeded from there. That's exactly why he starts with the "God is dead" declaration: without that presumption, his subsequent deductions would be wrong.

When IC says that that Earth is *good* and it is man who screws things up I think he is quite mistaken. His view, and the Christian view, requires that belief in a *fall* from a ideal state that was said to exist and toward which we must incline again. And that the fault is all man's.

But this is just a superimposition of an Idea over the reality that we live in a violent system:

Well, you can't deduce from "the system is violent now" to "therefore, God made this system what it is," or "man has no moral duty," or "the world is always only about power." There's no logical deduction there. And Nietzsche never gave us any intermediate steps to warrant any such conclusion. He just hoped we'd instinctively agree, it seems.

But no, we don't have to agree with Nietzsche at all. We have no reason to. He owes us one, if he had it: but apparently, he didn't. So why should we believe him?

Now, how do we reconcile the God who fabricated The World as it actually is, with the God of *goodness*?

Actually, the Biblical response is very straightforward, and you've already mentioned it: God didn't make the world what it currently is. He made it good, and we made it bad. You've mentioned "the Fall" already. Nietzsche does not even entertain that as a possibility -- a self-contradictory move for a man who thought "will" was supposed to be so important. He didn't even reckon with "will" when it came to the matter of responsibility for present condition of the world, it seems.

Now: how do you simply dismiss the Biblical answer? I'm not saying you can't, of course, if you insist: I'm saying, "How are you going to manage it, rationally speaking?"

[promethean75]

"That Idea, that sense of what is right and good, directly opposes *the way of the world*. It is established, in this sense, as operating *against the world*. And when the world is seen in that light, the world is *the domain of Satan*. The more that one gets subsumed into the *world*, the more one becomes naturalistic, as opposed to supernaturalistic."

Gnostic thinking like this originated from a complex philosophical reaction to that fact of the world's violence and crude material nature, and man, feeling already suspicious that such an (seemingly) intelligently designed world could be only a mere accident or random event, connects these two strange circumstances and finally reasons in a way that best suits his vanity and pride: "well then. I must be of a higher order than this imperfect and violent material world... and the intelligent designer of this world has something special in mind for me. I know this because i recognize how I'm the only animal that can feel like something is wrong with this world. I have a special sense... call it my plato-power or my intellectus. And it tells me that I'm not of this world"

This may all be true, but we couldn't know it, nor should we be expected to think like that because such thinking depreciates the world and casts a gloomy shadow over everything in it. It also makes us feel less responsible for what happens in the world... after all, this is a crude and imperfect world and not important, so we shouldn't care too much about it.

Now, here's how you get out of this dilemma you're faced with. You live and act as if there is no other world, and this is all you get, and in doing so, you earn (you 'will') some kind of soul immortality by the sheer precedence of what you have done; defied the would-be existing god by staying honest and true to reason and intellect, not faith. By designing your own world and your own responsibility for it without recourse to any religion (pick one, there's thousands) you become a kind of tragic titan yourself, an immortal consigned to what he doesn't know is the illusion of mortal life and living in the violent and imperfect material world as if it is the only world, suffering it in as much silence as he can bare.

What modesty, what humility, what tremendous burden of responsibility for what happens in this world, would not warrant, would not earn the gift of immortality if there be such a thing?

Verily, i ask you.

Perhaps the whole thing is a trick and god is, and wants us all to be, atheists. That's why he created folks like Plato and all those ridiculous religions. To show us what not to be.

[Immanuel Can]

... I interpret Nietzsche's rebellion...etc.

Let's make this concise. What did Nietzsche mean, when he said "Nihilism"?

To understand, we have to start with Nietzsche's assumptive denial of the existence of God, and his substitution of "life force" as expressed in "will to power" for the overriding imperative of the universe.

For the Christian, God exists, objective morality exists, and the world is not as God intended it to be. Thus, for the Christian, "Nihilism" means "the denial that God exists, the denial of objective morality, and the acceptance of a fallen world as inevitable." It is despair. It is literally the denial that anything ultimately matters, because the present dysfunctional state of things is all there is.

When Nietzsche uses the world Nihilism, he does not mean this. For Nietzsche, God is dead, there is no objective morality (other than the "life force" morality he backdoors after-the fact: but leave that aside, for the moment), and the world is inevitably only a stage of power dynamics. Thus, the "will to power" is the only realism, and amorality the only truth, and the balance of power the only thing worth fighting for. Thus, for Nietzsche, "Nihilism" means "the affirmation that God exists, that objective morality ("Judeo-Christian," in particular) exists, and that power dynamics should not be embraced as the deep and final truth of reality."

In other words, "Nihilism" in each case means something directly opposite. To be a Christian Nihilist is to despair and capitulate to present dysfunctional order of things, and to come to despise all real values. Nietzsche perversely reverses this definition, and claims that rejecting his rejection of God, morality and righteousness is what denies reality, and hence constitutes "Nihilism."

Note the difference. It is not insignificant. But note, too, that which version of "Nihilism" one accepts is going to be determined assumptively. It's not proved. It's not demonstrated. It's not even rationalized. It's drawn from the a priori assumption one has made at the beginning: is the Biblical account of reality truthful or not? If it's true, then Nihilism is what Christians say it is. If Nietzsche's assumptive worldview were true, then Nihilism would maybe be what Nietzsche says it is.

But notice this, too. Even if Nietzsche is right, he would be wrong. And why? Because it cannot possibly be the case that refusing things like Nietzsche's "life force" or "will to power" can be, in any meaningful sense, "immoral" or "Nihilistic." And why? Because Nietzsche himself denies that moral grounds exist! For him, if he were consistent, NOTHING could be "immoral," or "Nihilistic" or even "ill-advised": for if power is all there is, and morality is out, then nothing is "better" or "worse" than anything else. And then, it is not immoral to reject all of Nietzsche's claims, either.

This is where Nietzsche is forced to "backdoor" morality. He has to try to convince us that "will to power" and "life force" are GOOD. And he affirms that they are, though not in those terms, perhaps. He advises us to believe in them, and to seek them, and he deplores those "Judeo-Christians" who refuse his imperatives. Thus, Nietzsche illegitimately moralizes the world which he denies is even capable of being moralized.

How ironic is that?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I am not sure I can get back to you IC immediately, but I believe that I recognize that you cannot really read my discourse and understand it. So your questions, based on what you imagine me to be saying, are not the right ones.

What I explained is my position as a dualist. Or perhaps I should say *qualified dualist*.

Frankly, I do not think we see the Fall in the same way. I gather that you see the Fall as exclusively something that occurred in man's world, i.e. psychologically (psychically). But I take the Fall as it was understood by Medieval philosophy: there really was a garden; the original persons lived in it in an immortal, deathless state; their disobedience brought about the punishment of banishment; and their Fall affected the entire, created world. The entire world is under the curse, if you will, of that Fall. And there is posited an eventual restoration that will take place, literally, on a cosmic level: the entire system will be renewed.

So, and no, I cannot take the metaphor of The Fall as *reality*. So I have to allegorize it and see it as a Story imposed on de rerum natura. I might be able to see the Fall in some sort of spiritual sense, like for instance that our souls existed in a prior state in a non-physical realm of some sort. And then we fell. Or simply descended down into a consequential world of flesh & blood and *cruel nature* red in tooth & claw.

The world is the world. It has been as it is now for millions of years.

So for me, or in my present way of seeing, the reference to *metaphysical principles* or *supernaturalism* can be summed up as the essence of Christian doctrine. You seem to believe that I am opposed to that. But I am more telling you how it is that I envision *it* and how it comes into our world. It *incarnated* into our world; it is revealed. But it is not, not essentially, of this world.

Nietzche's picture of that world is realistic. He described a natural world, and thus naturalism. But I am not, myself, a naturalist, I am a supernaturalist. It is through that means, or that perception or understanding, that I apprehend Christianity.

[Alexis Jacobi]

What's the origin of the phrase 'Red in tooth and claw'?

This has the sound of a proverbial phrase which might come from the Bible or from Shakespeare. Search the Bible for ‘tooth’ and you’ll find little other than ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. Shakespeare comes a little closer and refers to ‘an adders’ tooth’, ‘a serpent’s tooth’ and even to an animal with claws – ‘a mad dog’s tooth’. The line is in fact much more recent than either of those sources and comes from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam A. H. H., 1850. The quotation comes in Canto 56 (it is a very long poem) and refers to man:

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed

‘Tooth and claw’ was already in use as a phrase denoting wild nature by Tennyson’s day; for example, this piece from The Hagerstown Mail, March 1837:

“Hereupon, the beasts, enraged at the humbug, fell upon him tooth and claw.”

A.H.H. was Tennyson’s friend Arthur Henry Hallam and the poet used the elegy to pose questions about the apparent conflict between love as the basis of the Christian religion and the callousness of nature. If nature is purposeless and heartless, how can we believe in creation’s final law? But, as a Christian, how could he not?

The wide-ranging poem didn’t attempt to provide an answer, but did become part of the debate over the major scientific and theological concern of Victorian thinkers – Charles Darwin’s theories on natural selection, as expressed in The Origin of Species, 1859. On into the 20th century, the enthusiastic Darwinist Richard Dawkins used ‘red in tooth and claw’ in The Selfish Gene, to summarize the behaviour of all living things which arises out of the survival of the fittest doctrine.

[Immanuel Can]

Frankly, I do not think we see the Fall in the same way.

Yes, I think that's true.

I gather that you see the Fall as exclusively something that occurred in man's world, i.e. psychologically (psychically).

You won't find I said that anywhere. Sorry: it's just not the case. But I do regard the Fall as a literal event.

So, and no, I cannot take the metaphor of The Fall as *reality*.

Why not?

It should be obvious, as you have already stated, that *something* is wrong with this world. Why should we be unable to think it's what is described in the Biblical account -- namely, that man has departed from proper fellowship with God, and is now using his freedom to destroy, and taking the world with him?

Yes, you can choose to allegorize that. But it's not clear why you would. After all, if it never really happened, and it fails as myth as well, since it fails to unlock any truths to us by way of metaphor, why would we retain that narrative at all?

I might be able to see the Fall in some sort of spiritual sense, like for instance that our souls existed in a prior state in a non-physical realm of some sort. And then we fell. Or simply descended down into a consequential world of flesh & blood and *cruel nature* red in tooth & claw.

That wouldn't be easier than believing in a literal Fall. It would mean you had to invent "prior states" and "non-physical" realms, and also a "fall" with no particular reason, or a "descent" we would have no reason to want. It seems to me that that creates far more questions than it purports to resolve.

The world is the world. It has been as it is now for millions of years.

And? I don't see an obvious conclusion from that claim. You'll have to explain why you think that is an importantly telling statement.

Nietzche's picture of that world is realistic.

You can choose to assume that. He certainly did. But the contradictions in Nietzscheanism remain, of course.

[Immanuel Can]

What's the origin of the phrase 'Red in tooth and claw'?

I knew this. It's also not the conclusion of the poem, you'll find.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Gnostic thinking like this originated from a complex philosophical reaction to that fact of the world's violence and crude material nature, and man, feeling already suspicious that such an (seemingly) intelligently designed world could be only a mere accident or random event, connects these two strange circumstances and finally reasons in a way that best suits his vanity and pride: "well then. I must be of a higher order than this imperfect and violent material world... and the intelligent designer of this world has something special in mind for me. I know this because i recognize how I'm the only animal that can feel like something is wrong with this world. I have a special sense... call it my plato-power or my intellectus. And it tells me that I'm not of this world"

This may all be true, but we couldn't know it, nor should we be expected to think like that because such thinking depreciates the world and casts a gloomy shadow over everything in it. It also makes us feel less responsible for what happens in the world... after all, this is a crude and imperfect world and not important, so we shouldn't care too much about it.

Now, here's how you get out of this dilemma you're faced with. You live and act as if there is no other world, and this is all you get, and in doing so, you earn (you 'will') some kind of soul immortality by the sheer precedence of what you have done; defied the would-be existing god by staying honest and true to reason and intellect, not faith. By designing your own world and your own responsibility for it without recourse to any religion (pick one, there's thousands) you become a kind of tragic titan yourself, an immortal consigned to what he doesn't know is the illusion of mortal life and living in the violent and imperfect material world as if it is the only world, suffering it in as much silence as he can bare.

What modesty, what humility, what tremendous burden of responsibility for what happens in this world, would not warrant, would not earn the gift of immortality if there be such a thing?

Verily, i ask you.

Perhaps the whole thing is a trick and god is, and wants us all to be, atheists. That's why he created folks like Plato and all those ridiculous religions. To show us what not to be.

Please, 'fess up Promethean. You have been reading The 12-Week Email Course, Part Four, Chapter 22-23, right??!!