This is a response to Lot's Wife in regards to our discussion about Nietzsche in the thread here: https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2356700,2357102,quote=1#REPLY
And/or https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2356700,2357102,quote=1#REPLY

So for the context of this reply the audience can refer to the links above.

Reading your comments of course annoyed me and if I was following Nietzsche's anti-Christian-morality, since you cursed me I would curse you five times back as he recommends in TSZ. But I am not going to do that. Your response felt rather condescending, rude and insulting to me. Which I honestly thought was below "us" as interlocutors. I don't think there is any need for that from two mature adults. Adults can have a disagreement politely and diplomatically and discuss differences and provide scholarly sources to reach a win-win understanding. So since I was advocating "Christian Atheism" in that thread, I will appeal metaphorically to forgive them Father for they know not what they do. And will forgive seventy times seven (metaphorically) because I believe you are just responding to an anonymous name on a screen and venting anger and trying to save face which is only human.

I will now attempt to take the higher moral ground here and explain that I felt like you drew "first blood" so to speak by saying I am wrong over and over again when I didn't think I was. This led to my responses being defensive, which I admit. I know it's easy to dehumanize people on message boards, but may I recommend the spirit of Dale Carnegie's best seller How to Win Friends, that I actually did read (not on audio tape, wink wink), and he recommends not to begin a discussion by saying "You're wrong." He recommends instead saying something like, "I could be wrong, I often am, so let's examine the facts." So that is what I am going to try and do at this point. I know that you "appear" as just an anonymous person on a screen but I know you are a human being with feelings on the other side of the screen (with whom I can feel compassion for) so I think you have attempted to save face and maintain your self-esteem (as have I), so your reactions I guess are understandable. So I'm not going to waste any more of our time responding point for point. If this were a debate I would leave it up to the audience, which in this case would be the message board readers to examine what I said and then they can examine what you said and decide for themselves. For my part, in the spirit of discovering the truth, I provided several sources for my own positions so I will leave it at that. Bygones be bygones.

I admit that I was frustrated with your seemingly what felt like just trying to disagree with me, strawman me, and say I'm wrong repeatedly when I didn't think I was, which led me to responding argumentatively. I don't think I was rude, condescending, and insulting. But perhaps I was defensive and argumentative which triggered your last response. Might I recommend that if we do continue this that we take a scholarly approach and quote sources but not mock and belittle. And if I am also guilty of such rhetoric myself I will desist.

I will even try to set an example here and say that I will admit that writing off the cuff I probably should not have used the words I did about a general outline of the canon being collected in the various communities by 180 and it being similar to the current NT Canon. I can see now that my sentences did not convey what I meant. My thinking for saying that was based on the dates of the New Testament documents themselves. I could have been more careful in my wording and been clearer on what I meant. Because you are right that what is now the official Canon came about after 180 AD. I was aware of that. What I was trying to convey was that since the NT documents date between approximately 30 and 150 AD, and the different first century Christian communities were using various documents that later became the official Canon, all the while having disagreements about what is scripture like the Book of Revelation I mentioned, then we can deduce that what the early Christian communities were using as their scriptures in the first century were "similar" to what became the official Canon later. I concede that I could have been clearer in what I meant. I was writing off the cuff and I have read Ehrman quite a bit. I was also working off the memory of learning somewhere, I can't recall, that the official NT Canon was not selected out of thin air by the elite powerbrokers post Constantine, but that the official Canon was selected from the documents that were popular among the earliest communities. That was the gist of what I was trying to convey but admit now that I worded it badly.

Regarding Nietzsche, I am welcome to changing my mind and being corrected by you (who I will again say does appear intelligent and well-read) and if I am actually mistaken I truly would like to be corrected. But I will not engage in further negative tit-for-tat which is not emotionally constructive for either one of us, but if you would like to have a mutually mature discussion and we provide sources, we can open up a new thread and title it something like Who is the real Nietzsche? Or something do so in this thread I just opened. But I'm not interested in just exchanging insults to stroke our egos. I'm interested in a mature discussion and scholarly analysis and the facts being revealed for our mutual intellectual enrichment as well as for the audience who can benefit. If you are up to that let me know.

Perhaps you can show where I insulted you rather than disagreeing with you.

My statement, "Your response felt rather condescending, rude and insulting to me." I'm sensing red flags from your response based on past experiences with various temperaments, and your not wanting to join me in both of us taking a more mature route for both of us. I think I handled it the best I could admitting my errors at the start of this thread and expressing how I was feeling as a new poster on this message board and wanting to move forward constructively.

So at this point I will just post the last two exchanges we had and ask if you honestly do not see your response as coming off as condescending rude and insulting? If you and/or the audience here don't think so and this is normal digital behavior on this board then I will adapt, and decide if this is worthy of my time to continue. I already said I'm not going to engage in negative tit-for-tat and I wanted to have a discussion that is mutually enriching for you and I and the audience who may be interested in Nietzsche. Hopefully you are game. So here are my last our last two exchanges and I'm asking you (and/or the audience) if both of us did not engage in unproductive communications and if your last commentary to me was not condescending, rude and insulting:

Posted by: Time in Motion ( )
Date: January 16, 2021 11:45PM
Re: Were Christians ever the majority on RFM?

Lot's Wife,


I did not say “ the Christian communities had selected the core documents by 120 AD.” I said “the early Christian communities decided the the basic outline of the Canon themselves” and the early communities likely had “a collection of Christian documents that looked very similar” (note the words: very similar) to the later official canon and I then clearly said, “it's true that it was later that the Bible collection became official.” As you can see I did not say as you falsely claim “the Christian communities had selected the core documents by 120 AD.” So you are countering with a Straw Man. I agree with what you wrote after that because I have read or skimmed much of Ehrman myself and what you wrote actually harmonizes with what I wrote because it appears we have read the same stuff.

I have read or listened via audiobook to most of Nietzsche and consulted scholars on N, so I am surprised you are so confidently disagreeing with me. You wrote: “N never wanted to be a preacher; theology was a required subject in his gymnasium, and he got high grades in it, but he never voluntarily studied it let alone intended to become a minister.” I didn't have the patience to read through all the bios I read on N on my kindle to quote to you how you are mistaken, so I just googled it and this popped up first thing: “After graduation in September 1864,[59] Nietzsche began studying theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn in the hope of becoming a minister.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche

I realized it is Wikipedia so I then saw this, “By 1864, he focused his attention on becoming a minister and began studying theology and philology at the University of Bonn.” Source: http://www.philosophicallibrary.com/german-philosopher-friedrich-nietzsche/

You said N. never wrote an autobiography. So I googled that and found several places that explain that his book Ecce Homo is an autobiography.

I agree N hated Christianity with a passion. So now you appear to agree with me on that from previously saying in your first confidently claiming I am wrong, “He was not advocating the breakdown of Christian morality” (Date: January 15, 2021 02:52AM). You then wrote “To the extent that he praised Jesus, it was Jesus the iconoclast and not the image that emerged from the Pauline-Church Fathers-Constantinian process.” Yes I’d say that is correct, which he covers in his book The Antichrist. But again, he did however not only praise Jesus but also criticized Jesus as well for being partially responsible for Christian mortality. Here is a good example of what I am talking about where he criticizes Jesus’ moral ethic: see http://nietzsche.holtof.com/reader/friedrich-nietzsche/human-all-too-human/aphorism-87-quote_a576767c1.html

I just read TSZ [Thus Spoke Zarathustra] where he further criticizes Jesus’ ethic and Christian morality, but I don’t have the patience to quote from it, but if you read it yourself you will see what I mean. I recommend the Graham Parkes translation for seeing all the NT references provided in footnotes (which are quite illuminating), showing that he was replacing the good and ethical role-model-Jesus with his beyond Right and Wrong, anti role model Zarathustra the godless. It is clear if you read TSZ that Zarathustra is an anti-Christ, a reversal of Jesus’ ethic of kindness, giving, caring for the poor and the needy. N wants his readers who are higher men (elite men), above the rabble, to return to the Greco Roman ethic and become “hard,” (tough), avoiding “Christian” pity/compassion, and by dying as hyperboreans (as he put is elsewhere) their “spirit” can then pass on into future generations and evolve the superhuman species (either memetically/culturally or genetically is unclear), so that a new post-Christian band of higher “men” (or perhaps new hominids) will rule over the leftover human rabble. He repeatedly says in TSZ that mankind is basically polluted by Christian morality and so Christian men need to die off so a new species can emerge that say Yes to the earth and evolving Life. I learned this in part from reading his notes when writing TSZ.

At this point in my response, I’d like to know your sources because it is the opposite of everything I have read from what I consider the top Nietzsche scholars. For example, you say, “At no point did N seek to eliminate the Zoroastrian influence on Christianity … To the contrary, Zarathustra is Zoroaster, the father of Zoroastrianism.” In all due respect, are you serious! I’m baffled. Nietzsche’s makes it clear in Ecce Homo:

“I have not been asked, as I should have been asked, what the name ‘Zarathustra’ means in precisely my mouth, in the mouth of the first immoralist: for what constitutes the tremendous uniqueness of that Persian in history is precisely the opposite of this. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the actual wheel in the working of things: the translation of morality into the realm of metaphysics, as force, cause, end-in-itself, is his work. But this question is itself at bottom its own answer. Zarathustra created this most fateful of errors, morality: consequently he must also be the first to recognize it. Not only has he had longer and greater experience here than any other thinker…what is more important is that Zarathustra is more truthful than any other thinker. His teaching, and his alone, upholds truthfulness as the supreme virtue…To tell the truth and to shoot well with arrows: that is Persian virtue. – Have I been understood? The self-overcoming of morality through truthfulness, the self-overcoming of the moralist into his opposite – into me – that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth.”

He was using Zarathustra so the reader thinks of dualistic Zoroastrianism which N is seeking to unravel and reverse with his immoralist monism. Have you actually read Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Ecce Homo, etc? I really am struggling to understand how you can get N. so wrong yet express your views so confidently. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra#Synopsis

You wrote “He wanted his new Superman to be like that, to engender a radical new vision for humanity that would unite people in achieving higher aspirations.” I think you have a watered down liberal Nietzsche you read somewhere, or something. Superman/Overman is not meant to inspire people today to higher aspirations like Jesus did for Christians, the free spirits and higher men like Napoleon or Goethe (or Nietzsche and his Zarathustra) are meant to do that. The Superhuman is not a goal for men now, but is an unclear future hope for a new post-Christian species or culture. Just as we evolved past homo erectus to become homo sapiens, and evolved beyond Romans into Christians, N likely expected his higher men to live in such a way so as to pass on a new spirit into future generations that would evolve humans into something else, the Supermen or Overman/Beyond-moral-man. He begins TSZ saying I love those who die as higher men so their spirit passes over the bridge to the Overman. The Overman is what comes after civilized human beings. OK, in a way sure the Superman is meant to replace the Christian God and the Messiah species, so in a way I guess it can be seen as an inspiration. But it is not so innocent as you make it sound, N was a nihilist, an optimistic one, but still a nihilist. His god was Dionysus, the personification of the amoral will to power.

Regarding scientific materialism, I have read almost everything he wrote and he very much despised scientific materialism, as what he called the will to truth. He was influenced by Heraclitus. He promoted only practical truths toward exercising your will to power, but if truth was not useful, then lying was OK. He was pro science yes, as practically useful, but did not care much for logic and constantly broke all the rules of formal logic with for example his constant ad hominems, etc.

Yes, I am aware of Wagner and his sister. So we agree there. Except that I think there have been a lot of liberal professors at University that have tried to gloss over Nietzsche’s full attitude of the Jews. He was not what we’d call an anti-Semite, but he probably held an elitist prejudge against Jews like many did. He had mixed things to say about Jews and Judaism to say the least. For example, here is what one person writes on N and anti-Semitism, “In another place, Nietzsche writes that Jewish scholars support logic because logic “makes no distinction between crooked and straight noses” (TGS 348). Source: https://www.atlassociety.org/post/nietzsche-and-the-jews-judaism-and-anti-semitism

Read the whole short article in the link for the full context.

Many scholars find that his last works are a commentary on TSZ and N himself said TSZ is his best book or something to that effect. So I don’t think you should try to distance yourself from TSZ. But we agree that his other books should be read along with TSZ. Regarding your last statement you seem to just want to disagree with me through straw men arguments. You said, “And it was not a madman who said ‘God is dead:" You then said N said it not the madman. I actually wrote, “Nietzsche’s madman …” so OF COURSE I know N said it, as the madman is a character in HIS parable. Yeesh! Even more, the madman does say: “Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: January 17, 2021 01:15AM
Re: Were Christians ever the majority on RFM?

This is growing tedious.

1) You say that the early Christians had basically reached agreement on canonical texts by 120 AD and without political pressure. You cite Ehrman in support of that, but you then say you haven't really read much Ehrman. That is obvious. You should read the sources you cite because you misconstrue him.

2) You say again that Nietzsche wanted to be a minister. I repeat that is false. He took a class for one semester in college because that was the course to which he was admitted. He dropped it at the earliest possible moment, and his letters show he despised Christianity long before that. If you'd read his letters or a real biography, you would know that he hated Christianity from his early teen years.

3) You said Nietzsche wrote an autobiography. I said he wrote no autobiography. You then indicate Ecco Homo. Say whatever you want, Ecco Homo is NOT an autobiography: an unacknowleged intellectual odyssey, perhaps, but it's not at all an autobiography. Moreover like Geneaology of Morals, it is historically flawed. Nietzsche was a polemicist, not an historian.

4) I said Nietzsche treated Jesus as a Superman but disliked Christianity. You Take issue with that. I stand by my previous comments. As is well understood, Nietzsche used men like Zarathustra and Jesus metaphorically--meaning that he stripped them of much of their actual character and presented them as models. If you can't deal with such contradictions, you'll never understand the philosopher.

5) You really need to read about his relationships with his mother, his aunts, and his grandmother. You cannot understand his hostility to Christianity or even the nature of the Christianity he experienced, without knowing his family background.

6) Next a digression on Thus Spake Zarathustra and Nietzsche's understanding of the prophet. You said he was the origin of binary thinking. Putting aside the fact that the yin-yang dichotomy was already present in China and that the same thing was evident in Indo-Greek thinking from about 1,000 BCE, how much do you think Nietzsche really understood about Zoroastrianism? The Avesta was not translated into English until the 20th century, and it was barely available in other European languages in Nietzsche's day. Furthermore, none of the major Farsi histories of Zoroaster or commentaries on his religion were available to Nietzsche. So I repeat: he used Zarathustra as a metaphor, an icon, and knew very little about the man or his faith.

7) You insist on treating TSZ as if it were a logical text. It is not. It is a song about a Superman, and it ends in its final book on a depressed note because Nietzsche realized he hadn't really succeeded. I'm not sure how you can possibly read that as an exposition of his overall historical philosophy because it was never intended as such.

8) You claim that Nietzsche had an "elite prejudice" against Jews. That is utterly ridiculous. His best friend was a Jew and he respected the Jewish emphasis on education and logic. He abandoned Wagner and a lot of other friends and mentors over anti-semitism and denounced German nationalism for that reason as well.

9) As for "God is dead," you refer to one of his works. In fact, he said it in BGE and at least a third book as well. When he did so in the other books, there was no discussion of a madman at all. They were Nietzsche's words and sentiments. Moreover, when a classically educated writer introduces a madman, he often does so to express transcendent logic. As Foucault showed in detail, Nietzsche was doing what Shakespeare and the ancient Greek playwrights did. The blind man, the fool, the court jester: those were vehicles for the highest truths to a philologist like Nietzsche.

Nietzsche is not the sort of philosopher you can master from books on tape. It takes a lot more effort than that.

END QUOTE

That video is always hilarious, and on a serious note it's what I'm trying to avoid, wasting time on Tit for Tat

My main response is below. I'm going to go through your sources here.

1) I looked at your Wikipedia entry on N's "ministry" below. You quoted part of one sentence and omitted the next sentence altogether. Why? Because the second one contracts your interpretation of the first sentence. Intentional misrepresentation: not good.

2) I looked at your source from Philosophical Library. It is belied by the sentence from Wikipedia that you hid. Bad source: not good.

3) Next comes your Holtoff Reader. It looks like a JS translation of the Bible. Not helpful.

4) Then comes your reference to Wikipedia for Thus Spake Zarathustra. That's important for two reasons. First, there is *nothing* in that article about Zoroastrianism itself. You were telling us what Zoroaster decided and taught and how Nietzsche overturned it. That's not really true, is it. As I averred, Nietzsche was using Zarathustra as a metaphor detached from his historical and religious context. Second, the Wiki article explicitly noted what I said about the fourth book of TSZ being a disappointment and a failure to produce what Nietzsche initially wanted to present. In other words, your source supports my position and not yours.

5) I looked up your Atlas Society article since I'd never heard of the organization before. Now I understand why. Your source on Nietzsche and anti-Semitism is Michal Fran Cohen. She has a Ph.D. in Hebrew Literature from Bar-Ilan University and works as a translator/interpreter; she'll happily interpret for you in a US court if you get charged with a crime! Alas her resume and list of publications include nothing--nothing--on Nietzsche. Not good.

In the piece you link, she names two other writers on Nietzsche for Altas Society: D.J. Glombowsky and David Potts. Who are they? I can find no information on them via Google except for their being "authors" at the Atlas Society--but even there they present no CVs or biographies. From which I conclude that they, even more than Cohen, have no proved expertise in the field. On the other hand, when going through the AS's public events I see photos of Mike Lee's smiling face. Good? Nah, not really.

Overall, I see no indication that you know how to use sources. And if these are the scholars whom you "consulted," I think you need to get out more.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UijhbHvxWrA


And I don't even know how to spell Nietzsche! ;-)

Goo, meet prickles.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D4vHnM8WPvU

Q: what happens when two prickly's meet?
A: idunno, but sounds like the beginnings of a great joke!

I'm now wondering if I am more prickly or goo. I guess what I'm trying to do is create prickly-goo in our exchanges. I'm also now wondering what Alan Watts would do in this situation? I'm guessing he would walk away at this point.

There’s always the element of irreducible rascality.

RfM's server would crash if Henry Bemis joined this thread.

Okay...

You accuse me of being aggressive and visceral in your OP. But the first three of your five large paragraphs and much of your concluding paragraph are about your ego. You accuse me of "cursing" you, drawing "first blood," creating "straw men" of your arguments, and engaging in "tit-for-tat negativism." You also refer me to Dale Carnegie, a curious choice surely. All this material suggests that you aren't really interested in the facts of what we discuss.

I asked for specific examples of how I have insulted you. You haven't done that. You have reproduced an entire exchange without identifying what I have done to draw "first blood." You basically ask me to go through my posts, discover what offended you, and apologize for it. Again, that's not the way academic exchange works.

What you have done is the following.

1) You have switched your date for the effective composition of the Biblical canon from 120 to 180 AD. That's a step in the right direction but you have yet to reveal an understanding of the diversity of early Christian thought and the degree to which political coercion at a local and a central level played a role in that development. Indeed, you haven't mentioned a single Church Father or doctrinal conflict which, subject to your showing some familiarity with the subject, leads one to believe that you don't understand the subject.

2)You referred erroneously to Ehrman's thinking and I challenged that. You replied by saying you "have read or skimmed much of Ehrman myself" and that you basically agree with me. But that isn't true. If it were, you'd know how profoundly different Jesus's thinking was from that of early Christianity (there's no evidence Jesus even knew the foreign word "Christ") let alone from the Christianity of 19th century Germany. That matters. Nietzsche was reacting to a subset of the many Christianities that have existed over the last two millennia.

3)You keep saying you have read widely and also "consulted scholars." Which scholars are those? As with the early Christian fathers, if you are claiming their support you should be able to name the scholars with whom you spoke.

4) You said that Zarathustra created a particular worldview and that Nietzsche was attacking that. I replied that no, as with Jesus and Dionysus Zoroaster was chosen as a metaphor; and that Nietzsche didn't really know much about the man. Your response is to quote Nietzsche on what Zarathustra meant "in his mind," which is of course his saying what Zoroaster symbolized rather than what was factually accurate. You should be able to intuit the disregard for fact from your quotation of Nietzsche saying "Zarathustra created this most fateful of errors, morality." That says it all, for it is patently false. People all over the world before and after the advent of Zoroastrianism have systems of morality that they developed without any influence from Zarathustra at all.

5) You again state that Ecce Homo was an autobiography. No matter how often you repeat that, it remains false. Where is the discussion of his father, of the women who raised him, of his difficult search for a position at college and then for tenure, of his stays at Wagner's mansion and his walks around the mountain lake? Where are the discussions of his friendship with Paul Ree, that profoundly important Jew, and what of Cosima and Salome? Ecce Homo was NOT an autobiography.

I'm not sure what the point of all this is. You say you want an open and direct dialogue but you take offense at factual statements and you cite Dale Carnegie, who has never been accused of caring about academic topics or even factual accuracy. That you try to shoehorn him in here indicates you are not being forthright when you say "I'm interested in a mature discussion and scholarly analysis."

Wow, you are quite the feisty one aren't you? I was going to say you're being cantankerous (used as a verb not a noun) but feisty sounds "nicer". Would you like a digital hug?

Since you don't like my appeal Dale Carnegie and Christian ethics perhaps I can appeal to atheist ethicist Sam Harris who argues that the way to keep conversations from derailing like this is to "steal man" the other's argument/position. See: https://lifehacker.com/utilize-the-steel-man-tactic-to-argue-more-effectivel-1632402742

Are you up for that?

I ask because I think part of the problem is, based on my perception, you are misrepresenting my positions over and over again. Creating a strawman and then knocking it down. I know you're going to disagree with that so I returned to the question about steal manning?

I'm going to try one last attempt at civility since the board guidelines are basically to focus on "recovery" and not "attacking" each other, right? So since some readers may be interested in Nietzsche in their recovery from Mormonism or may find he's not worth it to read him during their recovery, perhaps we may try this. If you reject the Steal Man solution, how about a different track, because I am generally interested in continuously learning new things. So I'm going to take a page from the non-theistic Christian Jordan Peterson who talks about "assume the other person can teach you something." So I'm going to play the role of student and you are the more informed nietzschean professor I can learn from. I am not being sarcastic either. So in the role of the student I'm just going to ask you one question at a time in the spirit of learning and correcting any point of view I might have that is mistaken.

Okay, Professor L.W., why do biographers of N keep saying he was to become a minister at one point? For example why did someone write: “After graduation in September 1864,[59] Nietzsche began studying theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn in the hope of becoming a minister" (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche).

Why did this site write this: “By 1864, he focused his attention on becoming a minister and began studying theology and philology at the University of Bonn.” Source: http://www.philosophicallibrary.com/german-philosopher-friedrich-nietzsche/

Why are so many N bios and internet sites repeating this? If Nietzsche wasn't in fact ever, at any time, attempting to be a minister in his life why do these sources keep saying so?

Since I am the learning student that must rely on sources not appeals to Authority, could you please pass out your sources for N never went to be a minister so that I can examine your info?

For someone who complains about others' condescension, you surely are patronizing.


--------------
> Wow, you are quite the feisty one aren't you? I
> was going to say you're being cantankerous (used
> as a verb not a noun) but feisty sounds "nicer".
> Would you like a digital hug?

Cantankerous is neither a verb nor a noun. And if you want a hug, buy a dog.


------------
> Since you don't like my appeal Dale Carnegie and
> Christian ethics perhaps I can appeal to atheist
> ethicist Sam Harris who argues that the way to
> keep conversations from derailing like this is to
> "steal man" the other's argument/position. See:
> https://lifehacker.com/utilize-the-steel-man-tacti
> c-to-argue-more-effectivel-1632402742

You are not alone on this board in thinking impressive names substitute for argument. But they do not. Dale Carnegie has nothing to say about scholarly pursuits let alone Nietzsche. Nor do "Christian ethics," whatever that means, Sam Harris, or that joker Jordan Peterson. And the word is "steel," not "steal," in both your second and fifth paragraphs.


---------------
> I'm going to try one last attempt at civility . . .

Don't feel obligated. I have thick skin.


----------------
I said that Nietzsche was hostile to Christianity before college but he entered a dual program including theology because that was the spot the University of Bonn offered him; and after one semester he dropped it and switched to what he really wanted to study.

You argue against that with a reference to Wikipedia. Thus

> “After
> graduation in September 1864,[59] Nietzsche began
> studying theology and classical philology at the
> University of Bonn in the hope of becoming a
> minister"

The question I have for you is why you didn't reproduce the following sentence: "After one semester (and to the anger of his mother), he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith." Why would you omit that?


-------------------
> Why did this site write this: “By 1864, he
> focused his attention on becoming a minister and
> began studying theology and philology at the
> University of Bonn.”

That's not a good source. As the Wiki article you futilely attempt to conceal states, it was during that first semester that he quit theology and went public with his atheism. Surely he would have done, say, a second and third semester of theology if he was now "focusing his attention on becoming a minister?"


----------------
> Why are so many N bios and internet sites
> repeating this?

Well, we've just seen that you are mischaracterizing the Wikipedia article, so there's that. As for your second source, I have no idea why the author would write that Nietzsche decided to become a minister in the very semester in which he rejected that career. That's not great biography, really, and easily disproved. In fact, Nietzsche always described 1864 as his "wasted year" because of his divided focus, which is why he switched to pure philology.


--------------
> . . . could you please
> pass out your sources for N never went to be a
> minister so that I can examine your info?

See what you did there? You ascribe to me a position--that "N never went [sic] to be a minister"--that I never assumed. I wrote that for some years he operated under the assumption that he would follow his father into the ministry but that the doubts mounted and after that first semester he came out as an atheist.


---------------------
You have effectively ceded the argument over early Christianity, Bart Ehrman, unnamed scholars whom you have "consulted," Zoroastrianism, and Ecce Homo as "autobiography." Where you make your final stand is on what Nietzsche intended in late 1864. You want us to believe that the semester he rejected theology was when he embraced it.

That isn't terribly impressive.

Well ...

I get a hazy vision of you and N being cantankperaneous, but using separate restrooms.

Just open the Christmas card. Please!

Forgot to click reply button to your post:

Relax. One thing at a time:

"At the age of nineteen Nietzsche went to the University of Bonn to study theology and classical philology with the aim of becoming a pastor."
https://www.essentiallifeskills.net/FriedrichNietzsche.html

"In 1864, Nietzsche lasted a single semester of his theology at the University of Bonn before abandoning his plans to be a minister"
http://dailyphilosopher.net/who-is-friedrich-nietzsche/

"Paul Deussen, who later became a renown scholar of Sanskrit and with whom it is probable Nietzsche frequently discussed Buddhism, was one of Nietzsche's few close friends during this period. Deussen was also the son of a pastor, and as Nietzsche, expected to follow in the footsteps of his father; .... "
https://www.nietzschecircle.com/nietzsche.html


"As we have seen, Fritz’s childhood was marked by passionate, rather than merely conventional, piety, a piety that speaks unmistakably from his early musical compositions (listen to tracks, and on the Web site for this book). His attitude to the Bible was one of unqualified belief. Piety as well as poetry is what he had in common with his first genuine school friend, Paul Deussen, also the son of a pastor and also intending to enter the ministry."
Loc 914, Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Julian Young
Cambridge University press

"In this select company, Nietzsche excelled in Greek, Latin, and history, but he also took lessons in Hebrew, destined as he was to study theology and become a minister."
Loc 456,
Tongeren, Paul V., "Reinterpreting Modern Culture: An Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche’s Philosophy" (1999). Purdue University Press e-books.Book 11. http:// docs.lib.purdue.edu/ purduepress_ebooks/ 11

So again, "Why are so many N bios and internet sites repeating this? If Nietzsche wasn't in fact ever, at any time, attempting to be a minister in his life why do these sources keep saying so?"

Time in Motion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow, you are quite the feisty one aren't you? I
> was going to say you're being cantankerous (used
> as a verb not a noun) but feisty sounds "nicer".
> Would you like a digital hug?
>


There is so much wrong here, I don't know where to start. Maybe you have hit your head or need a bit of a rest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2021 03:00AM by Beth.

Beth Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe you have hit your head or need a bit
> of a rest.
===============================

Nope.

It's what happens when you've suddenly lost three limbs

;-)

;-)

How have I lost three limbs?

Time in Motion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How have I lost three limbs?
===============================

Four now

:-D

Relax. One thing at a time:

"At the age of nineteen Nietzsche went to the University of Bonn to study theology and classical philology with the aim of becoming a pastor."
https://www.essentiallifeskills.net/FriedrichNietzsche.html

"In 1864, Nietzsche lasted a single semester of his theology at the University of Bonn before abandoning his plans to be a minister"
http://dailyphilosopher.net/who-is-friedrich-nietzsche/

"Paul Deussen, who later became a renown scholar of Sanskrit and with whom it is probable Nietzsche frequently discussed Buddhism, was one of Nietzsche's few close friends during this period. Deussen was also the son of a pastor, and as Nietzsche, expected to follow in the footsteps of his father; .... "
https://www.nietzschecircle.com/nietzsche.html


"As we have seen, Fritz’s childhood was marked by passionate, rather than merely conventional, piety, a piety that speaks unmistakably from his early musical compositions (listen to tracks, and on the Web site for this book). His attitude to the Bible was one of unqualified belief. Piety as well as poetry is what he had in common with his first genuine school friend, Paul Deussen, also the son of a pastor and also intending to enter the ministry."
Loc 914, Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Julian Young
Cambridge University press

"In this select company, Nietzsche excelled in Greek, Latin, and history, but he also took lessons in Hebrew, destined as he was to study theology and become a minister."
Loc 456,
Tongeren, Paul V., "Reinterpreting Modern Culture: An Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche’s Philosophy" (1999). Purdue University Press e-books.Book 11. http:// docs.lib.purdue.edu/ purduepress_ebooks/ 11

So again, "Why are so many N bios and internet sites repeating this? If Nietzsche wasn't in fact ever, at any time, attempting to be a minister in his life why do these sources keep saying so?"

> So again, "Why are so many N bios and internet
> sites repeating this? If Nietzsche wasn't in fact
> ever, at any time, attempting to be a minister in
> his life why do these sources keep saying so?"

I never said that.

I said that N was expected to become a minister but after studying a semester of theology in 1864, he abandoned that subject and announced his atheism. None of the sources you now cite--how hast thou betrayed me, essentiallifeskills.net?--contradicts what I said.

I know, I know. It's just a "flesh wound."

From the initial thread I linked above, https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2356700,2357102,quote=1#REPLY :

Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: January 16, 2021 03:30AM
Re: Were Christians ever the majority on RFM?

Time in Motion, forgive me for only replying to some bits and pieces of what you write...

... Now Nietzsche. Some of what you say confuses me. N never wanted to be a preacher; theology was a required subject in his gymnasium, and he got high grades in it, but he never voluntarily studied it let alone intended to become a minister.


Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: January 17, 2021 01:15AM
Re: Were Christians ever the majority on RFM?


... 2) You say again that Nietzsche wanted to be a minister. I repeat that is false. He took a class for one semester in college because that was the course to which he was admitted. He dropped it at the earliest possible moment, and his letters show he despised Christianity long before that. If you'd read his letters or a real biography, you would know that he hated Christianity from his early teen years.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with what I wrote.

N was reared in a religious family that expected him to become a minister. During his gymnasium years he expressed increasing discomfort with that and hoped to study philology in college but, as often happens, was only offered a position if he studied theology as his family had intended. He lasted for one semester and declared his atheism immediately.

That's a human pattern; it's a Mormon pattern. Nietzsche was as pious as many a Mormon kid whose parents compel him to take Seminary--theology was not optional in the gymnasium--and who does not renounce the religion until his freshman year in college.

Is that kid a committed Mormon, a committed missionary, a committed minister? Because that is what you are saying about Nietzsche and on the same flimsy grounds.

So you said, "I said that N was *expected to* become a minister" (* added by me). But Julian Young in a book published by Cambridge University press says that Nietzsche, like Paul Deussen, *intended to* enter the ministry:

"Piety as well as poetry is what he had in common with his first genuine school friend, Paul Deussen, also the son of a pastor and also intending to enter the ministry."
Loc 914, Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Julian Young
Cambridge University press

And there was also this I cited "... his plans to be a minister"
http://dailyphilosopher.net/who-is-friedrich-nietzsche/

So you are you still sticking by the statement, "None of the sources you now cite--how hast thou betrayed me,..."?

An unsigned essay on dailyphilosopher.com is not a credible source.

As for Young, what is the evidence on which he bases that statement? If you have the book--I do not, and I suspect you don't either--what is his basis for saying N "intended to enter the ministry" and how does that differ from a Mormon kid whose parents and community expect him to go on a mission?

Why do you suspect I don't have Julian Young's book? Are you implying that my knowledge of Nietzsche is just made up and I haven't spent any time reading through scholarly sources? I have Julian Young's book on my Kindle but no it does not have a footnote. But aren't books published by Cambridge University press, peer reviewed? I'm not sure so I'm asking you, the expert.

Look, Lot's Wife, what I am getting at is that perhaps you should have been more careful in just proclaiming I was "wrong" to think that Nietzsche at one time wanted to become a minister -- following in the footsteps of his father and family pressure, which is why he went to study theology -- when I was going off several sources. I also recall watching a documentary by the BBC I think that also says this. So I understand you want to go after me personally but all I'm doing is explaining what I have heard from many scholarly sources. It seems like your criticism should be directed at the scholarly sources themselves, no? Or perhaps I'm just too stupid and was misreading them? So in an attempt to "steal man" your position at this point, you seem to be saying:

You know the mind of Nietzsche from extensive reading of his private letters and his interactions with his family of mostly women, and even though many of the scholarly sources say that he *intended* to enter ministry at one point (hence wanted at one time to become a minister, as I put it) but later abandoned that pursuit, that these scholars are wrong in assuming he himself had plans to become a minister and that he was actually only *expected* to become a minister (but secretly never wanted to); and took the path of theology toward ministry only due to family pressure (like a Mormon going to Seminary out of peer pressure) and even though going into theology is normally what you do when you intend to become a minister (not a lot of carrer options otherwise), Nietzsche all along secretly never ever wanted to become a minister, but he he took that path only because he was *expected to* but never *intended* to actually become a minister. For a steal man to be effective I need to have represented your position to your satisfaction?

This is tiresome. Your sources suck. I mean, essentiallifeskills.net, atlassociety.com and dailyphilosopher.com, and a half-remembered BBC documentary that you "think" agrees with your position? Those are ridiculous and they indicate that you should be read with skepticism because you can't tell the difference between hack journalism and actual research.

So too does your misrepresentation of Nietzche's use of Zarathustra, your bizarre claim that Ecce Homo was an autobiography, and your garbled understanding of early Christianity and Nietzsche's attitude towards Jesus. You likewise did not accept what I said about 1864 until I showed that your sources supported my stance and contradicted yours.

Then you shifted back to Nietzsche's teenage years when he was very much under his family's thumb. I would love to see the basis for Young's claim that Nietzsche personally "intended," as opposed to "was expected," to become a minister. You acknowledge, however, that you can't provide that; and the first half of the Young passage--"a piety that speaks unmistakably from his early musical compositions (listen to tracks, and on the Web site for this book)"--hardly inspires confidence. I mean, did Young glean his conviction about Nietzsche's intention to become a priest from his "musical compositions?" Did you reach the same conclusion after listening to Nietzsche's "tracks. . . on the web site for this book?"

Most fundamentally, though, you again reveal that you can't differentiate between critique of your argument and personal attacks. That is immature; it is tedious. And again, unless you are going to kidnap someone "steal man" really should be "steel man."

Thanks for correcting my grammar, I appreciate that, really. You are definitely a smart cookie. I never was good with grammar.

Okay I don't think there's any more need to cover wether or not Nietzsche intended to be a minister. You are saying I've been misled by several sources concluding a book published by Cambridge University press. I guess I'm personally not convinced that you're right and all of these sources are wrong. But if you have any documentation you would like to provide I am open-minded. Perhaps you have a private letter or journal entry where Nietzsche in so many words explains that even though he's going to study theology he never intends to become a minister. So unless that is provided I guess we can drop that subject and call it an impasse.

Before I continue with my next question perhaps an interlude:

Lot's Wife, you said: "Dale Carnegie has nothing to say about scholarly pursuits let alone Nietzsche. Nor do 'Christian ethics,' whatever that means …" You then quoted me saying, "I'm going to try one last attempt at civility . . ." To which you replied, "Don't feel obligated. I have thick skin."

So I shouldn't try to be civil? I'm confused, because my attempt at levity and offering a hug was interpreted as patronizing (which is not civil right?). I was actually going for sarcastic in the pursuit of humor and levity, like if someone said to me, "Well aren't you the chest-pounding King Kong, does someone need a hug?" I would find myself smirking and laughing a bit and saying yeah I am being a bit King Kongish. But okay, fair enough, you took offense so I apologize. And I know you won't believe me when I say this but after I wrote it I hastily clicked send and when I re-read it I wanted to delete my attempt at humor, as I then thought about how it might be misinterpreted but I didn't see an edit button so just hoped that you would take it as me jesting. My bad.

If you felt it was patronizing then that was not civil of me and so you are rightly criticizing me for not feeling obligated to be civil, right? You are basically saying I am being hypocritical, right? By doing so you are appealing to an ethical standard of communication, right? Yet you seem to go on to reject any kind of ethical standard of communication and dismissed Christian ethics in your reply, but this confuses me because when I wrote in the initial thread (linked above) the following -- "So I guess I am a Christian Atheist as well, I don't accept Christianity supernaturally, but before Christianity things were quite different. Just study the Vikings, Romans, Spartans, etc. I am happy I live post [after] Christian morality" (Source:Posted by: Time in Motion
Date: January 15, 2021 12:06AM) -- didn't you reply to that with the following:

Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: January 15, 2021 12:12AM
Re: Were Christians ever the majority on RFM?

A nice post.

I like the idea of "post-Christian" identity. I may disagree with you about morality--Christianity has some horrible stains, including its contribution to Nazi oppression of Jews; and there are other traditions that are at least as moral as Christianity--but people who grew up in the Christian West are as Christian as they are Western.

The same thing is true of Mormonism. Are any of us really free of our childhoods? Do we ever fully escape?

So I'm a Christian and a Mormon whether I like it or not. I am an agnostic, but an agnostic of the Mormon sort. As I've said before, Graham Greene reached the same general conclusion when he termed himself a Catholic agnostic.

End Quote

So I would say we have that in common. Deep down we are culturally Christian and culturally Mormon which comes with a certain amount of unconscious ethical energy does it not? I understand you want to appear tough and thick skinned but you also seem to admit we can't escape our ethically ingrained childhoods. So can we move toward the ethical standard built into our cultural DNA?

Am I saying that I have handled myself perfectly, of course not. I have an ego just like the rest of us, yet I think my words overall display an attempt at moving toward win-win civility has it not? If I failed why haven't you attempted to take up the gauntlet toward civility and put me in my place by taking the moral High Ground? After all didn't you say, "people who grew up in the Christian West are as Christian as they are Western. … So I'm a Christian and a Mormon whether I like it or not." Or are you saying you've developed such a thick skin that you no longer follow any ethical standard and you have completely evolved out of your Mormon/Christian cultural heritage?

And if you reject the communication advice of Dale Carnegie, your Christian heritage, Sam Harris, and the message board rules, then what ethical standard of communication (if any) do you follow? I really want to know so that we can agree on that standard and have a more fruitful discussion about Nietzsche.

> And if you reject the communication advice of Dale
> Carnegie, your Christian heritage, Sam Harris,

I do.


---------------
> and the message board rules. . .

I have not violated any board rules.


---------------
As for the bulk of your post, I'm not here to discuss your feelings. I agreed with you on your original post but everything since then has been essentiallifeskills.com stuff.

I'm not interested in that.

Got it. No ethics. No feelings, I will put on my Spock mask and proceed to be educated. Next question;

You wrote repeatedly, "Ecce Homo was NOT an autobiography."

Well then why for example does amazon.com present ecce homo as an autobiography?

Ecce Homo (The Autobiography of Friedrich Nietzsche) Kindle Edition
by Friedrich Nietzsche (Author), Anthony M. Ludovici (Translator)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0030HKYWO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Why would the subtitle say it's an autobiography?

Why does this edition say Echo Homo is an autobiography:

Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is; Revised Edition (Penguin Classics) Paperback – December 1, 1992 by Friedrich Nietzsche (Author), R. J. Hollingdale (Translator), Michael Tanner (Introduction)

The description of the book states: In late 1888, only weeks before his final collapse into madness, Nietzsche (1844-1900) set out to compose his autobiography.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140445153/ref=x_gr_w_bb_sout?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb_sout-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0140445153&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2

If you click on the link above you can read the introduction of the book where R. J. Hollingdale says "Ecce Homo is the title of Nietzsche's autobiography."

I believe R. J. Hollingdale is a well-respected Nietzsche scholar, no? I think you will find that many translations of Nietzsche's books are translated and edited by R. J. Hollingdale and/or Kaufman. So is R. J. Hollingdale wrong?

Look, I don't care what other people call Ecce Homo. The subtitle "The Autobiography of Friedrich Nietzsche" was written by the publisher, not by Nietzsche.

As for Amazon's blurb, the statement that "In late 1888, only weeks before his final collapse into madness, Nietzsche (1844-1900) set out to compose his autobiography," I would ask why a retailer should be taken seriously on a book it is trying to hawk.

Likewise, when we were discussing 1864, you quoted one sentence and then omitted the following contradictory one. Here you do the same thing by providing only half the sentence. The passage reads:

"In late 1888, only weeks before his final collapse into madness, Nietzsche (1844-1900) set out to compose his autobiography, and Ecce Homo remains one of the most intriguing yet bizarre examples of the genre ever written. . . Ecce Homo gives the final, definitive expression to Nietzsche's main beliefs and is in every way his last testament."

That last sentence is correct. Ecce Homo is Nietzsche's "last testament;" and, if considered as autobiography, it is "one of the most intriguing yet bizarre examples. . . ever written."

So which is it--autobiography or last testament? If you go with last testament, you are correct "in every way" and need not qualify your statement with the descriptor "bizarre." That says it all.

Actually, correction, I think the introduction might have been written by Michael Tanner. But I think you would agree that R.J. Hollingdale obviously oversaw the final product and Michael Tanner is a respected scholar himself. He does have a book put out by Oxford press https://global.oup.com/academic/product/nietzsche-a-very-short-introduction-9780192854148?cc=ca&lang=en&;

And I think the Penguin Group has scholarly editors.

Cambridge is a respected press. Oxford is commercial and not considered academic. Penguin is not academically reliable. They generally reproduce good translations often with good introductions, but no one is ever going to cite Penguin in an academic work.

Ok, the introduction to the R. J. Hollingdale translation clearly says "Ecce Homo is the title of Nietzsche's autobiography." I rest my case your honor.

I'm seeing a theme here where you will not admit that you were out of line for saying I was "wrong" on many things regarding Nietzsche. You are coming off as somebody who can't EVER admit error or even give me the benefit of the doubt. I could continue point by point but I think it would be superfluous. I think I've made my case.

I've also noticed the theme that you have repeatedly poo pooed my sources or tried to explain them away which I guarantee no fair and impartial observer would accept. I think most unbiased readers would see that they themselves would have come to my conclusions based on my sources. Meanwhile you have offered no sources yourself to make your case for anything, so while complaining about my sources I think Thou doth protest too much: all you've offered is mere opinion.

So at this point I would ask you to show your hand. Please go through all the statements you made declaring I am wrong about Nietzsche and please provide scholarly sources proving your case. Otherwise I will leave you with the words of Christopher Hitchens when he was dealing with an interviewer, as he said to name just one source for their claim and when the person kept avoiding doing that, he kept repeating "name one ... naaame one?"

Time in Motion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ok, the introduction to the R. J. Hollingdale
> translation clearly says "Ecce Homo is the title
> of Nietzsche's autobiography." I rest my case your
> honor.

Nietzsche did not write that. You demand that I take Hollingdale's words over Nietzsche's.

No.


-------------------
> I'm seeing a theme here where you will not admit
> that you were out of line for saying I was "wrong"
> on many things regarding Nietzsche.

I was not out of line. You were wrong. How you feel about that is not my concern.


-----------------
>
> I've also noticed the theme that you have
> repeatedly poo pooed my sources or tried to
> explain them away which I guarantee no fair and
> impartial observer would accept.

Really? Name an impartial observer who would accept essentiallifeskills.net, the words of a court interpreter with no publications on Nietzsche, or unsigned and unfootnoted essays as reliable.



-------------------------
> Meanwhile you have offered no sources
> yourself to make your case for anything, so while
> complaining about my sources I think Thou doth
> protest too much: all you've offered is mere
> opinion.

Why must I provide sources when yours prove my points? Go back to the Wikipedia articles on Nietzsche, TSZ, and Nietzsche's own characterization of Ecce Homo and tell me why I need anything more than those.


-------------------
> So at this point I would ask you to show your
> hand. Please go through all the statements you
> made declaring I am wrong about Nietzsche and
> please provide scholarly sources proving your
> case.

You made the assertions; you failed to prove them. I don't have to refute unfounded claims. And in any case, you've provided enough evidence to substantiate my main points anyway.


-----------------
> Otherwise I will leave you with the words of
> Christopher Hitchens when he was dealing with an
> interviewer, as he said to name just one source
> for their claim and when the person kept avoiding
> doing that, he kept repeating "name one ... naaame
> one?"

There you go with the name dropping again. What would Dale Carnegie have to say about that?

I rest my case. Name one ... Naaame one?

I did. Nietzsche.

You are literally insisting that I accept someone else's characterization of Ecce Homo over Nietzsche's. And you insist that Nietzsche was engaging with Zoroastrianism when he never claimed any expertise in that religion.

Nietzsche is my source.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2021 10:42PM by Lot's Wife.

Forgive my grammar again I really need to start proof reading before I push send, lol.

So far you provided no "flesh wound" just been waving around your plastic sword and your merry gang on this thread just reveling in imagining hacking me to pieces like a bunch of school yard bullies in spirit. This is sad to see by the way as this kind of bully-like/Trumpish energy easily snowballs as we've seen just recently. Oh I know I know you're just joking, and I can't take a joke. I'm wondering if y'all have children and you'd be proud if your children observed you engaged in this kind of mob rhetoric.

Asking for credible sources is Trumpism?

Brilliant.

> I'm wondering if y'all have children and you'd be
> proud if your children observed you engaged in
> this kind of mob rhetoric.

I do indeed have children and I do everything I can to get them to think logically. Even the young ones would recognize your references as the source of amusement they are.

As for my engaging in "mob rhetoric," wave for us as you round the bend.

B.S., you know you'd be disturbed if your kids were taking part in talking of basically hacking someone to pieces and several posters joining in trying to further put the person down. You'd want your child to have moral integrity and say something like, hey guys these two people are just having a logical argument, we don't need to gang up on this one person and try to put him down. And if you wouldn't want your kid to stand up to bullying, your school your kid goes to or went to likely would. I am an adult and can take it, but this atmosphere is very much pro-bullying and has the energy of "Trumpishness." This saddens me being new to this message board, because I think this might be normal for you guys and such mean-spirited energy doesn't help with exmos coming on here for recovery. I also wonder if it might be corrosive for your own psyches.

When I left Mormonism years ago, just before I sent in my resignation letter I emailed Mormon apologists and went on their message board once to see if they could convince me I was wrong in my conclusions. They would not provide sources either, and the visit to their message board led to them not answering my questions and then them starting to gang up on me like on here. In emails the LDS apologist Louis C. Midgley was especially rude and mean-spirited. I later learned he had a reputation to that. He also had no desire for ethics or civility, and excused his behavior by appealing to logic as well.

I expected that from the Mormon apologists as in my view they could not defend Mormonism and I was asking for sources. So they just waved their plastic swords so to speak. In the end I figured that of course they can act that way with not pang of conscience, they are secret nihilists, they have read Joseph Smith tell Nancy Rigdon that "God is more liberal in his views" and "God said, 'Thou shalt not kill;' at another time He said, 'Thou shalt utterly destroy." Hence presenting moral relativism. So I just figured that they had to give up on real ethics, compassion, integrity, because they chose loyalty to Joseph Smith over any real ethical standard.

So how they treated me made sense. But being new to this board, a guest, I am surprised to receive the same bully-ish nihilistic behavior toward me. Have I communicated perfectly, no, but I apologized and tried to move the conversation forward.

I liked your first post. Since then, however, the discussion has devolved considerably as you tell us how we must behave.

That's unfortunate.

The OP surely never had a problem meeting the minimum word count requirements on high school essays. That was an impressively detailed way to say "My feelings get hurt when someone tells me I'm wrong."

Bingo.

I sometimes quit reading when someone claims they know what Christian ethics are. Consider there are so many conflicting "ethics" claimed to be Christian by Christians contradicting each other. They are not only a poor moral guide and inconsistent, they are cherry picked to fit whatever the type of Christian decides is ethical. If that doesn't work, there is always "interpretation" to justify anything. You can always find that verse to prove your point, no matter what side of any issue.

Poor Nietzsche having to be mentioned in the same post as Dale Carnegie and Sam Harris! It's almost like he would rather be called a minister wannabe. ;-_

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bingo.
>
> I sometimes quit reading when someone claims they
> know what Christian ethics are. Consider there are
> so many conflicting "ethics" claimed to be
> Christian by Christians contradicting each other.
> They are not only a poor moral guide and
> inconsistent, they are cherry picked to fit
> whatever the type of Christian decides is ethical.
> If that doesn't work, there is always
> "interpretation" to justify anything. You can
> always find that verse to prove your point, no
> matter what side of any issue.
>
> Poor Nietzsche having to be mentioned in the same
> post as Dale Carnegie and Sam Harris! It's almost
> like he would rather be called a minister wannabe.
> ;-_

Are you referring to me as a Christian? I never said I was a "Christian" (let alone one who interprets the Bible as you put). And you do realize that Lot's Wife agreed that like me she can't deny her Christian/Mormon ethical heritage. So if we are going to gang up on someone we need to only focus on the target right and not start lumping in others who are supposed to be part of our digital gang, right?

I can say what I think about Christian ethics. I don't care about your instructions stating "we need to only focus on the target right and not start lumping in others" and will lump in anything I would like to add. Sorry, everything is not about you.

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can say what I think about Christian ethics. I
> don't care about your instructions stating "we
> need to only focus on the target right and not
> start lumping in others" and will lump in anything
> I would like to add. Sorry, everything is not
> about you.


No, I think you're making it about "you." Again, stick to ganging up on me, leave Lot's Wife out of it, please.

Good grief.

Yup. You are to shut up if you disagree with TiM and not to express concurrence with others of whom he disapproves. Because, doncha know, that's how serious intellectual debate is always conducted.

And if you refuse to accept his rules, you are a schoolyard bully, a Trump supporter, and a gangster/mobster.

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2357194,2357413#msg-2357413

This response makes no sense. You are responding to another strawman. What I actually said was:

So far you provided no "flesh wound" just been waving around your plastic sword and your merry gang on this thread just reveling in imagining hacking me to pieces like a bunch of school yard bullies in spirit. This is sad to see by the way as this kind of bully-like/Trumpish energy easily snowballs as we've seen just recently. Oh I know I know you're just joking, and I can't take a joke. I'm wondering if y'all have children and you'd be proud if your children observed you engaged in this kind of mob rhetoric.

You'd be up in arms if you read the comments in this thread toward me being directed at your child. If you deny that you are not honest in my view.

Time in Motion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This response makes no sense. You are responding
> to another strawman.

I provided the link to what you said. Anyone who wants can judge for herself whether you used the words I claim.


------------------
> You'd be up in arms if you read the comments in
> this thread toward me being directed at your
> child. If you deny that you are not honest in my
> view.

Are you a child who needs an adult's protection or an adult able and willing to engage in open debate?

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Time in Motion Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > This response makes no sense. You are
> responding
> > to another strawman.
>
> I provided the link to what you said. Anyone who
> wants can judge for herself whether you used the
> words I claim.
>
>
> ------------------
> > You'd be up in arms if you read the comments in
> > this thread toward me being directed at your
> > child. If you deny that you are not honest in
> my
> > view.
>
> Are you a child who needs an adult's protection or
> an adult able and willing to engage in open
> debate?

More put downs, lumping into the bullying. Total Trump behavior, deny, deflect, keep bullying. Again, if you were treated this way or your child was, you would not like it and wish someone had the courage to point out it is wrong. Don't you have a conscience? Just go through the thread today and say the words delivered to me but imagine they are being delivered to you or your kids. What is sad is I am an adult, but you seeming adults could end up bullying some exmormon teenager coming on here. That sickens me.

Humberto Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The OP surely never had a problem meeting the
> minimum word count requirements on high school
> essays. That was an impressively detailed way to
> say "My feelings get hurt when someone tells me
> I'm wrong."


How have I been proved wrong. Quite the opposite.

I left a long time ago because of bullying and because administrators more often than not let it go. I got sick of it and sick of seeing posters I like being driven off.This is the first time I have checked back in ages, but I see nothing has changed. Makes me glad I left.

Old poster can't remember pass Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I left a long time ago because of bullying and
> because administrators more often than not let it
> go. I got sick of it and sick of seeing posters I
> like being driven off.This is the first time I
> have checked back in ages, but I see nothing has
> changed. Makes me glad I left.


Thanks "Old poster ..."

To those on this thread who took part in ganging up on me: Well, what do ya know, it takes someone who left the board to stand up for someone being bullied by pointing out her past experiences and observations, and thus confirming that this is a regular occurrence of just a bunch of schoolyard cowards (all bullies are really cowards) who enjoy ganging up on one person to put them down. No regular posters courageous enough I guess, or maybe there are regulars who don't like the bullying but are too concerned they too will get bullied if they chime in. Way to go you guys on this thread, you leave Mormonism in part no doubt due to ecclesiastical bullying and the spread of fear of afterlife threats or being deemed "unworthy" and then go on to repeat the same Mormon-apologist behavior and spread fear with others afraid of being bullied too so they keep quiet or leave the board. You are no better than Louis Midgley and the rest of them. I'd be ashamed of myself if I stood by and watched anyone get bullied in any fashion. The fact that y'all can stand back and watch and do nothing says a lot about your character I think.

Again, I can take it but others visiting this board who just left Mormonism and may be raw after leaving Mormonism, the second they say anything you guys don't like, they'll likely be pounced on, so sad you on this thread don't have more courage to point out the problem with bullying when you yourself would not want it done to you or your children.

The best way for evil to continue, is for good people to keep silent. So sad the loudest voices get to spread so much mean-spiritedness and drive away so many exmormons needing support. Oh, that's right, no feelings, just logic. But pure logic doesn't come with the comments I received, what I received was all feelings: the feelings of anger, hate, bitterness, cruelty, and mean-spiritedness. Do you people even have a conscience, when you go to sleep tonight you will actually be proud of your comments to me (a new poster) here?

> But being new to this board, a guest, I am surprised to receive the same bully-ish nihilistic behavior toward me.
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1. Can you see the entitlement?
I'm new; I'm a "guest;" I deserve special dispensation.

2. If many have this "bullying" response, it may not be the many.
Look for the common element.

I mean dude, if you walk in here waving a sword around resurrecting a dead post - perhaps a result of an injured ego - expect a response. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2c/bb/48/2cbb48d49a3a6c69f3f7f9f92c558695.jpg
Don't put the ego out there to get injured in the first place. Don't be a brittle victim getting "ganged up on." Take some responsibility.

I'm new too. I like these folks. Because I learn a lot from them.
I experience mild be-pissment when someone says my compatriots are "bullies"