I know you desire to keep it as free and open as you can, but does there not come a time when a rude guest needs to be shown the door?

N. (Anonmous)’s posts are dripping with spite and anger throughout from comment 1, and that’s the norm for her since she showed up here a while back. But more importantly, she appears to be obstinate in her desire to misread, and misrepresent what others write. And most significantly of all, on several occasions she’s simply gone way overboard for a forum where the norm is civil discourse.

The examples are numerous, but most egregious is this….

One really begins to fear for her children’s well-being. What happens to them the day she stops finding enough personal “meaning” in caring for them? They’re royall screwed, because it’s all about her first and her ability to find enough appropriate meaning before it happens.

D you really need someone coming to a place you consider a journal for yourself hurling such evil at you?

And none of this is a first time occurrence (including the implication that you children are ‘screwed’ because they have you as a mother). This simply goes beyond the pale in my opinion.

I thought you might get nit-picky about the tongue-in-cheek hour duration comment re: your oath-keeping.
In fact, I was sort of hoping you would. It shows your ability to focus on the wrong issues (or put inordinate attention on the wrong issues).
As if my little joke (that didn’t need millesecond exactitude) is more of a foul up than your breaking your word.

Along the same theme of your missing the point, my comments

as you write, which, along with not believing in God, you like to use a generic name

were framed, as you may recall, in my interpretation of your writings… which is accurate to the degree that I was talking about the Christian God, Whom you later disparage in no uncertain terms. But, that doesn’t matter because you miss the point of this whole blog entry, as written by a former atheist, who used to have epistemological crises based on her worldview. Good for you that you hold certain moral certainties. Atheists do not – (or to be consistent with their worldview – ‘should’ not). For you see… ultimately to an atheist nothing is, as you say, ‘revolting’ or ‘evil’ – for it (humanity, life, the universe, and everything) is all and only nature/material interaction – which imputes no moral properties whatsoever.

I don’t expect you to understand since you haven’t to this point, nor will I respond (intent on keeping my word) to any of your confused entries.

Further examples of your confusion are your interpretation of certain scripture passages.

I see that you’re stuck on making sure people aren’t so selfish/self-centered – and that’s good. But you are not graceful in communicating it, nor do you understand why that is utter nonsense in a world with no intrinsic, ultimate meaning.

Farewell to you, and God (the Christian one) bless.

I don’t think any of us would argue that there is NO meaning in a good act just because it’s transient meaning. It’s simply not transcendent meaning. Transcendent meaning is what’s under discussion in Jen’s post.

I’ve said this before in discussions with you, and Darwin’s quote says it much more eloquently. If transient meaning satisfies your own understanding, that’s fine. But it simply doesn’t satisfy most people, and thus the question persists.

Most people seem to inherently seek some more transcendent meaning.

In addition, I think the charge that all the ‘meaning’ being discussed is self focused, is largely untrue. It’s not just that I want MY act to mean something because it’s important to me,me, me.

It’s even more important to know that that the deed done for the other has real meaning for them.

If I alleviate the hunger of a person, but they are nothing but a meat robot in reality, ultimately controlled by deterministic forces, what does this act actually achieve?

This person will die and the good done that THEY experienced will be gone with them. In that case the real meaning, not my feelings, but the actual good done, goes with them.

Yes, they had their hunger alleviated and in the end it meant nothing more than delaying the inevitable, that they would cease to exist. Were is the good done to that person? It is gone.

If I had to choose between my own immortality so that I could retain the memory of all the ‘good’ I’ve done, or the immortality of those who received the good, it would be no contest. I’d rather have the good live on with them.

That’s the essence of true Christian charity after all. To will and work for the good of the other for THEIR sake, rather than our own.

I think that most of us rather take this point for granted in these discussions. If what we really meant was simply related to what these acts mean to US, I could see why someone would think that the height of selfishness.

Thankfully, that’s not really how it’s being conceived in my own understanding. I just took/take it for granted that we are mostly talking about the meaning being present because it rests in the immortality of others (God and the recipient).

I’ll let others agree or disagree as they want.

As far as Quantum physics goes, I can’t honestly say that I’ve ‘studied’ it in any scholarly terms, but I’ve read enough about it by those who are experts to know that it says absolutely nothing about this question of meaning, transcendence, or permanence.

If you think I am mistaken on that front, I am totally open to being corrected, but you’ll have to describe your own studies of QM and how it bears on this discussion.

As an agnostic who believes meaning exists independently of God, and as a geek, I suggest that people who subscribe to this argument have not studied enough quantum physics, and so does not realize the permanence every moment has in space-time, regardless of whether that moment is remembered by anyone at another moment of space-time.

Yeah. Damned right it’s a good thing I don’t follow that god and I’m not asking people to kill children…

I’m not telling people not to think.

What I’m saying that it is appallingly ignorant, shallow, self-centered and quite repulsively piggy to insist that an act of kindness only has any value if you personally can assign to it a Meaning that satisfies YOU.

No. Again, you’re wrong.

THIS is what you wrote:

I agree, though, I’m as anonymous as you. Good call [and in such a friendly manner].
I was merely pointing out that I know as much about you as you write, which, along with not believing in God, you like to use a generic name).

I never wrote that I didn’t believe in God, a god, gods, whatever.

Just because I take issue with one believer’s perspective does not mean I am automatically defending all non-believers’ views.

I’m saying that the author’s opinion, as expressed, is appallingly self-centered and self-serving.

To not be able to find any sense in stopping a child from suffering outside of the act of stopping the child from suffering is…obscene. It’s positively foul.

Why does it have to be about her? Why can’t it be about the child without being about her? Why the need for Meaning with a capital M? Who says everything has to make sense or have a logical set of proofs before it has any intrinsic value? Why not just do the right thing because it is the right thing to do? How cold and devoid of empathy can she be that it’s all just so bloody meaningless to her if there isn’t some big divine significance to it all?

That’s revolting.

One really begins to fear for her children’s well-being. What happens to them the day she stops finding enough personal “meaning” in caring for them? They’re royall screwed, because it’s all about her first and her ability to find enough appropriate meaning before it happens.

That’s actually pretty damned evil, when you get right down to it — questioning the value of not allowing a child to suffer based on the worth of the personal meaning you can find in the act.

It has value in itself when you focus on the other person instead of your own special, precious, oh-so-freaking-holy self.

But when all you ever think of 24/7 is your selfselfself and your personal holiness and your special little path to sainthood and how you look in God’s eyes and how you compare to Joe Blow down the street, yeah, I guess it’s hard to find any value in such an act unless you can find some way to land it all back in your own lap.

anonymous/whomever:

I’m not going to respond to personal attacks. Or, from now on, anyone named Stephen or Steve.
You kept your oath for, what? 2 hours? Amusing.

I’m not insisting you don’t believe in God. If you read my last post to you, you see my interpretation, followed by the qualifying “IF you don’t believe in God…” etc.

Your position is very much either a mindless or forced ethical behavior existence. “Don’t think! Do!”. We’re just lucky you’re promoting feeding starving orphans and not killing them.

Also, I’m not Catholic, but, like Catholics, I am Christian.

I know. Same old drill. Jen’s blog, kiss Jen’s ass, agree or else, blahblahblah.

Stephen is still insisting I don’t believe in God.

Even when I’ve said that’s not true.

See? But I daren’t get pissy about having to defend a negative because he is Catholic and therefore right about everything.

Whatever.

You people prove this over and over and over again because you don’t really believe in anything outside of the High Holy Church of St. Blogs.

You don’t believe in any of the Christian nonsense you spew. If you do, you sure don’t act it. Never did, never will. That much is documentable.

It doesn’t really seem like any of you are attuned at all to anything larger or greater than yourselves. The ego, among this crowd, seems to be at the center of all your beliefs and all your actions.

That you are so insanely shallow as to believe that feeding a hungry child for no other reason than to alleviate the hunger of a child is not “meaning” enough for you just goes to show that you don’t give a damn about the child. What you really care about is how the action measures up on some scorecard or in some eternal archive somewhere.

Just feed the damn kid and don’t make it about yourself and your nauseatingly self-obsessed, navel-gazing search for meaning worthy enough of your precious time already.

Because that’s EXACTLY what your Jesus told you to do. Duh.