Civil Commotion

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality

§294   Criticism of subjective value feelings. The Conscience. Formerly people concluded: conscience condemns this action, therefore this action is reprehensible. But, as a matter of fact, conscience condemns an action because that action has been condemned for a long period of time: all conscience does is to imitate: it does not create values. That which first led to the condemnation of certain actions, was not conscience: but the knowledge of (or the prejudice against) its consequences —

The approbation of conscience, the feeling of well-being, of “inner peace”, is of the same order of emotions as the artist’s joy over his work: it proves nothing —

Self-contentment proves no more in favour of that which gives rise to it, than its absence can prove anything against the value of the thing which fails to give rise to it. We are far too ignorant to be able to judge of the value of our actions: in this respect we lack the ability to regard things objectively. Even when we condemn an action, we do not do so as judges, but as adversaries —

When noble sentiments accompany an action, they prove nothing in its favour: an artist may present us with an absolutely insignificant thing, though he be in the throes of the most exalted pathos during its production. One should say rather that these sentiments are misleading: they actually beguile our eye and our power, away from criticism, from caution and from suspicion, so that we make fools of ourselves — they actually make fools of us.

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality

§293   The concept “reprehensible action” presents us with some difficulties. Nothing in all that happens can be reprehensible in itself: one would not dare to eliminate it completely for everything is so bound up with everything else, that to exclude one part would mean to exclude the whole. A reprehensible action, therefore, would mean a reprehensible world —

And even then, in a reprehensible world even reprehending would be reprehensible –. And the consequence of an attitude of mind that condemns everything, would be the affirmation of everything in practice -—. If Becoming is a great ring, everything that forms a part of it is of equal value, is eternal and necessary. In all correlations of Yes and No, of preference and rejection, love and hate, all that is expressed is a certain point of view, peculiar to the interests of a certain type of living organism: everything that lives says Yes by the very fact of its existence.

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality

§292   It amounts to a denaturalisation of morality to separate the action from the man; to direct hatred or contempt against “sin”; to believe that there are actions which are good or bad in themselves.

The re-establishment of “Nature”: an action in itself is quite devoid of value; the whole question is this: who performed it? One and the same “crime” can be in one case the greatest privilege and in another a stigma. As a matter of fact, it is the selfishness of the judges which interprets an action or its performer according to its utility or harmfulness to themselves ( — or in relation to its degree of likeness or unlikeness to themselves).

I’ve insisted many times over the years that the indispensable Christian belief in Original Sin is a teaching that summons the damaged, the dysfunctional, the screwed-up — that it is a belief so innately unwholesome that no healthy adult can regard it as anything but a perversity. Well, what do you know? Here’s a preacher to say, Yup, the church exists to attract messed-up folk.

Misfits, Malcontents, and Knuckleheads: Welcome to the Church

[ … ]

This is a fundamental church principle. Church, done right, is always going to be messy. Maybe one of the problems with the Southern Baptist Convention today is that we’ve become so respectable! But the church is God’s refuge for messed up, sin-burdened people who are in the process of transformation. The country club mentality has to go.

You are called to God’s ER, not to Augusta National.

Correction: The SBC’s problem is not that it’s uber-respectable, but good at attracting barely functional wackos. And Dave Miller, the author of this piece, insists that the pleasure of his Invisible Friend is more important to him than his spouse or children — so I’m not sure that he’s all there, either.

But when even a guy who isn’t himself real clear-headed acknowledges that there sure are a lot of crazies in the pews, I think that settles it.

A lot of strange things happen when religion, politics, money and tax privilege intersect.

The Davie home, bought in 2010 by Kim Daniels with a G.I. Bill loan, was quitclaimed to Spoken Word Ministries in October 2010. In April 2011 it was quitclaimed back to Kim and Ardell Daniels, the same time she was running for office in Jacksonville. In November 2011 it was quitclaimed back to Spoken Word Ministries. All the while, the home carried the same G.I. Bill mortgage. Typically, a mortgaged property can’t be quitclaimed. The filing contends that the quitclaim on the shared property was an “attempt to keep the interest of the property from the Husband” and “avoid paying taxes to the IRS.”

Beyond that home, the couple acquired other properties, including three Jacksonville homes, a Jacksonville commercial property, and three Central Florida timeshares. The Jacksonville home where Kim Daniels lives is appraised at $386,940.