Health and Religion

[CoinCube]

Some music from the faiths highlighted in this post.

Shalom Aleichem (Peace Be Upon You in Hebrew) - Susana Allen & Hector David
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xAgLtjMrW4

Baba Yetu (The Lord's Prayer in Swahili) - Alex Boyé, BYU Men's Chorus & Philharmonic; Christopher Tin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsINANZ6Riw

Lyrics:
Shalom Aleichem:
Shalom alechem malache ha-sharet malache elyon,
mi-melech malche ha-melachim Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu.
Bo'achem le-shalom malache ha-shalom malache elyon,
mi-melech malche ha-melachim Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu.
Barchuni le-shalom malache ha-shalom malache elyon,
mi-melech malche ha-melachim Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu.
Tzet'chem le-shalom malache ha-shalom malache elyon,
mi-melech malche ha-melachim Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu.

The words to the song translate as follows:
Peace upon you, ministering angels, messengers of the Most High,
of the Supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.
Come in peace, messengers of peace, messengers of the Most High,
of the Supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.
Bless me with peace, messengers of peace, messengers of the Most High,
of the Supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.
May your departure be in peace, messengers of peace, messengers of the Most High,
of the Supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He

Baba Yetu:
Baba yetu, yetu uliye
Mbinguni yetu, yetu amina!
Baba yetu yetu uliye
M jina lako e litukuzwe.

Utupe leo chakula chetu
Tunachohitaji, utusamehe
Makosa yetu, hey!
Kama nasi tunavyowasamehe
Waliotukosea usitutie
Katika majaribu, lakini
Utuokoe, na yule, muovu e milele!

Ufalme wako ufike utakalo
Lifanyike duniani kama mbinguni.
(Amina)

The words to the song translate as follows:
Our Father, who art
in Heaven. Amen!
Our Father,
Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread,
Forgive us of
our trespasses,
As we forgive others
Who trespass against us
Lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from the evil one forever.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
(Amen)

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[Maesters1-]

i don't thin that there is any direct relation between religion and health. these all are false statement and just the dramas against the religions. i will lke to say that we should not bring the health and religion in contrast to each other. we should respect all the religions of of the world. and should not spread false news about religions.

[trickshot22]

Religion is possibly the best thing that has happened to the world, it what kept us being stable and I doubt we would be in the place we are now if it wasn't up to religion. It still has it's place as of now, though it'd be better if it wasn't THAT much radical.

It is actually what has made us revolutionize in the first place. If it wasn't for Martin Luther writing the 95 theses, we'd still be in medieval ages. It's what made churches fall and let people like Da Vinci/Michelangelo shine.

[Jet Cash]

Religion is useful. It kills enormous numbers of healthy people. Without religion the world would be even more over-populated.

[BADecker]

Religion is useful. It kills enormous numbers of healthy people. Without religion the world would be even more over-populated.

Actually, it's the opposite. People talk religion, act religion in times of peace, and then forget religious principles when a bunch of sneaky irreligious leaders talk them into war.

This excludes Muslims, of course, whose religion is formally at war with everybody, even themselves.

[groll]

Nice article.  I did not know that being religious is linked to being a healthy person.  Well maybe because, those who believe in God knew that their body is God's temple.  Mostly religious people are those who were not into drinking, partying, and smoking.  They are happy people even if they are not into this kind of social perceptions. 

And yes, maybe there are atheist because they are those people who are so intelligent that they refuse to accept that God do exist.  They think they knew everything and questions those who believe to the existence of Supreme being as they say there are no proof to this claim. 

[CoinCube]

At its most pure and fundamental level knowledge is faith and faith is knowledge.

This is the essential difference between theism/spiritualism and nihilism, it is the question of epistemology, of what is knowledge. I know that this equation of knowledge with faith is false or at least self-defeating. I agree, atheism is false, but that it is false exactly to the extent that its still not absolute nihilism. It is because people still think of the world in an essentially spiritualistic way, that they fear nihilism and it is because they are still spiritualists, that they have something to fear from nihilism. But to know there is no intrinsic value is the knowledge required to know what value in general is, how to create it and improve it. By having faith in intrinsic value, one is abandoning the quest for knowledge of value, and thus any chance of progress. It is accepting the world as it is, barbaric and unjust. Spiritualists believe in writings on the wall only because they still live behind one.

As a nihilist I think higher of people that, like CoinCube, know the reasons for their belief, no matter how false, than of those that believe blindly and quote inspirational posters as the basis of their belief.

It is a bit late to respond this post but later is better than never.

There are various shades of nihilism but essentially nihilism holds that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value, that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Human or even the entire human species is essentially insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. What is the antithesis of nihilism? I would argue that it is faith.

Faith holds that life has inherent meaning. It proclaims that there is an objective status for ethical ideals grounded in the very bedrock of creation. It teaches that man is created "in the image of God," and therefore has inherent dignity and immense value. It offers mankind a purpose in this universe.

I respect nihilists as they are almost always members of the intellectual elite. However, I believe the philosophy itself is inherently dangerous and self-destructive.  

http://www.arasite.org/WL3/nietnihil.html#_ftn1

It (nihilism) is the continued destruction of all meaning and signification. It is the belief that nothing really matters any more, because nothing really has any meaning. We have no system of beliefs or values which could orientate us. The old systems of belief, like religion and morality, still exist, but at best we only follow them half-heartedly, and at worst, think that they have no meaning whatsoever.  They exist only the edges of our lives and consciousnesses. But it isn’t just the world that doesn’t have any meaning anymore. We ourselves don’t have any meaning to ourselves. Why should we choice one course of action over the other? What does it really matter anymore, since no-one’s individual life really has any significance in the grand scheme of things...

Nothing is worth much anymore, everything comes down to the same thing, everything is equalized. Everything is the same and equivalent: the true and the false, the good and the bad. Everything is outdated, used up, old dilapidated, dying: an undefined agony of meaning, an unending twilight: not a definite annihilation of significations, but their indefinite collapse.

By rejecting intrinsic value, one is not abandoning the quest for value but certifying the absence of value. Faith demands we not accept the world as it is. Faith provides an ideal and asks us for ethical perfection. It is a goal we fall far short of a world to strive for. Nihilism provides none of these things for at its heart it is a philosophy of emptiness.

[nihilnegativum]

http://www.arasite.org/WL3/nietnihil.html#_ftn1

It (nihilism) is the continued destruction of all meaning and signification. It is the belief that nothing really matters any more, because nothing really has any meaning. We have no system of beliefs or values which could orientate us. The old systems of belief, like religion and morality, still exist, but at best we only follow them half-heartedly, and at worst, think that they have no meaning whatsoever.  They exist only the edges of our lives and consciousnesses. But it isn’t just the world that doesn’t have any meaning anymore. We ourselves don’t have any meaning to ourselves. Why should we choice one course of action over the other? What does it really matter anymore, since no-one’s individual life really has any significance in the grand scheme of things...

Nothing is worth much anymore, everything comes down to the same thing, everything is equalized. Everything is the same and equivalent: the true and the false, the good and the bad. Everything is outdated, used up, old dilapidated, dying: an undefined agony of meaning, an unending twilight: not a definite annihilation of significations, but their indefinite collapse.

By rejecting intrinsic value, one is not abandoning the quest for value but certifying the absence of value. Faith demands we not accept the world as it is. Faith provides an ideal and asks us for ethical perfection. It is a goal we fall far short of a world to strive for. Nihilism provides none of these things for at its heart it is a philosophy of emptiness.

The quote is about moral nihilism, that has become the popular image of nihilism through movies and other pop-culture, but there is an important distinction between it and what I was refering to. For philosophy, nihilism is foremost the metaphysical nihilism, that is a nihilism in ontology and epistemology (there is no eternal ontological ground, in theistic terms, world doesn't have a creator, in any sense, and therefore has no unity as the world, this lack of unity, this unity is the concept of the world, therefore onlogical nihilism can claim that there is no world, just things). Again, this should not be cofused with the simplistic claims that there is nothing, and we can't know anything as theists intepret it, but as its own metaphysical ground capable of producing rational ontology, epistemology and morals without succumbing to spiritualism. On this basis what we can say is that there is no intrinsic value, and therefore valuing is required as a finite process among other, succeptible to context and change, and because of that capable of progressing. To take values as fixed, therefore only blocks the potential progress of values and robs them of their rational basis, that they always possess in some form. It doesn't even mean there isn't an objective basis of values, just that they aren't inherent to mere objectivity itself. As an analogy, we can take mathematics, that has an objective basis, yet isn't inherent in things themselves, but has to be created in order to describe them.

[CoinCube]

For philosophy, nihilism is foremost the metaphysical nihilism, that is a nihilism in ontology and epistemology (there is no eternal ontological ground, in theistic terms, world doesn't have a creator, in any sense, and therefore has no unity as the world, this lack of unity, this unity is the concept of the world, therefore onlogical nihilism can claim that there is no world, just things).

I fail to see how metaphysical nihilism does not lead inevitably to moral nihilism. On what grounds do you establish morality. You can make rules codified into law reflecting the preferences of the majority but how can anything ever be right or wrong. At best you have the preferences of a majority or realistically the preferences of the ruling elite subject to change and personal expediency. What is the inherent significance of these rules? Nothing just transient strictures that carry a degree of risk if broken. If there is no world just things what does that say about humanity itself? Well we must simply be one more group of things with no real necessary value. If you can reach any other conclusion starting from metaphysical nihilism I am curious as to how.  

This should not be confused with the simplistic claims that there is nothing, and we can't know anything as theists interpret it, but as its own metaphysical ground capable of producing rational ontology, epistemology and morals without succumbing to spiritualism. On this basis what we can say is that there is no intrinsic value, and therefore valuing is required as a finite process among other, susceptible to context and change, and because of that capable of progressing. To take values as fixed, therefore only blocks the potential progress of values and robs them of their rational basis.

Have you considered the possibility that the the end point of such a search the optimal rational ontology and morals may be ethical monotheism and if so the potential consequences of rejecting the optimum while searching for it. Ethical monotheism does not require a belief in spiritualism.

If people are not pushed a little into looking at the reality of God, they forget that they believe in God naturally, in the depths of their heart. Forget God, and you gradually forget life.

I don't agree with BADecker all the time especially with his literalism but in this instance he presents a very deep argument. In this thread I have cited multiple studies of fertility. These studies tell us that those who have rejected religion have a fertility rate below 2.1 the minimum needed for replacement of the population. Individuals who reject religion also report lower levels of health and wellbeing compared to the highly religious. Finally there is not a single current or historic non-religious group that has maintained reproductive replacement levels on the communal level.

There is a certain ironic elegance to a universe in which continued and sustained existence comes only to those who honor and respect its creator not via divine intervention but through inevitable cause and effect. Do we live in such a universe? It is entirely possible that we do.

[qwik2learn]

there is no intrinsic value, and therefore valuing is required as a finite process among other, succeptible to context and change, and because of that capable of progressing.

So you conclude "there may be value depending on the context"; if this is so, then only one who has educated oneself about the entire diversity of contexts and the whole of history can say that he has the correct "finite process" for valuation. So this path to knowledge obviously involves learning about the other worlds and those rational beings of a different and higher kind. You also would eventually have to realize that the world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived, and that there are contexts presently unknown to you. This very line of reasoning denies humanism, and it is a problem for the nihilist because according to secular scholars, "all rational atheists are humanists" (unless you are some oddball French philosopher from the 20th century). The nihilist needs a wide diversity of contexts in order to have a complete glimpse into the valuation problem, therefore any educated discussion of these contexts will turn to the subject of extraterrestrials, etheric beings, and the like.

I think that your version of nihilism is nothing new;

In place of the old morality, we will get the new morality-one that's more relevant-namely that "nothing is real except our world of desires and passions," as Friedrich Nietzsche phrased it in his book Beyond Good and Evil. Formally, this philosophy is not called pluralism, but secular humanism. The problem Christians have with secular humanism is not that it is truly pluralistic, but that it subjects man to the sentimentality and enthusiasms of the moment. Indeed, history has shown that secular humanism - the view that man is the sole judge of the world, including morality, the shape of society, and the value of the individual - is very bad for humanity.

The assumption that is required in your argument is that human knowledge of value can progress, but this is dependent on humanism, the idea that man is the sole judge of all things.

How can you say that man's knowledge of value can progress unless man himself is the judge of that progress?

In another context, man may find himself giving up those values that were (somehow) discerned ex-nihilo and instead return his free will to GOD and live by faith according to the rules given unto mankind for the total transformation of the species (true progress).

The full context of man's existence provides a solid case for rejecting humanism, and I have made it quite a bit stronger by providing you these two valuable links above. Both the educated thinker and the mystic would say that it is MAN who has no unity within himself, and not the world.

To take values as fixed, therefore only blocks the potential progress of values and robs them of their rational basis, that they always possess in some form. It doesn't even mean there isn't an objective basis of values, just that they aren't inherent to mere objectivity itself. As an analogy, we can take mathematics, that has an objective basis, yet isn't inherent in things themselves, but has to be created in order to describe them.

It is good that you bring up the rational basis of values in the context of objectivity; one philosopher has said:

Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.” Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say “It is,” you are refusing to say “I am.” By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: “Who am I to know?” he is declaring: “Who am I to live?”

Since values have a rational basis, it is sensible to ground our highest virtue in thinking, and the highest evil would be to refuse to know about other contexts of knowledge and values; therefore, only a sufficiently diverse education can allow the potential for the progress of values.

[Xester]

Now I know the reason why some people with high IQs become atheist.  Scientist who were really intelligent do not believe the existence of our Almighty God, Einstein is exception.  They became rebellious sometimes, high egos with super high confidence that they do not believe that their someone who is behind all the  things we have on Earth.  And because of thinking their superiority, they do almost what they want.  They abused their health compared to people who believes to the existence of God.  These people values their lives as they know that our body is the temple of Christ.  Thus, people who believes God values their life.  They are mostly the contented person and they are mostly the happy beings.

[qwik2learn]

Scientist who were really intelligent do not believe the existence of our Almighty God, Einstein is exception.

Wow!
You are totally wrong! I am sure that the facts will come as a big surprise to you; please let us hear your arguments for why THESE researchers are ALL exceptions; maybe they were all stupid  ...

https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers

[ASHLIUSZ]

Now I know the reason why some people with high IQs become atheist.  Scientist who were really intelligent do not believe the existence of our Almighty God, Einstein is exception.  They became rebellious sometimes, high egos with super high confidence that they do not believe that their someone who is behind all the  things we have on Earth.  And because of thinking their superiority, they do almost what they want.  They abused their health compared to people who believes to the existence of God.  These people values their lives as they know that our body is the temple of Christ.  Thus, people who believes God values their life.  They are mostly the contented person and they are mostly the happy beings.

yeah the most highly educated scientists who have excelled in their fields, do not believe in god rather they believed that they were the creators. "There is one God, the Almighty God and he is the creator of everything", those people who believes this strongly were really happy beings.

[BADecker]

Now I know the reason why some people with high IQs become atheist.  Scientist who were really intelligent do not believe the existence of our Almighty God, Einstein is exception.  They became rebellious sometimes, high egos with super high confidence that they do not believe that their someone who is behind all the  things we have on Earth.  And because of thinking their superiority, they do almost what they want.  They abused their health compared to people who believes to the existence of God.  These people values their lives as they know that our body is the temple of Christ.  Thus, people who believes God values their life.  They are mostly the contented person and they are mostly the happy beings.

Many of these unbelieving scientists think that the universe was created by the Big Bang something like 13 billion years ago.

IQ is something that a person can focus anywhere. These stupid scientists focus their great IQ on trying to prove something that is not provable. Not only that, BB is so ridiculous that it has become a religion to the believers in it.

[Tyrantt]

Those gifted with superior intellect are not only smarter, they are also taller, healthier, and more athletic than average.

Ahaha no, and im not. Saying because im not 6ft tall, but bcause here its kind of reverse and thats 100yrs after that research. Also, i dont believe that socialism is a result of aomeones intelect, t hat someone ahould be smart enough to see that socialism doesnt work. Atheism isnt a product of intelligence too, it's common sence.

[Winter1986]

Now I know the reason why some people with high IQs become atheist.  Scientist who were really intelligent do not believe the existence of our Almighty God, Einstein is exception.  They became rebellious sometimes, high egos with super high confidence that they do not believe that their someone who is behind all the  things we have on Earth.  And because of thinking their superiority, they do almost what they want.  They abused their health compared to people who believes to the existence of God.  These people values their lives as they know that our body is the temple of Christ.  Thus, people who believes God values their life.  They are mostly the contented person and they are mostly the happy beings.

Many of these unbelieving scientists think that the universe was created by the Big Bang something like 13 billion years ago.

IQ is something that a person can focus anywhere. These stupid scientists focus their great IQ on trying to prove something that is not provable. Not only that, BB is so ridiculous that it has become a religion to the believers in it.

Why did you decide that science contradicts religion? Not religion does not deny science. And science, especially not deny the existence of God. You see where the scientific work in which scientists claim that there is no God.

[CoinCube]

Those gifted with superior intellect are not only smarter, they are also taller, healthier, and more athletic than average.

Ahaha no, and im not.

That data I cited measured averages. In any population you are going to have wide variations among individuals.

[CoinCube]

Many of these unbelieving scientists think that the universe was created by the Big Bang something like 13 billion years ago.

To be fair to the scientists there is data that supports the big bang theory.

http://www.universetoday.com/106498/what-is-the-evidence-for-the-big-bang/

There are separate lines of evidence...

The first...

In 1912, Vesto Slipher calculated the speed and direction of “spiral nebulae” by measuring the change in the wavelengths of light coming from them. He realized that most of them were moving away from us. We now know these objects are galaxies, but a century ago astronomers thought these vast collections of stars might actually be within the Milky Way.

In 1924, Edwin Hubble figured out that these galaxies are actually outside the Milky Way. He observed a special type of variable star that has a direct relationship between its energy output and the time it takes to pulse in brightness. By finding these variable stars in other galaxies, he was able to calculate how far away they were. Hubble discovered that all these galaxies are outside our own Milky Way, millions of light-years away.

So, if these galaxies are far, far away, and moving quickly away from us, this suggests that the entire Universe must have been located in a single point billions of years ago.

The second line of evidence came from the abundance of elements we see around us.

In the earliest moments after the Big Bang, there was nothing more than hydrogen compressed into a tiny volume, with crazy high heat and pressure. The entire Universe was acting like the core of a star, fusing hydrogen into helium and other elements.

This is known as Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. As astronomers look out into the Universe and measure the ratios of hydrogen, helium and other trace elements, they exactly match what you would expect to find if the entire Universe was once a really big star.

Line of evidence number 3: cosmic microwave background radiation. In the 1960s, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were experimenting with a 6-meter radio telescope, and discovered a background radio emission that was coming from every direction in the sky – day or night. From what they could tell, the entire sky measured a few degrees above absolute zero.

Theories predicted that after a Big Bang, there would have been a tremendous release of radiation. And now, billions of years later, this radiation would be moving so fast away from us that the wavelength of this radiation would have been shifted from visible light to the microwave background radiation we see today.

To scientifically dispute the big bang theory one possible avenue is to try and disprove the wavelength data. If you can show that shift in observed wavelength may not be an indication of distance but some other phenomena you undermine the theoretical foundations of the big bang theory.

There are a small minority of astronomers who have explored this avenue.

https://youtu.be/IFFl9S39CTM

The scientist in the video above do not disprove the big bang or even the wavelength data but they do show that our scientific process especially our scientific peer review process remains quite flawed.

Here are some interesting quotes from the video.

"The leading astronomer on my committee said well look she is getting this result it doesn't fit it has to be wrong and recommend we stop
the program. That was his position.. and the majority of the people because of his position went along with him... and the peer review system which is very conformist will always do just that."  - Geoffrey Burbidge Theoretical Astrophysicist

"The theoreticians ought to be really looking at this... but I think they are all a little scared because it is an unpopular subject they are worried about their jobs and moving on up the latter if they are post docs." - Margaret Burbidge

"The young person in academia cannot afford to go against the big bang he'd immediately lose his (chance at) tenure." - John Dobson

"Don't collaborate with (him) if you do that you will have difficulties to get a position. I have received such blackmails." - Martin Lopez-Corredoira Astronomer

"The people that are in that field treat it like a religion." - Kary B. Mullis Nobel Laureate

However, my favorite quote from the video the one that truly gets to the heart of the matter was this the following.

"Now we are entering the realm of cosmology and it is here where religion philosophy metaphysics and science all meet. And make no mistake about it they all play a role in our beliefs. The amount of data that we have to support any particular model is small." - Jack Sulentic Observational Astronomer

[BADecker]

Many of these unbelieving scientists think that the universe was created by the Big Bang something like 13 billion years ago.

To be fair to the scientists there is data that supports the big bang theory.

To be super fair to scientists, they also know that all of the data supports multiple other theories at the same time, often theories that exclude BB... and it is media and greedy university people who twist the words and ideas of the scientists to make it seem like BB is the answer.

[CoinCube]

there is no intrinsic value, and therefore valuing is required as a finite process among other, succeptible to context and change, and because of that capable of progressing.

So you conclude "there may be value depending on the context"; if this is so, then only one who has educated oneself about the entire diversity of contexts and the whole of history can say that he has the correct "finite process" for valuation. So this path to knowledge obviously involves learning about the other worlds and those rational beings of a different and higher kind. You also would eventually have to realize that the world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived, and that there are contexts presently unknown to you. This very line of reasoning denies humanism, and it is a problem for the nihilist because according to secular scholars, "all rational atheists are humanists" (unless you are some oddball French philosopher from the 20th century). The nihilist needs a wide diversity of contexts in order to have a complete glimpse into the valuation problem, therefore any educated discussion of these contexts will turn to the subject of extraterrestrials, etheric beings, and the like.

I think that your version of nihilism is nothing new;

In place of the old morality, we will get the new morality-one that's more relevant-namely that "nothing is real except our world of desires and passions," as Friedrich Nietzsche phrased it in his book Beyond Good and Evil. Formally, this philosophy is not called pluralism, but secular humanism. The problem Christians have with secular humanism is not that it is truly pluralistic, but that it subjects man to the sentimentality and enthusiasms of the moment. Indeed, history has shown that secular humanism - the view that man is the sole judge of the world, including morality, the shape of society, and the value of the individual - is very bad for humanity.

The assumption that is required in your argument is that human knowledge of value can progress, but this is dependent on humanism, the idea that man is the sole judge of all things.

How can you say that man's knowledge of value can progress unless man himself is the judge of that progress?

In another context, man may find himself giving up those values that were (somehow) discerned ex-nihilo and instead return his free will to GOD and live by faith according to the rules given unto mankind for the total transformation of the species (true progress).

The full context of man's existence provides a solid case for rejecting humanism, and I have made it quite a bit stronger by providing you these two valuable links above. Both the educated thinker and the mystic would say that it is MAN who has no unity within himself, and not the world.

To take values as fixed, therefore only blocks the potential progress of values and robs them of their rational basis, that they always possess in some form. It doesn't even mean there isn't an objective basis of values, just that they aren't inherent to mere objectivity itself. As an analogy, we can take mathematics, that has an objective basis, yet isn't inherent in things themselves, but has to be created in order to describe them.

It is good that you bring up the rational basis of values in the context of objectivity; one philosopher has said:

Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.” Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say “It is,” you are refusing to say “I am.” By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: “Who am I to know?” he is declaring: “Who am I to live?”

Since values have a rational basis, it is sensible to ground our highest virtue in thinking, and the highest evil would be to refuse to know about other contexts of knowledge and values; therefore, only a sufficiently diverse education can allow the potential for the progress of values.

An very well written reply qwik2learn. I agree with the logic you have presented above. Hopefully nihilnegativum will return as this has been an interesting debate.