Nihilism

[NikolaiI]

Pardon me if I'm being stupid, but isn't this one of the reasons people mock followers of one religion or other? I mean someone like me, who believes that Christ (or, for example, Allah, or Yahweh) is the only truth. We are attacked for "close-mindedness," but this is essentially the same thing. Only this statement is true... all others are wrong. Sorry if I'm just being thick-headed.

It's sad if anyone attacks you, I hope you're never attacked. I think the main reason for disagreeing with Christians, however, is gut-feeling, analysis, exposure, learning, perspective, etc. If you look at Earth as a ball in space, with creatures on it, and see their religions, i.e., the most recently evolved creature has created language and religion, it doesn't hold a lot of stock. What is religion to an alien, an ant, or a lizard? Also, what raises Christianity above the others? Several others claim to be revelations of God, etc.

You don't have to apologize at all, weeping. You never did anything wrong. Anyway, I'd like to hear your ideas on this philisophical subject.

Nikolai

[blazeofglory]

'I personally hate Nihilism'. Why?

Maybe you hate it because you want to be in a comfort zone. You hate because you can not think of having an independent existence of your own; you hate because you fear the unknown; you hate because in God you find all you desperations healed; You hate becuase you want an image, for you fear reality and you feel incomplete in yourself and you want externals for aide or for you to associate with.

God is an invention of man, and it is invented with a purpose that it can protect him from imagined entities, and that he can move freely with Gods and angels guarding him all the time.

I am not a Nihilist in point of fact. I too have a kind of beleif in something that exists, in which form I can not imagine, let alone put the imagination or idea of it in words.

Nihilism appeals to me for it says everything in the end comes to an end or to cesation. This is the law of nature. Even celestial bodies have tho face death or the cesation of their beingness.

This is what I beleive in. If you disagree please comment.

Nietzsche condemns nihilists, saying that they are the ruination of the world. Many people call him a nihilist because he said "God is dead". There are various interpretations of that quotation. I personally believe he meant that we have to carry on with our lives as if God doesn't exist. It's not really atheistic because one does not deny God's existence... we instead must forget about him because he has become "irrelevant to the bulk of humanity". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilis..._and_Nietzsche

I haven't read "Simulacra and Simulation" by Jean Baudrillard, and apparently it details "new nihilism". http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/cpace/theo...llard/lee.html

oh yea, and loe, it must be pretty cool reading Nietzsche's work in the original language. I sometimes wish I knew other languages so I wouldn't have to worry about the validity of different translations.

Having read this ommentary I understand that Jean Baudrillard has read Adi Shankaracharya, a great Indain Philosopher born 1200 years ago, a great vedantist. He was really a seer. He said this world is a simulation of or someply an image of god. And all things that seem to exist are simply refelctions of the other reality man can not visualize.

Therefore Jean Baudrillard must have immensely drawn upon the idea of Adi Shankaracharya. In fact Vedic litereature, I do not say Hindu literature becaus I beleive in seculiarim, i svery rich in philosophy. I do not claim that it is clean of or pure of all dogmas. No there are myths. But Vedic literature so ancient yet there is lot of logicality and evidence in them.

If you read his literature, that is Shankaraycharya you will be amazed to see therein reserivoirs of such ideas.

[weepingforloman]

Maybe you hate it because you want to be in a comfort zone. You hate because you can not think of having an independent existence of your own; you hate because you fear the unknown; you hate because in God you find all you desperations healed; You hate becuase you want an image, for you fear reality and you feel incomplete in yourself and you want externals for aide or for you to associate with.

God is an invention of man, and it is invented with a purpose that it can protect him from imagined entities, and that he can move freely with Gods and angels guarding him all the time.

I am not a Nihilist in point of fact. I too have a kind of beleif in something that exists, in which form I can not imagine, let alone put the imagination or idea of it in words.

Nihilism appeals to me for it says everything in the end comes to an end or to cesation. This is the law of nature. Even celestial bodies have tho face death or the cesation of their beingness.

This is what I beleive in. If you disagree please comment.

A. Your claim that God is an invention is unsubstantiated and unprovable. Furthermore, it's liable to cause this thread to be closed.

B. I think nihilism is itself an instance of seeking comfort. When nothing matters, why does it matter what you do? You can do whatever you want, free of guilt, free of worry that you should be doing something else. Ultimately, to me at least, nihilism is a wishful philosophy.

[NickAdams]

A. Your claim that God is an invention is unsubstantiated and unprovable.

Can't that also be said about his existence?

[blazeofglory]

If people were left to decide what was wrong and right for themselves the world would look a lot worse than how it looks now. Nihilism is a very bad idea.

There is little sense in your argument that Nihilism is a bad idea. Nihilism is never a bad idea. It is in fact if not in whole, in part similar to modern deconstructionist theory. It is against social taboos and mores and against authority. In fact it is a way of thinking that nothing needs to be taken for granted and every idea prior to accepting must be weighed in thss scales of reasoning and wielded in frames of reasoning and logicaliity.

Therefore please think and give reasons why mihilism is a bad idea

[rabid reader]

There is little sense in your argument that Nihilism is a bad idea. Nihilism is never a bad idea. It is in fact if not in whole, in part similar to modern deconstructionist theory. It is against social taboos and mores and against authority. In fact it is a way of thinking that nothing needs to be taken for granted and every idea prior to accepting must be weighed in thss scales of reasoning and wielded in frames of reasoning and logicaliity.

Therefore please think and give reasons why mihilism is a bad idea

I always like Nietzsche's argument against the "Nihilists" and that is they are hopeless in the death of god. The feel the absences of god, and his hold on morals and give up hope for something better. Nietzsche's belief in the Ubermenchen was in fact a wad of spit in the eye of the Atheist movement of his time. He said the Ubermenchen was a project that humanity had to embark on that would last beyond the lives of the humans who begin the project. Whereas the Nihilist thought of nothing beyond their own existence.

[weepingforloman]

Can't that also be said about his existence?

Yes, it can.

[Son of Belial]

Your claim that God is an invention is unsubstantiated and unprovable...

Can't that also be said about his existence?

Yes, it can.

It's torturous logic to say that since an assertion can't be disproved it therefore must be true. Test this: I assert that there are one-eyed purple people eaters living on Cygnus X-1. Since you can't prove that it isn't true, it therefore must be true. That's not how reason and logic works. If an assertion is made, it is the duty of the asserter to present testable evidence to support the assertion, or society is allowed, even duty bound, to call that assertion false, or in this case "an invention".

I believe that one reason such fallacies are allowed to persist in our world is because enough people have internalized the myth to give it the appearance of reality where no real evidence exists. Clearly such "evidence" is inadequate when you consider an example such as belief in a flat earth. Appeal to the people is a formal fallacy exactly because history has proven that virtually everyone can be wrong about some matters.

[Reason]

Why would anyone think Nihilism is depressing? Im not a depressed person. The reason someone would find it depressing is if they still havn't come to terms with reality and still hold on to fantasy for a glimmer of hope. thats depressing. A life blinded by that which truly doesnt matter, a life lost in what isnt needed, a life in which acceptance of ones faint still isnt comprehensible. Thats depressing. " You must realize that one day you will die. Until then you are worthless ". You see, Nihilism, despite what the mainstream view on it is, has nothing to do with giving up, on the contrary it has to do with the exact opposite. You realize at some point that nothing really matters. thats step 1. Step 2. You begin to envision. You contemplate why do anything? why live? step 3. You realize that despite your life has no real significance you wont go kurt cobain on yourself. step 4. Now you contemplate on giving yourself purpose in this life, despite knowing their is none. step 5. You are now more free than anyone on the face of this earth. You bow before no one. You fear no one or anything. You think for yourself, you question everything. Now you can truly live life to the fullest. Your dream or dreams or whatever you stand for or once stood for, become a reality. thats Nihilism in my opinion.

[jgweed]

How the camel became the lion, and then how the lion became the little child.

[Page Sniffer]

Didn't I see "Team Nihilist" running around loose in post-apocalyptic Mad Max?

[jgweed]

It was Nietzsche who first diagnosed the crises in European thought, and perhaps by his own writings, contributed to this overthrow of traditional values, including the value of truth itself (for which reason Heidegger called him the "last philosopher").
While this crises could be the healthiest imaginable for the creative spirit of man, he knew also that nihilism, the opposite, was also a possible result. He wrote, "Man would rather will nothingness that have nothing to will."
Nietzsche was concerned that once the values hitherto were seen as hollow and all-too-human---that values were a matter of genealogy, prejudice, and fear---that valuation itself would become questioned and despised in a general and pervasive nihilism.
To Nietzsche's credit, he undertook the boldest experiments in creating new values. The "Superman," Eternal Return of the Same, the morality of aesthetics and spiritual health were some of these.

[AsILay]

how dose one expect to make the desision between right and wrong withought a bases of right and wrong. if we were to destroy culture religion philosphy ext, then how would you know what was right and what wasnt. arnt we, as people, told from the second we can crawl, what not to do. though we see something is wrong through our eyes, if we were to look through anothers would it look as bad? i personaly belieave that there is no right nor wrong but different ideals and beliefs. i think that if one was to remove all beliefs ideals love hate religion and so on than we in turn would remove what makes us human. i breefly looked at the sight suggested and, sorry if im wrong, but it seems the ideal is to stop lisening to what your told but to think for youself and think in an independent mind, but if we all through away our own beleifs would we all not have conformed to the same belief and became the thing in which Nihilism was trying to avoid, an exsistance of cloned beings? Wouldn't this be a loss of independence and theretrough our humanity?

[NikolaiI]

how dose one expect to make the desision between right and wrong withought a bases of right and wrong. if we were to destroy culture religion philosphy ext, then how would you know what was right and what wasnt. arnt we, as people, told from the second we can crawl, what not to do. though we see something is wrong through our eyes, if we were to look through anothers would it look as bad? i personaly belieave that there is no right nor wrong but different ideals and beliefs. i think that if one was to remove all beliefs ideals love hate religion and so on than we in turn would remove what makes us human. i breefly looked at the sight suggested and, sorry if im wrong, but it seems the ideal is to stop lisening to what your told but to think for youself and think in an independent mind, but if we all through away our own beleifs would we all not have conformed to the same belief and became the thing in which Nihilism was trying to avoid, an exsistance of cloned beings? Wouldn't this be a loss of independence and theretrough our humanity?

Yes I think it would I agree with you.

[djy78usa]

DISCLAIMER: THE BELOW POST DOES NOT, IN ANY WAY, SUPPORT THE TENENTS OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM, its just my favorite quote from one of my favorite films :

"Nihilists? F*** me, Dude! I mean, say what you will about the tenents of National Socialism, Dude, at least its an ethos.

-Walter Sobchek, The Big Lebowski