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[Monocle]

The only source of meaning is subjective experience. Let me take a moment to chuckle at the irony that you are lamenting a meaningless universe when 1) you are literally part of the universe, not a separate thing, and 2) you are a person with a conscious mind, hence one of the very rare parts of the universe capable of witnessing, experiencing, interpreting, and appreciating itself.

You are literally a walking generator of meaning, and you look out at the same kinds of stars that the elements composing your body came from—the same elements under your feet and above your head and in your lungs and belly—and you conclude that the logical endpoint of a rational and accurate view of the cosmos is nihilism?

Damn, get some perspective. Read Carl Sagan or something. 

 

[SocksAndShoes]

There is a bigger picture that you and many others seem unable or unwilling to accept, because your viewpoint is too rigidly homocentric and you cannot grasp that your self-defined purpose is meaningless because you (and everyone else) are meaningless.

...but human beings are the ones deciding if things are meaningless or not.

So we're all pretty homocentric in that regard, no?

 

[Llyranor]

That human life cannot logically have any purpose or meaning in a godless universe, because there is no intent behind such a universe, just mindless physical laws. If the universe and everything in it came about by cosmic acident (which you seem to accept), then the universe and everything it it is, by definition, meaningless.

You have it all wrong.

Atheists can be their own god if they wish. They can be in absolute control of their destiny, because they are not bound down by supernatural laws.

 

[Airola]

At first I thought you were describing what it feels like to have your heart broken. It ain't far off.

Lol

And why does any of that matter?

Ok, but why does this matter? Why is the end result the only important thing?

And who gives a crap? The fact is at the present moment, we are alive, and we are able to feel, and there are things we can do to make other people's life better. All that matters is the present.

As an atheist, I fail to see how this endgame, while completely true, matters at all to the previous 100 billion years of existence. Those things that mattered at the time had significance at the time, just because they won't at some point in the future doesn't detract from that moment when it did.

Life's about the journey, not the destination.

This steamroll of "why would it matter" replies was funny too

I kinda agree with all of you who replied to that, even though I'm not an atheist, but here's a reply to you why it matters to a lot of people. Feel free to just roll your eyes to it, but here it goes:



The original purpose for that writing was to show that if one would see love as just chemicals and treat love as something not important because of that, then one could also go further with it and spiral into existential trouble in thinking that there is not value in anything.
(I continued it in the original post)

However, even if the text was written with a sense of irony, there is some truth to it. Ultimately with moral relativity morals can change in any direction at any point. What we think is valuable right now, might not be valuable at all 200 years later. They might have their morals change into "all overweight guys with a long hair should be tortured" and I would just be glad I wasn't born into that era. They might be scoffing at people's general sense of empathy towards others and think we were complete idiots in the 21th century. For some reason they might accept physical punishments for different crimes. And they could find our aim to be non-violent completely immoral.

All we need is a new generation who for some reason happens to think that the past generations fucked up lots of things and moral senses could mold into completely new ones in a few generations. We don't know for sure that the peace and non-violence really is the way to go. Sure, we might feel it now as it makes us feel nice right at this moment, but who knows what the future generations come up with.

Talking about how we should just seize the moment and enjoy what we have might not do anything to some nihilistic people. People with that kind of a mindset don't know how to follow that logic as they might not find value in happiness, be it because of depression or some another reason. In that sense following naturalism and atheism can't ever have any satisfactory conclusion to the thoughts of a "hardcore-nihilist", and at least in that point the existence of faith and religion can be a tremendous help.

Everyone will eventually forget every feeling of pain and sorrow they ever felt. That goes to every feeling of happiness and joy too. Sure, you can go and live your life completely satisfied while being a naturalist or an atheist. Nice words don't suddenly make hardcore nihilists think "oh yeah, that's it, I just have to live my life to the fullest", as there will always be people who just can't get it, and who can't find the mindset of just enjoying life. And one of the reasons is the hard cold fact that under naturalism and atheism nothing has any value, and ultimately even people's opinions that they can enjoy life without there being any value, has no value. At somepoint everything is just as if anything didn't ever exist at all.

So all we can do is to create ourselves an illusion of value. It is either the thought that there is an afterlife or that our lives in an of itself have individual value and worth. There either is an afterlife or there isn't. One of them is a fact. And only one of them isn't rooted in an illusion, if true. So people searching for meaning will most likely get it from spiritual and supernatural thoughts than from naturalistic thoughts. Sure, you can be all ok with your existence when you're a naturalist and/or an atheist, and I know people who are actually really glad that there isn't anything and all will end someday, but I would argue that the people who say they are all ok with it are not that common, but actually relatively rare. So it's no wonder a lot of people tend to have at least some spiritual thoughts about life, and it's no wonder threads like this exist now and will exist in the future. That cold and hard fact is just way too cold and hard for the majority(?) of people with self-awareness and conscience.

 

[riskVSreward]

I'm fine with there being degrees such as what agnostic atheism would describe, but there are plenty who practice absolutes. Someone who says "There is no god or gods and there never was one" is absolutely what I would call a true atheist. Agnostic atheism is just that, agnosticism that leans towards atheistic ideals whereas I also believe you can be agnostic leaning towards theist beliefs (Probably a god out there, practices religious ideals, but believes there might be nothing).

These words already have definitions and thankfully you aren't in charge of changing them to fit your desired rhetoric.

 

[Foffy]

And who gives a crap? The fact is at the present moment, we are alive, and we are able to feel, and there are things we can do to make other people's life better. All that matters is the present.

Ding ding ding.

Anything that happens occurs in the "now state" where all of the cosmos twerks off in its relative now states.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

Ding ding ding.

Anything that happens occurs in the "now state" where all of the cosmos twerks off in its relative now states.

If we didn't live into the future and have a sense of continuity in our lives we couldn't assign our lives with any value. Having permanent infant brains and never seeing beyond direct immediacy wouldn't be a good thing. Just don't fall into the world and then forget that you've fallen into it. You can retain the appropriate kind of existential detachment without amputating the future.

 

[capitalCORN]

I don't see how an unfeeling future is the endgame for atheists?

Even if it is chemically accomodated, do I love my parents even less? Do my friends matter less? Have my romantic endeavours been for nothing? What makes any one think that atheists feel different about these questions than the faith indebted?

We may not come to the same endgame conclusions than others. But if I raise my children to be better parents for their children, what more could you ask for?

 

[SocksAndShoes]

I don't see how an unfeeling future is the endgame for atheists?

Even if it is chemically accomodated, do I love my parents even less? Do my friends matter less? Have my romantic endeavours been for nothing? What makes any one think that atheists feel different about these questions than the faith indebted?

Because depending on how terrible your family is, you may have been brought up being constantly told that atheists, muslims and the LGBT community are evil people who don't share anything with red blooded American Christians.

Spoiler

I was brought up this way but rejected all that BS from an early age.

 

[freethoughtbubble]

That human life cannot logically have any purpose or meaning in a godless universe, because there is no intent behind such a universe, just mindless physical laws. If the universe and everything in it came about by cosmic acident (which you seem to accept), then the universe and everything it it is, by definition, meaningless.

...false?

I do accept that everything came about with no intention. What does that have to do with meaning or value?

What does meaning mean to you, OP? What's missing in your godless universe other than god?

 

[Zipzo]

What is the word for someone who finds depression in their lack of faith?

For me, I abhor and fear the concept of death. Yeah, yeah, "no sense worrying since you can't do anything about it", this phrase does nothing for me. It's the fact I can't do anything that haunts me.

I have my own purpose, guided by me, I have a family and loved ones who love me, and I'm supposed to "not worry" that one day not only all of those loved ones will die, but I will also become nothing? I will lose my consciousness, my existence as a human, depleting any more possible experiences I could have?

I basically can cry myself to sleep on this stuff, it haunts me.

If not nihilism, what is this?

 

[umop_3pisdn]

What is the word for someone who finds depression in their lack of faith?

For me, I abhor and fear the concept of death. Yeah, yeah, "no sense worrying since you can't do anything about it", this phrase does nothing for me. It's the fact I can't do anything that haunts me.

I have my own purpose, guided by me, I have a family and loved ones who love me, and I'm supposed to "not worry" that one day not only all of those loved ones will die, but I will also become nothing? I will lose my consciousness, my existence as a human, depleting any more possible experiences I could have?

I basically can cry myself to sleep on this stuff, it haunts me.

If not nihilism, what is this?

You can do something about death, you can prepare for it. It's not an uncommon sentiment either, Plato said that philosophy is preparing for death.

And if you can't prepare for it, then you can decide your attitude about it.

 

[Foffy]

What is the word for someone who finds depression in their lack of faith?

For me, I abhor and fear the concept of death. Yeah, yeah, "no sense worrying since you can't do anything about it", this phrase does nothing for me. It's the fact I can't do anything that haunts me.

I have my own purpose, guided by me, I have a family and loved ones who love me, and I'm supposed to "not worry" that one day not only all of those loved ones will die, but I will also become nothing? I will lose my consciousness, my existence as a human, depleting any more possible experiences I could have?

I basically can cry myself to sleep on this stuff, it haunts me.

If not nihilism, what is this?

Look into what death is. Many think it's this idea that you are plucked into the world and then die off, inferring the idea you are a singular, separate being.

This is simply not true. There is process before you as an organism, and process after. In this way, death is merely change, not vanishing into blankness which is what we get scared of.

If you're not an experiencer of experience, how can you have an experience of such a void?

If we didn't live into the future and have a sense of continuity in our lives we couldn't assign our lives with any value. Having permanent infant brains and never seeing beyond direct immediacy wouldn't be a good thing. Just don't fall into the world and then forget that you've fallen into it. You can retain the appropriate kind of existential detachment without amputating the future.

Of course. Like memory, our minds can look back and forward as a means of navigation through the world. But we take it to dangerous levels at time, always living for the future that is never here, and in doing so, live in wasteful, unengaged lives.

There's a reason one of the greatest regrets still in the lives of the dying is they didn't live the lives they wanted, for they were always fixated on the future. To have more time, to be able to cultivate ones wants later, etc. One of the most dangerous things you can do is just live for the future. Mix this with living for ghosts and you're in trouble.

 

[SkeptiMism]

Lots of fluffy, 'Hey, life is what YOU make of it! YOU find the meaning in YOUR life!' sentiment in this thread, but it misses the point that the base level of reality in a godless universe is just a few physical laws and a load of atoms.

If this is what everything is built on, then how can there be any meaning? Nothing that exists was intended to exist, it just happened due the the laws of physics, and any meaning you create for yourself has no worth because YOU are a meaningless pile of atoms.

That is similar to what that recent thread about love was about. Yes, if you look at it deep down, love is just a chemical reaction, almost everyone can agree on that, except those who want to insert something supernatural to the concept. And it is something that you can apply pretty much to everything. But nevertheless it's a pretty reductionist view to look at it or things in general. It's just not a very useful way to look at it only like that (it does have its place of course).

Anyway, I'd say you have failed pretty hard (at least so far) to defend your view of atheism as inherently nihilistic. Like, you say no meaning one creates for themselves has no worth, but you don't assert why it would have no meaning. It's not enough to say it's because you're a meaningless pile of atoms, because we can empirically look at things, and see that people find plenty of worth from various things despite being just atoms.

Either admit your defeat or explain why self created meaning is somehow.. meaningless. Like, people do already agree that universe doesn't have any deep meaning to it, but that doesn't mean people can not apply a meaning for themselves, and that has worth to people.

 

[freethoughtbubble]

What is the word for someone who finds depression in their lack of faith?

For me, I abhor and fear the concept of death. Yeah, yeah, "no sense worrying since you can't do anything about it", this phrase does nothing for me. It's the fact I can't do anything that haunts me.

I have my own purpose, guided by me, I have a family and loved ones who love me, and I'm supposed to "not worry" that one day not only all of those loved ones will die, but I will also become nothing? I will lose my consciousness, my existence as a human, depleting any more possible experiences I could have?

I basically can cry myself to sleep on this stuff, it haunts me.

If not nihilism, what is this?

Angst. Real existential angst. Don't confuse what people are saying as "don't worry about it." I worry about it. Thoughts like that have kept me up at night, when I was younger. But I don't ignore those thoughts -- I deal with them. I learn to cope with them. Ultimately, I accept them and choose to focus on the life that I have, right now, rather than the death that awaits me.

In short, death: I know it's coming, it sucks, but life is good and I'm going to make the most of it. And that's enough for me.

 

[GuessMyUserName]

This entire thread has become this:

"Atheists, your lives are meaningless without a god!"
"No, we make our own meaning."
"But you can't, not without a god."
"Yes we can, we actually do it all the time."
"But that's impossible."

Pretty much, I think we're done here.

 

[capitalCORN]

Because depending on how terrible your family is, you may have been brought up being constantly told that atheists, muslims and the LGBT community are evil people who don't share anything with red blooded American Christians.

Spoiler

I was brought up this way but rejected all that BS from an early age.

I grew up in a Baptist household and was physically abused since I was 5. I'm not one to make calls for everyone, but I learned to reconcile what I could and leave the bullshit behind. Obviously, some situations cause more immediate danger than others, but the soul is eternal beyond faith. Keep an open heart and all challenges can be overcome.

PS. That's another thing I wanted to talk about. Faith is part and parcel with the human condition. Not the faith packaged and parceled with religion, but believing in a good outcome. No one needs God for that. Believing in the best comes natural for the best of us.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

Of course. Like memory, our minds can look back and forward as a means of navigation through the world. But we take it to dangerous levels at time, always living for the future that is never here, and in doing so, live in wasteful, unengaged lives.

There's a reason one of the greatest regrets still in the lives of the dying is they didn't live the lives they wanted, for they were always fixated on the future. To have more time, to be able to cultivate ones wants later, etc. One of the most dangerous things you can do is just live for the future. Mix this with living for ghosts and you're in trouble.

I don't think it's a matter of living in the future or the past, we just get enmeshed in the world and then forget that we have the capacity to make choices. Living for the past or for the future are just a particular modes of how people fall into that kind of pattern, it's not really the core problem because we can forget ourselves with anything. Becoming too attached to theoretical viewpoints (and that can be any viewpoint, even correct ones!), or being too pragmatic and running on a survival pattern and steamrolling people in the process, it's all stuff that right view in Buddhism is supposed to correct against. The point is just not blindly falling into some narrative and getting enmeshed in it. It's just a measured or sane detachment in our 'views' of the world.

 

[Fenderputty]

I need to go home and tell my younger sister that her life is meaningless because my parents had an oops child.

 

[Ryouji Gunblade]

Nihilism suggests that there is never any objective good. I disagree with this.

 

[Nordicus]

I need to go home and tell my younger sister that her life is meaningless because my parents had an oops child.

If one of the parents was an Oops child, and the child themself is an Oops child, does it make that child a complete Whoopsie Doodle?

Wonder what meaninglessness ^2 feels like

 

[Cromat]

Lots of fluffy, 'Hey, life is what YOU make of it! YOU find the meaning in YOUR life!' sentiment in this thread, but it misses the point that the base level of reality in a godless universe is just a few physical laws and a load of atoms.

If this is what everything is built on, then how can there be any meaning? Nothing that exists was intended to exist, it just happened due the the laws of physics, and any meaning you create for yourself has no worth because YOU are a meaningless pile of atoms.

I think it might be good for you to read some philosophy. First of all, by saying the universe is just a few physical laws and atoms you're already begging the question, i.e. you've already supposing both that atoms and physical laws are more real than the other aspects of human experience (reason, beauty, emotion...) and that the universe is somehow worse off for this fact. These are two massive philosophical assumptions that are presented without any argument.

I'll give you an example. If you say, for example, that the human emotion of love is "just" hormones in the brain or whatever, what you actually mean is that whenever a human experiences love, there is also a corresponding chemical in the brain (which I of course don't dispute). But that doesn't imply any hierarchy - you just chose to insert it. What we know is that human emotions are associated with certain physical patterns in the brain, not that they are identical to them. If someone says that sadness is 'just' brain chemicals then they're just misunderstanding terms. There is nothing more real about the world of atoms and physical laws than our world of perception and values.The caricature physicalist view you present of a mechanic universe isn't a particularly strong philosophical view. You cannot assume that the physical aspect of our universe is the most 'real' or important one without argument.

Secondly, with life not having meaning if there is no God. This is again an example of begging the question (assuming your conclusion), because you seem to imply that the only thing that merits the use of 'meaning' has to do with the approval of a deity. This question is actually pretty simple to me - if you look around you will find many people, including atheists, that derive meaning in their life from a vast number of sources. I see no reason why the physical description of the universe as particles moving according to laws should change any of that.

Thirdly, if you're looking for meaning, I suggest you start by looking at those things that are valuable in themselves, and not for anything else. Philosophers have grappled with this question for a very long time, with fascinating results. Personally, I can identify two things that are inherently good, and not just good for the sake of getting some other good. These two things are happiness and truth. I think those two things are valuable in themselves. From that I can easily derive a basic morality - I must act in a way that increases happiness (this view is called utilitarianism by the way, and it's the de facto morality of secular democracies) and truth. Through philosophical inquiry and reasoning, I can identify a standard for right and wrong and a model for the good life, i.e. a life that is characterized by happiness and truth. There are a million and one philosophical arguments against my position, and quite a few in favour, but that doesn't matter. The point is, there is nothing in being an atheist or knowing physics that suggests nihilism is even remotely correct. The most brilliant physicists in history were the exact opposite of nihilists - they were in awe of the beauty of our reality, realized the value of truth, and worked for the betterment of mankind everywhere. They had meaning in spades.

Returning to practical suggestions, read some philosophy books. There's a lot about our reality that we don't understand.

 

[capitalCORN]

I would ask what a creator God adds to anything.

 

[Malvolio]

There are no rules. That's liberating. Reject all the labels and write your own.

 

[Fenderputty]

Wonder what meaninglessness ^2 feels like

If this weren't all meaningless I would say that's a great question

 

[Chibot]

The athiest also loses any concept of a fixed morality. If different cultures have different (or even opposing) moral values, why should I follow any of them? Why not just make up my own morality where I can do whatever I want? It would be no more or less authentic than any other.

There is no such thing as "fixed morality" in the first place. It's largely a human construct, guided in a general direction of order by evolution and necessity. We aren't much different than any other successful animal species.

 

[Raist]

but it misses the point that the base level of reality in a godless universe is just a few physical laws and a load of atoms.

AKA reality.

 

[Monocle]

I would ask what a creator God adds to anything.

Guilt and fear? And I guess whatever sense of direction and purpose that a father figure or overlord can provide his underlings.

I suspect a lot of people secretly crave to be told what to do. There's a sense of comfort and security in letting someone else chart your path. That way you're not solely responsible for your own life.

 

[ibyea]

If we didn't live into the future and have a sense of continuity in our lives we couldn't assign our lives with any value. Having permanent infant brains and never seeing beyond direct immediacy wouldn't be a good thing. Just don't fall into the world and then forget that you've fallen into it. You can retain the appropriate kind of existential detachment without amputating the future.

I guess I should elaborate. It is okay to be concerned with the future generation. Because our actions right now will affect how people lives in the future. But what is the point in worrying about the fact that someday the universe will end and nothing will remain? Nothing, and it doesn't make our actions right here right now unimportant to the people right now and to the future generations.

 

[SaganIsGOAT]

The only source of meaning is subjective experience. Let me take a moment to chuckle at the irony that you are lamenting a meaningless universe when 1) you are literally part of the universe, not a separate thing, and 2) you are a person with a conscious mind, hence one of the very rare parts of the universe capable of witnessing, experiencing, interpreting, and appreciating itself.

You are literally a walking generator of meaning, and you look out at the same kinds of stars that the elements composing your body came from—the same elements under your feet and above your head and in your lungs and belly—and you conclude that the logical endpoint of a rational and accurate view of the cosmos is nihilism?

Damn, get some perspective. Read Carl Sagan or something. 

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🙌🙌🙌🙌

 

[Kyzer]

the purpose of life is to be uber leet bro

 

[umop_3pisdn]

AKA reality.

I don't think that analytic philosophers or reductionism gets to claim reality very much more than the OP does. I mean reductionism is at least internally consistent and the OP isn't, but reality isn't an abstract mental model of "I understand the world to be made up of atoms" or something. Phenomena seem like the closest thing to reality, because they can at least be experienced in themselves without reference to anything that is categorically outside of them. What I mean is that we can have an experience without theorizing about it, but we can't construct a theory without experiences. So experiences are the most immediate, tangible, and standalone entities. Atoms as we weave them into our understanding of the universe are theories, for them to really exist for us we have to think about them, since we only have access to them as a mental models explaining 'how it is' that the universe exists. But when instead of asking 'how is it that reality exists' we ask 'is it true that reality exists?' the only answer we get is from our direct experience as living beings in the world with vital bodies and flowing blood and stuff. That we exist or that there is existence is fundamentally a palpable thing, it's not abstract theoretical head stuff. Reality isn't abstract reductionistic head stuff, our explanations for reality are.

I guess I should elaborate. It is okay to be concerned with the future generation. Because our actions right now will affect how people lives in the future. But what is the point in worrying about the fact that someday the universe will end and nothing will remain? Nothing, and it doesn't make our actions right here right now unimportant to the people right now and to the future generations.

Sorry, I tried to be a little more clear when I replied to Foffy and started talking about authenticity for Heidegger and right view in Buddhism. I think we tend to fall into modes of thinking or theories about the world. A part of us wants to shut our brain off and just go with it. It's like that one friend that offended you once, and when you told them about it they replied "okay, then just tell me what to say so I don't offend you". It's unsatisfying because you want them to think about it for themselves. But most of the time we don't really want to think about it, and we're all like that. We think if we have a script we can just follow the script and that's that. Living in the past or in the future can be both be like that, but they're just examples of something bigger. It's all just falling into a 'way of being', that actually causes us to forget that we can choose our attitude or way of being. And instead we can say 'no I'm not going to buy that idea, or its opposite either'. I really think that's all it is, it's not falling into limited viewpoints in such a way that we go to sleep on it. Even if the viewpoint is correct, it's still a problem to fall into it and forget that it's something that we're constantly choosing no matter what, and not just a script.

 

[capitalCORN]

Guilt and fear? And I guess whatever sense of direction and purpose that a father figure or overlord can provide his underlings.

I suspect a lot of people secretly crave to be told what to do. There's a sense of comfort and security in letting someone else chart your path. That way you're not solely responsible for your own life.

That's useless. What's keeping anyone from being the master of their lives. The father figure simile is one that just screams immaturity and irresponsibility.

 

[Riposte]

Nietzsche often uses the same word to mean different things. When he uses the word "nihilist", he could be referencing three separate ideas:

1) Christian Nihilism - the negation of life and movement toward nothingness; Christianity does not feel itself to be nihilistic, but from the atheistic perspective Nietzsche has, it aims toward nothing and denies life. While the atheist has only life to value, the Christian decides that this life we live now has no value, and only the life beyond has meaning. However, since that life is non-existent, Christians value nothing at all.

2) Negative Nihilism - the realization that the universe is a cold and unloving place, and thus the belief that one's life has no meaning. This is the kind of nihilism the OP is talking about, and it is a nihilism that Nietzsche is fighting against because he believes that it is a natural post-Christian tendency.

3) Positive Nihilism - the realization that the universe is a cold and unloving place, and that is perfectly fine. While life has no objective meaning, the positive nihilist has come to realize that the valuation of the universe takes place solely within his/her own mind, and he/she can choose what meaning life has. This is could also be called a "happy nihilism", because the burden of God has been destroyed, but the shadow of God, negative nihilism, has been destroyed as well. What is left is a love of life.

I think the main reason people struggle to read Nietzsche is that they do not catch these subtleties; Nietzsche does us no favors, and uses the terms interchangeably. His goal is not necessarily to help us understand him, but rather to create introspection.

First, let me say that I like that Nietzsche is being discussed. He is often overlooked (in name) despite being the most influential philosopher of modern times. No one is better at kicking these often trite discussions in the balls.

What you present is a little confusing when trying to see the larger picture Nietzsche painted and I think becomes a little misguided towards the end. Rather than framing everything in terms of nihilism, we should consider more Nietzschean concepts: Death of God, Life-Affirmation vs. Life-Negation, Master/Slave Morality, The Last Man, Herd Mentality, and The Will to Power.

I actually was going to write a mid to larger size paragraphs for each of these, giving a brief run down of the idea and how I would apply it to this conversation, but I just got too damn tired since my lack of sleep is catching up to me and this is pretty energy consuming. I don't think you can just wikipedia this stuff to really grasp it (although, I wonder if me providing some simple summaries is any better), but if anyone reading this is new to the man, it may not hurt to at least google the terms above.

Anyway, so that this post can have some substance...

We shouldn't overlook why Christians (or similar) resort to life-negation and in what ways they do it. Heaven is the ultimate conclusion of their life negation (trading a bad life for an infinitely good one that follows it), but there are also the virtues (inverted values) borne from ressentiment (jealousy, weakness). This is useful, because we can see the very same negation in almost all modern ideologies/moralities. Many posts in this thread depend on such an ideology. Appeals to compassion or community, such as "You need God to be moral?" are uncritical answers, either simplistic or ignorant acceptance of one's morality - namely, in this case, humanism, which Nietzsche himself foresaw as an secular extension of Christianity, no less influenced by slave morality and herd instinct, and championed by the Last Man. Nietzsche saw the death of God as nothing to be trivialized, thus sought to find the origins of morals (a genealogy). His writings on why people come to accept moral facts is particularly relevant to this discussion even if we ignore the belief of God.

The flip side to that is life-affirmation. This is mostly what you mean with "Positive Nihilism", although it comes across as a misunderstanding and doesn't quite do it justice. Allow me to recycle some of what I would have written in the previous version of this post:

Life-affirmation can boiled down to the phrase "amor fati", the love of (your) fate. Since people naturally want to say to themselves "I want to affirm my life!" they find the idea appealing in a self-help book sort of way, but it takes a lot of strength to truly affirm life and people only see the idea superficially. It's not about being happy with yourself; it's about accepting that people get robbed, raped, and murdered (including even yourself), people are born to die painful and pointless deaths, people will treat you or others "unfairly" based on race, sex, etc. (indeed, the very idea of "unfairness" is opposed to that of amor fati); it's embracing your own suffering (not trying to mitigate it like with Buddhism or Schopenhauer) and embracing the suffering you will cause; finally, it's facing the tragic meaningless of life (which means accepting that it is indeed tragic, not simply something you can trivialize) and poetically finding meaning in it anyway. It's common enough to try to simulate this through pure hedonism ("Will to Pleasure"), one possible reaction to nihilism, but Nietzsche would say it is not the real thing. Likewise, he would be particularly critical of those who simply continued Christian values while thinking they had affirmed life simply because they refused God, acting like droids following their programming long after their human masters had perished. In any case, Nietzsche did not believe he himself was strong enough to truly affirm it in its entirely; that would be the role of the Overman.​

Nietzsche wouldn't be too comfortable with the idea of just looking at the "mind". He believed values had their basis in instincts. The physical/mental distinction is weak here, thus, you only get to "decide" your values to a point, e.g., if you are ugly on the outside, you will also be ugly on the inside. Weak and oppressed people develop reactive (slave) moralities in relation to the strong and oppressive people.

I think the idea of "the burden of God has been destroyed" is the one part I must disagree with entirely. Nietzsche goes to great lengths to express how such a burden (or such a crime, as "we killed him") has in no way been lifted. He instead chooses to replace it with the ideal of going from man to Overman, a journey similar to the one we made going from animal to man. You can say he is trying to find the God "inside" us. And the "shadow" is not to something to be dismissed, but rather something we must overcome (overcoming is everything for Nietzsche, really). You call it "Positive Nihilism", and the way you phrase it reflects this, but Nietzsche really wanted to defeat nihilism. A love of life is not something you gain by removing burdens (i.e., more negation, very Buddhist), but, rather, something you can't help but express to yourself as you stare tragedy in the face and smile, in an herculean feat.

 

[travisbickle]

God's been dead for centuries, if he ever existed.

Look into id, the ego and the super ego.

Consider if you are hungry and you see a loaf of bread on the pavement, would you eat it? That plays into id (responding to base feelings/instinct), ego (your internal struggle between id and super ego) and super ego (law, moral values of society/social groups).

 

[iamblades]

I've been an athiest for as long as I've thought seriously about the topic of god and religion, which followed a childhood that was pretty much secular anyway. I then went on to do physics at university and have followed a mostly scientific career path. I'm about as secure in my athiesm as I can be, basically, and I very much doubt that will ever change.

But if you really take athiesm to it's logical conclusion, what are you left with? If everything is mindless atoms bumping into each other, with no guiding hand, then by definition there is no purpose in anything, no 'meaning of life', nothing but a howling chaos.

The athiest also loses any concept of a fixed morality. If different cultures have different (or even opposing) moral values, why should I follow any of them? Why not just make up my own morality where I can do whatever I want? It would be no more or less authentic than any other.

So is there any logical way out of this nihilistic mindset where a person is ultimately no more important than a pile of mud? Sure you can set your own goals (get a promotion, have kids, own a Porsche) but in a godless universe those goals are as meaningless as everything else. Your job, children and shiny car are as meaningless as you are and everything else is.

Umm...discuss.

This is completely untrue, but even if it were and we assumed there was a god, it does not logically follow that there is an objective morality. God could just as easily be completely amoral, if not outright immoral. The mere existence of a god also does not provide any deeper meaning to life either, as even if you assume that a god created us, it doesn't mean he imbued us with some divine purpose, it's just as easy(easier, I'd argue) to imagine a god that creates universes on accident as it is to imagine a god that created each individual with a special purpose or plan.

It is easy to rationally create an objective system of morals from a single axiomatic truth(ie. suffering is bad and should be avoided) if you are an atheist. Sure you can argue that basing an system of morality on an axiom makes it subjective and not objective, but every system of human knowledge begins with some axiom or set of axioms. Even mathematics derives from a set of axioms, and religious/spiritual morality is also derived from a set of axioms, ie. that god exists and that he left some set of instructions to follow to judge what is moral. So if you want to go all the way down the rabbit hole then nothing can be completely objective, it can only be as objective as our experience of reality allows.

 

[Catdaddy]

So is this thread the reason I'm getting "God's Not Dead Part 2" banner ad on GAF?

 

[Karsticles]

First of all, thanks for your post, Karsticle, It was really helpful. Also, thanks for following up
with a proper reply, News Bot.

These first two variants are the types of Nihilisms I had in mind when I referred to Nietzsche's critique of Nihilism. Basically two sorts of passive Nihilism, implying a refusal to create something for yourself, not wanting to affirm anything. Simply accepting your own passiveness in a meaningless Universe, hence the concept of ressentiment. For me, this attitude implies a sort of ethical laziness and irresponsibility.



This is the affirmative attitude towards life, which appeals to me a great deal, and I admit I can't remember Nietzsche conceptualizing this as a variant of Nihilism as well. I'm not as enthusiastic about the 'solipcist' attitude, or the idea that you neccessarily have to create your own value for yourself in an enclosed space (your mind or whatever).

I like to think the affirmative attitude also works in a social or cultural setting, but I know Nietzsche was far more sceptical of the possibilities of creating real values within e.g. a democracy.

I think Nietzsche's attitude re: values with a democracy are more about the values of the mob ruling over the individual than the individual being able to create values within a democracy. I think it's easy to see what Nietzsche's talking about when you look at internet mob justice.

Nietzsche's entire notion of amor fati is positive nihilism, but it's most clearly spelled out in his collected notes published as The Will to Power. You can find a pdf of it easily online. Look at the preface and the section on Nihilism (section 22, especially, where Nietzsche says that nihilism can be "a sign of increased power of the spirit - as active nihilism". As he says elsewhere (Beyond Good and Evil?), to create one must first destroy - Nietzsche is a destroyer of old values, he wills them into nothingness with his active nihilism. He then aims to create a new system of values.

First, let me say that I like that Nietzsche is being discussed. He is often overlooked (in name) despite being the most influential philosopher of modern times. No one is better at kicking these often trite discussions in the balls.

What you present is a little confusing when trying to see the larger picture Nietzsche painted and I think becomes a little misguided towards the end. Rather than framing everything in terms of nihilism, we should consider more Nietzschean concepts: Death of God, Life-Affirmation vs. Life-Negation, Master/Slave Morality, The Last Man, Herd Mentality, and The Will to Power.

I actually was going to write a mid to larger size paragraphs for each of these, giving a brief run down of the idea and how I would apply it to this conversation, but I just got too damn tired since my lack of sleep is catching up to me and this is pretty energy consuming. I don't think you can just wikipedia this stuff to really grasp it (although, I wonder if me providing some simple summaries is any better), but if anyone reading this is new to the man, it may not hurt to at least google the terms above.

Anyway, so that this post can have some substance...

We shouldn't overlook why Christians (or similar) resort to life-negation and in what ways they do it. Heaven is the ultimate conclusion of their life negation (trading a bad life for an infinitely good one that follows it), but there are also the virtues (inverted values) borne from ressentiment (jealousy, weakness). This is useful, because we can see the very same negation in almost all modern ideologies/moralities. Many posts in this thread depend on such an ideology. Appeals to compassion or community, such as "You need God to be moral?" are uncritical answers, either simplistic or ignorant acceptance of one's morality - namely, in this case, humanism, which Nietzsche himself foresaw as an secular extension of Christianity, no less influenced by slave morality and herd instinct, and championed by the Last Man. Nietzsche saw the death of God as nothing to be trivialized, thus sought to find the origins of morals (a genealogy). His writings on why people come to accept moral facts is particularly relevant to this discussion even if we ignore the belief of God.

The flip side to that is life-affirmation. This is mostly what you mean with "Positive Nihilism", although it comes across as a misunderstanding and doesn't quite do it justice. Allow me to recycle some of what I would have written in the previous version of this post:

I don't disagree with anything you have said thus far, except that we have to involve every single bit from his philosophy to make a simple point.

Life-affirmation can boiled down to the phrase "amor fati", the love of (your) fate. Since people naturally want to say to themselves "I want to affirm my life!"

The very idea of anything being "natural" vs. "unnatural" to humans is un-Nietzschean; he quite clearly said that nothing was a priori; everything comes to us through experience. Any time Nietzsche speaks "against nature", he is meaning that one acts against life itself.

Life-affirmation is not amor fati. Amor fati is the perfection of affirmation.

they find the idea appealing in a self-help book sort of way, but it takes a lot of strength to truly affirm life and people only see the idea superficially. It's not about being happy with yourself; it's about accepting that people get robbed, raped, and murdered (including even yourself), people are born to die painful and pointless deaths, people will treat you or others "unfairly" based on race, sex, etc. (indeed, the very idea of "unfairness" is opposed to that of amor fati); it's embracing your own suffering (not trying to mitigate it like with Buddhism or Schopenhauer) and embracing the suffering you will cause; finally, it's facing the tragic meaningless of life (which means accepting that it is indeed tragic, not simply something you can trivialize)

No. This is coming to overcome; it loses the value of tragedy once this phenomenon takes place.

and poetically finding meaning in it anyway.

I imagine that treating this "anyway" as a kind of consolation prize is an indicator that you are not satisfied yourself.

It's common enough to try to simulate this through pure hedonism ("Will to Pleasure"), one possible reaction to nihilism, but Nietzsche would say it is not the real thing.

Moreover, hedonism is another form of decadence, and a "signpost of nihilism".

Likewise, he would be particularly critical of those who simply continued Christian values while thinking they had affirmed life simply because they refused God, acting like droids following their programming long after their human masters had perished. In any case, Nietzsche did not believe he himself was strong enough to truly affirm it in its entirely; that would be the role of the Overman.[/INDENT]
Agreed, and these people are detestable.

Nietzsche wouldn't be too comfortable with the idea of just looking at the "mind". He believed values had their basis in instincts. The physical/mental distinction is weak here, thus, you only get to "decide" your values to a point, e.g., if you are ugly on the outside, you will also be ugly on the inside. Weak and oppressed people develop reactive (slave) moralities in relation to the strong and oppressive people.

Master/Slave morality are not meant for individual psychology; it's a way to understand movements and archetypes. You also misunderstand Nietzsche's notion of physicality and its effects on beliefs, also (Nietzsche never speaks of the "mind" - he's not a dualist). Nietzsche believed that one's beliefs arise out of one's physical states, but this is more than just being ugly. For example, he believed that what you ate affected your beliefs; likely, because he had so many digestion issues in his life, and what he ate greatly affected his mood. Who else would write "Today, after an enema, a good day"?

I think the idea of "the burden of God has been destroyed" is the one part I must disagree with entirely. Nietzsche goes to great lengths to express how such a burden (or such a crime, as "we killed him") has in no way been lifted.

The term "burden" is a little ambiguous here. I meant it as a parallel to the spirit of gravity described in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. You are taking it to mean "responsibility", I think.

He instead chooses to replace it with the ideal of going from man to Overman, a journey similar to the one we made going from animal to man. You can say he is trying to find the God "inside" us. And the "shadow" is not to something to be dismissed, but rather something we must overcome (overcoming is everything for Nietzsche, really). You call it "Positive Nihilism", and the way you phrase it reflects this, but Nietzsche really wanted to defeat nihilism. A love of life is not something you gain by removing burdens (i.e., more negation, very Buddhist), but, rather, something you can't help but express to yourself as you stare tragedy in the face and smile, in an herculean feat.

No, I don't think Nietzsche wants to defeat negative nihilism at all; he wants to have some people overcome it. He doesn't even want to get rid of Christianity, and he's quite clear on this point. To get rid of nihilism would mean to erase the knowledge we have gained so far; nihilism cannot be escaped, it is an unavoidable conclusion of mankind. One cannot even blame Christianity for this.

A love of life absolutely does involve removing burdens, but not in the way you interpreted me. It involves walking on air; you are no longer weighed down by the notions that a negative nihilist struggles with.

 

[Funyarinpa]

What is the word for someone who finds depression in their lack of faith?

For me, I abhor and fear the concept of death. Yeah, yeah, "no sense worrying since you can't do anything about it", this phrase does nothing for me. It's the fact I can't do anything that haunts me.

I have my own purpose, guided by me, I have a family and loved ones who love me, and I'm supposed to "not worry" that one day not only all of those loved ones will die, but I will also become nothing? I will lose my consciousness, my existence as a human, depleting any more possible experiences I could have?

I basically can cry myself to sleep on this stuff, it haunts me.

If not nihilism, what is this?

That's just fear of death. If you were nihilist, you would have nothing to lose over death anyway.

Also, play Persona 3.

 

[Riposte]

As he says elsewhere (Beyond Good and Evil?), to create one must first destroy - Nietzsche is a destroyer of old values, he wills them into nothingness with his active nihilism. He then aims to create a new system of values.

Unfortunately a project he never finished, which I think colors people's impression of him (but also has made him more useful to many, many people, for better or worse).

I think we may be misunderstanding each other's intentions in a few ways, coming down to phrasing too often for my taste (a funny example being my use of "naturally" in a sentence being taken to mean anything more than "typically", spawning another topic thread, and I may done the same with your use of "mind"), and can only see that continuing after reading your reply despite us largely agreeing (also nothing turns me off more than multi-quotes). I still, for example, reject the idea of the phrasing it as a type of nihilism, but arguing about Nietzsche's phrasing is definitely something that can be done forever and I don't think it will be any more fruitful than it already has - a springboard for Nietzschean thought in a discussion that benefits from it.

 

[Monocle]

That's useless. What's keeping anyone from being the master of their lives. The father figure simile is one that just screams immaturity and irresponsibility.

Well yeah. But a lot of people aren't prepared to accept that existential burden, assuming they accept it's even possible. We humans are great at fooling ourselves.

 

[Karsticles]

Unfortunately a project he never finished, which I think colors people's impression of him (but also has made him more useful to many, many people, for better or worse).

I think we may be misunderstanding each other's intentions in a few ways, coming down to phrasing too often for my taste (a funny example being my use of "naturally" in a sentence being taken to mean anything more than "typically", spawning another topic thread, and I may done the same with your use of "mind"), and can only see that continuing after reading your reply despite us largely agreeing (also nothing turns me off more than multi-quotes). I still, for example, reject the idea of the phrasing it as a type of nihilism, but arguing about Nietzsche's phrasing is definitely something that can be done forever and I don't think it will be any more fruitful than it already has - a springboard for Nietzschean thought in a discussion that benefits from it.

Well, like I quoted above, it's Nietzsche's own phrasing. You can disapprove of it, and that's fine.

I think Nietzsche largely did finish the revaluation, and you can find much of it in his collected notes in Will to Power. There is the entire section on breeding and the master race, for example. He may have even done us a favor for not finishing it, so we can have an opportunity to go in our own direction. I know I still struggle with whether I ought to destroy the faith of others, for example (thinkers like Leo Strauss make a good argument against it).

Multi-quoting is amazing, I don't know how you can dislike it!

Edit: An idea occurred to me, that active nihilism can be mistaken as externalized nihilism.

 

[Socreges]

We are moral creatures because we evolved as social creatures. Being good is part of our nature.

 

[MattKeil]

I'm fine with there being degrees such as what agnostic atheism would describe, but there are plenty who practice absolutes. Someone who says "There is no god or gods and there never was one" is absolutely what I would call a true atheist. Agnostic atheism is just that, agnosticism that leans towards atheistic ideals whereas I also believe you can be agnostic leaning towards theist beliefs (Probably a god out there, practices religious ideals, but believes there might be nothing).

Absolute nonsense. The post you replied to is correct. You are operating off your own private definition. There are gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists. Period. The words "agnostic" and "atheist" are not interchangeable terms for the same thing, they describe utterly different things. Even Richard Dawkins doesn't claim to be a gnostic atheist.

Describing yourself as just "agnostic" is dodging the question, plain and simple. You're still an atheist or a theist in addition to that.

 

[Pantaghana]

There is a bigger picture that you and many others seem unable or unwilling to accept, because your viewpoint is too rigidly homocentric and you cannot grasp that your self-defined purpose is meaningless because you (and everyone else) are meaningless.

That's kind of what the Bible (or other holy book of choice) tries to do.

According to the bible humans are super special, the whole world was created just for them to do as they please, the only creatures with souls and the only beings god cares for. How in the fuck is that not homocentric?
Because of this, for centuries animals weren't considered living creatures, but "things" that mimic life. Some people still think that way.

And yes, meaning that I give myself means nothing to other humans and the universe. But it's important to me, and it's only supposed to matter to me, and I don't give a single fuck it's meaningless to everything else.

 

[Transhuman]

We are moral creatures because we evolved as social creatures. Being good is part of our nature.

That's a nice way to put 600 million years of cannibalism and rape.

 

[DonMigs85]

OP is Kefka

 

[hunnies28]

As an atheist myself, I view life as fundamentally self-directed. I am my own god, so to speak. I dictate my own actions and I act in a way that produces desired outcomes.

So what it my 75 or 80 years on this planet end in irrelevance? I have my life to live while I'm here and I'll do what I think makes me a worthwhile person. If I was a nihilist, I'd just off myself and be done with it. A large part of me being an atheist is finding faith in myself and my abilities without the fear of some omnipresent super-being dictating and judging my every action.

I was going to post something close to this. But this is better written.

 

[Screaming Meat]

Philosophy can have quite a bit of overlap, in my view. My personal beliefs are tinged with nihilism, humanism, individualism, liberalism, existentialism, etc and they're not that mututally exclusive, tending to complement each other. It's ever-evolving for me, but there are core aspects that will remain a cornerstone of my life.

I'm just pointing out that your post here:

While there is no meaning or purpose to the nature of existence, that doesn't mean that meaning or purpose can't be found, or created [...]

...is basically describing Existentialism. That's all. I don't profess to know your personal beliefs.

It only sounds that way because admittedly I'm not even knowledgeable enough myself to provide a better description.

Anyone that says they can help one arrive at some higher truth or offer answers to the BIG questions sounds like they're selling something.

Funnily enough, I have a friend (well, acquaintance) who recently took up practising Advaita Vedanta. Had a fairly long and drunken conversation about it. I recall very little except that I wasn't impressed.

 

[Prototype]

I'm an atheist who isn't a nihilist.

The meaning of life is to give life meaning.