A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning • Hacker News Board

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#91

Post by irrational » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

pluma wrote: post #89

DigitalJack wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, barring space transit, humanity will be wiped out by the Sun long before the heat death of the universe, if not by some other catastrophe first. I am Christian as well, but I didn't think the article handled religion well. In Christianity, "God's chosen people" are the tribes of Israel, not Christians. In Christianity, the meaning of life is love, something you don't have to be a Christian to believe or underst…

> In Christianity, the meaning of life is love Technically the entire "love thy neighbour" stuff seems to largely be based on the understanding that "thy neighbour" is a fellow Christian (or Hebrew, considering Christianity wasn't yet a thing when most of it supposedly happened). The Old Testament alone is full of double standards about how you should treat your fellow tribespeople compared to what is allowable to be…

Except when asked who is my neighbor, Jesus responds with the parable of the good samaritan (the samaritans and jews were enemies) which basically says, everyone, including your enemies, are your neighbors. It's the whole "do good to those who hate you".

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#92

Post by sgk284 » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

jonstaab wrote: post #69

pmarreck wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the (seeming) existence (or open question) of meaning hints at least at something "spiritual," but I think it's an extra stretch to paint it as some proof of theism and by association religious beliefs, some of which are (in a secular context) ethically debatable (but which are unable to be debated simply by nature of being deemed "sacred" and the debating of which is considered "blasphemy") Personally, I thi…

Funny to apply evolutionary principles to a critique of religion ;) But I do think you're making the incorrect assumption that religion hasn't already undergone that sort of strenuous debate. Jesus is probably the most discussed/doubted/critiqued figure in history - certainly we've had more time to find out his flaws and the flaws of his followers than we have of science. And yet he hasn't been relegated to the dust…

While religion in ancient Greece had great debate, anything that happened during and after the fall of the Roman empire had effectively zero critical thought to it for the next several hundred years. Christianity was ultimately thrust on western populations by force. It stayed there for generations until it became so engrained in European culture (and American culture, as a consequence) that nobody questioned it anymore until modern day.

It is a coincidence of history that Greece happened to have a a Christian faction that was good at converting people right around the same time that that Roman empire was collapsing.

Many other religions that tried to similarly gain traction were met with destruction before they hit critical mass, so you must be careful to acknowledge some survival bias here for your religion of choice. Christians, by pure chance, got the timing right.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#93

Post by pluma » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

jonstaab wrote: post #69

pmarreck wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the (seeming) existence (or open question) of meaning hints at least at something "spiritual," but I think it's an extra stretch to paint it as some proof of theism and by association religious beliefs, some of which are (in a secular context) ethically debatable (but which are unable to be debated simply by nature of being deemed "sacred" and the debating of which is considered "blasphemy") Personally, I thi…

Funny to apply evolutionary principles to a critique of religion ;) But I do think you're making the incorrect assumption that religion hasn't already undergone that sort of strenuous debate. Jesus is probably the most discussed/doubted/critiqued figure in history - certainly we've had more time to find out his flaws and the flaws of his followers than we have of science. And yet he hasn't been relegated to the dust…

> Jesus is probably the most discussed/doubted/critiqued figure in history - certainly we've had more time to find out his flaws and the flaws of his followers than we have of science. And yet he hasn't been relegated to the dust heap of history like Baal and Thor.

Well, to be fair, Jesus was the central figure of the religion of the people you're talking about and for a long time outing yourself as a non-believer was "problematic" for your well-being and status in society. Even today in the US politicians know they need to demonstrate their Christianity to become president -- I doubt we'll see an atheist, Jewish, Hindu or even Muslim president within my lifetime (I'm 31).

Also, religious dogma largely lives separate from science and philosophy. It is true that many aspects of what "Christianity" is have been defined by consensus in the Vatican Council (including what scripture -- and which specific version of that scripture -- is considered canonical) and some Christian churches have been adjusting their dogma since (e.g. the CoE has become more accepting of homosexuality, the Catholic church has accepted evolution as factual). But saying "religion has undergone strenuous debate" is a very romanticized view of history.

Not to mention that much of Christian theology/philosophy foregoes the possibility that any other religion might be true to the point where Pascal's Wager only works if you supply the premise "All other religions and sects are definitely wrong" (i.e. you can't accidentally insult the "True God" if you submit yourself to the Christian God and turn out to be wrong).

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#94

Post by jonstaab » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

pluma wrote: post #86

jonstaab wrote: post #47

Really enjoyed this. I love how practical, humble, and respectful (even of religions, which I really appreciate) uncompromising nihilists tend to be. I happen to be a Christian, so I could go on all day about meaning, but if I could say one thing, it's this: We all die, and it's more than likely even humanity will die out as well (even if it's at the heat death of the universe). You've pretty much rejected the possib…

Meaning is something that is imposed by an observer. For something to have meaning, there has to be someone it has meaning to . Religions typically offer a supernatural observer (usually but not necessarily a creator god) to play that part. Atheists don't have the luxury of simply defining such an observer into existence, so they fall back to that which already exists or has a reasonable chance of existing if things…

It seems to me you're thinking of Christianity in terms of its popular atheist parody, in contrast to the respectful, thoughtful view of the OP. A number of things you've said are simply not true, others are not in proportion.

There are a lot of problems to grapple with in epistemology and ontology, some of which you've identified. This isn't the place to debate them, though. A great book to start with though, is Miracles, by C.S. Lewis. It blows through a lot of shallow thinking about God and the nature of reality, as well as a number of things you've referenced: which god is the true one? Why is God so mean?

Also, I'd like to point out that if God has revealed himself to us in history (via Jesus and the witnesses of his resurrection), we don't need to simply theorize about him. There's actual evidence, which we can weigh against our own personal experience.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#95

Post by praveer13 » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #63

jonstaab wrote: post #47

Really enjoyed this. I love how practical, humble, and respectful (even of religions, which I really appreciate) uncompromising nihilists tend to be. I happen to be a Christian, so I could go on all day about meaning, but if I could say one thing, it's this: We all die, and it's more than likely even humanity will die out as well (even if it's at the heat death of the universe). You've pretty much rejected the possib…

One can find much more objective meaning to existence without outsorcing it to some imaginable friend. > Christians believe that for folks who don't know Jesus, > nihilism is essentially true And folks who don't give a rat ass about what Christians believe do know that nobody has monopoly on meaning and don't see the need to reduce everything else to nihilism. It would be much nicer if religious people would only use…

>One can find much more objective meaning to existence without outsorcing it to some imaginable friend.

Care to elaborate on this? I'm an atheist myself and I've been struggling with this a lot.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#96

Post by jonstaab » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

lsc wrote: post #84

jonstaab wrote: post #47

Really enjoyed this. I love how practical, humble, and respectful (even of religions, which I really appreciate) uncompromising nihilists tend to be. I happen to be a Christian, so I could go on all day about meaning, but if I could say one thing, it's this: We all die, and it's more than likely even humanity will die out as well (even if it's at the heat death of the universe). You've pretty much rejected the possib…

>From what I can see, He's the only thing/idea/person that has the potential to provide any kind of objective meaning, so however delusional religion may appear (and I'll admit lots of it is deluded), there's only one God, and he is "the rock that is higher than I". How does the one god have any more potential to create meaning than a pantheon of gods, or one of the many "we are all part of god" spiritual ideas?

Another question for another day. Off the top of my head I can't think of a reason they wouldn't be able to create some form of objective meaning. My problem with lies more in the problems of evil, ontology, epistemology, and a compelling narrative to history.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#97

Post by lsc » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

> Science taught me that it's all just atoms and the void, so there can't be any deeper point or purpose to the whole thing; the kind of meaning most people yearn for — Ultimate Meaning — simply doesn't exist. I don't think that is something science can teach you. Science can give you the scientific method, but answering the question "Is the scientific method the only valid means of knowledge?" is philosophy not scie…

I thought that "atoms and void" was a concept from Greek philosophy; Democritus - and one could argue that Democritus wasn't even an atheist; he thought that the soul was composed of 'soul particles' and while he had unconventional ideas about gods for the time, it is not at all clear that he didn't believe in gods at all.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#98

Post by crasm » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:28 PM UTC

I think the idea of meaning being contextual is spot-on. For instance, leaderboards and stats in gaming communities approach zero meaning to the world at large, but they're intensely meaningful within specific games themselves, and somewhat meaningful to gamers in general.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#99

Post by pluma » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #91

pluma wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Christianity, the meaning of life is love Technically the entire "love thy neighbour" stuff seems to largely be based on the understanding that "thy neighbour" is a fellow Christian (or Hebrew, considering Christianity wasn't yet a thing when most of it supposedly happened). The Old Testament alone is full of double standards about how you should treat your fellow tribespeople compared to what is allowable to be…

Except when asked who is my neighbor, Jesus responds with the parable of the good samaritan (the samaritans and jews were enemies) which basically says, everyone, including your enemies, are your neighbors. It's the whole "do good to those who hate you".

True, those Samaritans were real jerks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVB3DdRgqU

On a more serious note: while that is true, there are a lot of conflicting views on how those passages interact with the rest of the gospel. Especially considering that Jesus literally said he didn't want to abolish the old laws but then contradicted them. A lot of it can't be taken logically as absolute commands (otherwise the commands would conflict with each other) yet it isn't clear how contradictions should be resolved.

EDIT: Also Samaritans are generally considered Hebrews, even though their claims of origin were disputed by the "real Jews" at the time.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#100

Post by krapp » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

pluma wrote: post #99

irrational wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when asked who is my neighbor, Jesus responds with the parable of the good samaritan (the samaritans and jews were enemies) which basically says, everyone, including your enemies, are your neighbors. It's the whole "do good to those who hate you".

True, those Samaritans were real jerks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVB3DdRgqU On a more serious note: while that is true, there are a lot of conflicting views on how those passages interact with the rest of the gospel. Especially considering that Jesus literally said he didn't want to abolish the old laws but then contradicted them. A lot of it can't be taken logically as absolute commands (otherwise the comman…

>Especially considering that Jesus literally said he didn't want to abolish the old laws but then contradicted them.

Not to be a pedant, but what literally happened is someone, likely well after after Jesus' lifetime, claimed Jesus said this and that. No one actually knows what Jesus literally said.