I will put it "in vacca" but: I suggest LSD, for a new perspective on life.
A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
191–200 of 261 posts
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
The flaw with this logic is it presupposes a standard of good that may be applied to a god. Under most monotheistic systems, the god is the definition of good. So anything that it does, including not preventing evil, is still good.
So it is a useless distinction then. If god is omnipotent and anything it does is good... then there isn't any evil. So making the distinction between good and evil seems to not have any value.
Yup.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I don't think you can include apologetics or even theology as part of having a fierce, honest, secular debate on Jesus or religions. Apologetics and theological discussion already implicitly involve the assumption of truth, which prevents a truly strenuous, secular debate. As soon as you bring the claims of religions, with all their impossible-to-prove truth assumptions, into the debate, you're no longer having a sec…
> given that the sole information available are stories written long after his alleged existence, all of which claim a god-man free of flaws
I'm not sure that all of those stories claim that; only four of these stories were accepted as canon by the later consensus of Christian churches, but others are known to exist, which have somewhat different contents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel
Also, Christian churches reached some kinds of consensus about what they say the canonical gospels said about Jesus, but not everyone who has read those gospels agrees with those interpretations; there have continued to be some debates about what Jesus said about himself and what his early followers believed about him. Some of those interpretations have been considered heresies in mainstream Christianity for a long time, but there have been a lot of such views which people have held to quite strongly, and often claimed were supported by their readings of even the canonical gospels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_heresies
After all, one of the reasons that Christianity even had all of those ecumenical councils and promulgated those creeds was that there were lots of people who claimed to be followers of Jesus and didn't believe some or all of those things. (And maybe there would be more today if there had been a separation of church and state throughout the Middle Ages.)
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> It would be much nicer if religious people would only use religion to measure those who are part of it, not those who are outside. Only speaking for Catholicism here, but the fact that official Catholic doctrine touches so heavily on so many areas of life, making objective and universal claims about human nature, means that Catholicism can't help but make assertions about people who aren't Catholic or even Christia…
There's a certain amount of amusement to be found when differing religions' assertions conflict.
I'm thinking specifically of a certain elderly Irish Catholic gentleman's response to the LDS' efforts to retroactively save ancestors by means of genealogical research. He was more upset than I thought he would be, given that the process was completely off the wall from his viewpoint as I understood it.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Small example: not taking care of your parents when they get old because it's not pleasurable.
I think that's using too narrow a definition of pleasurable. Isn't the (pleasurable) time spent with your parents worth the trade-off of caring for them? Hedonism isn't necessarily restricted to physical pleasure. There are emotional and intellectual pleasures as well.
You can move around the definition of pleasure, but then you end up with situations where pain as a means to pleasure is indistinguishable from pain as equal to pleasure, which undermines the whole premise of hedonism (that only pleasure has value).
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you can include apologetics or even theology as part of having a fierce, honest, secular debate on Jesus or religions. Apologetics and theological discussion already implicitly involve the assumption of truth, which prevents a truly strenuous, secular debate. As soon as you bring the claims of religions, with all their impossible-to-prove truth assumptions, into the debate, you're no longer having a sec…
> given that the sole information available are stories written long after his alleged existence, all of which claim a god-man free of flaws I'm not sure that all of those stories claim that; only four of these stories were accepted as canon by the later consensus of Christian churches, but others are known to exist, which have somewhat different contents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel Also, Christian churches…
I am exceedingly aware of the history of Christianity, its sects, its texts, and the many variations therein. I thought it was obvious the exchanges the parent was involved in were, from the parent's side, only referencing the canonical scriptures used by the church today. Thus far, the parent has given no indication that non-canonical texts or sects held authority. Moreover, non-canonical texts and discarded heresies hold little relevance to the primary matter being discussed. The multiple Christianities of history are a fascinating subject in their own right, but strike me as of little concern here.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was the point of your comment?
In religious discussions, people go around in circles arguing within the narrow space of each person's belief system. When even simple terms like "objective" are used in radically different ways, the conversation is doomed from the beginning.
This happens in politics too. And cross gender arguments. I don't think it's particular to religion, although I suspect the tendencies of religions to have a lingo makes it worse.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Selfish behavior is almost always short-sighted behavior. Only with the assumption that leaving the world in a "better" state (and bearing in mind opinions differ wildly on what that means) is the correct thing to do in terms of value/meaning. Like, to the extremist - violent pursuit of their ideology gives their lives meaning. Vilifying selfishness is a weird position to my mind.
I'm not trying to villify selfishness, only address the criticism that usually follows this kind of statement. People look at any philosophy that says love yourself first and say it's just embelished selfishness, self-worship, narcisissm. They imagine it might lead to a Mad Max style dystopia of perpetual war. There's a time for destroying and rebuilding things, but the kind of hostility that people usually associate…
I'd like to note that Epicureanism is almost indistinguishable, practically, from Stoicism.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
#199I'm surprised no one has invoked Kant's categorical imperative. It doesn't directly address 'meaning'n but (a) the idea of a moral statement being necessarily true has implications for nihilism, and (b) the discussion in the thread touches often on moral philosophy.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ain't nothin' wrong with Hedonism.
There are many fundamental problems with hedonism, but hedonism avoids dealing with the problems because that's its nature.
Epicurus had some thoughts regarding avoiding the problems with hedonism while still basing 'the good' on pleasure.