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A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

meltingasphalt.com

181–190 of 261 posts

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Not before many, including the earliest Christian leaders, were killed for their belief in Jesus. Christianity has proven to be a determined startup.

A start-up that mostly flourished after they were bought out by the enormous Roman Empire.

There was enough flourishing before to prove the point.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Not before many, including the earliest Christian leaders, were killed for their belief in Jesus. Christianity has proven to be a determined startup.

A start-up that mostly flourished after they were bought out by the enormous Roman Empire.

This is a fantastic analogy.

Christianity: The YouTube of 0AD

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#183

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…

To be frank: no. https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/3ghjwh/nondisc...

>There are a number of readily plausible accounts of metaethical naturalism that are available to the atheist. See, for example, Firth 1952, Railton 1986, Boyd 1988, Brink 1989, Smith 1994, or Foot 2001. My point is not that any of these accounts are correct (although I think that some of them are fairly likely to be true). Rather, my point is that if they are false, they are not obviously false. This means that they present the atheist with plausible accounts of objective morality that feature only natural facts, overturning claim (c) and, therefore, claim (a) as well.

>Claim (d) fails on two fronts. First, there are non-natural facts that can serve as truth makers for moral claims that are available to atheists and, second, any problem that the atheist faces with regards to these facts the theist faces just as badly. I take the first horn to be supported by the possibility of irreducibly normative properties, Platonic or otherwise, that are available to the atheist. Recent defenses of such views include Shafer-Landau 2003, Cuneo 2007, Wedgwood 2007, Enoch 2011, and Cuneo & Shafer-Landau 2014.

>On the latter point, that the theist faces the same problems as the atheist when it comes to non-natural normative facts (if there are any such problems), I agree with Heathwood 2012 that there cannot be any coherent theistic moral constructivism which does not refer to some irreducibly normative properties. Properties that are equally available to the atheist.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#184

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…

I don't think I would call someone well-critiqued when until roughly the 1700s to 1800s, critiquing him in the Western world, and also in parts of the East, would get you murdered.

>And yet he hasn't been relegated to the dust heap of history like Baal and Thor.

Neither has His Divine Majesty, the God-Emperor of Mankind, from a pulp science-fiction franchise. The popularity of a character as a character does not indicate their historicity.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#185

Earlier 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. In my experience, they do focus most of that measurement internally. Christians attend Sunday morning sermons, weekly Bible studies, confess their sins to one another, read the Bible, read books on Christian living, etc. all in an attempt to measure themselves against the tenets of thei…

>But if you genuinely think you've found salvation and meaning, isn't it kind of selfish to keep that to yourself?

And isn't it stupid not to double-check the evidence and figure out how to demonstrate the ostensible truth you've gained to others?

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#186
post #161

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…

> Christians believe that for folks who don't know Jesus, nihilism is essentially true If nihilism is "essentially true" (whatever that means) for "folks who don't know Jesus" (whatever that means) then it is essentially true for people who do know Jesus. We're all in the same boat. Whatever the objective truth is, it's the same for everyone. The only question is who is burying their heads in the sand, and whether or…

Burying heads in sand works when you can't take the data feed coming into said head. Christians make circular arguments to substantiate their beliefs, and those arguments are typically based on fairly trustworthy lessons. The only problem is, those circular arguments substantiate a singular all knowing god who is represented through the lense of a book a bunch of humans wrote 2,000 years ago. Marketing changes, but base concepts remain the same.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#187
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because one of the main payoffs from getting here to the nearest habitable star system is that you're now closer to more habitable star systems. But if turns out that it's very very expensive to get from one star system to another, then that recursive payoff might be very close to zero.

Are you saying you think we have to completely deplete all resources in a stellar system to colonize the next? There is way more energy to harvest in a star system than that.

If the cost of transporting mass and energy from one star system to another are sufficiently high, another problem is that only the people on the ship get a benefit, whereas everyone else is throwing away mass and energy for no conceivable personal benefit.

It would take a very dictatorial sort of government to overcome this kind of negative incentive.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#188
I always like to position nihilism like this:

Just because there is no meaning with life does not mean there isn't meaning in life.

You cannot be a nihilist by action only by intellect because you cannot not have a value system where somethings are prioritized over others.

The very fact that you need to pee, don't want to die, love your kids and so on are all things that create this value system in life.

Being a nihilist is mostly an analytical framework more than it's a way of life.

The good thing is that those "in life" values we all come with are mostly enough to create stable societies and human lifes.

Or put a completely different way.

Nihilist do not find meaning with life, but plenty in life.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the inherent problems with hedonism?

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.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant quote: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus

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.

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