In defense of nihilism

An absurd abyss of existence as it was termed by the late Albert Camus, this is where we are, and we know nothing of it, we can only speculate and measure this world with crude tools. So here we are all without purpose, without significance, in a life that does not mean anything? A product of what you say " a mindless universe "? You are mistaken in these conclusions about the life that you live. What is inside of us cannot be product of a mindless universe, we are not pawns in a world that has no meaning, these depressing thoughts do not resonate truth. They at best give us an idea of what life is like without God. The existence of a God promotes a much more positive outlook on life, a life with purpose. Transendance of our souls, the ability to transcend the natural universe and reach a plane of thought that is talked of in books by herman hesse and thoreau. Nothing in life is important and the love that I bestow to my friends means absolutely nothing at all, how could you bring yourself to accept that? Have you given up on life robinrohan?This abyss of existence is more than it seems, we have purpose, that purpose lies within ourselves in our hearts, and minds, and souls. And this isn't subjective, this is real, this is true. Without it we would be worthless, and we are not worthless my friend, we are special. What we all do matters, and everything happens for a reason. Put aside my beliefs on God itself, through Christianity, and we cannot differ on these fundemental abilities that humanity must possess. To be a nihilist is to give up on humanity, and to give up on oneself. Nihilism is simply the last straw, it's the suicide of the mind. God exists, and gave all things life, there is beauty in life, and there is meaning within this absurd abyss.With this line I could call you a relativist. Sure, but we are dealing with the essence of our existance, and to sit on a fence, or decide that this mess we call life doesn't have purpose is to give up on one's own existance. Don't give this up, we are important, and there is objectivity within what is called truth.

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well sure as planets come, i know that they end
and if i'm here when they happens, will you promise me this my friend?
please bury me with it
i just don't need none of that mad max bullshit

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Even though it is subjective, it can still be real and true. Is that where you have been making your mistake? Have you perhaps been assuming that only what is objective can be real?

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But truth is not subjective. There exists what is right, we can only speculate and debate on what we think it is. There is actual truth, that some might say is "in the eye of the beholder", what is subjective is the human speculation that comes with trying to find this truth, not the truth itself.Relativism is deadly.This message has been edited by prophex, 11-28-2005 07:45 PM

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well sure as planets come, i know that they end
and if i'm here when they happens, will you promise me this my friend?
please bury me with it
i just don't need none of that mad max bullshit

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In fact, I could rephrase what you stated. I could say that we have purpose, and that purpose is an objective. That objective is to know Christ. To know Him who lives in our hearts,and our minds, and our souls! Without Him we are empty. Filling the void with twinkies, or beers, or pot, or heartless sex! Unable to come to a realization of the truth, for without a Love for it, emptiness is the final destination. Hell is not about demons, pitchforks, and frustrated frenzied agony so much as it is about emptiness. A picture of a dead man...a dead woman...with no life within them for they left themselves empty.
nihilism \n-e-li-zem, ne-he-\ n 1 : a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless 2 : anarchism 3 : terrorism nihilist \-list\ n or adj nihilistic \n-e-lis-tik, ne-he-\ adj

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Exactly. I left out the glorious effect of the Christ, but you boldly portrayed what I maybe should have said with God in the center. And you are right, why should I compromise for the benefit of the discussion, when the portrayal of my beliefs are at stake. I can relate to what you said, and I understand this emptiness.By the way, I still laugh everytime you call me twindrix lol.

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well sure as planets come, i know that they end
and if i'm here when they happens, will you promise me this my friend?
please bury me with it
i just don't need none of that mad max bullshit

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On moral questions, truth is clearly subjective.

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On moral questions, there does exist answers that are clearly defined as right, and are objective. But we do not understand it, we see ourselves and the others around us, and we only know the opinions, and the environments that give us these opinions. Truth exists, we must search for it, and we must understand that all truth comes from God, because as humans the subjective concepts that we endlessly debate, are not truth, we can only catch glimpses of truth, we attempt to grasp it, and it haunts us. You deny that absolute truth exists, because you see only on a plane that exists within our own lives and interactions, you must know that objective truth is not readily concievable to us because of our nature.

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Show me a moral absolutist, and I will show you a relativist who absolutely wants to impose his relative moral values on others.

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The attitude of relativism gives people the right to not think about things.

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jayed em

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there is nothing philosophically new in the Bible

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The bible has revolutionized the way millions of people think.Fulfilled Prophecy on a large scale is new, if not only in the Bible. Judge the religion, not the religious.

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jayed em

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Truth is a human invention.

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In a limited plane of existence, truth is a subjective concept, based on human opinions, actually invented through subjective beliefs of mankind. But there is more to truth than what you see in it, it is of a divine creator, and through our lives we strive to possess it, we can't attain truth through reason, and logic, it comes from ourselves, and through God. To ultimately find truth is to reach Nirvana, is to be enveloped by the heavens, truth can be expressed in a creator, man only understands truth in our world. But absolute truth is non-existant in our minds, we are unable to understand, or even scratch the surface of the absolute. We are no Gods.On absolute truth from wikipedia, Through a sort of transendance, Sidhartha ultimately discovered truth as he sat by the river, in Hesse's book.

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these walls are paper thin
and everyone hears every little sound.

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Language is a human invention, and truth is a concept that we needed to invent as part of language, in order to be able to express agreement and disagreement.

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Philosophers and theologians have mystified truth. They have made it out to be something which stands alone independent of language. But this only leads to an unnecessary mysticism.

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You see truth in a superficial way, skimming the surface of the ship. I see what you mean with truth in relation to dissagreements and agreements within language and human interactions, but the existance of definitive truth seems to elude you. What do we strive for in debating? We know that someone has to be right, so our opinions and theories are presented, mostly regurgitated philosophy or science, and we all have a good time in this search for understanding and truth together, wouldn't you agree?If the existance of absolute truth was an idea, that was actually a man made invention to interact better with our peers, then we have no purpose in our search, and we remove importance yet again in our lives for a simple understanding of ourselves and of God, for language and opinion.

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these walls are paper thin
and everyone hears every little sound.

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The difference is that the nihilists would be violating no ethics code as they have none, so would be more inclined to do anything pleasing to them. Christians, for an example, who do have a written ethics code would be violating their New Testament Biblical ethics code by being oppressive.

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I understand your statement, but I also believe that nilhilists are just like Christians, because we are all human, nihilists can be just as good.With your second paragraph, be ready for some people to argue that religion ruined the world... Idiots.

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these walls are paper thin
and everyone hears every little sound.