In defense of nihilism

Only it's not. What you're doing is labelling a system of objective values "nihilism" because you happen to disagree with those values. You may as well claim that the Popes who presided over the Inquisition didn't have any belief in God or the Bible, because of their conduct.On edit: Ultimately, everybody has this freedom. You yourself can choose any interpretation of the Bible you wish, or you can throw it all out the window at any moment. You're only limited by your desires, as is the nihilist or myself, and I have no desire to commit genocide.This message has been edited by Funkaloyd, Thu, 01-Dec-2005 01:46 PM

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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

If there are answers, why are we unable to find them? Why do different cultures provide different answers? I will take that as an admission that you have no evidence to support your view. Truth is a human invention. I made that statement only with respect to moral truth. The issue is more complex with respect to other kinds of truth. On the contrary, because of my study of human cognition, I have a pretty good idea of where truth comes from. That's why I say that truth is a human invention. I would say that it is absolutism, not relativism, that limits thought.

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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.

The popes, unlike Hitler and the commies, regardless of their brutality, did use/missuse the Bible for what they considered objective values. For every deviation of scripture, they missused isolated segments of scripture as an excuse, pulling out of context to subjectively justify their evil deeds. Hitler simply abused his power to suit his whims and desires with total disregard of any code of ethics or accountability. He was limited only by his desires and the powers of force that eventually brought him down.On edit:Buz: "The nihilist is free to pick and choose morality calls." No, everybody does not have freedom to pick and choose morality. Regardless of my interpretation of the Bible, as a Biblical fundamentalist Christian, I have subjected myself to the morality of what I regard as God's revelation and moral code for man. I fear the consequences of offending my maker, the majesty of the universe who inspired the writing of the holy scriptures. My desires have been subjected to a higher power. I assume the responsibilities.....I enjoy the blessings. I disregard the responsibilities...... no blessings. It's worked that way for 60 years now.The nihilist is limited only by desire. If he/she desires a moral code to follow, fine. If he/she chooses genocide, theft or whatever, woe to the victims and society becomes subjected to the relative whims of nihilism when encountered by the nihilist.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

That's not what I meant when I suggested that truth is a human invention.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.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.

You desire to be a fundamentalist Christian, so you choose to be a fundamentalist Christian. If for some reason you no longer had such a desire, or if another overpowered it, then you would no doubt change your moral code of choice and cease to be fundamentalist Christian. It works the same for everyone. So you say. But everything that I've so far heard or read of Hitler's suggests that he believed that objective values exist, and unless you have some evidence to demonstrate that Hitler was a nihilist, I think it's a given that he believed what he preached.Here's the only mention of nihilism in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf:

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...the attack against dogma is comparable to an attack against the general laws on which the State is founded. And so this attack would finally lead to complete political anarchy if it were successful, just as the attack on religion would lead to a worthless religious nihilism.

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Try and count how many times he uses totally un-nihilistic words like "evil" and "duty" in the same work.

Its funny though, because Monarchy got its power from claiming it was given by God. Monarchies of the ilk you describe have a habit of starting revolutions.When a government is made accountable for their actions to the people, it doesn't matter whether the people in power believe they will be held accountable in the next life.

I've studied this matter rather thoroughly (in fact there's thread on evc about it). Hitler's moral standard is: what is natural is good. It is natural and therefore good for a superior people to dominate an inferior people.

Right: the naturalistic fallacy. That also shows that, contrary to iano's claim, you don't need to believe in any god to believe in objectivity.

As long as I'm a fundie Christian, I am subjected to a code of ethics which Hitler was not. If I change to abandon all inhibitions and ethics, I would consider myself more nihilistic. I might then be a Hitler or a nice guy, depending on my personal whims and desires. Nihilists have personal values void of a code of ethics. Their values were based on no code of ethics as were Hitler's. He murdered whom he hated, and that happened to be homosexuals, ethnic classes, et al. His values were no more objective than the nihilist. If you disagree, please explain the difference.Here's the only mention of nihilism in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf: Based on his words, you have a pretty good argument, but did he really practice what he preached? What was his code of ethics? Did he operate within the laws of the land?What about Stalin and communist dictators? How are/were they different than nihilists?

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Hitler believed that morality is objective, whereas a nihilist would not, by definition. He was simply not a nihilist. Communism holds that it is wrong for the means of production to be controlled by the bourgeoisie. That's not a very nihilistic belief.This message has been edited by Funkaloyd, Fri, 02-Dec-2005 05:43 PM

Why, I do declare, you maybe getting warmer. Flawed though it is, it is rescued in dramatic fashion near the end with the "No syncophants" statement. This is as good a paraphrase as I have yet heard of the reason for giving free will.I am curious as to what methodology will be employed to restore the situation. God employed sheer genius. What can Robin do I wonder Any chance you could draw out the motivation a little further too. There is some serious stuff going on here but we're lacking on some character building. We need to know why as well as how.

Iano, my idea is half-baked, and for that reason, the writing is poor (a typical problem I have--impatience). But you are right about the serious stuff.I hope to do better when I have figured out what the hell I think I am doing.