Nihilistic Murderer

[Thumpalumpacus]

I don't think that one line dictionary definitions are very useful in general.

What, do you want me to scan the hard copy of the OED for you? What do you expect to find, online, but an online dictionary?

Dismissing the definition because it is "online" is silly. It's a cheap way to get around the point without answering it.

Let me turn this conversation around a little. I'd like to know where you think your morals principles come from and also why you don't go out and kill people?

My moral principles come from my own thinking and empathic sense. I don't go out and kill others because I don't think I'd care for it if someone tried to kill me. Returning the courtesy.

Also if you believed that individual morality didn't matter, would you go out and kill people?

This is a circular question: if you didn't have morals, would you act amorally? Of course. But because your hypothetical doesn't obtain, this question is irrelevant. I believe that individual morality matters, and I've got evidence of it: the social contract.

Edit: Also no problem on the edits! I'm pretty guilty of that myself, especially when I'm trying to add clarity to what I'm saying. I think that life is meaningless is incomplete. Everything is meaningless is probably more accurate. So that doesn't mean that as an individual I hold no morals. Just that the morals I do hold are meaningless.

That strikes me as a distinction without a difference. What is the difference between meaningless morals, and no morals? If your morals are meaningless, how can your behavior flow from them? They obviously have some meaning, to you at the very least. And if they keep you from killing someone, your morals have meaning to others, too.

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I'm a little torn on this thread. Not only am I arguing with two of the people who I like best on the forums, but I don't want to try to convince you guys or anybody else to be a Nihilist. I'm fine and happy being one. In general I'm a pretty happy person because I've learned to accept the absurdity of an atheistic and nihilistic universe. I don't think that everybody can do that though. I think some people are depressed enough considering their eventual non-existence. If you pile on the idea that all the horrible (and good) things that have happened in history are ultimately meaningless, it can become too much for some. I think that's why so many Atheists are not Nihilists, so they can instil meaning in their life to keep themselves sane. I don't instil meaning and keep myself sane just fine because I accept the absurdity and even humor of it all.

We're not arguing, we're discussing. Friends need not agree on everything, in my book -- indeed, such friends would be boring to me, an echo chamber.