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Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
Thanks
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RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
(October 6, 2014 at 1:51 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: LastPoet was right.

I hate when I'm right. People assume that I'm always right afterwards, it isn't true.
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RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
(October 6, 2014 at 1:54 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Towel, accepted.
Frodo's favorite line when he runs out of unconvincing apologetic material to regurgitate.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
(October 6, 2014 at 10:21 am)ChadWooters Wrote: Nihilism includes the negation of the value of reason as a means to knowledge, so that too is in the mix.

Just how much do you trust yourself, and what you believe in?

Nihilism is the doubt and the divorce of trust... nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day
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RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
Was it ever addressed the meaning of persisting in some form after death? And the follow up- Does not persisting negate any meaning had while existing?
I can't remember where this verse is from, I think it got removed from canon:

"I don't hang around with mostly men because I'm gay. It's because men are better than women. Better trained, better equipped...better. Just better! I'm not gay."

For context, this is the previous verse:

"Hi Jesus" -robvalue
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RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
(October 6, 2014 at 10:24 am)whateverist Wrote: Didn't see that coming. I thought nihilism was just about holding values and such to be objective.

Nihilism is inherently subjective. You cannot be an objective nihilist.

(October 6, 2014 at 4:42 pm)Exian Wrote: Was it ever addressed the meaning of persisting in some form after death? And the follow up- Does not persisting negate any meaning had while existing?

By all sorts of people in all sorts of ways, from philosophers to bumper stickers. Whether they ought be believed is up to you.

No. A story that never ends still has chapters, and is largely about character growth, development... it's all about that continuity. I mean... does the current season of a television show hold no meaning just because there will be another season after this?

(October 6, 2014 at 12:58 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: God is so good that the definition has to come from him. One thing you can be sure of.

Had only I your certainty Smile But no... that could be the more dangerous... something being there that isn't impacts action far more than something not being there that is.

(October 6, 2014 at 1:13 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: I mean, that's like the perfect circle of argument.

So is logic. That doesn't stop us from using the benefits of mathematics.

(October 6, 2014 at 1:16 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: How convenient that he defined himself to be good at the same time.

Character is defined. God is good in this rendition... our renditions differ from his. You cannot hope to hold an argument upon this matter when you do not agree upon a character's attributes.

It'd be like a man tried for murder, with the prosecution arguing from the standpoint of him being an insane massmurdering fuckhead, and the defense arguing from the position of him being a stable man with an alabi who couldn't even imagine inflicting the horrors of the murders in question... if they never understood that they're arguing about different men, both of which are inventions.

(October 6, 2014 at 1:38 pm)LastPoet Wrote: You see... Futile.

This is a nihilism thread. What do you expect? Angel

(October 6, 2014 at 2:10 pm)LastPoet Wrote: I hate when I'm right. People assume that I'm always right afterwards, it isn't true.

Don't worry, we can break the other one too Levitate
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day
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RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
(October 6, 2014 at 10:21 am)ChadWooters Wrote: Nihilism includes the negation of the value of reason as a means to knowledge, so that too is in the mix.

In that case it nihilism simply cannot be the logical outcome of atheism. Most of the atheists I've met regard reason as the only means to knowledge. Theists are the ones who negate the value of reason by accepting faith as an alternate means to knowledge.
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RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
(October 6, 2014 at 4:59 pm)genkaus Wrote: In that case it nihilism simply cannot be the logical outcome of atheism. Most of the atheists I've met regard reason as the only means to knowledge. Theists are the ones who negate the value of reason by accepting faith as an alternate means to knowledge.

Most beliefs are reasoned. Unless a person says "I don't know" when asked why they believe: they are using reason to adhere to their faith.

The wrongness of atheists and theists is not unlike... and the correctness is not found in reasoning (logical OR otherwise)... it is found in truth, which is often insubstantial regarding the illusions we live. Knowledge is no mirror of truth.

Edit: And in the end? All of us 'don't know'. Just keep asking why... keep trying to come up with a reason: you will eventually fail. Question your reasons, question the reasons you trust your reasons, question the reasons you trust your reasons's reasons! You know... and you are wrong.
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day
Reply
RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
(October 6, 2014 at 5:02 pm)Alice Wrote: Most beliefs are reasoned. Unless a person says "I don't know" when asked why they believe: they are using reason to adhere to their faith.

Big difference between a belief being reasoned and belief being based on sound reasoning. You are using reason as a means to knowledge only in the second case.

(October 6, 2014 at 5:02 pm)Alice Wrote: The wrongness of atheists and theists is not unlike... and the correctness is not found in reasoning (logical OR otherwise)... it is found in truth, which is often insubstantial regarding the illusions we live. Knowledge is no mirror of truth.

Actually, correctness is found in sound reasoning. Which is why knowledge is, by definition, a mirror of truth.

(October 6, 2014 at 5:02 pm)Alice Wrote: Edit: And in the end? All of us 'don't know'. Just keep asking why... keep trying to come up with a reason: you will eventually fail. Question your reasons, question the reasons you trust your reasons, question the reasons you trust your reasons's reasons! You know... and you are wrong.

On the contrary, I've questioned them and found the answers. Which is why I know I am not wrong.




@fr0d0
What the fuck is a creative singularity?
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RE: Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?
Just to be clear, my definition of nihilism is very broad: holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.

This takes me to my third component needed to counter nihilism: significance.

Significance refers to the relationship between a signs, or signifiers, and that to which the signs refer (the signified). So when people say that life has significance, then they are essentially claiming that their being and actions are signifiers that point to something external to them.

Signs are physical and include material forms, like letters, images, and artifacts; structured events, like music and speech; or some combination of both. The meanings of the signs are what people assign to otherwise meaningless things. For example, in traffic a blinking red light means ‘stop’ only as a matter of convention. Physical things in and of themselves do not have meaning without an interpreter.

Every atheist I know assumes that the brain adequately serves as the interpreter of signs. There is a problem with this assumption. Brains are themselves sensible objects performing material processes and like all other physical things have no meaning.

Neural correlates are like abacus beads that require the interpretation of a knowing subject. The brain cannot act as the interpreter of its own physical states because that makes an empty self-referential circle. Nor can one part of the brain serve and the interpreter of another, since the first would itself require interpretation from a second, the second by a third and so on, i.e. an infinite regress. Nor can the brain, as a whole, can be broken down into smaller and smaller interpreters, each assigning meaning to lesser and lesser signs. Even the smallest sign requires an interpreter no matter how tiny. You cannot build something out of nothing.

The above is how a God or gods provide a basis for value that atheism lacks: value is contingent on [a] non-physical interpreter[s].
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