the difference between you and I is that I actually did believe and so the loss for me and the corresponding void is much more profound — dazed
Most of our current ethical framework at the macro level in the western world is in fact ultimately linked to a judaeo christian model of our existence, take that away and it's all fair game, and I think that in fact it's self interest that will ultimately dictate the directions each of us pursue in that game. — dazed
Sometimes I will then again I think I won't
Sometimes I will then again I think I won't
Sometimes I do then again I think I don't
Well I looked at my watch, it was 10:05
Man, I didn't know if I was dead or alive
Well I looked at my watch, it was 10:28
I gotta get my kicks before it gets too late
Well I looked at my watch and it was time to go
The band leader said " We ain't playing no more" — The Philosopher-Poet of Rock-N-Roll
My evolution was slow and gradual : from Protestant Fundamentalism, to uncertain Agnosticism, to Scientific explorer, to Philosophical thinker, etc. But I could never accept the Atheist worldview, which has no satisfactory explanation for the perennial religious questions : Where did we come from? Why are we here? What's the meaning of life? and so on.I am wondering if others who have lost their religion have found a path out of this sense of loss and underlying chaos and would care to share. — dazed
FWIW : Enformationism has some similarities to New Age worldviews, but it specifically denies any mind-over-matter magic and divine-intervention miracles. — Gnomon
But what if you're with more than one person and they have conflicting needs? — bert1
But what if you're with more than one person and they have conflicting needs? — bert1
From my lips to goober's goober! As if to order - no waiting, curbside delivery here TPF - homebrewed Blue Pill woo courtesy of :zip: — 180 Proof
Part of nihilism is recognising that there IS no certainty or authority — Possibility
What do you want your actions (your meaning and your purpose) to matter to? You? Your partner and family? The human species? Then do things for them and let that be your purpose and meaning. — Harry Hindu
Lots of people fleeing the church feel like they need a bath (something that doesn't involve getting washed in the blood of the lamb). Take a bath, but don't go down the drain with the bath water. — Bitter Crank
in the abstract, no I have no real inclination or intuition about whether it is wrong, I can and would only face this question if it presented itself to me in the micro. — dazed
Yes this is pretty much my approach, I rely on my positive emotions and try to be good to those I care about. But my deeper engagement with life is still lacking, it just all seems like a big mess that no one has any really clue about. — dazed
Your description sounds more like positive Stoicism than negative Nihilism. Rather than rejecting reality, Stoicism embraces the world, warts and all. The focus is on developing personal virtue instead of retreating into "bah-humbug" cynicism. :smile:When we embrace nihilism, I think we learn to face the reality that everyone is still trying to figure all of this out, and then learn to draw from each other’s experiences not only the courage to explore, but also the missing information that will help us to more accurately map those aspects of reality that are less objectively certain - in particular what is valuable and what it all means. — Possibility
hat would a "deeper engagement with life" mean? How is being good to those your care about, and therefore creating your purpose with them, not a deeper engagement with life? — Harry Hindu
Philosophy, however, dispenses only Red Pills to those looking for aporetics "more profound" than self-help nostrums and (psycho)therapies for flagging self-esteem. — 180 Proof
When we embrace nihilism, I think we learn to face the reality that everyone is still trying to figure all of this out, and then learn to draw from each other’s experiences not only the courage to explore, but also the missing information that will help us to more accurately map those aspects of reality that are less objectively certain - in particular what is valuable and what it all means.
— Possibility
Your description sounds more like positive Stoicism than negative Nihilism. Rather than rejecting reality, Stoicism embraces the world, warts and all. The focus is on developing personal virtue instead of retreating into "bah-humbug" cynicism. :smile: — Gnomon
It's helpful to note, then, that [Nietzsche] believed we could--at a terrible price--eventually work through nihilism. If we survived the process of destroying all interpretations of the world, we could then perhaps discover the correct course for humankind. — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
That's because what is positive and good is subjective. You can't define what is positive or good on macro scale because there is no such thing.An even deeper engagement would involve caring about causes, positive societal change, the greater good. I used to be engaged and care about trying to better things (when I was a theist). Now I have no interest in those things because I can't define what positive or good would really mean on a macro scale. I just stick to the micro where it is usually more easy to define what is good for those I actually interact with. — dazed
I am always somewhat removed from life, since reality is such an empty stark place in comparison the reality I believed in for the first 20 years of my life. — dazed
That's because what is positive and good is subjective. You can't define what is positive or good on macro scale because there is no such thing.
So, it seems to me that your continued confusion is the result in believing in things that don't exist. — Harry Hindu
You and I seem to have different views of what entails the "macro". I typically avoid discussions involving morals/values precisely because values are subjective. What reason would you have to talk about what is subjective as if it were objective? That is a category error. The lesser engagement would be to engage in discussions that are meaningless.right so what point is therein in discussing the macro? It's akin to a discussion about whether a person is attractive or not. There's not much utility in reasoned discussion about that. So just as I avoid such discussions so I avoid the macro normative discussions. Hence the lesser engagement in life. — dazed
A healthy dose of skepticism is necessary for those who want to think for themselves rather than be led by the nose via Faith. But when it becomes the core principle of your life, Skepticism tends to deteriorate into unhealthy sneering Cynicism (in the modern sense of contemptuous, pessimistic, and generally distrustful of people's motives).Nihilism can be rejecting reality, sure - but it can also be rejecting and being sceptical of any particular interpretation of reality as truth. Stoicism doesn’t necessarily allow for the same level of skepticism, but some of their approach may be seen as a helpful path out of nihilism, I suppose. — Possibility
Freedom is itself its own object of attainment and the sole purpose of Spirit. It is the ultimate purpose toward which all world history has continually aimed. To this end all the sacrifices have been offered on the vast altar of the earth throughout the long lapse of ages. Freedom alone is the purpose which realizes and fulfills itself, the only enduring pole in the change of events and conditions, the only truly efficient principle that pervades the whole. This final aim is God’s purpose with the world. But God is the absolutely perfect Being and can, therefore, will nothing but Himself, His own will. The nature of His own will, His own nature, is what we here call the Idea of freedom. Thus we translate the language of religion into that of philosophy. — Hegel
Hitherto men have constantly made up for themselves false conceptions about themselves, about what they are and what they ought to be. They have arranged their relationships according to their ideas of God, of normal man, etc. The phantoms of their brains have got out of their hands. They, the creators, have bowed down before their creations. Let us liberate them from the chimeras, the ideas, dogmas, imaginary beings under the yoke of which they are pining away. Let us revolt against the rule of thoughts. Let us teach men, says one, to exchange these imaginations for thoughts which correspond to the essence of man; says the second, to take up a critical attitude to them; says the third, to knock them out of their heads; and -- existing reality will collapse.
These innocent and childlike fancies are the kernel of the modern Young-Hegelian philosophy, which not only is received by the German public with horror and awe, but is announced by our philosophic heroes with the solemn consciousness of its cataclysmic dangerousness and criminal ruthlessness. The first volume of the present publication has the aim of uncloaking these sheep, who take themselves and are taken for wolves; of showing how their bleating merely imitates in a philosophic form the conceptions of the German middle class; how the boasting of these philosophic commentators only mirrors the wretchedness of the real conditions in Germany. It is its aim to debunk and discredit the philosophic struggle with the shadows of reality, which appeals to the dreamy and muddled German nation. — Marx
In 66 years I have not found a way around it. If you are not one of those people who can't lull or distract themselves from what you understand as a fundamental truth, you live with it. At times throughout my life, it's produced crises when everything seemed pretty absurd and meaningless. I have weathered them.
I derive intense pleasure from Nature, and I believe in Nature's ability to triumph over human destruction of the planet. I follow the Torah's code of ethics as far as my relationships with other humans goes, but I don't believe in a diety or intelligent design, unless that's the same as physics.. — uncanni
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.