If there is no God, how do we combat nihilism?

Originally posted by Conrau K
Well, there is no free will. End of story.

I quite agree....so how do we combat nihilism? 🙂

Originally posted by Conrau K
Well, there is no free will. End of story.

You are forced to believe that, or did you decide all on you own?

Originally posted by Vladamir no1
I quite agree....so how do we combat nihilism? 🙂

I'm really confused. "How do we combat nihilism?"
I don't know. Perhaps we should implement a totalitarian regime. However, I suspect that your not asking for the method by which we could prevent the emergence of nihilism. Am I correct?

Many christians believe that if an atheist rejects christian values he rejects all values. But nihilism is not tantamount to atheism.

Kelly made the point that if we all ended up in the same place (I assume death) it doesn't matter what path we took. This is a flawed one- dimensional metaphor which bbar demonstrated as false.

Theres a big difference between the paths. If I have children and i'll assume that i really care for them, surely I would "value" their existence? But if i did, i wouldn't be a true nihilist (and I would speculate that most people dont love their kids purely out of fear of God).

We may not have free will but we are still motivated by the intensity of campassion and altruism (and there are plenty of evolutionary models which explain this).

And anyway, in the long run, it wouldn't benefit the person to live a completely hedonistic life-style. It just isn't stable. In the end everyone needs to contribute (by abiding to certain morals and values) to optimize the level of contentedness.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
You are forced to believe that, or did you decide all on you own?

This thread must have some kind of damaging effect on peoples vocabs. I have been patiently reading everyone posts and I have noticed a growing trend to twist people's words out of context.

If you are asking if i came up with my idea purely on my own free will, then no. Or are asking if i could have thought otherwise, then no.

If you are asking if I was forced to believe my idea (I wasn't free to act as I willed) then again, no.

Dont confuse freedom with freedom of action, freedom of will or free will.

Originally posted by Conrau K
I'm really confused. "How do we combat nihilism?"
I don't know. Perhaps we should implement a totalitarian regime. However, I suspect that your not asking for the method by which we could prevent the emergence of nihilism. Am I correct?

Many christians believe that if an atheist rejects christian values he rejects all values. But nihilism is not tanta ute (by abiding to certain morals and values) to optimize the level of contentedness.

Hi, thanks for the detaied reply.....BUT!!!! ...What I am asking is the question that titles this thread, if there is no god how do combat nihilism,? I',m not saying we should be nihilistic, but that without a 'god' and the tangents that come with this figure head, be it the after life, morality and so on, nothing really means anything , we therefore live in a nihilistic cosmos!!!
If this is true and we took this to both a contextual and ontological framework, the social and cultural categories of humanity would dramastically change. maybe thats why religion exists, to stop this happening !! Your thoughts.........................

Originally posted by Vladamir no1
Hi, thanks for the detaied reply.....BUT!!!! ...What I am asking is the question that titles this thread, if there is no god how do combat nihilism,? I',m not saying we should be nihilistic, but that without a 'god' and the tangents that come with this figure head, be it the after life, morality and so on, nothing really means anything , we therefore l ...[text shortened]... e thats why religion exists, to stop this happening !! Your thoughts.........................

As many people in this thread have tried to show, the absence of god is not equatible with nihilism, so your question is redundant.

Originally posted by Starrman
As many people in this thread have tried to show, the absence of god is not equatible with nihilism, so your question is redundant.

This question was not addressed to you, but as this is an open forum, pray tell, without the existense of a god what is the ontological meaning of humanities existence???

Originally posted by Vladamir no1
This question was not addressed to you, but as this is an open forum, pray tell, without the existense of a god what is the ontological meaning of humanities existence???

'humanity's'

I didn't say it was addressed to me, I was intimating that if you read through the 'open forum' you would see that your premise is flawed.

Originally posted by Conrau K
I'm really confused. "How do we combat nihilism?"
I don't know. Perhaps we should implement a totalitarian regime. However, I suspect that your not asking for the method by which we could prevent the emergence of nihilism. Am I correct?

Many christians believe that if an atheist rejects christian values he rejects all values. But nihilism is not tanta ute (by abiding to certain morals and values) to optimize the level of contentedness.

Kelly made the point that if we all ended up in the same place (I assume death) it doesn't matter what path we took. This is a flawed one- dimensional metaphor which bbar demonstrated as false.

barr did not demonstrate it as false, he basically said the same thing
everyone else said, that the importance for them was in this life, it
does not matter what is important for anyone, because like I have
been saying, all roads lead to nothing. If nothing is all that awaits life
at the end of this life time. The only way you could say it was shown
to be false was if you were not following the discussion, but see only
those things you which to see.
Kelly

Originally posted by Starrman
As many people in this thread have tried to show, the absence of god is not equatible with nihilism, so your question is redundant.

What many people here have shown is that they have values, things
or people that matter to them. The worth and value they have is
inside of them while they enjoy this life, which is no different than
anyone else's worth or value in this life. Which all lose when they lose
this life, if nothing is after this life that makes it all void in the end,
which is to say pointless in the end. Lasting value or worth would
change that, as it does here in this life time too, the longer
something holds its value the better it is.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
What many people here have shown is that they have values, things
or people that matter to them. The worth and value they have is
inside of them while they enjoy this life, which is no different than
anyone else's worth or value in this life. Which all lose when they lose
this life, if nothing is after this life that makes it all void in the end,
whic ...[text shortened]... oes here in this life time too, the longer
something holds its value the better it is.
Kelly

Kelly, we can't go over this any more effectively I fear. You are making a mistake in your induction, but it seems impossible for you to see it and I don't have the energy to go over it again. I'm out of this one.

Originally posted by Starrman
'humanity's'

I didn't say it was addressed to me, I was intimating that if you read through the 'open forum' you would see that your premise is flawed.

Indeed it would be if it was addressed to previous posts, but it wasn't addressed to the threads' previous posts but a present post, to who(m) my post was intended...Maybe that person who I was addressing could shed some 'new light' on the matter in hand, or are you saying that everything that comes under the meaning of life and combating the possibility of nihilism has already been covered?!!


Also if 'you' had read the previous posts you would have become aware that there was a slight tongue in cheek stance to my question as I had already made light of the tautological nature of this 'Frankeinstein' that I created 🙂

Originally posted by Vladamir no1
Hi, thanks for the detaied reply.....BUT!!!! ...What I am asking is the question that titles this thread, if there is no god how do combat nihilism,? I',m not saying we should be nihilistic, but that without a 'god' and the tangents that come with this figure head, be it the after life, morality and so on, nothing really means anything , we therefore l ...[text shortened]... e thats why religion exists, to stop this happening !! Your thoughts.........................

I take nihilism to mean the rejction of ALL moral values not just religious ones. Since, (as I have pointed out) not all morals are developed through religion, I dont believe nihilism would occur if God was shown to not exist. We may not have a God (alot of people seem to agree with me here) and our life might not mean anything. But we would still follow a morality.

Originally posted by Starrman
Kelly, we can't go over this any more effectively I fear. You are making a mistake in your induction, but it seems impossible for you to see it and I don't have the energy to go over it again. I'm out of this one.

If I understand Kelly’s argument (which I didn’t at first), I actually agree with him—in part.

I don’t think there is an individual “after-life” in which what I think and do in this life matters. I have to bite the bullet on that one. That does not stop me from holding values (moral and otherwise) that I find make this life more fulfilling—and KJ has acknowledged that.

One of those values may be to try to leave the world somehow a better place for my having lived. I may or may not succeed in that. After I die I will not know, any more than I do now—nor will I be able to wish or hope that it is so. It will only be that the effort matters to me now—quite selfishly perhaps, since that effort may be fulfilling to me now, as part of my eudaimonia; in some cases, it might even lead me to risk my survival for another whose life is part of that eudaimonia. Nor do I need anything more than that to argue with or combat those whose values pose an actual threat to my own: c’est la vie.

I recognize that there is likely a Camusian absurdity in all that, and I accept it without appeal. I cannot choose to believe in an afterlife in which my choices now will matter, simply because I might find such a propsect more congenial than the absurd (again, in the Camusian sense) situation I find myself in. From my point-of-view, I am simply (metaphor alert!) a wave generated by the ocean, of which I am, and into which I will collapse and disperse. As a wave characterized in part by a particular consciousness, my “waving” entails thinking and choice (moral and otherwise), and other particular facets of awareness that come to form in the wave; that does not necessarily mean that such things exist separately in the ocean (except potentially) if and when it is not “waving.” I think part of the eudaimonia of the wave rests in the realization that we are not truly separate from the ocean, and hence the other waves—but maybe for some that eudaimonia rests in the forgetting, for their duration as a wave.

My main disagreement with KJ’s last post is his use of the word “would” in his last sentence. I would say “could.” I have known people for whom belief in an after-life led them to derogate and devalue this life; I have also known people for whom that is not true.

Originally posted by Conrau K
I take nihilism to mean the rejction of ALL moral values not just religious ones. Since, (as I have pointed out) not all morals are developed through religion, I dont believe nihilism would occur if God was shown to not exist. We may not have a God (alot of people seem to agree with me here) and our life might not mean anything. But we would still follow a morality.

Ah but that is where our interpretations differs ....
I'm not saying that your factually wrong as, "there are no facts only interpretation" (Nietzsche).

But....

I take nihilism 'not' to be the rejection of any value (morality) to life, but the rejection of any meaning to life.

To digress, morality is a necessity for a social structure to function, it has little to do with nihilism from my perspective only from yours in the sense you mean that if nothing matters therefore it is ok to kill and steal etc.

This is not the core of nihilism as I see it, to me nihilism is the embodiment of the statement that 'nothing matters' because you live and you die, there is no god ergo there is no heavan, paradise, valhalla or nirvana. So therefore what is the meaning of life without the existense of god? That is what I ask and that is the true definition of the question that titles this thread; "If there is no god how do we combat nihilism?