BTW, @Laika - the example of irony for today: you misrepresenting one of my posts where I complain about you misrepresenting my post.
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Does Atheism Lead to Nihilism?
- Thread starter Rival
- Start date
Consider the possibility that you've been inculcated in religion to the point where you rely on it, and that your feelings of nihilism when you drift away from religion are just the feeling of breaking an old habit... similar to the way a smoker who's trying to quit will have trouble figuring out what to do with his hands without having a cigarette in them.
Unless you put me on ignore, I will report the next message you make directed towards me. the admins can then decide what to do.
We are both atheists. Most people will be wondering WTF is going on. There is no outcome to this where we wont be at each others throats. So finish it. Put me on ignore and we're done.
No, no one ever indoctrinated me. I was raised irreligious aside from culture. I just make it an objective to take everything to its logical end. Atheism for me logically ends with nihilism.
How so? It's a real puzzler to me how you logically get, step by step. from atheism to nihilism.
It doesn't have to have been done by someone else.
I took martial arts for years, completely of my own choosing. Now, without thinking about it, I'll carry an umbrella the way I hold a katana in its scabbard. If I try to carry it some other way, my brain can't handle it and it just feels wrong. Could something like that be going on? Discomfort at changing what you've made familiar?
But if you do take everything to its conclusion, then maybe you can answer the question that @Laika refuses to: if atheism means the loss of meaning, then this implies that theism provides meaning. How would the existence of God actually give your life meaning?
I get how a god - if it existed - could issue and enforce edicts. What I don't get is how a god could make things moral or immoral, meaningful or meaningless.
Satans_Serrated_Edge
Deicidal
The fact that this conversation is relevant to our contemporary metanarative(and it is) is evidence of the anti human self denigrating beliefs that can spring from theistic religion.
Meaning, and more specifically the ability to create and absorb it, is one of the things that make us uniquely human. To marginalize that dynamic in favour of some set of static one size fits all hand me down 'meaning' for this or that context, and to further take that away from people to instead assign it to some imaginary being(as if we humans aren't qualified to assign meaning in our own lives) is repulsive to me.
Anti human anti intellectual bite size slave mentality
When I am atheist I become atheist due to material reasons, scientific evidence etc. However that leads me then to use science to establish my new meaning, in this case would be human evolution. This means that morality also is made up, based on emotion etc. This is too wishywashy for me. I reject all abstract, unprovable ideas the same way I would reject God. Especially ideas based on emotion. I therefore end up rejecting pretty much everything.
Satans_Serrated_Edge
Deicidal
This is a good example of what I was talking about, but manifest on the other side of the spectrum.
The premade religious meaning has been rejected, yet you still accept the religious premise that meaning must be universal and objective to be...meaningful..(lol)
Why?
Because if meaning is not objective it is not meaningful, in my opinion. For something to be meaningful for me it must be objective. That's just the way I am.
Quite long but I read it a while ago and it's a good start http://maverickphilosopher.typepad....s-a-meaning-then-it-cannot-be-subjective.html
This: "My second argument is that extreme subjectivism collapses into nihilism or eliminativism about existential meaning. For if the meaning of my life is the meaning I give it, then my life has no meaning in the sense of ‘meaning’ that gave rise both to the question and the extreme subjectivist answer. There is no real or nonverbal difference between ‘Human life is meaningless’ and ‘Human life has the meanings that agents give it.’ A conferred meaning is no meaning. Intellectual honesty demands that the subjectivist speak plainly and say ’Life has no meaning’ rather than obfuscate the issue by saying ‘Life has the meaning one gives it.’"
This: "My second argument is that extreme subjectivism collapses into nihilism or eliminativism about existential meaning. For if the meaning of my life is the meaning I give it, then my life has no meaning in the sense of ‘meaning’ that gave rise both to the question and the extreme subjectivist answer. There is no real or nonverbal difference between ‘Human life is meaningless’ and ‘Human life has the meanings that agents give it.’ A conferred meaning is no meaning. Intellectual honesty demands that the subjectivist speak plainly and say ’Life has no meaning’ rather than obfuscate the issue by saying ‘Life has the meaning one gives it.’"
Satans_Serrated_Edge
Deicidal
That argument is circular, and affirms the consequent.
It assumes meaning must be objective to get to the conclusion meaning must be objective.
The thing is, every and all examples of 'meaning' originated from someone's subjective experience, and only later, assigned to some objective standard. Without step one, we never get to step two.
It assumes meaning must be objective to get to the conclusion meaning must be objective.
The thing is, every and all examples of 'meaning' originated from someone's subjective experience, and only later, assigned to some objective standard. Without step one, we never get to step two.
Deathbydefault
Apistevist Asexual Atheist
Lead to it? No.
Be combined with it? Sure.
Many atheists likely develop their morality based on what they perceive as a right, wrong, socially beneficial or detrimental action.
Some might not, but being an atheist only removes god(s) from the picture, it doesn't mean you can't believe in moral objectivity, or anything else other than god(s).
Meaning must be objective or else there is still no meaning. A subjective meaning is essentially saying 'life is meaningless apart from the meaning I give it' which means that life is ultimately still meaningless.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
"Objective meaning" sounds like a fiction to me, since meaning is inherently subjective.
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It basically means "as if not subjective." Similarly, "subjective" means "as if not objective."
The world exists apart from our petty meanings. Our meanings are "about" it, like toys that scatter about a room. They are not it.
When humans are dead and gone, meaning will be gone but the world will go on.
"Objective" is one of the meanings that we give it.
It basically means "as if not subjective." Similarly, "subjective" means "as if not objective."
The world exists apart from our petty meanings. Our meanings are "about" it, like toys that scatter about a room. They are not it.
When humans are dead and gone, meaning will be gone but the world will go on.
Exactly. This means there is no meaning. Meaning must be intrinsic imo.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Well said.
I agree. Kant went to the trouble to be relentlessly logical about morality and derived the Categorical Imperatives, rule-based morality rooted in reason and not "God said." Others have developed relentlessly logical virtue-based and outcome-based systems that are not based in any religious precepts. But yes, few people bother to learn about these rational systems of morality, or try to live by them, because they are somewhat difficult.
Yet, discussion of atheism and morality (at least in discussions I see here) always seems to fall back to the assertion that without God, there can be no meaning or morals, and hence nihilism and either no morals at all, or purely ego-centric or relativisitic morals.
I guess it's easier to say that God Gives Us the Rules...or there are no rules at all because there is no God...