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Author | Topic: In defense of nihilism | |||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1498 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Your tone is pretty clear. "By then it will be too late," etc. And in the past you've described how you're anxious for God's judgement on our society.
You can deny it if you like; I rather suspected you would. But it's pretty obvious from your posts.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Your tone is pretty clear. "By then it will be too late," etc. And in the past you've described how you're anxious for God's judgement on our society. You can deny it if you like; I rather suspected you would. But it's pretty obvious from your posts. I don't have the slightest desire for anyone to suffer no matter how much I want to see God triumph in this world. If I did I wouldn't bother TELLING anyone how to avoid it. When one says it will be too late one is hoping to provoke ACTION to avoid that consequence.
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Funkaloyd Inactive Member |
prophex writes: Relativism is deadly. Indeed. All the worst tyrants and dictators were relativists.
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iano Member (Idle past 1972 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
robin writes: People live in groups and there are conflicts in groups about our mates and huts and things. The way to solve these conflicts is to set up some rules. Thou shalt not smite thy neighbor on one cheek, even though you would like to Thus we can say the christian believes there are objective values and the nihilist needs to believe there are objective values. One or other is the lie that is closest to the truth
Free will has nothing to do with tapeworms and hurricanes and bird flu and stomach cancer and meteors crashing into planets and the like. I know, I know--after the Fall nature got mean, etc Sometimes the consequences of our exercising free will are quite profound. True, from your perspective it is acceptable to suppose that it is all accidental but if it weren't and it is the result of an exercise of certain persons free will then it would give a remarkable picture of mans place in the scheme of things. It would provide us some explaination as to why God sacrificed his son for us. Like, if we stood back for a minute and took a look at ourselves we would have to wonder at that.
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iano Member (Idle past 1972 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
robin writes: He could show up There's a problem there Robin. If God just showed up or did anything so as to make it certain to you that he existed (not weeping statues or other such things which can be explained away as hoaxes (which they may well be)) then you would have no choice but to believe in him. Despite your current misgivings and lack of belief - you would have to believe. Would you not? But a central aspect of the whole gig, the reason I would suppose, as to why it had to be done the way it was done, was in order to provide us with choice. God could have chosen to create automatons who would obey every command. He could have even programmed them to hate the taste of apples. He chose otherwise and in making us in his image and likeness, he gave us choice too. There is an obvious reasons why he should do so (hint: love). So him turning up uninvited is a non-runner. Is there anything else that would float your boat besides that?
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iano Member (Idle past 1972 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Its not a game. It is the most deadly serious thing you could imagine. There is an apparent dilema. As I explained above God cannot force you to believe in him, by appearing at your doorstep uninvited. You cannot believe in him without a higher quality of evidence than that which may in fact lie all around you.
An apparent Catch-22. But God is rather good at resolving Catch-22's And the ball is in his court. All you have to do is want him. It's essentially down to that. He can provide you with proof a-plenty. Proof that would surprise you - coming as it would in from an unexpected quarter. But if you don't want him to he won't of course. He does respect you and will honour that which you want. Either way. (p.s. both wanting and not wanting are played out in the heart so it's not like a person can work it up through conscious effort) I think the nihilist is being the most honest of all the no-God camp. He is facing what reality is if there is no God. I wonder though: he has no particular reason to think there is no God. No hard evidence - only a philosophy. Now why would someone, who had to pick from one or other of these two (apparently) unprovable positions, choose for the one devoid of hope? We could modify the previous discussion to suppose that the nihilist 'believes' for large portions of his life, that there are objective values and it is only in his more philosophical moments when he comes to his senses, that he remembers there are in fact none. He could just as easily play both sides of the coin in relation to a belief in God. He could 'believe' there is a God and have all the benefits that would come with that (in that he is free to design a God that suits him - just as with he can with morals). Only in his better moments would he have to face the fact that he doesn't actually believe it and, like the nihilist, face the lonely moments that that may bring. Yet he picks the "no hope" option. Is this because for all it's downsides, it is the one that allows him, Adam-like, to be independant of God?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
Oh, the "God wants you to guess" idea.
I have a number of points to raise about this: 1) Having to guess does not make us any more free 2) As James 2:19 says beleiving that God exists does not entail choosing to follow God. So since we cannot really choose to follow and obey God without knowing if He exists - indeed which of the many ideas of God is true - it follows that not knowing that God exists does not make us more free. If anything it makes us less free because it takes that choice away from us.
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iano Member (Idle past 1972 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
omnivorous writes: Ah, but there is a similar pleasure...right here and now. Atheists can enjoy a Garden of Earthly Delights free of the shadows of sin, guilt, and damnation. You would have to be free of the shadow of sin and guilt and damnation in order to appreciate what it feels like. The error here is in the presumption that the shadow is for man to impose on himself. Not believing in something, as in so many areas of life, influences not the existance of something.
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Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6506 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
quote: This is no different from believers. Each one chooses to believe in a version of god that suits them...they even have different churches with radically different beliefs (protestants, catholics, mormons etc.)..and each group chooses the "morals" they wish to follow so that you have Xians who say peace is moral, war is moral, slavery is moral, slavery is immoral. It is completely arbitrary...it is certainly a more arrogant stance than nihlism.
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iano Member (Idle past 1972 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
PaulK writes: Oh, the "God wants you to guess" idea. Never heard of it m8. How does it go?
We cannot really choose to follow and obey God without knowing if He exists I agree wholeheartedly. If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times: "You cannot believe in something you have no concrete evidence for". That would be irrational. Irrational as nihilism probably
indeed which of the many ideas of God is true The old "driving around the spiritual roundabout" problem and wondering which exit to take? There are clues of course
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iano Member (Idle past 1972 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
mammathus writes: This is no different from believers. Each one chooses to believe in a version of god that suits them...they even have different churches with radically different beliefs (protestants, catholics, mormons etc.)..and each group chooses the "morals" they wish to follow so that you have Xians who say peace is moral, war is moral, slavery is moral, slavery is immoral. It is completely arbitrary...it is certainly a more arrogant stance than nihlism. As I pointed out to Robin (Robinihilism anybody?), a nihilist cannot live as if there are no objective morals. He must 'believe' there are such things in everyday life. Robin agreed with this. And he would I think, agree that the nihilist is completely free to chose whatever value system he likes for himself - just like the belief systems you pose above seem to. I don't see how one differs from the other in that sense. My point was that the one offered at least hope of an afterlife. So if one was going to chose when there is no concrete evidence apparent to the person, why chose the hopeless option?
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Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6506 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
quote:Of course a nihlist can do this. Every major religions does this..they merely proclaim they possess objective morals and then proceed to arbitrarily and non-objectively define them...and redefine them..and change them..yet call them "absolute" nonetheless. quote: As does every religious system..they choose whatever value system serves them..and are completely free to...though it usually involves killing off those who disagree with them, but that is a different issue.
quote:One requires positive evidence, the other does not. quote:Besides failing to see the appeal of an afterlife for which there is no evidence (and the waste of time dreaming about it when one should probably enjoy the life they DO have), why is lack of an afterlife a hopeless option? It is also incumbent on those who say there is an afterlife to convince me that there is one. There is no evidence for one and I choose not believe in fantasies, and I am far from feeling hopeless.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
So we agree that God's failure to provide strong evidence of His existence has nothign to do with "free will".
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iano Member (Idle past 1972 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
If God provided irrevocable (as opposed to the completely subjective 'strong') evidence as to his existance then there would be no such thing as free will. Everybody would have to believe in him.
paulk writes: So we agree that God's failure to provide strong evidence of His existence has nothing to do with "free will". Thus, we do not agree at all it would seem.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Completely false, because that sort of proof has nothing to do with free will. There's no value in choosing to beleive that God exists or not. Or in choosing any belief about a factual matter.
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