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

Originally posted by vistesd
I think so. But then, that was how Nietzsche saw 19th century Europe.

NOTE: I guess that's my response to Conrau as well. Except this: Nietzsche did find his answer, and was not a nihilist.

The Eternal recurrence??

Originally posted by David C
What an OUTSTANDING non-sequitur. Well done!

It is a dazzling moment, dreamlike yet crystal clear.

Originally posted by vistesd
It seems to me that there is a question here of the goal and the journey.

Or, to mix metaphors, Alan Watts once said, “If the goal was to get to the end of the symphony, the best musicians would be those who played the fastest.”

Now neither your goal nor mine is death (although there have been some martyrdom-seekers in history who took that as their g ...[text shortened]... the other. (Again, that does not mean your route is not a scenic, and hopefully a long, one...)

Like the question that was asked. what is good or bad, what can be
called a good journey or a bad one? Everyone thinks theirs is okay,
or most everyone, and so is there a right answer to that or a wrong
one? Can we call lives given over to pleasure good, even if the only
one getting the pleasure is the seeking it at cost to others? If
everyone gets to say what is right for them, does that not mean that
no one is really calling the shots of what is really 'right' or 'wrong'?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Like the question that was asked. what is good or bad, what can be
called a good journey or a bad one? Everyone thinks theirs is okay,
or most everyone, and so is there a right answer to that or a wrong
one? Can we call lives given over to pleasure good, even if the only
one getting the pleasure is the seeking it at cost to others? If
everyone gets to ...[text shortened]... t mean that
no one is really calling the shots of what is really 'right' or 'wrong'?
Kelly

Can we call lives given over to pleasure good, even if the only one getting the pleasure is the seeking it at cost to others?

I don’t think so, and I never said it was. I also don’t think there are many people who live that way—those who do are on the tail of the distribution, and are likely to be labeled pathological. On the other hand, what if someone’s greatest pleasure in life is loving and helping others?

A lot of different views of objective morality/ethics have been presented on here over the couple of years that I’ve been reading these posts. (Whether or not there can be an objective aesthetics for life, I doubt.) It does not strike me that atheists have any more or less urge, statistically, to murder, rape, torture and pillage than do theists. Whether or not that is because most people can articulate an objective moral theory, or because there is a natural moral abhorrence for such things built into us (and whether that is evolutionary or not; whether it can be overcome by social conditioning or not), except for those on the tail of the statistical distribution of humanity, I don’t know.

But my post was aimed at the fact that you seem to be talking about more than morality; in fact, it seemed to me that your were not even particularly talking about morality, but about having values generally. I wouldn’t have mentioned morality here except for that “even if” in your post.

If everyone gets to say what is right for them...

As long as they’re not harming others, I think that everyone does get to do that. Maybe when a Christian, for example, says, “The Bible is right for me,” that’s exactly what s/he is doing—choosing, based on their own experiences and reasons, to say what is right for them, i.e. a particular expression of Christianity (whether or not they then claim that that choice is necessarily right for everyone). A person has to have some grounds (via reason or experience) for choosing to follow a Biblical life before they are able to claim the Bible as the ground for how they live their lives thereafter. This is true for other religions or philosophies as well.

That is, the reasons for choosing that set of religious beliefs can be no more grounded in that set of religious beliefs (including the belief in an afterlife) than anyone else’s reasons for choosing their beliefs and values. The fundamental grounds for your choosing to believe there is a God cannot be grounded on the belief in God. Therefore that choice itself is just as grounded (in individual experience and reason) or as groundless as any other value-choice any of us make.

Like the question that was asked: what is good or bad, what can be called a good journey or a bad one?

I’m going to assume that you’re not talking about morality in this question. So, moral issues aside, who am I to tell you your life is a good or bad one? Who are you to tell me? The only difference I can see between you and I here is your belief in a personal God and a continuing life after this one. Is your assertion that such a belief gives you better grounds for whether or not my journey is a good one or not? If not, then on what grounds would you judge my journey?

Originally posted by vistesd
I think so. But then, that was how Nietzsche saw 19th century Europe.

NOTE: I guess that's my response to Conrau as well. Except this: Nietzsche did find his answer, and was not a nihilist.

The Eternal recurrence??

Originally posted by Vladamir no1
The Eternal recurrence??

Sorry. No: amor fati, and perhaps the pursuit of the ubermensch. I have seen a number of interpretations of the eternal recurrence: the simplest one (by Kaufman, I think) that Nietzsche proposed the eternal recurrence as a kind of thought experiment--i.e., even in the face of the eternal recurrence can one choose amor fati?

The film Groundhog Day with Bill Murray is very Nietzschean (until the ending). The cynical hero is thrust into the eternal recurrence of the same day; he goes through shock and panic, suicidal nihilism, and then embraces amor fati (when he begins to take piano lessons) and embarks on the path of the ubermensch that entails self-growth and enhancement (N. treated "life enhancement" as synonymous with "will to power" ) as well as generosity.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]Can we call lives given over to pleasure good, even if the only one getting the pleasure is the seeking it at cost to others?

I don’t think so, and I never said it was. I also don’t think there are many people who live that way—those who do are on the tail of the distribution, and are likely to be labeled pathological. On the other hand, what if ...[text shortened]... r not my journey is a good one or not? If not, then on what grounds would you judge my journey?[/b]

I don't believe I said you claimed those given to pleasure were good,
and I am sort of surprised that you label them pathological too. If
this is a journey and only the journey counts, why would seeking
pleasure in your opinion be considered flawed or something abnormal?
I fail to see that logic given the end results don't matter just getting
to the end does it seems, if that is all there is. I can agree with you
we can call upon all sorts of lifestyles, those that love others, those
that abuse others, and both are just people making the journey, no?
We do not call lions evil for acting the way they do in the jungle, just
because they kill and eat everyone they can including each other
from time to time, because that is the way lions act.

As far as how atheist and theist act, I lump them both together and
call them human. Humans do quite a few evil things like murder,
rape, torture, pillage, steal, and lie and so on it is in our nature. We
curse those we dislike, we shade the truth to suit ourselves, we do
a lot of things. So the question about right and wrong, is there really
a right and wrong or just personal tastes? If all journeys are the
same, if all people have to work it out for themselves, one is as
good as the next then isn't it ijust tastes if this is all there is? If
there is a standard that applies across the board to everyone, is
that a man made standard since all men would be bound to it?

Why would you throw in the "if they are not harming others" within
your post? As a Christian I agree with that, but it does seem to
suggest that value is now being forced upon other people if they
want it or not, since some do not value others in any fashion. The
journey is what it is, if all things are equal, why should someone
who does not value others be forced too? Is it because of tastes or
is there something we can call evil or bad, that regardless of how
people want to proceed with their lives, there really is a standard
of righteousness that is either being followed or rejected by them?

I don't believe in the Bible because it is 'good for me' I believe it
because I believe the truth is in there, it doesn’t matter if I like it or
not. There is good news for me in there, and the truth will set me
free, but it isn't because I fancy the Christian label on my life.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I don't believe I said you claimed those given to pleasure were good,
and I am sort of surprised that you label them pathological too. If
this is a journey and only the journey counts, why would seeking
pleasure in your opinion be considered flawed or something abnormal?
I fail to see that logic given the end results don't matter just getting
to the en will set me
free, but it isn't because I fancy the Christian label on my life.
Kelly

I don't believe I said you claimed those given to pleasure were good, and I am sort of surprised that you label them pathological too.

Maybe I wasn’t clear. Your phrase was “even if the only one getting the pleasure is seeking it at cost to others.” I said that such people “are likely to be labeled pathological” (e.g., a sociopath). I think we’re getting too complicated and talking past one another. I don’t have the qualifications to label diagnose pathological behavior. I wouldn’t label seeking pleasure itself as pathological.

Humans do quite a few evil things like murder, rape, torture, pillage, steal, and lie and so on it is in our nature.

I see we’re back to strictly morality...

Most humans also seem to see such acts as immoral—across religions and cultures. What percentage of any population condones or commits murder, rape, torture? So, I will argue that a sense of morality must be “in our nature,” as part of our consciousness, and collectively follows a statistical distribution. Note, however, that every single one of these examples is also anti-social. Human beings are generally social animals. It is not surprising that behavior that is socially destructive would come to be condemned.

Why would you throw in the "if they are not harming others" within your post? As a Christian I agree with that, but it does seem to suggest that value is now being forced upon other people if they want it or not, since some do not value others in any fashion.

Prohibiting behavior, not value. (See above.)

If all journeys are the same...

Once again, Kelly, all journeys are not the same. I don’t know why you keep saying that. You seem to be bugged by the notion that we all arrive at the same destination. You keep asserting that if we all just die, then every journey is the same. I guess if we all go to heaven every journey would be the same too? So there must be different destinations to make the journey different? To say that if the destination is the same, the journey must be the same is just not true.

I don't believe in the Bible because it is 'good for me' I believe it because I believe the truth is in there, it doesn’t matter if I like it or not.

I realize that; I never accused you otherwise. What I said was that that value decision could not be based on the Bible, but had to be based on experience and reason. Let me risk sounding sarcastic here—and I don’t want to be, I’m just trying to get this point across—and say, maybe your decision to accept Christ and the Bible is simply a matter of “personal tastes?” I mean what other standard did you have to go by to make that decision? If it’s “just personal tastes” for me, then it must have been for you as well?

Note: I’m not dismissing spiritual experience here; I’m questioning it as a ground for making a decision about religious and moral standards. It’s not only Christians that have such experiences. But maybe how we interpret such experiences is “just personal tastes”—and if it seems profoundly clear, maybe that is just because the pre-disposition of our “personal tastes” makes it appear so—so that I become a Buddhist and you become a Christian.

Just to be clear about what I think of your being a Christian: "May it be for you and others a path of blessing."

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]I don't believe I said you claimed those given to pleasure were good, and I am sort of surprised that you label them pathological too.

Maybe I wasn’t clear. Your phrase was “even if the only one getting the pleasure is seeking it at cost to others.” I said that such people “are likely to be labeled pathological” (e.g., a sociopath) ...[text shortened]... t I think of your being a Christian: "May it be for you and others a path of blessing."[/b]

I think we’re getting too complicated and talking past one another.
I agree, I think I ponder your post a little before I say anything.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
[b] I think we’re getting too complicated and talking past one another.
I agree, I think I ponder your post a little before I say anything.
Kelly[/b]

I need to take a bit of a break from here, anyway.

Be well, Kelly.

Stephen

Originally posted by bbarr
Nothing in my post entails either hedonism or moral relativism. Being an existentialist about meaning doesn't commit one to either of those theses. This is one of the many points you keep missing. The reason you keep making this mistake is because you think that unless there is some ultimate, eternal authority figure that dictates right and wrong, there wil ...[text shortened]... fantasy on your part, and results from your deep and abiding ignorance of secular moral theory.

I agree with you. There's no reason at all why existential Atheism can't lead to sound morality. The whole point of this argument is to get the Atheist thinking about why they find some morals more 'moral' than others. Who's arbitrating these decisions , you or your conscience. If it's your conscience then who gave you that? funny thing this conscience , it argues with you sometimes , almost as if some outside agency was giving you a prod?

Originally posted by knightmeister
I agree with you. There's no reason at all why existential Atheism can't lead to sound morality. The whole point of this argument is to get the Atheist thinking about why they find some morals more 'moral' than others. Who's arbitrating these decisions , you or your conscience. If it's your conscience then who gave you that? funny thing this conscience , it argues with you sometimes , almost as if some outside agency was giving you a prod?

An outside prod from, say, evolution?

Originally posted by Conrau K
An outside prod from, say, evolution?

Evolution speaks to you?
Kelly

Originally posted by knightmeister
I agree with you. There's no reason at all why existential Atheism can't lead to sound morality. The whole point of this argument is to get the Atheist thinking about why they find some morals more 'moral' than others. Who's arbitrating these decisions , you or your conscience. If it's your conscience then who gave you that? funny thing this conscience , it argues with you sometimes , almost as if some outside agency was giving you a prod?

I conduct my moral deliberations based on what I take to be my reasons. Of course this requires various capacities: rationality, sympathy, imagination, and the like. I see no reason to think that any agent at all gave these faculties to me. When I feel as though I'm arguing against myself, it feels like just that. It feels like I have some reasons weighing in favor of X and some in favor of Y and I go back and forth trying to determine what, all things considered, I ought to do. It certainly doesn't feel as though I really really want to do X but some mysterious force or agency keeps nagging me in favor of Y. That would evidence, as far as I'm concerned, of a deep lack of integrity. It is partly constitutive of being integrated that one be appropriately motivated to do what one takes to be the right thing to do.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Evolution speaks to you?
Kelly

No, but my conscience is a devlopment of evolution.