The assumption that nihilist is doomed to make a suicide is ridicules, only think what i can agree is being a nihilist there is the change you might go insane, and that is purely because being nihilist fight's against the whole idea "being human".
That is why i don't recommend nihilism to everyone, you need to have capacity to comprehend and understand the idea and after that being able to live with it.
You realize life is complete insanity. As Jean Paul Sartre put it "All human actions are equivalent . . . and . . . all are on principle doomed to failure" Ultimately Dostoevsky would classify you in the same category as Rakitin from the brothers karamazov.
@5heynen5 Yes, I do realize that, hence the title of the video. I think it is a myth that atheists are any more prone to the anxiety of the human condition than anyone else.
@LifeIsPietzsche Doestoevsky thinks that Nihilism taken to it's logical conclusion lead's to anxiety/Insanity. In the "Brothers Karamazov" Rakitin (an athiest) doesn't have anxiety for the fact that he's delusional from the ideology of the French Revolution "Freedom Equality Fraternity". Ivan discovers that humans can do nothing but act for sake of something they value. but since there isn't anything valuable their's no rational way he can live. Hence life is a contradiction.
You should read "Notes from the Underground" by Dostoevsky. He goes over why people like Ivan go insane. They wish to follow Nihilism to it's logical end. Nihilists think values are bullshit and lead you into a delusion. So you have to destroy values to solve that problem. but people can't doing anything but act for the sake of what they value. Hence men who act for a value like Christanity, Humanism , or Egoism are insane. once you are aware of that fact you know that anything you do insane
@5heynen5 I've read Notes from Underground three times. You ought to read Max Stirner's The Ego and His Own to get another perspective, he likewise claims that all ideologies lead to delusion. However, he makes an important distinction, it is delusion if you act for the sake of the thing you value rather than acting for the sake of YOUR valuing a thing; once you convince yourself that you are acting for a noble idea that is in some way transcendent of your value of it, then you delude yourself.
@LifeIsPietzsche Thanks. I'll look into that book. Sorry If I'm misinterpretating you, but if you realize that their values are B.S. then act for "Your valuing a thing" your asserting yourself as God or a "Superman". In that case you're at least pretending or subconsiously lying to your self that you have the ability to give things value, which is just as delusional Humanism or Christianity.
@5heynen5 Well, Stirner does not posit that each individual gives an *objective value* to things, but in a very real psychological sense, we each do create value that is not *consciously* chosen. Stirner's main point is that we each do in fact "create value" but that value is not an objective thing, it is an emergent thing, the *value* is not real in any sense apart from the *valuer*. I feel I'm not doing justice to Stirner's work, you really should read it, his ideas are very challenging.
As you say there is no reason for an atheist to abandon morality, but there is every reason for any intellectually honest atheist to admit that they value beliefs that they can not verify using empirical evidence.
I see this argument not as an attack on atheism but on hardcore skepticism. It is perfectly acceptable for an atheist to not believe in god but still believe in objective morality, it simply means that atheist should treat theism with respect or risk being a hypocrite.
We can't really know of what happens after death, if there is such of a thing as a spirit, though it is more logical to be a Nihilist than blindly following something such as an afterlife without thought.
Morality's a human conceptual construct. There's no question of that in my mind. I used to be a moral relativist & subjectivist, but not so much recently. I think morality can be viewed objectively if we identify the where it manifests from. I think life is self perpetuating and we are bound to that process. So morality is simply the most fruitful way of perpetuating that process in self conscious & social creatures. If you value that or not is subjective but, most instinctively do.
Im wondering what you think about his characters in the Brothers Karamazov. Like you say a lot of the atheists die or go crazy in his books. If we look at Alyosha, he is pretty much the only character (that I can think of) who does not face any prolonged serious misery, though he gets stressed out here and there of course. He is also the only character who acts of LOVE for what many
will call god but I prefer to call a greater than earthly truth. Other characters act with what at times is referred to as love but this "love" is for self or one other person, or for money or pride etc. A nihilist would probably agree that that acting for love of anything, be it god or sex or whiskey or puppies, or for that matter, acting not of love but of anger or whatever suits the person, will yield
comparable results in life as to misery or satisfaction, fear and comfort. I think Dostoevskt suggests, in making all his characters who act for things other than god go crazy, that there is only one way to act and one place to get morality from that will yield a comfortable mind. Acting in love is his version of god and is for his characters the only way to focus morality so that misery does not come from our choices.
submitting to the apalling rhetoric of the crucified faith: insinuous rabbi linguistically fashioned; lost in a false cause. Do open yourself up to the annoyance within, do not get lost in the pious!
Even granting your premise, I don't see how your conclusion follows. Regardless of the fact that no one follows the rules,... how does that invalidate the existence of the rulebook? Even if EVERYONE followed a relativistic moral model (preference/instinctive) for morality, and even individually believed that relativism were true, that would not invalidate the existence of an absolute moral reality.
@coachtaskmaster If that were the case, it would render the "Absolute moral reality" totally meaningless. What would an absolute morality mean if no one believed, followed, or knew of it??? Unless there are some measurable consequences and implications, in the real world, of not following the 'absolute morality' then it is worthless and as unfalsifiable as Russel's teapot. I could say it is absolutely immoral to drink green tea and you can't "invalidate the existence of this moral reality"
I believe I watched the same videos on nihilism and intellectual honesty which you reflect on in this video and I have come to similar conclusions. You can accept that morality is a construct without adhering to an ideology of anarchy or depression. Personal preferences such as such as humanism are popular due to our biology and societies and these are difficult structures to overcome.
Outside strange religious texts (Note: they aren't exhaustive concerning moral contexts), we have no way of discovering THE specific metaphysical morality. That means the whole discussion is pointless. We are genetically a socially cooperative creature for survival. Some of us are programmed badly. Pragmatism dissolves the false dichotomy between "Truth" and nihilism. We know it when we see it. We don't have to define it. If we have a hard time, then the issue is complex and uncertain. Ought IS!
Then there was Augustine, think it was in his "On Free Choice of the Will" who said that we are free to act so long as it doesn't infringe on another's rights (sorry to be vague it's been a while), but quite simply, if morality was arbitrary then we'd all be living in quite an alien world. Sure, it doesn't have to come from Christianity, and it's existence as such is a historical contingency, but the degradation of morals is a fear Dostoevsky had because he was truly a believer in Christianity.
@TheSageAndTheMouse I disagree my fiend, I'll keep it brief, but I say you've tragically flipped the cause with the effect to say that "the degradation of morals is a fear Dostoevsky had because he was truly a believer in Christianity." His desire for a "True" morality is why he was forced to settle with Christianity, and consequently why his writing is so ambivalent on the topic of religion, as opposed to morality (which he positively hungered for and couldn't justify outside religion).
@LifeIsPietzsche Yeah I see your argument about the direction of the argument but having studied Dostoevsky at Columbia University, having read all of his major novels, having read portions of his Writers Diary lets me be pretty confident he was a believer in God and Christianity. Which is actually, though I am not an atheist, a reason I feel his writing marred. Even Freud said Dostoevsky's novels are stunted by their Christian endings. His arguments are far more subtle, actually. (cont.)
For instance in The Idiot, the character Ippolit, the sick man suffering from "consumption" has a long discourse about why we suffer on Earth. Ippolit makes a distinction between Nature, and God. He says that though there may be a God, he is not one that can prevent the decay that Nature disperses to us all, as in the decay of the body, etc. There is no solution offered. In his Writers Diary, Dostoevsky specifically said, Belief in God does not mean belief in divine intervention of any kind.
There's a complicated thought that happens when you start thinking about these subtleties. As Sartre said, mimicking Dostoevsky, If there is no God, Everything is permitted. So if you take into account that Dost. said belief in God doesn't mean intervention, then suffering occurs anyways, with or w/o God. So if suffering occurs with our without God, yet without God everything is permitted, then what did Dost. believe? You tell me. That's the trick of an omniscient narrator, read his diaries.
@TheSage Well I know that Dostoevsky was a self identified Christian, I say he settled on it because it was the only way to (psychologically?) accommodate his ardent moral realism. This is why as you pointed out, "his writing [was] marred." As the conflicted Christian, he wrote about tortured atheists in his major works. Also, I believe it primarily was: 'if there is no immortality, then all is permitted' in The Brothers Karamazov. But I don't doubt he was and would claim to be a Christian.
@LifeIsPietzsche Yeah I don't remember that phrase honestly but if it is what you quote (the all is permitted quote) then that changes the meaning of the quote completely... In terms of whether or not he settled instead of "saw the light," I"m not sure but I'll keep an eye out for that, definitely important. But on the topic of your vid, I agree, it's a false dichotomy, cheers.
Hume would say (think it was Hume) that morality arrives as a consequence of sentiment, as in we have a natural predisposition to like or abhor something. Most people don't like being stabbed, therefore stabbing someone is seen as a morally unjust action, unless it is punitive, but then law comes in. I think the world would honestly self-combust is morality was a phantasm, it's not even a reasonable statement, the reasonableness is in how it arrives. Kant would say through reasoning..
Those of you versed in Ancient Philosophy will know Protagoras' only surviving statement: "Man is the measure" [of all things], which when interpreted as a relativist (I don't think anyone here is a nihilist but a relativist) makes him seem silly in some sense. As M.A. Screech wrote: " In the Theaetetus, Socrates treated Protagoras and his 'measure' as a clever man talking nonsense- otherwise how can the same wind be hot to one and cold to another?" Of course Hume would say morality (cont.)
@LifeIsPietzsche There is a package with a billion dollars in it. All you have to do is murder a defenseless child and the money is yours. You will never be caught and no one aside from u will ever know. If morals are arbitrary, u SHOULD do it and join the ranks of supermen. Would u? If you know that morals are arbitrary man-made constructions, it would be your weakness which prevents you.
You remain a spectator... This is not a false dichotomy; this is Nietzsche's Ubermensch.
@rgs11 Given the hypothetical, I can't make a sure declaration of what I would or would not do. However I suspect I would take the money and I'm pretty sure that the vast majority (probably 99%) of the population would do the same if they understood and saw how much money was at stake and truly understood the consequences.
@LifeIsPietzsche I can't imagine that 99% of the population would murder a child for a billion dollars in that hypotehtical. If you believe that, then you agree with the idea that God is what keeps us in check. Most people's moral conscience would prevent them from committing an act like that, regardless of how much money was involved. In fact, Ivan Karamazov condemns God for making children suffer. So even Ivan, as an atheist, would certainly not kill an innocent child either.
@pawnstar3 How does that mean that the idea of God keeps us in check??? I've never been offered a billion dollars to do anything and neither has 99.999% of the population. Incidentally, look at all the people who do kill children, does it even take $1 billion?? Humans can and do turn a blind eye to anything, usually / effectivel always for a whole lot less than $1 billion.
@LifeIsPietzsche I'm an atheist and don't believe that morality comes from religion. I got the impression that you felt the same way. But you seem to contradict that sentiment when you say that 99% of the population would kill an innocent child for a large sum of money if there was no absolute morality. I think the vast majority of the population right now (with or without belief in God) would not commit such an act. Sure people kill children, but only a fraction of a percent.
@pawnstar3 I think you misunderstood my point. I contend that as a matter of fact "every man has a price" specifically because there is NOT a true objective morality. Anyone can be convinced to do something they consider to be absolutely immoral if the circumstances are right, that's because there is no real objective right or wrong.
@LifeIsPietzsche I agree with you about there being no objective morality. But since there's no objective morality, what makes us choose between right and wrong? To me, that comes down to people's innate sense of what is right or wrong and what is good for society as a whole. I don't think most people's consciences would allow them to murder an innocent child. If the circumstances are right, then people can definitely commit "evil" acts. But in that example I just don't think most ppl would
@pawnstar3 Because there's no morality we choose 'right / wrong' based on emotional states and utility. We all turn a blind eye to the children who suffer and die in sweat shops to make many of our commonly used products. If we ignore this for the sake of convenience, we'd do the dirty work our selves for some serious power / money. Look how the powerful corporate and political elites killed hundreds of thousands of civilians for contracts / oil in Iraq, then tell me people have conscience's.
@LifeIsPietzsche You seem to be speaking from a utilitarian standpoint, which I support for the most part. But there's a huge difference between society not getting involved in certain evil or immoral acts and someone commiting an atrocious act themselves. The citizens of Nazi Germany aren't held as accountable as the SS guards who placed the Jews in ovens. There are varying degrees of evil; murdering a child for personal gain should be deemed immoral especially from a utilitarian perspective
@pawnstar3 you must be joking, a utilitarian would rationalize by saying "imagine all the people I could help with all the power I have within my grasp, I just must sacrifice this one insignificant child." But I most certainly am not a utilitarian in the collective sense, I find that acting for "the greatest good of the greatest number" laughable.
@pawnstar3 You're assuming that the person's motivation for killing the child was to somehow better society. If anything, the act itself seems more selfish and/or nihilistic. I find it hard to believe that someone who is socially conscious would be willing to murder an innocent child. Utilitarianism is about the majority of society as a whole benefiting - how does one person inheriting a billion dollars ensure that society would benefit from that?
Sorry, don't mean to comment at great length, since youtube is not really the medium for extended discussion, but if one looks at conscience itself, as in the mental force that propels one to act morally as a consequence of the unpleasantness of guilt (to name but one emotion) then one will see we are not Absolutely Free. In fact Heidegger calls for (Dostoevsky was a philosopher And a novelist by the way) an appeal to Authenticity as resulting from guilt.. well, it's very complicated but yea.
Though I think Nietzsche certainly blundered in delimiting Absolute Freedom, even in layman's terms.. meaning, we are not Absolutely Free in no way shape or form, I do value his dissection of Christianity and if Nietzsche is supplemented by Freud's Moses and Monotheism the necessity of the Abrahamic tradition will fade.. nonetheless Dostoevsky, I believe, lamented the influx of incredulity that swept Russia and Western Europe in his lifetime.
Dostoevsky rejected nihilism and atheism because he felt that the absence of a binding moral code (which in his world was the Christian one) [which he certainly thought did exist and did NOT think was any kind of illusion (!)] lead to a selfish world in which everyone worked only towards self-preservation. Thus when Nietzsche famously misread Dostoevsky and proclaimed that God is Dead therefore we have Absolute Freedom he paved the way for what Dostoevsky warned against..
It doesn't follow that atheism leads to a nihilistic depression.
If you are an atheist you must concede that no binding moral assertions can be made - this may or may not cause depression but you are left with your will whose manifestations will either further depression, alleviate it or bring about no change.
Why can't morality be contrived as something extraneous to religion? Yes, Dostoevsky's protagonists are silent, embittered men caught up in a certain dichotomy of reason and searching endlessly for answers. I do not believe that one must be religious to be moral, because religiosity is really just a form of theistic morality which may be just as easily enforced by secular incentives. Ayn Rand said that Christianity is a kindergarten for communism. I see that as mainly true.
dostoevsky made the point that moral laws and barriers are as real as barriers made of....barbed wire. going through either is bruising. hence his "tortured atheists" who attempt it.
you *prefer* (with reason unexplained but bc vaguely of genetic etc lol) to sit on one side of it (same side as moralists) w/o moving & say there is no barrier & going through is not bruising. lol
@hammertapping I was reading your comments and Dostoevsky is my intellectual hero. I agree with his statement but im interested to hear what you think about his theory.
@hammertapping well said. dostoevsky writes about people who actually act on their beliefs. His characters aren't talking themselves into it; they're passed the phase the poster is in. The question for the poster is simple: There is a package with a billion dollars in it. All you have to do is murder a defenseless child and the money is yours. You will never be caught and no one aside from u will ever know. If morals are arbitrary, u SHOULD do it and join the ranks of supermen. Would u?
again i will make a point i made throughout (& you miss) with ref to preference for truth too.
you are free to make a preference. that does not matter to anyone else.
but you do more, you argue that you are right & prefer truth. ie. you are asking readers to judge your rightness, rationality, truthfulness, factualness etc etc. if you are amoral and don't care (& if you really think it is a purely personal choice ) you will not be making your case.
@hammertapping Well, I'm not in any way "justifying" my actions, I enjoy arguing and making videos from time to time. The difference between me and the Joker is preference, he does things I prefer not to do, so I don't do them, clearly there is a difference. I should certainly care what others do because it invariably affects me, but as far as the videos go, I just like it, so I'm just being me I guess.
but don't explain anything, doing so undermine your argument that there is no morality.
you are free to prefer any action. but to argue or explain(even as in 'i prefer that') or saying action x will not lead to depression as others say etc etc (basically all you say in video) - all contradictory.
but you enjoy argument ? bc you being right and rational is enjoyable? oops morality peeks from that enjoyment . lol
@hammertapping Ummmm... Ok, you've managed to make very little of anything here. Morality has nothing to do with enjoyment or preference, thats kind of the whole point of morality, you know, that its independent of anyone's feelings or preferences. Jesus Christ, you are possibly the most retarded person I've ever seen discuss this topic. Who taught you how to use the word 'morality' or what it means? You need to go back and ask again, you clearly missed about eleven steps in the lesson.
@hammertapping Oh man, I don't know how to express the degree of stupidity you wear like a medal. Value =/= Morality, I can't put that any clearer. Value is a corollary of normative decision making, but that isn't morality either. I'd call you intellectually dishonest right back, but I don't think you have the competence to intentionally deceive. To save some time, morality as I've been discussing is a *metaphysical 'ought,' or a 'good' for its own sake.
@LifeIsPietzsche lol go ahead call me stupid repeating your earlier remark calling me retarded. somebody is feeling insecure .
no matter how many words you use to get out of the pit you have dug yourself you can't. all attempts to argue and prove that you are 'right' only makes my point. you believe in right and wrong; a right and wrong that can be /need to be judged by others (such as readers here). a totally amoral person would not argue, there will be no need.
@hammertapping Ok man, now you are conflating the concept of truth with morality by using "right and wrong" in the context of 'factually correct or incorrect' and then using it again in the context of 'right and wrong' in a moral ought sense. This is known as the logical fallacy of equivocation. Truth=/=Morality, I can't say that any clearer. Why again shouldn't I argue? Why are you saying that I shouldn't PREFER fact to error? or PREFER that others are correct rather than mistaken?
@hammertapping Once again, you conflate morality with truth. Yes, I prefer truth to falsehood, I prefer facts to mistakes, I prefer that others are correct rather than incorrect; and none of these preferences / subjective values have anything to do with any objective morality. What you are essentially saying is that morality is the same as preference, that if I choose chocolate over vanilla it is a moral choice. Also, arguments are ABOUT facts, it is implicitly obvious that arguers prefer truth.
@hammertapping You want to know why I prefer something over another? Chalk it up to genetics or environment, I don't really care, it doesn't at all matter why I prefer truth to falsity, the fact is that I do, you can try to psychoanalyze to find the cause if you want but that is neither here nor there, again its like asking why I prefer chocolate to vanilla, who cares why? It has nothing to do with this issue.
so now according to you preference for truthfulness is as objective as preference for a physical sensation of taste and arise from analyzable objective causes ( such as genetics)? lol. ok
is preference for truthfulness a moral choice according to you?
regardless whether it is or not , do you think that moral choices (eg. preference for altruism) have such causes too?
i did not say morality is preference (anymore than morality is truth). both statements are figments of your imagination.
i clearly said (read!)--
'prefer! act!' etc. but an amoral person would not explain or argue at all, as you do, he/she will simply choose and act. you still miss the obvious, ...dishonestly.
@hammertapping Good god man!! Me arguing IS ME CHOOSING, PREFERRING, AND ACTING!! Thats what I've been saying the whole time!! Me arguing is me choosing to act based on my preference to argue!! I prefer that others not make fallacious arguments, so I choose to act (argue back) based on that preference. You have done nothing but tell me repeatedly that my *preference / choice / action* somehow proves that I believe in morality. What does explaining have to do with morality? Its just an action!!
in-spiste of my request you yet to provide quotes to back up your false claims about what i said. shame! lol
why do you lie?
you still willfully miss the point i clearly made .
i never said your "*preference / choice / action* somehow proves that I believe in morality." not at all. i said your attempting to explain & argue your preference etc proves you are not an amoral person .
sorry to see you deliberately and dishonestly miss the point
the dichotomy usually comes from theists with a sort of platonic foundationalistic metaphysics. that meaning and ethical standards are metaphysically a-priori regarding human consciousness and existence which, simultaneously, is usually a foundation for the existence of god.
whenever i argue this i start off by pointing out that these latent premeses are shaky, to say the least.
my contention is that meaning and morality being a posteriori of human existence does not make it relative.
I appreciate how thoughtful and honest your comments are. You have successfully zeroed in on "the grey area" between nihilism and religion. There is a place of inner freedom within, and absent of institutionalized thinking. I myself realize that one can find the truth of existence without religion or the fear of a terrible end terrible end. There is a transcendent state, real freedom . One has only to look deeply to find it. Reality is more than our own mind. Find it for yourself inside.
"So a secular humanist who is convinced in a metaphysical value of a humanity as a whole is just as same as the Christians who is convinced in the metaphysical morality of God. Their both ilusions."
THANK YOU
this is my point exactly , atheist are equally rational /irrational as christians, well at least the more intellectual ones.
About depression and despair... well, I think despair is necessarily an outcome of atheism since the implications of oblivion, individually and cosmically, are *desperate* and *surreal* to our existence. To not be aware of this anxiety is to put up a subjective illusion, and I think you admit it yourself when you talk about "perceptions."
Despair / depression are subjective, perhaps you noticed that I said "there's no REASON to be depressed." You may be subject to irrational depression, but that should be dealt with as such. Being depressed about oblivion is like being depressed about not having 4 legs, get over it, if you can't then be a Christian, I guess, or just make up something else to make yourself feel better. At any rate, I don't lose much sleep thinking about oblivion while I don't for a second think I can escape it.
@LifeIsPietzsche I don't think I understand your reasoning. The existential reality of nihilism (i.e., all is for naught) is suffocating, or, at least, should be to anyone honest enough to face it directly. It's implications are *desperate*, and I don't understand how its anxiety could be irrational.
"Desperate" you say? How is it desperate? In what manner? It is nothing to "face" nihilism, it is honest to accept it and not at all suffocating, at least not to me and I can't possibly speak for anyone else. Again, depression is subjective, desperation is subjective; and again bemoaning an immutable state of reality is completely irrational.
I think you misunderstood the latter video. He wasn't saying that an atheist will inevitably be lead to iniquity (in fact, I think he clears this up in the beginning of his comments). What he's saying is that to be an atheist is to have no claim to true value. You can put up a subjective illusion of morality, like Batman, but you will have to recognize that since you have no claim to truth, you have to be silent when the Joker sees through your illusion and recognizes that it is not binding.
What I was trying to get across is that an 'atheist' needs no morality to oppose a Joker, a pragmatic desire to be safe needs no objective morality. Similarly, a subjective illusion, as you put it, is EXACTLY THE SAME as a subjective illusion of an objective standard (i.e. a divine or metaphysical moral system) in that both are used to justify / rationalize the same pragmatic desires (like the desire to be safe, or live in a world of kind / loving people). Illusions are inefficient due to dogma.
@LifeIsPietzsche Right, you can oppose him, but you will have no real recourse other than brute force when the Joker does not find binding the morality of your opposition. Personally, I am almost disturbed that anyone can even consider such a deconstruction and tearing down of reality, but what do I know?
I'm not too sure how to respond to your latter comments.
@LifeIsPietzsche Right, you can oppose him, but you will have no real recourse other than brute force when the Joker does not find binding the morality of your opposition. Personally, I am almost disturbed that anyone can even consider such a deconstruction and tearing down of reality, but what do I know?
I'm not too sure how to respond to your latter comments.
I just posted a short video which touches a bit on Dostoevsky's faith. I think he was an atheist from an intellectual standpoint, but he CHOSE to believe in God because he feared the consequences of not believing (like the insanity of his characters) and he thought it was easier to justify suffering in the world if there was a God- the existence of God makes suffering on earth easier to handle since there is a greater good in store(afterlife)- i disagree with his stance on that however
Objective morality is possible, it's just that it's based on conditionals. I think this is the only way that objective morality is possible. It is objective in the sense that it has truth value, but suffice to say, granted it is conditional, it is not a universal ethic (which is of course impossible).
I prefer to say that to those types that like to use Dostoevsky and Nietzsche cards.
I also prefer to make an internal critique. Notice how they never say how God makes objective morals?
Well I agree that 'Morality' objectively exists as a concept; but I was referring to the idea of morality as objective AND metaphysically prescriptive. Any other definition for morality would not satisfy the theists, generally speaking.
I also agree that 'god does not give a real base for morality.
Then morality is impossible. Either way, they lose.
Then we just have an appeal to consequences game which we will still win. Fortunate for atheists, we don't have a warrant for any idiot who thinks God tells us to kill our son.
By the way, I know that you don't agree that god gives a real base for morality. What I'm saying is, ask them how god serves a metaphysically prescriptive and objective system of ethics because then you get to wipe that smug grin off.
What I meant was that even if god did exist, it still would not mean there was an objective morality, thats what I was agreeing to. I think its a good point that does not get made enough.
Fuck making the point to them, just ask them to explain how he guarantees objective morality, then you get to watch them squirm and blather like retards, which is more win than scoring any legitimate point ever was (they'll just deny it anyway).
@Redfingers I do think that near universal morality is possible to achieve, but without changing the environment we live in...... we're pissing in the wind.
Environment directly influences our behavior, and if the social and economic system we have in place is decoupled from equality, fairness, sustainability and equal access to the necessities for survival, it cannot be achieved.
Venus project (dot) com The positive possibilities are staggering!
The assumption that nihilist is doomed to make a suicide is ridicules, only think what i can agree is being a nihilist there is the change you might go insane, and that is purely because being nihilist fight's against the whole idea "being human".
That is why i don't recommend nihilism to everyone, you need to have capacity to comprehend and understand the idea and after that being able to live with it.
TheAzall 13 hours ago
You realize life is complete insanity. As Jean Paul Sartre put it "All human actions are equivalent . . . and . . . all are on principle doomed to failure" Ultimately Dostoevsky would classify you in the same category as Rakitin from the brothers karamazov.
5heynen5 2 weeks ago
@5heynen5 Yes, I do realize that, hence the title of the video. I think it is a myth that atheists are any more prone to the anxiety of the human condition than anyone else.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 week ago
@LifeIsPietzsche Doestoevsky thinks that Nihilism taken to it's logical conclusion lead's to anxiety/Insanity. In the "Brothers Karamazov" Rakitin (an athiest) doesn't have anxiety for the fact that he's delusional from the ideology of the French Revolution "Freedom Equality Fraternity". Ivan discovers that humans can do nothing but act for sake of something they value. but since there isn't anything valuable their's no rational way he can live. Hence life is a contradiction.
5heynen5 1 week ago
You should read "Notes from the Underground" by Dostoevsky. He goes over why people like Ivan go insane. They wish to follow Nihilism to it's logical end. Nihilists think values are bullshit and lead you into a delusion. So you have to destroy values to solve that problem. but people can't doing anything but act for the sake of what they value. Hence men who act for a value like Christanity, Humanism , or Egoism are insane. once you are aware of that fact you know that anything you do insane
5heynen5 2 weeks ago
@5heynen5 I've read Notes from Underground three times. You ought to read Max Stirner's The Ego and His Own to get another perspective, he likewise claims that all ideologies lead to delusion. However, he makes an important distinction, it is delusion if you act for the sake of the thing you value rather than acting for the sake of YOUR valuing a thing; once you convince yourself that you are acting for a noble idea that is in some way transcendent of your value of it, then you delude yourself.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 week ago
@LifeIsPietzsche Thanks. I'll look into that book. Sorry If I'm misinterpretating you, but if you realize that their values are B.S. then act for "Your valuing a thing" your asserting yourself as God or a "Superman". In that case you're at least pretending or subconsiously lying to your self that you have the ability to give things value, which is just as delusional Humanism or Christianity.
5heynen5 1 week ago
@5heynen5 Well, Stirner does not posit that each individual gives an *objective value* to things, but in a very real psychological sense, we each do create value that is not *consciously* chosen. Stirner's main point is that we each do in fact "create value" but that value is not an objective thing, it is an emergent thing, the *value* is not real in any sense apart from the *valuer*. I feel I'm not doing justice to Stirner's work, you really should read it, his ideas are very challenging.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 week ago
As you say there is no reason for an atheist to abandon morality, but there is every reason for any intellectually honest atheist to admit that they value beliefs that they can not verify using empirical evidence.
I see this argument not as an attack on atheism but on hardcore skepticism. It is perfectly acceptable for an atheist to not believe in god but still believe in objective morality, it simply means that atheist should treat theism with respect or risk being a hypocrite.
Gorzakk 3 weeks ago
We can't really know of what happens after death, if there is such of a thing as a spirit, though it is more logical to be a Nihilist than blindly following something such as an afterlife without thought.
PokeyMeansBusiness 3 months ago
Morality's a human conceptual construct. There's no question of that in my mind. I used to be a moral relativist & subjectivist, but not so much recently. I think morality can be viewed objectively if we identify the where it manifests from. I think life is self perpetuating and we are bound to that process. So morality is simply the most fruitful way of perpetuating that process in self conscious & social creatures. If you value that or not is subjective but, most instinctively do.
MrLittletomdj 3 months ago
Comment removed
MrLittletomdj 3 months ago
Im wondering what you think about his characters in the Brothers Karamazov. Like you say a lot of the atheists die or go crazy in his books. If we look at Alyosha, he is pretty much the only character (that I can think of) who does not face any prolonged serious misery, though he gets stressed out here and there of course. He is also the only character who acts of LOVE for what many
buddycathedral 5 months ago
will call god but I prefer to call a greater than earthly truth. Other characters act with what at times is referred to as love but this "love" is for self or one other person, or for money or pride etc. A nihilist would probably agree that that acting for love of anything, be it god or sex or whiskey or puppies, or for that matter, acting not of love but of anger or whatever suits the person, will yield
buddycathedral 5 months ago
comparable results in life as to misery or satisfaction, fear and comfort. I think Dostoevskt suggests, in making all his characters who act for things other than god go crazy, that there is only one way to act and one place to get morality from that will yield a comfortable mind. Acting in love is his version of god and is for his characters the only way to focus morality so that misery does not come from our choices.
buddycathedral 5 months ago
submitting to the apalling rhetoric of the crucified faith: insinuous rabbi linguistically fashioned; lost in a false cause. Do open yourself up to the annoyance within, do not get lost in the pious!
in2dionysus 5 months ago
your walls don't match.
gkraychik 8 months ago
@gkraychik Nope
LifeIsPietzsche 8 months ago
Interesting video, liked it very much.
123backinyerface 9 months ago
Do I really sound like that when I rant? Because if I do I need to see a therapist.
ddd1600 10 months ago
@ddd1600 Who are you talking to?
LifeIsPietzsche 10 months ago
Even granting your premise, I don't see how your conclusion follows. Regardless of the fact that no one follows the rules,... how does that invalidate the existence of the rulebook? Even if EVERYONE followed a relativistic moral model (preference/instinctive) for morality, and even individually believed that relativism were true, that would not invalidate the existence of an absolute moral reality.
coachtaskmaster 1 year ago
@coachtaskmaster If that were the case, it would render the "Absolute moral reality" totally meaningless. What would an absolute morality mean if no one believed, followed, or knew of it??? Unless there are some measurable consequences and implications, in the real world, of not following the 'absolute morality' then it is worthless and as unfalsifiable as Russel's teapot. I could say it is absolutely immoral to drink green tea and you can't "invalidate the existence of this moral reality"
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
I believe I watched the same videos on nihilism and intellectual honesty which you reflect on in this video and I have come to similar conclusions. You can accept that morality is a construct without adhering to an ideology of anarchy or depression. Personal preferences such as such as humanism are popular due to our biology and societies and these are difficult structures to overcome.
anthropologystudent 1 year ago
Outside strange religious texts (Note: they aren't exhaustive concerning moral contexts), we have no way of discovering THE specific metaphysical morality. That means the whole discussion is pointless. We are genetically a socially cooperative creature for survival. Some of us are programmed badly. Pragmatism dissolves the false dichotomy between "Truth" and nihilism. We know it when we see it. We don't have to define it. If we have a hard time, then the issue is complex and uncertain. Ought IS!
mateo3470 1 year ago
Then there was Augustine, think it was in his "On Free Choice of the Will" who said that we are free to act so long as it doesn't infringe on another's rights (sorry to be vague it's been a while), but quite simply, if morality was arbitrary then we'd all be living in quite an alien world. Sure, it doesn't have to come from Christianity, and it's existence as such is a historical contingency, but the degradation of morals is a fear Dostoevsky had because he was truly a believer in Christianity.
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
@TheSageAndTheMouse I disagree my fiend, I'll keep it brief, but I say you've tragically flipped the cause with the effect to say that "the degradation of morals is a fear Dostoevsky had because he was truly a believer in Christianity." His desire for a "True" morality is why he was forced to settle with Christianity, and consequently why his writing is so ambivalent on the topic of religion, as opposed to morality (which he positively hungered for and couldn't justify outside religion).
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche Yeah I see your argument about the direction of the argument but having studied Dostoevsky at Columbia University, having read all of his major novels, having read portions of his Writers Diary lets me be pretty confident he was a believer in God and Christianity. Which is actually, though I am not an atheist, a reason I feel his writing marred. Even Freud said Dostoevsky's novels are stunted by their Christian endings. His arguments are far more subtle, actually. (cont.)
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
For instance in The Idiot, the character Ippolit, the sick man suffering from "consumption" has a long discourse about why we suffer on Earth. Ippolit makes a distinction between Nature, and God. He says that though there may be a God, he is not one that can prevent the decay that Nature disperses to us all, as in the decay of the body, etc. There is no solution offered. In his Writers Diary, Dostoevsky specifically said, Belief in God does not mean belief in divine intervention of any kind.
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
There's a complicated thought that happens when you start thinking about these subtleties. As Sartre said, mimicking Dostoevsky, If there is no God, Everything is permitted. So if you take into account that Dost. said belief in God doesn't mean intervention, then suffering occurs anyways, with or w/o God. So if suffering occurs with our without God, yet without God everything is permitted, then what did Dost. believe? You tell me. That's the trick of an omniscient narrator, read his diaries.
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
@TheSage Well I know that Dostoevsky was a self identified Christian, I say he settled on it because it was the only way to (psychologically?) accommodate his ardent moral realism. This is why as you pointed out, "his writing [was] marred." As the conflicted Christian, he wrote about tortured atheists in his major works. Also, I believe it primarily was: 'if there is no immortality, then all is permitted' in The Brothers Karamazov. But I don't doubt he was and would claim to be a Christian.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche Yeah I don't remember that phrase honestly but if it is what you quote (the all is permitted quote) then that changes the meaning of the quote completely... In terms of whether or not he settled instead of "saw the light," I"m not sure but I'll keep an eye out for that, definitely important. But on the topic of your vid, I agree, it's a false dichotomy, cheers.
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
Hume would say (think it was Hume) that morality arrives as a consequence of sentiment, as in we have a natural predisposition to like or abhor something. Most people don't like being stabbed, therefore stabbing someone is seen as a morally unjust action, unless it is punitive, but then law comes in. I think the world would honestly self-combust is morality was a phantasm, it's not even a reasonable statement, the reasonableness is in how it arrives. Kant would say through reasoning..
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
Those of you versed in Ancient Philosophy will know Protagoras' only surviving statement: "Man is the measure" [of all things], which when interpreted as a relativist (I don't think anyone here is a nihilist but a relativist) makes him seem silly in some sense. As M.A. Screech wrote: " In the Theaetetus, Socrates treated Protagoras and his 'measure' as a clever man talking nonsense- otherwise how can the same wind be hot to one and cold to another?" Of course Hume would say morality (cont.)
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche There is a package with a billion dollars in it. All you have to do is murder a defenseless child and the money is yours. You will never be caught and no one aside from u will ever know. If morals are arbitrary, u SHOULD do it and join the ranks of supermen. Would u? If you know that morals are arbitrary man-made constructions, it would be your weakness which prevents you.
You remain a spectator... This is not a false dichotomy; this is Nietzsche's Ubermensch.
rgs11 1 year ago
@rgs11 Given the hypothetical, I can't make a sure declaration of what I would or would not do. However I suspect I would take the money and I'm pretty sure that the vast majority (probably 99%) of the population would do the same if they understood and saw how much money was at stake and truly understood the consequences.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche I can't imagine that 99% of the population would murder a child for a billion dollars in that hypotehtical. If you believe that, then you agree with the idea that God is what keeps us in check. Most people's moral conscience would prevent them from committing an act like that, regardless of how much money was involved. In fact, Ivan Karamazov condemns God for making children suffer. So even Ivan, as an atheist, would certainly not kill an innocent child either.
pawnstar3 1 year ago
@pawnstar3 How does that mean that the idea of God keeps us in check??? I've never been offered a billion dollars to do anything and neither has 99.999% of the population. Incidentally, look at all the people who do kill children, does it even take $1 billion?? Humans can and do turn a blind eye to anything, usually / effectivel always for a whole lot less than $1 billion.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche I'm an atheist and don't believe that morality comes from religion. I got the impression that you felt the same way. But you seem to contradict that sentiment when you say that 99% of the population would kill an innocent child for a large sum of money if there was no absolute morality. I think the vast majority of the population right now (with or without belief in God) would not commit such an act. Sure people kill children, but only a fraction of a percent.
pawnstar3 1 year ago
@pawnstar3 I think you misunderstood my point. I contend that as a matter of fact "every man has a price" specifically because there is NOT a true objective morality. Anyone can be convinced to do something they consider to be absolutely immoral if the circumstances are right, that's because there is no real objective right or wrong.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche I agree with you about there being no objective morality. But since there's no objective morality, what makes us choose between right and wrong? To me, that comes down to people's innate sense of what is right or wrong and what is good for society as a whole. I don't think most people's consciences would allow them to murder an innocent child. If the circumstances are right, then people can definitely commit "evil" acts. But in that example I just don't think most ppl would
pawnstar3 1 year ago
@pawnstar3 Because there's no morality we choose 'right / wrong' based on emotional states and utility. We all turn a blind eye to the children who suffer and die in sweat shops to make many of our commonly used products. If we ignore this for the sake of convenience, we'd do the dirty work our selves for some serious power / money. Look how the powerful corporate and political elites killed hundreds of thousands of civilians for contracts / oil in Iraq, then tell me people have conscience's.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche You seem to be speaking from a utilitarian standpoint, which I support for the most part. But there's a huge difference between society not getting involved in certain evil or immoral acts and someone commiting an atrocious act themselves. The citizens of Nazi Germany aren't held as accountable as the SS guards who placed the Jews in ovens. There are varying degrees of evil; murdering a child for personal gain should be deemed immoral especially from a utilitarian perspective
pawnstar3 1 year ago
@pawnstar3 you must be joking, a utilitarian would rationalize by saying "imagine all the people I could help with all the power I have within my grasp, I just must sacrifice this one insignificant child." But I most certainly am not a utilitarian in the collective sense, I find that acting for "the greatest good of the greatest number" laughable.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@pawnstar3 You're assuming that the person's motivation for killing the child was to somehow better society. If anything, the act itself seems more selfish and/or nihilistic. I find it hard to believe that someone who is socially conscious would be willing to murder an innocent child. Utilitarianism is about the majority of society as a whole benefiting - how does one person inheriting a billion dollars ensure that society would benefit from that?
pawnstar3 1 year ago
Sorry, don't mean to comment at great length, since youtube is not really the medium for extended discussion, but if one looks at conscience itself, as in the mental force that propels one to act morally as a consequence of the unpleasantness of guilt (to name but one emotion) then one will see we are not Absolutely Free. In fact Heidegger calls for (Dostoevsky was a philosopher And a novelist by the way) an appeal to Authenticity as resulting from guilt.. well, it's very complicated but yea.
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
Though I think Nietzsche certainly blundered in delimiting Absolute Freedom, even in layman's terms.. meaning, we are not Absolutely Free in no way shape or form, I do value his dissection of Christianity and if Nietzsche is supplemented by Freud's Moses and Monotheism the necessity of the Abrahamic tradition will fade.. nonetheless Dostoevsky, I believe, lamented the influx of incredulity that swept Russia and Western Europe in his lifetime.
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
Dostoevsky rejected nihilism and atheism because he felt that the absence of a binding moral code (which in his world was the Christian one) [which he certainly thought did exist and did NOT think was any kind of illusion (!)] lead to a selfish world in which everyone worked only towards self-preservation. Thus when Nietzsche famously misread Dostoevsky and proclaimed that God is Dead therefore we have Absolute Freedom he paved the way for what Dostoevsky warned against..
TheSageAndTheMouse 1 year ago
It doesn't follow that atheism leads to a nihilistic depression.
If you are an atheist you must concede that no binding moral assertions can be made - this may or may not cause depression but you are left with your will whose manifestations will either further depression, alleviate it or bring about no change.
belfastsamurai 1 year ago
Why can't morality be contrived as something extraneous to religion? Yes, Dostoevsky's protagonists are silent, embittered men caught up in a certain dichotomy of reason and searching endlessly for answers. I do not believe that one must be religious to be moral, because religiosity is really just a form of theistic morality which may be just as easily enforced by secular incentives. Ayn Rand said that Christianity is a kindergarten for communism. I see that as mainly true.
mouseofcards89 1 year ago
finally to come back to video,
dostoevsky made the point that moral laws and barriers are as real as barriers made of....barbed wire. going through either is bruising. hence his "tortured atheists" who attempt it.
you *prefer* (with reason unexplained but bc vaguely of genetic etc lol) to sit on one side of it (same side as moralists) w/o moving & say there is no barrier & going through is not bruising. lol
hammertapping 1 year ago
@hammertapping I was reading your comments and Dostoevsky is my intellectual hero. I agree with his statement but im interested to hear what you think about his theory.
yehudaful1 1 year ago
@hammertapping well said. dostoevsky writes about people who actually act on their beliefs. His characters aren't talking themselves into it; they're passed the phase the poster is in. The question for the poster is simple: There is a package with a billion dollars in it. All you have to do is murder a defenseless child and the money is yours. You will never be caught and no one aside from u will ever know. If morals are arbitrary, u SHOULD do it and join the ranks of supermen. Would u?
rgs11 1 year ago
again i will make a point i made throughout (& you miss) with ref to preference for truth too.
you are free to make a preference. that does not matter to anyone else.
but you do more, you argue that you are right & prefer truth. ie. you are asking readers to judge your rightness, rationality, truthfulness, factualness etc etc. if you are amoral and don't care (& if you really think it is a purely personal choice ) you will not be making your case.
as i said, a tiger will not make his case.
hammertapping 1 year ago
more self deception. and lots of contradictions.
you are denying reality
why do you think there is any difference between acting like 'joker and acting like you ? if there is no morality there isn't any diff.
why are you justifying your actions? if you really think morality is not reality why are you making videos?
just be you. let others be them.
just don't care about whatever they do ( certainly not care enough to make vodoes in reply to others ). there is no diff between all actions
hammertapping 1 year ago
@hammertapping Well, I'm not in any way "justifying" my actions, I enjoy arguing and making videos from time to time. The difference between me and the Joker is preference, he does things I prefer not to do, so I don't do them, clearly there is a difference. I should certainly care what others do because it invariably affects me, but as far as the videos go, I just like it, so I'm just being me I guess.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche lol
prefer ! act !
by all means
but don't explain anything, doing so undermine your argument that there is no morality.
you are free to prefer any action. but to argue or explain(even as in 'i prefer that') or saying action x will not lead to depression as others say etc etc (basically all you say in video) - all contradictory.
but you enjoy argument ? bc you being right and rational is enjoyable? oops morality peeks from that enjoyment . lol
just be. don't argue.
hammertapping 1 year ago
@hammertapping Ummmm... Ok, you've managed to make very little of anything here. Morality has nothing to do with enjoyment or preference, thats kind of the whole point of morality, you know, that its independent of anyone's feelings or preferences. Jesus Christ, you are possibly the most retarded person I've ever seen discuss this topic. Who taught you how to use the word 'morality' or what it means? You need to go back and ask again, you clearly missed about eleven steps in the lesson.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche lol. how touching! you deliberately miss the point.
as i said before (and you ignored like all intellectually dishonest ppl) preference or action by itself does not mean anything. so act and prefer!
it is your arguing and explaining that contradict your claim that there is no morality; not what you do or say, but that you choose to argue.
by making arguments you admit values on which to judge your arguments.
and if it helps sooth your moral confusion, i am retarded. lol
hammertapping 1 year ago
@hammertapping Oh man, I don't know how to express the degree of stupidity you wear like a medal. Value =/= Morality, I can't put that any clearer. Value is a corollary of normative decision making, but that isn't morality either. I'd call you intellectually dishonest right back, but I don't think you have the competence to intentionally deceive. To save some time, morality as I've been discussing is a *metaphysical 'ought,' or a 'good' for its own sake.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche lol go ahead call me stupid repeating your earlier remark calling me retarded. somebody is feeling insecure .
no matter how many words you use to get out of the pit you have dug yourself you can't. all attempts to argue and prove that you are 'right' only makes my point. you believe in right and wrong; a right and wrong that can be /need to be judged by others (such as readers here). a totally amoral person would not argue, there will be no need.
a tiger would not argue.
hammertapping 1 year ago
@hammertapping Ok man, now you are conflating the concept of truth with morality by using "right and wrong" in the context of 'factually correct or incorrect' and then using it again in the context of 'right and wrong' in a moral ought sense. This is known as the logical fallacy of equivocation. Truth=/=Morality, I can't say that any clearer. Why again shouldn't I argue? Why are you saying that I shouldn't PREFER fact to error? or PREFER that others are correct rather than mistaken?
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche if anyone is making a mistake, it is you.
arguments are not 'truth' or 'facts' . you are making arguments for you case not stating facts.
btw do you value 'truth' higher than 'fallacy'?
why? lol
an amoral person will not make even the distinction.
hammertapping 1 year ago
@hammertapping Once again, you conflate morality with truth. Yes, I prefer truth to falsehood, I prefer facts to mistakes, I prefer that others are correct rather than incorrect; and none of these preferences / subjective values have anything to do with any objective morality. What you are essentially saying is that morality is the same as preference, that if I choose chocolate over vanilla it is a moral choice. Also, arguments are ABOUT facts, it is implicitly obvious that arguers prefer truth.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche dig dig dig deeper into the hole you go. lol.
where did i 'conflate morality with truth'? more dishonesty on your part. do quote if did. :-)
'I prefer truth to falsehood ...'. i asked why? no answer. lol
'I prefer facts to mistakes' arguments are not facts. lol
btw do you now admit existence of an 'objective morality'? more lolz
cont --->
hammertapping 1 year ago
@hammertapping You want to know why I prefer something over another? Chalk it up to genetics or environment, I don't really care, it doesn't at all matter why I prefer truth to falsity, the fact is that I do, you can try to psychoanalyze to find the cause if you want but that is neither here nor there, again its like asking why I prefer chocolate to vanilla, who cares why? It has nothing to do with this issue.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche
where are quotes i requested . why do you lie?
so now according to you preference for truthfulness is as objective as preference for a physical sensation of taste and arise from analyzable objective causes ( such as genetics)? lol. ok
is preference for truthfulness a moral choice according to you?
regardless whether it is or not , do you think that moral choices (eg. preference for altruism) have such causes too?
if so isn't morality real? lol
hammertapping 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche cont --->
i did not say morality is preference (anymore than morality is truth). both statements are figments of your imagination.
i clearly said (read!)--
'prefer! act!' etc. but an amoral person would not explain or argue at all, as you do, he/she will simply choose and act. you still miss the obvious, ...dishonestly.
hammertapping 1 year ago
@hammertapping Good god man!! Me arguing IS ME CHOOSING, PREFERRING, AND ACTING!! Thats what I've been saying the whole time!! Me arguing is me choosing to act based on my preference to argue!! I prefer that others not make fallacious arguments, so I choose to act (argue back) based on that preference. You have done nothing but tell me repeatedly that my *preference / choice / action* somehow proves that I believe in morality. What does explaining have to do with morality? Its just an action!!
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche
in-spiste of my request you yet to provide quotes to back up your false claims about what i said. shame! lol
why do you lie?
you still willfully miss the point i clearly made .
i never said your "*preference / choice / action* somehow proves that I believe in morality." not at all. i said your attempting to explain & argue your preference etc proves you are not an amoral person .
sorry to see you deliberately and dishonestly miss the point
hammertapping 1 year ago
the dichotomy usually comes from theists with a sort of platonic foundationalistic metaphysics. that meaning and ethical standards are metaphysically a-priori regarding human consciousness and existence which, simultaneously, is usually a foundation for the existence of god.
whenever i argue this i start off by pointing out that these latent premeses are shaky, to say the least.
my contention is that meaning and morality being a posteriori of human existence does not make it relative.
fede2 1 year ago
I appreciate how thoughtful and honest your comments are. You have successfully zeroed in on "the grey area" between nihilism and religion. There is a place of inner freedom within, and absent of institutionalized thinking. I myself realize that one can find the truth of existence without religion or the fear of a terrible end terrible end. There is a transcendent state, real freedom . One has only to look deeply to find it. Reality is more than our own mind. Find it for yourself inside.
paulalexborja 1 year ago
"So a secular humanist who is convinced in a metaphysical value of a humanity as a whole is just as same as the Christians who is convinced in the metaphysical morality of God. Their both ilusions."
THANK YOU
this is my point exactly , atheist are equally rational /irrational as christians, well at least the more intellectual ones.
niinja2 1 year ago
About depression and despair... well, I think despair is necessarily an outcome of atheism since the implications of oblivion, individually and cosmically, are *desperate* and *surreal* to our existence. To not be aware of this anxiety is to put up a subjective illusion, and I think you admit it yourself when you talk about "perceptions."
botwindfish 1 year ago
Despair / depression are subjective, perhaps you noticed that I said "there's no REASON to be depressed." You may be subject to irrational depression, but that should be dealt with as such. Being depressed about oblivion is like being depressed about not having 4 legs, get over it, if you can't then be a Christian, I guess, or just make up something else to make yourself feel better. At any rate, I don't lose much sleep thinking about oblivion while I don't for a second think I can escape it.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche I don't think I understand your reasoning. The existential reality of nihilism (i.e., all is for naught) is suffocating, or, at least, should be to anyone honest enough to face it directly. It's implications are *desperate*, and I don't understand how its anxiety could be irrational.
botwindfish 1 year ago
"Desperate" you say? How is it desperate? In what manner? It is nothing to "face" nihilism, it is honest to accept it and not at all suffocating, at least not to me and I can't possibly speak for anyone else. Again, depression is subjective, desperation is subjective; and again bemoaning an immutable state of reality is completely irrational.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
I think you misunderstood the latter video. He wasn't saying that an atheist will inevitably be lead to iniquity (in fact, I think he clears this up in the beginning of his comments). What he's saying is that to be an atheist is to have no claim to true value. You can put up a subjective illusion of morality, like Batman, but you will have to recognize that since you have no claim to truth, you have to be silent when the Joker sees through your illusion and recognizes that it is not binding.
botwindfish 1 year ago
What I was trying to get across is that an 'atheist' needs no morality to oppose a Joker, a pragmatic desire to be safe needs no objective morality. Similarly, a subjective illusion, as you put it, is EXACTLY THE SAME as a subjective illusion of an objective standard (i.e. a divine or metaphysical moral system) in that both are used to justify / rationalize the same pragmatic desires (like the desire to be safe, or live in a world of kind / loving people). Illusions are inefficient due to dogma.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
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botwindfish 1 year ago
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@LifeIsPietzsche Right, you can oppose him, but you will have no real recourse other than brute force when the Joker does not find binding the morality of your opposition. Personally, I am almost disturbed that anyone can even consider such a deconstruction and tearing down of reality, but what do I know?
I'm not too sure how to respond to your latter comments.
botwindfish 1 year ago
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@LifeIsPietzsche Right, you can oppose him, but you will have no real recourse other than brute force when the Joker does not find binding the morality of your opposition. Personally, I am almost disturbed that anyone can even consider such a deconstruction and tearing down of reality, but what do I know?
I'm not too sure how to respond to your latter comments.
botwindfish 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
CaptainVideo890 1 year ago
I just posted a short video which touches a bit on Dostoevsky's faith. I think he was an atheist from an intellectual standpoint, but he CHOSE to believe in God because he feared the consequences of not believing (like the insanity of his characters) and he thought it was easier to justify suffering in the world if there was a God- the existence of God makes suffering on earth easier to handle since there is a greater good in store(afterlife)- i disagree with his stance on that however
pawnstar3 1 year ago
Morality is a by product of social living....there has to be one to act "moral" or "immoral" towards or upon. Morality has evolutionary roots.
See "An Evolutionary Basis for Morality" by smaakjerks
Lol.....I'm going by memory so if the name of the video or the producer is incorrect, I'll post back.
Watch it and see what you think.
blaziermissy 1 year ago
Objective morality is possible, it's just that it's based on conditionals. I think this is the only way that objective morality is possible. It is objective in the sense that it has truth value, but suffice to say, granted it is conditional, it is not a universal ethic (which is of course impossible).
I prefer to say that to those types that like to use Dostoevsky and Nietzsche cards.
I also prefer to make an internal critique. Notice how they never say how God makes objective morals?
Redfingers 1 year ago
Well I agree that 'Morality' objectively exists as a concept; but I was referring to the idea of morality as objective AND metaphysically prescriptive. Any other definition for morality would not satisfy the theists, generally speaking.
I also agree that 'god does not give a real base for morality.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche
Then morality is impossible. Either way, they lose.
Then we just have an appeal to consequences game which we will still win. Fortunate for atheists, we don't have a warrant for any idiot who thinks God tells us to kill our son.
By the way, I know that you don't agree that god gives a real base for morality. What I'm saying is, ask them how god serves a metaphysically prescriptive and objective system of ethics because then you get to wipe that smug grin off.
Redfingers 1 year ago
What I meant was that even if god did exist, it still would not mean there was an objective morality, thats what I was agreeing to. I think its a good point that does not get made enough.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@LifeIsPietzsche
Fuck making the point to them, just ask them to explain how he guarantees objective morality, then you get to watch them squirm and blather like retards, which is more win than scoring any legitimate point ever was (they'll just deny it anyway).
Redfingers 1 year ago
I suppose the point is more for us, seeing as how they constantly lose arguments while continually proclaiming victory.
LifeIsPietzsche 1 year ago
@Redfingers I do think that near universal morality is possible to achieve, but without changing the environment we live in...... we're pissing in the wind.
Environment directly influences our behavior, and if the social and economic system we have in place is decoupled from equality, fairness, sustainability and equal access to the necessities for survival, it cannot be achieved.
Venus project (dot) com The positive possibilities are staggering!
blaziermissy 1 year ago