The Myth of Dostoevsky's Tortured Atheist

A discussion of one of the more popular Christian false dichotomies about Morality and Atheism.

Videos Referenced:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exiCcOcjbBY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swfItnTUFvY&feature=related

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• atheism
• nihilism
• atheist
• nihilist
• morality
• muertos06
• logic
• egoism
• ethics
• ethical
• psychological
• god
• is
• dead
• dostoevsky
• nietzsche

[5heynen5]

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.

[LifeIsPietzsche]

@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.

[5heynen5]

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

[LifeIsPietzsche]

@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.

[5heynen5]

@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.

[LifeIsPietzsche]

@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.

[TheAzall]

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.

[5heynen5]

@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.

[Gorzakk]

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.

[PokeyMeansBusiness]

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.