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One Love
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| Posted 10/16/2010 6:10 PM (GMT -6) |   | Nihilism is painless
By: E. D. Kain
Fascinating.
In the end, no one really knows what led Mitchell Heisman, an erudite, wry, handsome 35-year-old, to walk into Harvard Yard on the holiest day in his faith and fire one shot from a silver revolver into his right temple, on the top step of Memorial Church, where hundreds gathered to observe the Jewish Day of Atonement.
But if the 1,905-page suicide note he left is to be believed — a work he spent five years honing and that his family and others received in a posthumous e-mail after his suicide last Saturday morning on Yom Kippur — Heisman took his life as part of a philosophical exploration he called “an experiment in nihilism.’’
At the end of his note, a dense, scholarly work with 1,433 footnotes, a 20-page bibliography, and more than 1,700 references to God and 200 references to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Heisman sums up his experiment:
“Every word, every thought, and every emotion come back to one core problem: life is meaningless,’’ he wrote. “The experiment in nihilism is to seek out and expose every illusion and every myth, wherever it may lead, no matter what, even if it kills us.’’
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One Love
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| Posted 10/16/2010 6:21 PM (GMT -6) | | How absurd!!!!! From here...
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My own life philosophy is one I call Blithe Nihilism. I believe there is no point to life, but I try not to let the belief bother me. Blithe Nihilism has its roots in the grand English anti-intellectual tradition — in the conviction that life is to be got on with and not thought about too much.
Once in a while — after some string of personal disasters, or in a random melancholy mood, or when reading some bloke’s 1,905-page suicide note — once in a while the defenses crack and you find yourself looking down into the pit. When that happens, you need to have some habitual remedy close at hand.
As with hiccups or the common cold, each of us has his own preferred remedy, which might not work for another person. My own treatment is to summon up the voice of my grandmother, Esther Knowles. When someone in her presence was moaning about his misfortunes, Granny would say: “There’s many a poor soul in the churchyard would be glad to change places with you.”
That settles it for me; though as I said, it might not work for another person. Granny lived to nearly 86 and bore 13 children. I call that a test of aliquidism (Latin aliquid = “something,” as opposed to Latin nihil = “nothing”), and a pretty successful one.
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This is exactly the willfully (blissful?) ignorance that Loder talks about in Knight's Move. When it come to the most meaningful questions in life, don't think about it too much. But when it's time to buy a house or a car, then we want to use ALL the clear, critical thinking we can. Right? But then atheists want to talk to religious people about not thinking straight.
Ugh. 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/16/2010 6:28:36 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/16/2010 6:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Absurdism
The French-Algerian absurdist philosopher Albert Camus saw the goal of absurdism in establishing whether suicide was necessary in a world without God. For Camus, suicide was the rejection of freedom. He thinks that fleeing from the absurdity of reality into illusions, religion or death is not the way out. Instead of fleeing the absurd meaninglessness of life, we should embrace life passionately.
Existentialist Sartre describes the position of Meursault, the protagonist of Camus' L'Etranger who is condemned to death, in the following way:
The absurd man will not commit suicide; he wants to live, without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions ... and without resignation either. He stares at death with passionate attention and this fascination liberates him. He experiences the "divine irresponsibility" of the condemned man"
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Basically, Camus was for throwing oneself subjectively, passionately into the absurdity of life (pace suicide) was a way to fully embody one's freedom (See Myth of Sisyphus). But this willed act of choice, as admirable as that is, still can't get away from the baseline meaningless of the Void. Looking at Sisyphus in the myth, I think that Camus missed a central point: Sisyphus KNEW that he would be living eternally and couldn't do anything about it and that's a TOTALLY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE than ours. We know our universe and ourselves well enough to know that human existence is NOT eternal...period. The whole universe will come to some type of end...and all humanity with it. Knowing that, trying to find meaning in the struggle of just living life is absolutely pointless. Humanity, in and of itself, IS no-thing (99.999999% empty space in atoms) and COMES TO no-thing (the Big Freeze). We are not "stuck" with existence. We actually have to choice to "actualize" the no-thing voidness that we are via suicide. And it would be RATIONAL and EXISTENTIALLY VIABLE to do so, if one's station in life were seen as unbearable.
Wanna know how I know? Simple. If one were to go into the myth itself with some type of magic poison that would have been GUARANTEED to negate Sisyphus' existence despite Zeus' machinations---effectively riding himself of the eternity of meaningless existence--don't you think he would take it? Would he really consider himself "happy" enough to NOT take it?
Would you?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/16/2010 6:50:59 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/16/2010 7:27 PM (GMT -6) | | The Anti-Life Equation:
loneliness + alienation + fear + despair + self-worth ÷ mockery ÷ condemnation ÷ misunderstanding x guilt x shame x failure x judgment
(means)
y=n
(where)
y=hope and n=folly,
(such that)
love=lies, life=death, self=dark-side
By speaking the equation, Darkseid can insert the full formula into people's minds, giving them the mathematical certainty that life, hope and freedom are all pointless.
Just plain ol' nihilism...
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/17/2010 9:47 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/17/2010 1:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Joel: But why would I even care whether I was being honest or not? Isn’t that, again, something an amoralist would be indifferent to? Strictly speaking, yes. But an amoralist still has a compass, a ‘guide to life’, an ethics, or so I would argue; and it can be a match for anybody’s morality. Thus, consider that in purely practical terms, honesty may still be the best policy. A reputation for truth-telling will likely make one a more attractive person to do (literal or figurative) business with, which will enable one to thrive relative to one’s less scrupulous competitors. Thus, ‘survival of the fittest’ could naturally promote honesty as a prevalent trait even in the absence of any moral concern.
Tom: This is interesting, because as a theist I’d argue nearly the same thing he does on behalf of the ‘rightness’ an d ‘wrongness’ of choices (like being honest or dishonest). Things are wrong BECAUSE they fail to promote well-being and survival. So I don’t see Joel as denying morality as he claims. I see him grounding morality exclusively in proximate (this worldly) and non-enduring ends. That is, what motivates ‘honestly as the best policy’ is that honesty favors well-being and survival AS JOEL DEFINES those things. But that doesn’t make him an amoralist. It just means he defines well-being and survival differently than I do.
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 10/17/2010 2:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Death is an essential part of life, since we begin to die the moment we are born. Social forms of life, families, governments and religions also die, as do symbols, symbol systems, and indeed, all cultural forms and forms of culture. Death haunts life with a quality of Nothingness that Kierkegaard described quite vividly before it became standard fare for French and German existentialism. Sartre and Camus, as well as Heidegger, dramatized the absurdity of the day-to-day existence which the well-adapted ego takes for granted. The point is that if one awakens to this larger vision, then the day-to-day scenes look bleak indeed, since it is perfectly certain that what the ego values so highly for the sake of satisfaction and survival will most certainly come to absolutely nothing. This is not just a likely possibility, but a certainty for all of us: always one death per person in every case.
Of course, for some, as Cavafy wrote in Waiting for the Barbarians, nothingness is kind of a solution. If, after all, there are absolutely no consequences, then nothing much matters---so we can do as we please. This, however, fails to draw the full implications of the conclusions; this existential claim means that even what we want to do is pointless and will quickly lead to boredom and despair. (OL's Note: This is the argument against Joel Mark's "Desirism" ) If nothingness is taken seriously in this way, absurdity itself becomes absurd; it is not a way out of existence, it is the inescapable truth about it.
Others will take consulation in the claim that nothingness is really unthinkable, and so we must simply ignore it—after all, we have to “play the hand we are dealt.” (OL’s Note: This is like unto the described "Blithe Nihilism" ). Ironically, most such persons would never advocate the principle by which this response is formulated. It is essentially that “ignorance is bliss,” so don’t look at the problem and try to live as well as you can; but on ever other issue that same person will require a full and detailed account—how absurd.
James Loder
The Knight’s Move: The Relational Logic of the Spirit in Theology and Science
Page 257
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No one who has taken the void seriously would propound the credo that we are in effect only three-dimensional, or that life ends in void and all is merely chance. Such a one would not declare anything at all; authentic encounters with the void are paralyzing or deadening. French existentialists, such as Sartre and the early Camus, have furthered a philosophical movement of aesthetic absurdity; but the books they wrote and the vehemence with which their followers press their points witness to another reality. To take the void seriously, to let the magnitude of its implications wash over and soak in, is not to write books, organize protests, or make pronouncements; it is to fall into deep despair and to identify with the overpowering aggressor. They do not believe what they say; the void or nothingness fascinates and awes them.
James Loder
The Transforming Moment
Page 85
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/17/2010 2:35:06 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/17/2010 2:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
This is interesting, because as a theist I’d argue nearly the same thing he does on behalf of the ‘rightness’ an d ‘wrongness’ of choices (like being honest or dishonest). Things are wrong BECAUSE they fail to promote well-being and survival. So I don’t see Joel as denying morality as he claims. I see him grounding morality exclusively in proximate (this worldly) and non-enduring ends. That is, what motivates ‘honestly as the best policy’ is that honesty favors well-being and survival AS JOEL DEFINES those things. But that doesn’t make him an amoralist. It just means he defines well-being and survival differently than I do.
This all gets back to Mitchell Heisman's point of the suicide and his "viviocentrism." I think Derbyshire, because of his "blithe" way of thinking about the whole thing, missed something important. One of the crucial "desires" in the human animal is the desire for self-preservation and survival. The desire to continue living. This "viviocentricism" is often an unconcscious, unexamined assumption that we humans just live with. But in the face of the ultimacy of the Void, this very desire is absolutely absurd (like all desires would be). So absurd in fact, that overcoming the desires driven by "viviocentricism" of the human animal by choosing for one's own death would be the only choice that a person could make that WOULDN'T BE negated by existence itself. Choosing to negate one's existence via suicide before the Great Nothingness would be one's one's chief and final expression of decision and freedom.
In other words, a human being can want to live forever all day long...and eventually still die, deteriorate, and decompose into no-thing. Existence itself will destroy the choice. But to choose for one's own death actually AGREES with what is. It just brings the no-thingness from an ontological position into a existential choice.
In other words, if Joel were to really "sink into" what the Void means...he wouldn't waste his time "desiring" things so ephemeral as temporally lived well-being and survival...for himself or anyone else.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/17/2010 2:52:35 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/17/2010 2:55 PM (GMT -6) | | And all THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is what spurs the human being towards the "SICKNESS UNTO DEATH."
Just what we are talking about here.
But it's also why the "leap of faith" in the God-Man Jesus is so important.
Once a person receives the Grace of God through faith in the Risen and Eternally Present God-Man, then the very possibility of no-thingness having the last word is removed. The silent, emptiness is NOT empty...and the "will to live" is NOT absurd, but REFLECTIVE of the personal Creator's will to give life and love.
God to us: "Live! Be loved and love! Flourish!"
Us to God: "We want to live! We want to be loved and love! We want to flourish!"
No absurdity there. Faith in the God-Man gives true ontological and existential justification for the desires for human heart for life, love, meaning, and flourishing.
Atheism that genuinely takes the Void seriously CANNOT do this...under any circumstances.
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Human existence, confronted and transformed by the mediation of the God-man, undergoes a double negation as the ultimate void is itself negated by the Presence of God’s Grace. Once the ultimate abyss is negated by Grace, it can be profoundly affirmed by the human individual in faith. However, since this occurs only by the agency of the God-man, in whom the eternal and existential are united in a perfect but asymmetrical, differentiated unity, it is impossible for the individual to affirm existence in faith without simultaneously affirming the eternal, universally available Grace which preceded and initiated it. Indeed, for faith the eternal becomes more fully itself as God’s eternal Grace, even as that Grace initiates and sustains the transformation and concreteness of human existence. In other words, it is precisely the preservation of the antithesis between the eternal and existential that is implied in and preserves the positive affirmation of Grace as God’s eternal Grace in Jesus Christ, and of faith as the existential human act by which Grace is appropriated.
James Loder
The Knight’s Move
Page 103
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/17/2010 3:11:58 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/17/2010 3:15 PM (GMT -6) | | | Reposting from another thread...
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Future pacing is basically the same thing as living proleptically in a believed future state. In other words, in future pacing, there is visualization of possible future events for the sake of living in (or preparing to live in) the reality of said events in the present. You start experiencing/practicing something NOW that you believe that you will be doing in future. Here's my thinking. As I see it, existential nihilism works this way for many atheists and agnostics. If a person "fast-forwards" to the end of human history...and all they "see" is the end of entropy and lifeless silence where the universe USED to be, then they bring that "nothingness" into the present as despair in the form of existential nihilism. If I genuinely believe that, in the end, human existence is nothing and comes to nothing, that I will project nothingness right now. May as well, right? If the Titanic is sinking, and there's no lifeboat for me, why am I gonna waste time straightening chairs, right? Well, this thinking can go the other way, too. If a person is convinced of God's Presence (Love) is the ultimate reality BEHIND even the "void" , then when they "fast-forward" to the end of human history...and all they "see" is the Triune God's omnipresent uncreated energies at work in and through the Risen Jesus, then they can bring "eternity" into the present as faith in the form of epicletic, proleptic existence in the Kingdom of God.
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One Love
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| Posted 10/17/2010 4:25 PM (GMT -6) | | From here...
The common thread in the literature of the existentialists is coping with the emotional anguish arising from our confrontation with nothingness, and they expended great energy responding to the question of whether surviving it was possible. Their answer was a qualified “Yes,” advocating a formula of passionate commitment and impassive stoicism. In retrospect, it was an anecdote tinged with desperation because in an absurd world there are absolutely no guidelines, and any course of action is problematic. Passionate commitment, be it to conquest, creation, or whatever, is itself meaningless. Enter nihilism.
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One Love
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| Posted 10/17/2010 7:54 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2010 1:06 AM (GMT -6) | | Dawkins writes that The God Delusion contains four "consciousness-raising" messages:
1. Atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.
2. Natural selection and similar scientific theories are superior to a "God hypothesis" —the illusion of intelligent design— in explaining the living world and the cosmos.
3. Children should not be labelled by their parents' religion. Terms like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should make people cringe.
4. Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.
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I'd like to deal with 1 and 2. Just them.
1. Intellectually honest atheists cannot take the full implications of their atheism and escape the logical conclusion of epistemological, moral and existential nihilism. They just can't do it. Not if they are intellectually honest and consistent.
2. Has Dawkins never heard of Process theology? Hasn't he heard of David Griffin??
Yeah...
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2010 6:50 PM (GMT -6) | | Ah. But even if they didn't intend it, the Wachowski Brothers gave a great analogy for the God-Man Christ. Remember this?
Neo had two natures of a sort: (Machine and human). Moreover, because of his natural link with the Source (being the One) and his natural link to humanity (being born and raised in the Matrix), he was able to bring the Energy of the Source into the Matrix reality that had been conquered by Mr. Smith. And in experiencing death (by his free choice to endure assimilation/death at Mr. Smith's hands), he made a way for "death" to be destroyed by the power of the Source. (Analogous to when Neo's self-giving self frees everyone else of the Mr. Smith virus).
And let's not forget how Neo was "resurrected" from death in the Matrix from the Transcendent Voice of Trinity (speaking to Neo from outside the Matrix) declaring her love for him...and telling him to get up.
All of this sound familiar? 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/18/2010 6:53:15 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2010 6:54 PM (GMT -6) | | 1
2
"Why, Mr. Anderson!?! Why, WHY, do you persist???"
"Because I choose to."
From an existential standpoint, you really can't get more ground level than that. Right? Let's not forget that, in the Matrix movie, Neo used his ability to choose to submit to Mr. Smith's assimiliation/death. Neo used his free power of choice as the One to submit to "death" in order that "death" would be destroyed.
Too familiar, huh?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/18/2010 6:59:13 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/19/2010 9:53 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/25/2010 7:59 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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