Or one could translate evil into nihilist terms and say it is aggressive towards relgious people.
Evil in this sense is a product of self- consciousness. Because we are conscious of what causes us pain, we can intentionally inflict that on others. That’s evil. Non-human animals don’t do that, not even predators.
I suppose I was trying to head off him taking your post as an objectivist claim. Whether evil or aggression in a moralless world, it’s still an odd thing, his behavior. I think one could learn something about philosophy or religion in an interaction with him. But his approach, it seems to me, is not useful for him (unless he has other motives than the one he says) and is not useful for others. One thing I’ve been doing and you have also done is to point out that his approach is a poor one for learning about what he claims to want to learn about or achieve. There is also the lack of a useful discussion partner in the way he discusses things, due to his, here, functional narcissism and then what you are pointing out here.
Lol? Seriously, why would that prompt someone to laugh out loud? Chuckle, maybe. For some. But even that would seem to be a stretch.
Why did it prompt you to laugh out loud?
What part am I missing?
And let’s take this to another thread.
It’s so common that there’s a cliche for… Misery loves company.
It’s funny. I’m arguing with an objectivist Christian on another forum right now.
One take:
Religious folks and moral objectivists are able to weigh the pros and the cons of any particular behavior in any particular context. Why? Because these assessments are derived from the “real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”. For a moral nihilist however “I” is derived from dasein. It is fractured and fragmented in turn given the manner in which it recognizes what appear to be reasonable assessments of both the pros and the cons.
Given the manner in which conflicting goods are understood by me as the embodiment of dasein…“I” out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially. A world that is ever immersed in a sea of contingency, chance and change.
Another take:
What most folks don’t do is to take the time to probe the manner in which I construe identity, value judgments and political economy intertwined in the arguments I raise in my signature threads. In other words, in regard to God and religion, many people are still living out their childhood indoctrination. And/or are refusing to explore the extent to which the tools of science and philosophy are ineffective in providing them with arguments able to sustain objectivism in all its incarnations…
No, it’s less “and so on” intellectual contraptions, and more in the way of substantive and substantial assessments of behaviors in conflict out in a particular set of circumstances. As that prompts one to choose to do this and not that. As that is prompted by one’s religious convictions.
At least on this thread.
Okay, back again to abortion. By far my favorite “context”. And that is because 1] it revolves literally around life and death 2] almost everyone is familiar with it 3] this was the issue that figured most profoundly in my own transformation from moral objectivism to moral nihilism.
And I explain in great detail on this thread – viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382 – why and how the manner in which “I” confront conflicting goods as dasein is very, very different from how most God and No God objectivists go about it.
Indeed, over and again I am curious about your own intertwining of experiences and philosophy insofar as it has brought about your own thinking on abortion. Or any other moral conflict of note. One that is most important to you.
My main interest with you revolves around how [to me] you seem less “fractured and fragmented” than “I” am. Given that you are in turn coming from a No God frame of mind.
Then [for me] back again to grappling with how you and I differ in regard to this:
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.
Out [b][u]in[/b][/u] a particular set of circumstances in which we explore the components of our respective moral philosophy.
Okay, then, on this thread, let those who embrace the thinking of folks like Kierkegaard and Jung explain the manner in which they connect the dots existentially between their subjective take on morality on this side of the grave and what they anticipate the fate of their soul – “I” – to be on the other side.
And how are their own assessments not in turn the embodiment of how I construe identity as being in sync with my own subjective assessment of dasein. What are we able to establish as in fact true objectively for all of us here?
You insist on describing me as this really miserable wretch. But on any number of posts I have pointed out that I am not miserable at all. I have any number of distractions that bring me considerable fulfillment and satisfaction. My health constricts my capacity to get out and about, but I experience almost no pain and discomfort and nothing at all life threatening itself.
Now, on this thread, I deal with the fact that, as a believer in No God, I have no capacity to feel comforted and consoled by all that religion provides for those that do. I have reasoned myself into thinking that, in a No God world, human interactions are essentially meaningless; and that death is a fall into oblivion…the obliteration of “I” for all time to come.
But I wouldn’t be here at all if I was actually convinced that others are obligated to think like I do. Instead, there is always the chance that someone here might succeed in convincing me that their frame of mind – more optimistic – is more reasonable than mine.
Just not you and your little fluffy clouds.
Yet.
And will even try to create it.
That reminds me of another rather common cliché: “Ignorance is bliss.”
Why don’t the two of you discuss it. With or without God. 
See video posted in Buddhism thread.
I thought of you when I read this quote:
“Distress, whether psychic, physical, or intellectual, need not at all produce nihilism (that is, the radical rejection of value, meaning and desirability). Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Cited in Kaufmann, W. (1975). Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: Meridian, p 131.
But I don’t “radically reject value, meaning and desirability”. That’s your rendition of me.
Instead, what “I” have thought myself into believing “here and now” – as just another existential contraption – is that…
1] value, meaning and desirability [as moral and political prejudices] are rooted existentially in dasein
2] that, as a result of this, and given an ever unfolding sequence of historical, cultural and experiential contexts [communities], mere mortals [in a No God world] have come to different interpretations as to which values and meaning and things to be desired reflect the most rational and virtuous assessments: conflicting goods
3] that ultimately what counts in any given community is political economy – those who have the actual political and economic power to enforce one rather than another set of behaviors. In other words, one or another historical intertwining of might makes right, right makes might and/or democracy and the rule of law.
Though, sure, by all means, go back to completely ignoring this again and continue to expose to others here what and who I really am.
You call yourself a moral nihilist but that sounds more like moral relativism than nihilism per se.
Okay, let’s try this…
In regard to God and religion, as you imagine they pertain to a particular situation, how would you differentiate moral relativism from “nihilism per se”?
Geeze man…God and religion. Those are tough subjects. What do those words even mean? Different things to different people I suppose. Moral relativism is the kind of despair you go into when you realize that different people and different cultures and different times have different values and it causes you to doubt your own values or you get defensive about it and double down on your received values. I believe the latter is called conservatism. Now nihilism is a different animal…related’–but different. The nihilist denies the value of life itself. Is that what you’re doing?
On the other hand, what about those who actually revel in moral relativism. Why? Because it doesn’t anchor one to the sort of obligations that many religions impose on the flocks. Sure, for some, the idea that “in the absence of God all things are permitted” is a frightening, disturbing thing. For others though it expands their freedom and their options by leaps and bounds.
And that is a good thing to them. Conservativism from their perspective is just another word for ball and chain.
Again, that’s your nihilist. Others suggests instead that any value we assign to life is of a subjective/intersubjunctive nature. Humanist values. Values that revolve around the sort of thing that Sartre and de Beauvoir and Camus [among others] speculated about. Values revolving around the actual life that we choose to live. Existence being prior to essence.
Only I have come to conclude that human interactions are essentially meaningless. And I have deconstructed human identity into the fractured and fragmented “I” that I have come to embody myself.
Meaningless to whom or what?
We’ll need a context of course.
And the capacity of someone to engage in an intelligent and civil exchange regarding the distinction between existential and essential meaning. In regard further to the distinction made between meaning in the either/or or in the is/ought world.
As that relates [on this thread] to morality on this side of the grave and immortality [derived from God or religion] on the other side.
That’s exactly what I asked for. I was asking for a context. You said that human interactions are essentially meaningless and I am asking ‘to whom?’
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Well, since you made the statement perhaps you can intelligently and civilly do that. Or answer my question or both.
You made a statement, an assertion. The context seemed to be blanket, as in everywhere. To whom are human interactions meaningless?