Atheism promotes Nihilism

I'd say that it's true, that atheism(no God no afterlife) does promote nihilism, even if vaguely. As long as you don't consider what your situation is after you die, I guess you can't be, but then what atheist doesn't think that while rejecting the belief in God and the afterlife?

Originally posted by Iason321
So let me ask you (specifically atheists), if your an atheist, doesn't that mean your also a nihilist?

Howdy, and fair question.
However, it is difficult to say if it does or doesn't to a very diverse group. I can only answer for myself.
And the answer is no.

Obviously if you believe in no Creator or Deity, your life is completely purposeless,

My life has no more nor less purpose than your life. As an atheist, you seek for purpose, as a theist, you simply accept your life probably have a purpose..arguably, an atheist spends more time seeking out their purpose than a theist...an atheist isn't sitting around waiting for purpose to drop into his lap by a wizard ghost or whatnot..they must actively create one for themselves.

you exist for no other reason aside from obtaining treasures on earth and pleasing your flesh, and you have nothing to look forward to except death and non existence.....

Most humans do that (setting up wealth, security, etc). Nothing wrong with that.
I assume your computer is a personal one and your not sharing some village computer. To some, you live as a golden king with all your unnecessary luxeries...I don't condemn you for that..its your perogative. nice, aren't they.
As far as non-existance, I don't know what happens when we die (outside of the physical). Keep in mind, atheism is -only- speaking about the concept of deities...anything else people add in is not atheism.
I am an atheist, I don't believe in god, I don't believe in an afterlife, I don't believe in aliens, and I don't like sardines.
that statement has only 1 thing that is atheist...the god stuff...everything else is that individuals personal choices.
Get it right please...unless you enjoy spreading disinformation.
But a theist that is purposefully being deceptive is going to hell...so, gratz

If I'm wrong, and your an upstanding citizen atheist, please explain to me your moral code, where you obtain a sense of direction and hope from, and how you don't buckle to nihilism,

Thank you, God bless

I treat others how I would like to be treated.
Quite simple really.
I don't judge a person based on their beliefs (or non-beliefs)..well, not outwardly..its hard sometimes to not hold some judgement of others sanity or intellectual fortitude.
I don't hurt people willingly, because I don't want to be hurt.
I will however defend myself from others whom try to hurt me...and expect others will do likewise if I attack them...hense why I don't attack people.

Morality does not need a spiritual core. Frankly, its probably better if it doesn't. Less chances of burning a witch when there is no invisible gods telling some people who is and isn't good on the spiritual scale.

Originally posted by satron
I'd say that it's true, that atheism(no God no afterlife) does promote nihilism, even if vaguely. As long as you don't consider what your situation is after you die, I guess you can't be, but then what atheist doesn't think that while rejecting the belief in God and the afterlife?

edit on 25-4-2012 by satron because: (no reason given)

Atheism has no opinion about an afterlife.
Atheism is no belief in gods.

An afterlife does not require a deity for it to be there.
A land does not require a king for the land to be there.

Many atheists also have the -belief- that there is no afterlife.
Many atheists also have the -belief- that pepperoni on pizza tastes good.
Both are equally relevant sub-beliefs towards being an atheist.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by satron
I'd say that it's true, that atheism(no God no afterlife) does promote nihilism, even if vaguely. As long as you don't consider what your situation is after you die, I guess you can't be, but then what atheist doesn't think that while rejecting the belief in God and the afterlife?

edit on 25-4-2012 by satron because: (no reason given)

Atheism has no opinion about an afterlife.
Atheism is no belief in gods.

You're right, but many atheists don't believe in either, hence the reason I put "no God no afterlife" in parenthesis.

reply to post by Annee


Same thing can be said about any religion, so your point?

Originally posted by Evanzsayz
reply to post by Annee

 

Same thing can be said about any religion, so your point?

I was raised Christian. I speak only of what I know.

Unlike many Christians attacking Islam - - - with zero knowledge of that belief.

Silly troll stop poking the atheists.

I'm sorry for you if atheism was your minds way of coping with selfishness, OP .My moral code is guided by what makes the world around me better, and by extension better for the next generation so they can pay it forward.
''In the sake of fun. not like I'm going to hell for it.'' is as weak an excuse to be a jack*** as ''I was drunk'' (PS neither is an excuse to act a fool)
Just because I don't think I'll be rewarded for giving up the shirt on my back doesn't mean I won't. Helping those around me is one of the most rewarding thing I do already without worrying about empty promises.

Don't worry, there is hope. I went through a stage where I didn't believe in God or that we had a soul, or free will, and it was a very dark road. Then I started researching quantum physics and string theory and realized that we do have scientifically provable free will. I think it's time to start breaking down the barriers between mysticism and science, and realize that a lot of things like souls and free will are in fact part of science and can be researched.

As for morals, I eventually wrote my own set of beliefs that are based on cause-and-effect and determining what is healthy or unhealthy for your life experience.

As for a higher power, I tend to think the evidence points towards a universal consciousness. What, exactly, is going on with God or Gods is anyone's guess, but I tend to believe it is something along the lines of the Hindu God Vishnu.

en.wikipedia.org...

To which god should I pray? Which one offers me the best trade for my believing in him/her/it/them?

I await your offers. I don't need books.


Meh, I'm sorry, I just can't take these discussions based on "Atheists are BAD people, come pray with me!" boring, as there is only one possible outcome: All atheists are believing in their own (positive) moral motives and all fundamentalists are telling them that that is impossible without the threat of an afterlive in some hell.

HEY! YOU! FUNDAMENTIS! Stop it! We are not idiots you could convince by threatening with some impossible, implausible, unseen and unproven place called "hell"!

us atheists also eat babies and rape the elderly... this post is just another prime example of the close minded , hateful, bigoted thought process of a bible banger

Originally posted by Iason321
(...)So let me ask you (specifically atheists), if your an atheist, doesn't that mean your also a nihilist? Obviously if you believe in no Creator or Deity, your life is completely purposeless, you exist for no other reason aside from obtaining treasures on earth and pleasing your flesh, and you have nothing to look forward to except death and non existence.....

If I'm wrong, and your an upstanding citizen atheist, please explain to me your moral code, where you obtain a sense of direction and hope from, and how you don't buckle to nihilism,

Thank you

, (reference to the imaginary friend "blessing" me removed)

you are wrong
i am an atheist
i am not a nihilist
i am here on earth because my father and my mother decided to have some plooking fun
i am here on earth to love my friends, to share their moments of joy and pain
i am here to share, to help, to be helped
i am here to "polish the rock" so i learn how to act upon my moral principles
i don't give a damn about obtaining treasures - i have the life of a monk, i just don't need to fill my mind with stupid assumptions about some imaginary friend nor do i need to whisper to the wall while being on my knees

Here's one for you: do you call zen-budhism a religion?
When reduced to the words and mental concepts (let's forget the marketeers who abuse "zen" because it's hip) zen comes very close to what you would call nihilism as it is a method to learn to see how your mind is a source of delusions.

how would you qualify the actions of a group of people i belong to, a group of atheists that come together on a weekly basis, not to worship the delusion, but to debate current societal issues and to try to come up with actions that might benefit other people? nihilists?

once again here's that false implication that one needs a "god" to be a moral being
this has been proven wrong over and over again
it is not because most religions do offer moral guidelines that only religions do have the potential to do so.
ever heard of humanism?

I think that you offer an interesting question here. But I have to say that the type of person who would be on Above Top Secret, for one, and be a self-proclaimed athiest, for two, is going to, in my mind, primarily to incite the answer, "No."

Atheism, as far as I can tell, is a thinking-person's belief. I don't personally think they are right or wrong (I don't have any quantifiable, scientific evidence to prove one way or the other), but they are at least thinking.

Atheists tend to have opinions. They tend to have reasons why they don't believe in a God (hatred of religion, no scientific validation, were abused by their religious upbringing, etc.). Atheism is also something that someone tells you they are, not something that you can observe through someone's actions and behavior.

Nihilism is different. Besides the movie, "The Big Lebowski," most people would not call themselves nihilists (if they even knew what that word meant in the first place). Nihilism is a social anomie condition that is observable, I believe. Again, if someone called themselves a nihilist, it would belie a bit of intellectualism not native to the real, more primitive (and more socially pervasive) form of nihilism.

Someone exhibiting nihilism would know they didn't believe in god. An athiest would know why they don't.

You see? There is a world of difference between the two.

Let me use an example, as it has been an idea I have been tinkering with for the last few weeks:

Modern, young Americans, of the Jackass /Gummo-ilk, the products of public education, have opinions. They just don't know why they have those opinions. The reason? They don't know how to think. They don't know how to evaluate their beliefs.

I see nihilistic behavior as a form of escape. From the past, the future, and unfortunately, the present. For the person exhibiting nihilistic behavior, one, two or all of those has become too much to deal with, and the psyche's escape plan turns into a world where nothing has meaning, less it become something to own, or to deal with.

To say that this generation is a nihilistic one is really saying the that personal responsibility is fading away.

But as social trends ebb and flow, this will most likely not remain the case. Is the opposite of nihilism a belief in a God? I don't think so. Not in a socially defined sense. READ: Not in a socially defined sense (with regard to dictionary definition). So nihilism and athiesm are not synonymous. The opposite of nihilism, I believe, is not faith, or belief, as dictionaries have stated, no, I want to find the opposite in the context I see it in society. So the opposite of nihilism, as I see it, is "to have a self-created purpose."

reply to post by Iason321


and I still like your avatar, promoting homosexuality among christians. Emancipation at last!
it's a better image than the one used by another of those tolerant christians trying to spread a totally uninformed image about atheism. That image depicts a tool of torture, your cross.

reply to post by NeverSleepingEyes


It's interesting you bring up Zen. I, too, am a student of Zen Buddhism, of the Japanese Rinzai sect. I would say, as Omari Sogen has said, that the Middle Ages were dominated with a belief in God, and that the Modern times are dominated by a belief in Man, and that they are both wrong.

Originally posted by Klassified

This is one of the main problems I see with atheism - it's an unhealthy worldview that can lead to unhealthy habits and promotes all sorts of problems in society (materialism, selfishness, greed, lack of compassion, lack of honor, lack of morals)

I spent enough of my life as a christian, that I can tell you everything in your little list there runs rampant among christians. They're just better at hiding it.

You wanna preach forgiveness and reconciliation to god through Jesus Christ, that's fine. I can live with that. But if you want to compare morals with atheists, you lose. The church, it's congregation, and especially its leadership, are equally, if not more so, prone to corruption and "lack of morals" as atheists are.

I saw this better than you, self-righteous attitude for many years of my life in the church. The "real christians" are few and far between, and you shame them.

Physician, heal thyself.

Excellent response!

An agnostic applauds you.

reply to post by franklin555

agree... "belief" is what prevents one to experience "now"

reply to post by Iason321


im an athiest, doesnt mean i think my life has no meaning. i dont beleive in an afterlife but i will leave a legacy through my children, grandchildren, great grand children ect.
the purpose of life is to survive and reproduce and for a lucky few to be remembered in history.

if anything athiests lives end up having more meaning because they work towards these goals instead of breezing though life thinking that itll all be fine in the end.

reply to post by NeverSleepingEyes


Wow!

Well aren't you just a cup of sunshine in the morning!

Smug, arrogant, prideful AND mean!



God bless ya

reply to post by NeverSleepingEyes


I disagree,

you say you're not a nihilist,

but you speak like someone with a nihilist perspective.

remember, actions speak louder than words.