For those who have yet to learn the the consept of Nihilism I have here put on display an essay outlining this philosophy. Indulge...
The Creed Of Nihilism
By Reverend Fizgig
1. All moral principals are denied of consisting of universal truth of any kind whatsoever. A tremondous number of moralities exist among human cultures. Each of them serves their moral slaves well. Each of them gets their slaves through life. However they are synthetic. There is no ONE way to live out one's life. There is no universal source of morality in the traditional sense whatsoever (i.e. none has been found). Morals are typically well tied with dieties and/or the supernatural, thus the categorical imperative of following the morality is enforced by a non-human retribution. In other words, morality is often given verity because the gods will punish you if you don't follow. People, however, are usually apathetic and habit forming and thus tend not to care about the origin of their own personal morality; and do the gods are usually a nice legend-like suppliment to tradition, while retribution is saved for use against heretics or to encourage/help-in-some-way asceticism and self punishment.
2. Nihilism is the struggle against all forms of tyranny, hypocrisy, and artificiality, and is the struggle for individual freedom.
3. No form of astheticism has truth or meaning of any kind beyond the ideas held by humans. Art, music, writing, and language are all human inventions. They possess no cosmic relevance of any sort. There is no cosmic or self-compelling source of these patterns, thus their verity is nil.
4. Utilitarianism is important. One has been given emotions and feelings to be guided through life, so one must not ignore them.
5. Scientific rationalism and discovery are the only truths. Observation is the only way to discover the truth. Traditional idealism is a curse for it is usually not reflective of reality. Our belief is in nothing but scientific truth. Science is the source of true knowledge (i.e. knowledge of any worth and real-life verity). The only evil is ignorance. Humans tend to wallow in their ignorance. The only way to learn about the world is to look at it and think about what you saw, not sitting in libraries checking to make sure that the "ancients" whose "wisdom" so many people revere agree with you. One ought to know better than to trust people who thought that the Earth was a flat plate. This includes Bible idiots who take the word of "God" as exact even though the Bible was written three hundred years after the death of Christ, whose "miracles" are most likely apocryphal. Now can you imagine remembering the exact words of your great-great-great-great-etc. grandfather three hundred some years ago only through oral tradition? Look, learn, and strip myths to nothing.
6. The social sciences are weak in meaning and are only truth to humans.
7. Classical philosphies, religions, and politics are misleading and idealistic. God is dead. The metaphysical is a joke. Politics and the state are for sheep and cattle. Belief in any of these is not warranted. Great atrocities have been commited due to false or misleading ideas. The above tend to hold people in ignorance of truth because their primary loyalty is to the doctrine or the state of God. Typically revolutionary thoughts are put down by these faiths even when those thoughts are correct.
8. Nihilism is a revolt against the established order. Materialism and positivism are acceptable doctrinces as observation has confirmed them. Materialism because there is no supernatural or spiritual element to anything, quite contrary the most people's beliefs. No veritable supernatural phenomena have occured. Reports of such usually come from people with weak minds (ones barely capable of scepticism and who do not recognize just how powerful their minds can be). Reports are due to quasi-delusive and delusive states. People tend to misjudge their minds thinking that their senses never lie. They fail to draw the analogy of dreaming while sleeping to delding while in a mental state. Legends of messiahs appearing are false. Either the messiahs were invented by the propounders of the religion to encourage belief or were magicians or tricksters of some sort who performed. The accounts of the latter messiahs are often exaggerated beyond plausability of materialism in order to surround the God and messiah with an air of wonder and awe. UFO phenomena are not necessarily implausible. Most of the reports are probably hoaxes. It is absolutely within possibility that there are other intelligent forms of life existant.
9. There is no worthy human source of authority. All authority of the church, state, and family is denied entirely. Family, friend, and all other kinds of social bonds are worthless and not recognized. They have no cosmic significance of any sort. No human can possibly exercise TRUE authority over another. This is meant in that nature does not care who your favorite friends are. The laws of physics are just the same for all; no one is treated any different. The universe does not grant exceptions to the rules. This goes for persons with political power. They are just as human (capable of erring) as anyone else. They are endowed pretty much just like anyone else. The way to be a competant leader is to accumulate knowledge and skill, and be a hard worker.
10. The dualities of humans is denied. Man is not a combination of body and soul, or spiritual and material substance. There is no divine guidance. Life forms are deterministic (guided by laws of physics). The element to humans that we grant ourselves primarily through our own arrogance is the complexity of behavior (reactions and inventions) brought about by the number of components in our bodies and minds. Thinking that humans have this "divine" element is irrational.
11. After collapsing the metaphysical and theological only a perverse sense of purposelessness and meaninglessness remains. The triumph of meaninglessness is the triumph of Nihilism. The Universe presents no meaning to observers objectively looking for meaning and non-material powers in the Universe. The mathematics of chaos are the only truths of any sort. There is no meaning to be had. This must be recognized, acknowledged by all, and dealt with. All other beliefs are not well founded and easily toppled. All other beliefs are misleading and perversions of truth. Embrace the void.
12. There are surrogate Gods. Television, nationalism, that of Christians and other religions across the Earth, money, power, addiction, and above all, the clock. Each of these is self important in one way or the other. Each of these is considered a source of truth, a place or thing which provides one with driving force, whether those who listen acknowledge their addiction to these sources or not. None of the above have any transcendent value or purpose, they are man made not God made and are self-important and self-justifying (they go unquestioned by their believers). The slaughter of rivals and the conquest of the Earth have proceeded and will proceed in the future under the banners of God, money, power over others, Television and posted propaganda, and the universal brotherhood and grandeur of the state be it democratic or socialist or any other kind. Capitalism is abusive to humanity. The purpose of the capitalist is to get your money in exchange for a relatively cheap product. They abuse the enormous power of the Television and have perverted the world into a place where money is something of enormous value. Money has become an unfortunate medium which is now a source of status and power, and allows some to lead lavish lives while others live in poverty and vice and starve to death.
13. There is a God. It is Evolution. It is our creator. It tells us what is important in life and what we must do in life. It decides whether we live or die. It is a God in the traditional sense. It is a discovery of science, and is a long established truth. God is a mechanism. It is self-righteous and self-justified. It is not human in creation. It is a human observation though. It has no creator but is a derivative of chaos theory and a generalization of materialism. Wherever and whenever there is matter (objects to be governed) it is present. It is omniprescient and everlasting. It is everywhere and will always exist. It does not listen to the cries of one, but treats all matter equally with the same laws (as discovered by physicists). Science is the gathering of knowledge, and does not tell one how the universe works; that is physics. God's commandments are survival and procreation. Other commandments would be misleading. God gives us no answers for how we live out our lives. It cares not for us at all. It only gives us obligations (survival and procreation) the remainder is up to the indiviual or society. Hereafter I will refer to evolution as God.
14. One or more than one must do what they can (make decisions) according to what they know and the easiest most convenient way they know how. That is the individual's or individuals' responsibility. Existentialism is thus adopted.
15. Perspectivism and existentialism are necessary consequences of our existence. We cannot know everything and see everything all at once. To do so is not characteristic of our material existence. There are no immaculate perceptions. All knowledge comes from a point of view. Only after much observation can one begin to understand something. Often times anologies are useful in relating objects of similar types, but a check must be done before trust in the analogy is warranted. To see an object or concept from an all-inclusive perspective is as incoherent as seeing this object or concept from every vantage point simultaneously. Science/physics do not violate perpectivism. Once an idea of how the universe works or looks has been tested many different times from many different perspectives, it becomes very unlikely that an idea which passed all the tests is entirely wrong. But once greater levels of scrutiny are achieved, we can then look further and undermine what we once thought was true for that which is more general and includes what we once believed if we over-simplify.
16. Nihilism has been abused. When one takes a few of the principles as truth and not all them all one is misled. Nietzsche has been used by the Nazis to justify the genocide of the Jews, the selective artificial breeding of a master/super-human race, and the conquest of the Earth by the Aryan race. Other authors' ideas have been abused. They were thought to justify terrorism and social disorder. Terrorism is not an effective means of to achieve ends. It brings hatred for the terrorists and almost never achieves long term goals. Social disorder is not necessarily something to be desired. Humans are social creatures and must work together for survival. Disorder is not necessarily a desirable state. A dynamic society must necessarily be heretogenous and differentiated. Homogeneity is only for redundant unstable systems, whereby the individuals are fighting against the elimination of entire sectores of their society.
Most of the Nihilist's creed are intuitive. Humanity and life forms are not given any special place in the universe. They are to be treated only as organizations of self-coordinated matter and little else. Humans and other organisms have methods which systematically classify patterns, which are otherwise meaningless (a.k.a. qualitative observation). These are generalizations often made to fit their emotional disposition toward a pattern. I.e. something is beautiful, or funny, etc. Observation is put at a premium. Only long term observations and well thought out, easily accessable conclusions are true. Only that which can be verified is believable. Total distrust of the senses is irrational. It does not help the individual in any way. Distrust of the senses, as in our bodies make grave mistakes on occasion esp. the mind, is an acceptable and sometimes necessary postulate. The Universe is deterministic. "God [nature] does not play dice," as Einstein was fond of saying. The Universe is governed by laws which may or may not be, have been or are yet to be, learned. The Universe is a perfectly working clock. All of its functions are preformed with perfect mechanical [analogy only, as apposed to electrical, etc] precision and accuracy. Experimental error is the result of underlying turbulence or chaos that cannot necessarily be seen.
A problem with Nihilism is that people are not ready for this knowledge. Our emotions have not evolved to match our wisdom. Embracing the Nothingness is incomprehensible. It is difficult. Not even I, a verteran Nihilist of four years can deal with it properly. Why? The void is hurtful. It is the hurt when you realize that your beliefs were wrong. You are in a transitory state and you have nothing to guide you. This is the pain of the Nihilist. The Nihilist doesn't even have a soul to comfort them. A Nihilist, in order to survive and live normally, must adopt values, however temporary, in order to deal with life. They may adopt them for whatever reason they see fit, for they have no beliefs to get in the way, or if they do have contrary beliefs, acts can be done with an undetectable grin of sarcasm. Nihilists are perfectly flexible. They fully realize that there are different modes of thought and existence, and they have one that negates all. They can take on any without loss of clarity. Before they respond to any question (assuming that they are in a fully general mode) they must ask, what is the purpose? What is the pathway that you want to make me follow in constructing a solution? There are so many ways of getting to the same answer. After you tell me what I am working towards, it is a simple matter of analyzing and processing. There is nothing to get frustrated about. By adopting a particular mode of existence and thought, this is taken care of for them. God is general about how one is to live out life. God cares not for the path you take in life so long as you pray toward Mecca five times a day and refuse to eat pork (survive in order to procreate).
Nihilism is the most flexible philosphy.
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With regards and salutations to TheBlack Plague.
Email: zablogma@hotmail.com
