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zZZz
jesus


Registered: 12/28/07
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: Thanatos10]
#22149443 - 08/26/15 11:13 PM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Thanatos10 said: That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. How can we even be sure spirituality even exists and not just an idea someone came up with to give people comfort?
one thing;s forsure, u cant knock till u've tried it.
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MarkostheGnostic
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The alternative would be to remain miserable indefinitely.
Unfortunately, that is only one alternative.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: Thanatos10]
#22149544 - 08/26/15 11:46 PM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Thanatos10 said: How is it worth it? Why stay alive when death promises release from pain and ambiguity?
You're a simple materialist. You have no idea what occurs at physical death, it remains a mystery for all of us. Your "promise" is nothing more than an unfounded assumption which is grounded on your ontologically prior assumption that consciousness is derivative of physical life. It is just as possible that physical life merely allows consciousness to manifest in 3 dimensions, and the conditions of disembodied consciousness depend upon certain factors of which ethics is essential. Consciousness may be Ultimate Reality. The archaic words are Spiritus/Pneuma/Ruach. Therefore, killing anyone, including oneself, is egocentricity dense as the materialism which instigated the act. There's no turning back when the link, the astral cord to the subtle body is permanently severed. And this is an experience that many have had, if only temporarily because the cord was only stretched, not severed. A human birth is a rare opportunity to find peace and I take is on faith from those more experienced than me in metaphysical matters that suicide is a big fucking mistake except perhaps when death is immanent and one can judiciously effect a less painful and traumatic end.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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presentusthefuture
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:
Quote:
Thanatos10 said: How is it worth it? Why stay alive when death promises release from pain and ambiguity?
A human birth is a rare opportunity to find peace and I take is on faith from those more experienced than me in metaphysical matters that suicide is a big fucking mistake except perhaps when death is immanent and one can judiciously effect a less painful and traumatic end.
Rare opportunity? There'd be no need to 'find peace' if there weren't any struggle or sorrow to begin with...
To be born into this world is to be condemned to this world. We are prisoners here. Prisoners to the never-ending cycle of desires and cravings that our inherent will to live manufactures for us, as it's the only thing it knows how to do. Where every goal achieved results in sowing the seeds of a new desire - lest we fall prey to boredom (which is itself proof that life has no intrinsic value) - the only lasting peace you're going to find in this world is going to occur in the moments preceding the exit of it.
There was a Greek Cyrenaic philosopher named Hegesias that was once banned from ancient Alexandria because of his arguments of death being so much more preferable to life that he was deemed a public health threat. His purported masterwork, "Death by Starvation" has unfortunately been lost to history.
I wonder if this love of the individual self is derivative of the biological will to live that clouds a possible higher realm of existence. Is there not a possibility that a better way of 'being' exists removed from the ego?
OP, if life has gotten too miserable to bear, and the future too bleak or tedious to hope for, just remember that you can, at any time, eject from it. And I don't say this with jest or trivialization. Suicide is a gift granted to man. A gift that not even God/Ultimate Reality has possession over. The only requirement is the conquest of the will to live.
Your life, your choice.
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saenchai
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Dude, I understand the feeling. What you're saying makes total sense and I lived with that sense for a long time when I was younger. In fact you sound just like me 5 or 6 years ago. But materialism is not the end of knowledge. Nihilism is not the end of knowledge. You don't have to take my word for it but don't take your own word for it either, because if my human mind is prone to any sort of misperceptions disguised as rational convictions then so is yours.
Nihilism from its own perspective is a commendable and honest attempt to come to terms with what is but it lacks some fundamental understandings of the purpose of life and existence. When I felt the way you do know, I kept going for what seemed like absolutely no reason and eventually reached understandings which made sense out of the seeming absurdity of our being here. You have absolutely no idea what is coming to you. You have free will and can do whatever you want but I would implore you to stick around for a while longer and see where it takes you.
If you don't, you may be doing yourself a disservice. If you're at the point where you have the ability to think in terms of deeper meanings and abstractions, you've already spent about 20-30 percent of your lifespan. The rest of it will probably go just as quickly. It's something to think about lol.
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Thanatos10
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: saenchai]
#22150747 - 08/27/15 10:19 AM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
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Suicide just seems like the only logical answer to this.
-------------------- As lightless oblivion devours you, drown in the ever-blooming darkness.
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saenchai
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: Thanatos10]
#22151026 - 08/27/15 11:29 AM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
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OK good luck
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Jokeshopbeard
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: Thanatos10]
#22151116 - 08/27/15 11:50 AM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Thanatos10 said: Suicide just seems like the only logical answer to this.
I don't think you'd be on a message board saying that if you truly believed it. I think you'd be gone already.
Why are you still here?
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
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MarkostheGnostic
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If you're Hellbent on offing yourself, you're gonna do it. I however have been a crisis intervention counselor for decades, and I'm here for those who are still ambivalent. Those who are determined or self-determined to die prematurely, are going to die prematurely. I'm not going to save anyone who does not want help being saved in the same way that nobody is going to be helped by my hypnotherapy practice if they really don't want to change. Existence is sandwiched between non-existence and a Mystery. To assume that the fate of an individual self is non-existence may be absolutely wrong. The dissolution may well be Self-Realization, which clearly is not a concept you are intimately familiar with. It is about Awakening from the relative dream of false self-identification. In your case, you seem to be identified with "the pain body," (Eckhart Tolle's model), and have no cognizance of Being. Theologically speaking, you are experiencing Hell even now - ontological alienation from Being (God). Destroying the instrument which allows for Self-realization is said to result in increased suffering, not the cessation of suffering which requires Wisdom based on Compassion. I see neither in your statements. My life has become increasingly tranquil, but not sedate. I have no inordinate desires and desire scarcely describes my preferences for health, a personal aesthetic that governs my appearance and that of my home and yard. Boredom is an existential illness that I am not plagued by. Anxiety is my constitutional malaise, but I've never become dependent on drugs to manage it. I used to feel imprisoned, but it turned out the imprisonment was caused by the chains of my own desires, not "this world." I feel the pain of this world, most of which is caused by human beings, and I am disturbed at times by my inability to alleviate it (like boiling dogs alive in China, for example). A broken heart results in surrender, and surrender of one's impotent ego brings one closer to the "Unbearable Compassion" which is God. One is tempted to say "If I were God, I would not allow such and such," but such puerile thoughts are just ego assuming that it knows what Life is all about. My response to Life is to Live Life, but to Live Compassionately. Suicide is not in most instances a manifestation of Compassion.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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zZZz
jesus


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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: Thanatos10]
#22152885 - 08/27/15 06:05 PM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Thanatos10 said: Suicide just seems like the only logical answer to this.
So let me get this straight, i asked u whether there were any current problems in ur life like family or work related stuff, etc.., and u said thAt wasn't the case and ure only problem was ur understanding of nihilism, so basicAlly ure thinking of suicide all because of an article u don't understand??..
Doesn't make sense..
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r72rock
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: Thanatos10]
#22153458 - 08/27/15 08:00 PM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
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I haven't been on in a while, but I'm trying to culminate my thoughts into something coherent. I've been wrestling with nihilism personally for the past 4 or 5 days myself. I kinda skimmed this thread and thought everyone had some awesome input. 
I've been reading Cioran and Ligotti recently (2 very pessimistic/nihilistic philosophers), and they strike me as both enlightening and off the mark at the same time. They talk about misery and despair, anti-natalism, how consciousness is a mistake, how we operate blindly under this assumption that we should affirm life no matter what, and how everything adds up to a big ol' nothing. They also talk about how everything we do and believe is a distraction from this despair and horror that is realized at the core of our being because we live in an unforgiving, indifferent, and cold universe. For Ligotti, whom I was reading, "horror is more real than we are" he argues. I can admit, I buy some of that.
But today I was sitting downtown reading this stuff on a stone bench outside of the subway, and I saw this old lady throwing handfuls of seeds to these birds out of the corner of my eye. This giant group pigeons were just flocking to her. I then saw this little girl run across the square towards this herd of pigeons clapping her hands while laughing. She had the biggest, most genuine smile on her face. She was just filled with awe watching these birds with her eyes and mouth wide open in amazement appreciating the nature of these birds. I then looked down back at my book, which I was so convinced was true 10 minutes prior, and thought, "the default nature for us is to feel horror?" It puzzled me. I mean, I doubt this little girl has thought about the meaning of existence, but I also doubt that she was covering up this deep feeling of horror. Perhaps sometimes, we feel one emotion like joy, other times despair, other times wonder, other times confusion. It doesn't have to be that one emotion "covers up" the other so to speak. So if joy and cheerfulness and happiness and love are all "just distractions" from life, than so is horror and despair and sorrow and disappointment. They're all just emotions on the spectrum of experience.
Sorrow, depression, and despair are usually associated with nihilism, but my previous paragraph was to show that these emotions are no more or less real than other emotions. But what's so bad about nihilism anyways?
One thing for nihilism is that it negates all values. Well then, in one sense, nihilism is self refuting. If nothing matters, then why does our suffering matter? Why would it matter that we lost all values if nothing truly matters? On top of that, we couldn't assess the idea that nothing means anything unless we were alive in the first place. The idea that "it's better to have not been than to be" only comes from a stance of existing.
Nihilism is usually broken up into two categories: moral nihilism and metaphysical nihilism. Moral nihilism is the idea that morality is arbitrary and made up. And metaphysical nihilism is the idea that the universe has no meaning, purpose, or observable structure. Nihilism isn't bad or good. It's just a position.
I think of Moore's refutation of moral nihilism, which I find fascinating. He starts by saying there's a moral fact that we know: that killing babies for fun is wrong. So then he'd posit the question, and ask, is killing babies for fun wrong? He's not asking in an absolute sense, but in a human down to earth sense. "Do you think it's wrong to kill babies?" Most people answer "yeah it is." While one could argue that it isn't wrong, he's not interested in arguing for argument's sake, he's strictly asking this in a personal way. If one doesn't think that it's wrong, then he'd ask why you aren't doing it. And he'd say it's because you know that it's wrong to kill babies for fun. So therefore, there are moral facts according to Moore.
As far as metaphysical nihilism is concerned, I ask myself, "even if there was a God, and he had a plan for me, how would that change my day to day life?" I find that it wouldn't really. I used to think that it'd imbue my life with meaning and purpose. But then I thought that it'd only give my life purpose and meaning because I'd be letting it give me purpose. I'm giving the meaning of my life to something external. I find meaning in my life already, even though as far as I can tell from my stand point, there is no ultimate purpose. I find internal meaning in my life through my activities, through my relationships, and through my morals. I also find external meaning in my relation to others. One thing I loved from a book I read called "There is no God and He's always with you" by Brad Warner was his section on suicide. He wrote (I'm paraphrasing) that one thing he's learned from years of meditation is that the idea that your life is yours to live and do whatever you want with it is short sighted. You're intimately tied in with everything else around you. And taking "your own life" as just your own isn't seeing how you're related in a larger social structure to family, friends, and community.
I've kind of rambled enough . I guess I'm gonna wrap up with some shorts that I thought of when I saw this thread. I've quite enjoyed these.
Quote:
If I was unborn I would have nothing to be grateful for I would have never seen love I would have never held cats I would have never buried my friends And prayed for their souls In reddening churches I would never have kissed And I would never have wept And I would never have seen Black Ships eat the sky And I would have been unborn And not have seen circuses Whilst watching the flowers Rise flags made of atoms Who will deliver me from myself? Who will deliver me from myself?
Current 93, Black Ships Ate the Sky
-------------------- Current favorite candy: Peanut Butter Kisses
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Jokeshopbeard
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: r72rock]
#22153500 - 08/27/15 08:05 PM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
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That's a really great post r72! Thank you!
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
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Thanatos10
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I feel like I'm undergoing a transformation that I cannot be certain is either good or bad.
At the moment, human affairs bore me. Looking around at the lives around me I feel like some sort of researcher studying the scurrying of insects. Human forms of popular entertainment hold no value for me anymore. As for my family, I just see them as people I live with. They don't have much emotional cause to me. Speaking of which it seems like emotions have become something vestigial to me, appearing now and then but only in diminished intensity. I don't see the point or value in love or compassion or being in a loving relationship. It seems like a waste of time an effort. I look and think beyond earth, how smal our lives seem. How dull it must be for beings greater than us to watches scurry on the planet. We put so much importance and value on things but it's all relative not universal. The great cosmos cares not what happens to us, we could all die tomorrow and it will still turn. Yet instead of seeking greater heights people seem concerned with just what's around them, bound to a planetary view of things.
I suppose an accurate summary is that I am bored with humanity and all its arbitrary constructs. I'm not entirely sure what this means or if it's even a problem. My mind lately thinks of things beyond this world.
-------------------- As lightless oblivion devours you, drown in the ever-blooming darkness.
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zZZz
jesus


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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: Thanatos10]
#22162381 - 08/29/15 08:35 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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i know exactly what u are talking about. i've been there before many times, and still am in many ways, except i no longer let these thoughts get a hold of me.
im curious to know,
have u ever been out into the world?, have you experienced the most highs and lows?, if so, what were they?..
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Thanatos10
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: zZZz]
#22163029 - 08/29/15 11:38 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I haven't really been out and traveled that much really, I just lump everything together as human.
I haven't had too many highs in my life. A lot of mental crisis occurring has put a huge damper on things.
I just have to remind myself that I am human and don't exist on a cosmic scale and never will understand such a scale.
-------------------- As lightless oblivion devours you, drown in the ever-blooming darkness.
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zZZz
jesus


Registered: 12/28/07
Posts: 33,478
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: Thanatos10]
#22163043 - 08/29/15 11:45 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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well i think u should try it sometime, travel n shit, see the world for what it is, meet the people, etc..
you;re far from alone
there's some real shit going on in the world and i think u should experience it first hand. it;s incredible, it is scary, it is real..
step out of ur comfort zone
what kind of things do like to do?, any hobbies?,,
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Thanatos10
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: zZZz]
#22163620 - 08/30/15 07:28 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I just find it hard to shake the feeling that it's so small and dull compared to the cosmos. It's hard for me to not just see it as one planet in a vast sea of darkness.
-------------------- As lightless oblivion devours you, drown in the ever-blooming darkness.
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usulpsychonaut


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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: Thanatos10]
#22167844 - 08/31/15 06:18 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Thanatos10 said: Simply put, reading about nihilism has made me suicidal. Life seems to have no point or purpose for me anymore and I have no desire to do or aspire towards anything. Sleep is my only respite but I don't want to live that way anymore, I don't want to wake up each day dreading life.
Maybe I don't understand it, maybe it is as bad as it seems, but I need help.
Depression makes one suicidal not nihilism. I do not believe that nihilism could have anything to do with causing suicidal tendencies. That which helps me is the practice of random belief. This is the only way too flow in my experience. Anything can move me in the moment, I can relate then let it go and believe in the next possibility. I can even be muslim, feminist, communist then a Micheal Jackson fan.
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nuentoter
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It is all pointless as far as we know, you're right. I ask though whats wrong with that? The idea that this life has no purpose, no goal means the ending of this story called life is the same, you die. So it can be at guessed that the ending doesn't matter any more than the last page of a book does. Its about all the pages and stories and experiences in between. So if you know your going to definitely die and that the only thing you can do is change the story of how you got there, then make it a cool fuckin story man.
You understand nihilism so you understand that if you choose to buy a dirt bike and ride it all the way to Peru then guess what, YOU CAN! and why? because it doesn't matter what you do to anyone except YOU. Satisfy the deep wants you have in life. Do what you want because if anyone tells you that it's stupid or a bad idea or whatever then guess what.... it doesn't matter what they think anymore than it matters if you become president or a hardworking middleclass guy with no social life or a happy hippie or the painted silver guy in the park.
Live your life and find beauty where you can and appreciate it. Above all other things DO NO HARM!
I love you my friend and take care of yourself
--------------------
The geometry of us is no chance. We are antennae, we are tuning forks, we are receiver and transmitters of all energy. We are more than we know. - @entheolove "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for" - Georgia O'Keefe I think the word is vagina
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Thanatos10
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Re: Trouble with Nihilism [Re: nuentoter]
#22168104 - 08/31/15 08:32 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
nuentoter said: It is all pointless as far as we know, you're right. I ask though whats wrong with that? The idea that this life has no purpose, no goal means the ending of this story called life is the same, you die. So it can be at guessed that the ending doesn't matter any more than the last page of a book does. Its about all the pages and stories and experiences in between. So if you know your going to definitely die and that the only thing you can do is change the story of how you got there, then make it a cool fuckin story man.
You understand nihilism so you understand that if you choose to buy a dirt bike and ride it all the way to Peru then guess what, YOU CAN! and why? because it doesn't matter what you do to anyone except YOU. Satisfy the deep wants you have in life. Do what you want because if anyone tells you that it's stupid or a bad idea or whatever then guess what.... it doesn't matter what they think anymore than it matters if you become president or a hardworking middleclass guy with no social life or a happy hippie or the painted silver guy in the park.
Live your life and find beauty where you can and appreciate it. Above all other things DO NO HARM!
I love you my friend and take care of yourself
Why? The ending of the story is the motivation to even read the book in the first place. If you know how it ends then you know what happens to everyone in the story. If it doesn't matter how you live your life then it doesn't matter if you are happy because you will die. I doesn't matter what you do because you will die and be forgotten. It doesn't matter if you have wants or if they go unfilled. You know what it all amounts to in the end so why bother or delay in inevitable. In a sense, why does what you wrote above matter if we all die some day? Maybe sooner than others.
The pages in between are irrelevant if one knows how the story ends.
-------------------- As lightless oblivion devours you, drown in the ever-blooming darkness.
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