Nihilism: What the heck is it?

I got curious about nihilism and went to find out more about it. The closest I can come to an "official" definition that's also credible (sorry, Wikipedia) is this:

I found that to be a little extreme, since any philosophy that truly negates knowing anything has already negated itself, if it claims to know anything.

Then there was this, which seemed semi-apocalyptic:

There was a more sensible definition elsewhere:

Basically, it's a belief that there is no singular Cause or Truth in the universe, just our interpretations -- some of which are right, some of which are crap, in varying degrees.

 

Okay

 

nihilism is where its at

 

eahh, it's nothing.

 

Imagine getting into an argument with a nihilist, its making me mad just thinking about it.

 

Don't get made get even, ignore them.

 

U know what I think these ppl have the right idea well for the most part. Meaningless is the default original state of mind, there is no meaning until proven otherwise. And lets face it all the meaning or proof that we may hold as true is purely subjective it very well maybe fulfilling to find this personal meaning and that's great but as soon as this truth leaves the mind of its creator in a form of words or letters it looses its power it becomes what it is just words and letters.


All u have to do is look at the very seed of all life DNA we have shit lauds of it like 2m in every cell and more then 98% of it is useless just siting there existing doing nothing why because its very good at reproduction that's it. Cant blame them though after all the very pinnacle of reality is simply to exist.


Hmm preferably in a form that can perish so that artificial hope and need could be felt for another identical boring meaningless tomorrow within the infinite space time accomplished by this sense of having something to loose having some order something that distinguishes a being from the chaos that we call the universe there for gaining by default meaning to oneself I don't think so it seems just a temporal attempt in distraction from the emptiness within and out.


Am telling u man well I think the universe and life within it all longs for nothing more but to spread and conquer till it over powers the original endless nothingness in affect becoming infinite? Yet when u think about it is there anything more meaningless then infinity it self, its just a never ending chase with a goal that is less important that the actual progress towards it. In other words exiting is the purpose it all came from nothing and its going nowhere eg its like if u would find ur self in a pitch black endless room for indefinite time period wouldn't u time to time just get up and walk somewhere/nowhere just for the sake of walking in turn giving urself a false purpose just for a time being.

 

READ A BOOK.

(i used to be a nihilist..all of the types.) right now im the religious nietzsche-described kind

 

From the OED the kinda you're all on about is- 'Total rejection of prevailing religious beliefs, moral principles, laws, etc., often from a sense of despair and the belief that life is devoid of meaning. Also more generally: negativity, destructiveness, hostility to accepted beliefs or established institutions.'

 

That's kinda like the 2nd law of thermodynamics, 'In a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy (i.e disorder/spreading out) of the universe'

 

Im not going to use any names to describe myself, but I do feel that life and existence is all quite pointless if you think deeply about it all. I dont align myself with any religion, because of the fact that even if any one of them is true, existance is still just as pointless. So, lets say that there really truly is a heaven and hell, god and satan. Ill just recognize these as facts, and live my life accordingly. And just like I wont stick my hand on a stove because it hurts like a bitch, im not going to defy god, because going to hell sounds like it would suck ass. But, bottom line, its still all pretty fucking pointless. Even if thats REALLY how things go. Sure I do have a "goal". Its to avoid pain, seek pleasure, which is why under those circumstances ill be a good boy. Guess in a way you can say im wrong, that the purpose in life is to seek pleasure and avoid pain after you hear me say what i just said. But what if someone else in the world decides that their goal is to seek pain, and avoid pleasure? Pretty fucking pointless huh? But is it more or less pointless than my goals?

 

Nihilism is claiming that the devil nothing but contingency in the World which the body must fight back with it's own contingency. But in my view there something like 'darkness' which actually can merge the two contingencies together; thus the anti-christ, and God is Dead. Dig?

 

It's a song by my favorite band....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WOx4U3sCuQ"]Rancid- Nihilism - YouTube

 

Nihilism comes from nihil meaning nothing. Probably the best definition you have is a combination of the first one and the last one. Nihilism is a lack of values so ultimately they are all crap.

Sure you can have varying degrees of nihilism, but I guess if you want to be 'partly pregnant.'

It is the gradually rising tide of nihilism that gives rise to the existential crisis--but only for those that are either sick enough, or brave enough, to face it. For everyone else, they simply mask over the question with consumerism, and a never ending search for happiness. For the unfortunate ones, this leads to drug and alcohol abuse, depression, suicide, and so forth.
For society as a whole, nihilism leads to crime and decadence. Consider for example the values that still exist in some small rural towns, where doors are still kept unlocked and neighbors are almost like family. Compare that with the cold heartless nihilism that has already encroached interpersonal relations in the big cities, where doors are kept locked and even a friendly knock on the door is responded initially with trepidation--carefully checking through a peep hole to see who it is.

Nihilism is also the inevitable result of the Post-Modern crisis. It is the reason for the Post-Modern search for meaning, and the rediscovery of ancient traditions and ways---but then they too are filtered through the cold rationalistic objectivism of the Modern Age, and these old traditions become cliches and farces of the original traditions, often times sterilized of the very meaning that Modern Man sought to find in the first place.

For Modern man, religion, spirituality, even philosophy, has largely become little more than a joke. In Jesus name we will stone the gays, and by the grace of Jesus, women, when raped will have their bodies shut down so that they shall not conceive (and if they did conceive then obviously they wanted it and it wasn't really rape... Thank God in heaven). And Buddhist enlightenment can be purchased for a mere couple of thousand dollars in the cultural center of Post-Modern Eastern Religion, Boulder, Colorado.

The tentacles of Nihilism run so deep in our culture that some of you have accepted meaninglessness as a cold dead inescapable reality. But do you sincerely accept it in such a stoic fashion, or are you simply wearing it as a mask to slip across that deeper more sinister question, possibly now repressed into your own subconscious--the real question of "WHY?"

Yes, we have truly declined into Nietzsche's Age of Nihilism. God is dead, money is king, consume voraciously lest you fall victim to the depression that afflicts those useless cogs that are spat out of the machine.

There was that brief rise of the ubermensch--Nietzsche's Superman---the flower children, or hippies of the 60's that breathed new life into the Dionysian dynamic and saved America from an early demise. But today the Apollonian forces are hard at work, and objectivism rapidly subdues the subjective individual, and where is that ubermensch now? Our youth are too busy, lost in an abstract simile of reality, playing their playstations and X-Boxes.

(...but I am still an optimist...)

 

When existentialists, like Hiedegger, speak of the dread of facing nothingness, they are speaking of the nihilism that we face when we fall victim to that deepest, most serious question, of "WHY?"

Some of us face it outright and it becomes an adventure, but many others fall victim to it---as it rises up unasked from their subconscious to consume their soul. Here is one of the best descriptions I have seen on these forums of an existential crisis:

There is nihilism for you---when it rises up from inside---without invitation.

 

Nihilism? its nothing really. that's a pun.