Are Christians nihilists?

MysteriousStranger said:
I think these amount to the same thing as including faith in your reasoning is to act as if it is reason.
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No offense, but I find this subject confusing.

I have no faith at all.
I do not ignore or seek to overcome nature at all.
I think nothing has intrinsic value.

You see why I can't agree.. :p
 
Enmos said:
No offense, but I find this subject confusing.

I have no faith at all.
I do not ignore or seek to overcome nature at all.
I think nothing has intrinsic value.

You see why I can't agree.. :p
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Oh, I think the confusion is coming the misconception that "faith" and "seeking to overcome nature" are the only ways that lead to the belief that "nothing has intrinsic value."

These things lead to that belief but they are not the only things that do.
 
S.A.M. said:
Yup, its the belief that whatever we think is right, which causes us to believe in ourselves.
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So you contest that arriving at a view through reasoning is superior to arriving at a view simply because you believe it to be true ?
 
I defy you to define "better". :p

In what way is reason better than belief and why do you believe so?
 
MysteriousStranger said:
Oh, I think the confusion is coming the misconception that "faith" and "seeking to overcome nature" are the only ways that lead to the belief that "nothing has intrinsic value."

These things lead to that belief but they are not the only things that do.
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Well, your quote suggested precisely that.
 
S.A.M. said:
I defy you to define "better". :p

In what way is reason better than belief and why do you believe so?
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I didn't use the word 'better' :D

Because the view based on reason is rooted in reality by the hard fact that support it, while the view based on belief is at best rooted in reality by pure luck.
Views based on belief have no supporting evidence or facts whatsoever.
 
Yes you did, you said "Reason is always better than belief"

And what is "reality"
 
Nihilism reduces everything to nothing. Good and bad. Beautiful and ugly. It is the most abominable thing imaginable.

Though I doubt many true nihilists exist, if any at all. True that the closer you get to nihilism the more you go down the road of apathy. However, to be a complete nihilist you would care for nothing because attributing nihilism to yourself requires that you value nothing. If nothing is valued then you would do nothing.

Why would you want to live if neither life nor living has any value?
Why would you want to be happy if neither happiness nor being happy has any value?
Why would you want to feel if neither feelings nor feeling has any value?
Why would you want anything if neither desire nor desiring has any value?
Why would you do anything if all actions and their consequential outcomes are meaningless?

You wouldn't.

A true nihilist would be an apathetic creature in a state of complete indifference. It would simply do nothing (and starve to death).

I think that christians are not neccessarily nihilists but christianity is something that leads to nihilism as it de-values life and de-valuation is what leads to nihilism, with the de-valuation of everything to zero being the ultimate state of nihilism.

I took the time to write because you give nihilists a bad name. A true nihilist would care about nothing and no one except his continued existence and the absence of pain because we are all born human. If you believe in nothing, do it. Do nothing. Prove you don't care. Prove your apathy. Prove your indifference. Take your life over the meaninglessness. Labeling yourself a nihilist is disrespectful to those who really are. You might be at the elementary school level on your way to a Ph.D. of Nihilism. If you believe in nothing, then believe it and go for it.
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Quote taken from: http://www.nihilists.net/faqs.html
 
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The short answer is no. Religions like Christianity are the opposite of Nihilism and simplifying its belief system excessively to prove otherwise is logically flawed.

Christians believe that God has a higher purpose for this world and the humans that inhabit it. The teachings of the Bible give Christians direction. A nihilist has next to none.

Can I just ask, why did you choose to target Christianity and not Islam? The modern-day emphasis on heaven and hell is much more pronounced.
 
Cellar_Door said:
Christians believe that God has a higher purpose for this world and the humans that inhabit it. The teachings of the Bible give Christians direction. A nihilist has next to none.
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So, in other words: "We do have a meaning but it is only known by our God".
This is what I was talking about in an earlier post. Christian's base their values on a fictitious world, a world where a "God" exists. Therefore the natural world, the world without a "God", is rendered meaningless by the christian who rejects it. How does any value exist if it is only known by the super-natural?

Cellar_Door said:
Can I just ask, why did you choose to target Christianity and not Islam? The modern-day emphasis on heaven and hell is much more pronounced.
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I know more about Christianity than Islam so I am more comfortable arguing about it. Though what I said does extend to other religions like Islam and Buddhism which relies on the existance of the super-natural. I find christianity more relevant though, if only to me, as it is more prominent in the western civilization I live in.
 
Mysterious stranger
Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is the philosophical position that values do not exist but rather are falsely invented.
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Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life[2] is without meaning, purpose or intrinsic value.
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Christianity states that all is created by God. If we are God's creations then what value do we have?
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Its not clear how creation negates value.
Christianity also asserts that life is a filtration process in which humans are separated into to categories of "good" and "bad" in which the "good" go to heaven and the "bad" go to hell. If our ultimate purpose is to go to "heaven" or "hell" then what purpose do we have at all?
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I think that the alternative destinations reflect our activities and desire
If a chicken crosses the road and it's only reason for doing so is "to get to the other side" did the crossing of the road have any meaning? And if the chicken's only purpose in life is to cross the road does the chicken's life have any value?

Christianity consistently de-values life by describing it as the conveyor belt to the next one. They are dissatisfied with this life so they create a perfect one in their imaginations that they promise to each other granted that they don't "sin" i.e. make one and other unhappy in this life.
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The general idea is that the different destinations reflect different opportunities that are determined by consequences.

IOW the whole scene is completely surcharged with value, meaning, etc.


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In this sense, it is the philosophical equivalent to the Russian political movement: the leap beyond scepticism — the desire to destroy meaning, knowledge, and value. To Nietzsche, it was irrational because the human soul thrives on value. Nihilism, then, was in a sense like suicide and mass murder all at once. He considered faith in the categories of reason, seeking either to overcome or ignore nature, to be the cause of such nihilism. "We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious world".[20] He saw this philosophy as present in Christianity (which he described as 'slave morality'), Buddhism, morality, asceticism and any excessively skeptical philosophy.
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Alternatively, Nietzsche was convinced that our intrinsic nature is to be independent. So any attack on that value is perceived as nihilistic.
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