Does nihilism mean you have to be a miserable twat? Discuss!

[Rum]

Following on from a few threads earlier today I want to start an important debate! ..or is it?

Nothing means anything. Entropy wins and everything falls into chaos. We all die and nothing we do matters. Not s single thing you or I do will ever mean a damn thing except if you are lucky to one or two people around you very temporarily.

Life sucks and is pointless.

So! Is this a reason to be miserable?

I sometimes think whether or not this affects you emotionally is a matter of temperament rather than philosophical outlook.

Don't bother responding by the way. No point. But if you want to fill the pointless empty void of your life for a few seconds why not add a word or two. Meh.

[rachelbean]

Nope! http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... =2&t=26490

[Pappa]

Nope! http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... =2&t=26490

What she said.

[Rum]

I think I am trying to get to the issue of temperament versus intellectualism or summat.

[Feck]

life is also Awesome and pointless ...It's got nothing to do with a point. You have chosen to express nihilism only in negative terms .

[Rum]

life is also Awesome and pointless ...It's got nothing to do with a point. You have chosen to express nihilism only in negative terms .

You assume I have free will!

[Atheist-Lite]

I'm waiting for the war/revolution so I can watch tanks bombard the local council offices, and that makes life interesting for me if nothing else. You should be pleased we're approaching interesting times as well Rum...surely there's buildings you dislike over your way?

[Cunt]

The following poem, which I have posted elsewhere here, helps me to see the beauty, even to be inspired by nihilism.

Maybe it's because I love getting the magical thinking OUT of beauty.

We are born, and we suffer until we go;
We live till we die, and that's all we know,
Neither what the purpose nor whose the game
To make us, break us, with pain and shame.
We are brought to a board where there's all we wish---
But the cook's gone mad and has fouled each dish;
We can plan and make; we can think and do---
But the prize is a husk, worm-eaten, too;
Our minds are a marvel, as all agree,
And our bodies as well, but the two don't gee,
So they live in a permanent tug of war,
To each the other a scab and a bore;
And we have two sexes, fashioned to mate
In the flesh so well, but their spirits hate,
So the joy of a body is no part
Of the soul's delight and dies in the heart
Of a gangrenous blight. Yet we plant the seed
For the force of our lust and callously breed
A brood to inherit our rotten lot
And to scorn and hate us, as why should they not
When we act the lunatic Judas goat
For the miserable get on whom we dote;
Though they are as silly and warped as we,
As doomed to despair and futility,
As bound to be robbed of whatever they crave,
As lucky in finally finding a grave.
But we blather to them what was blithered to us
And babble our praise of the barbarous,
So that they in turn can swindle their kith
With a pitiful, sniveling, coward's myth
Of the wisdom and plan behind it all;
"Sing praise and let the hosannas fall!"
Is the constant bellow of dupe to dupe,
The idiot maundering of the group,
All bleating their fables in coined belief---
But leave an adult to his knowledge and grief.

[Cunt]

...and now that I think of it, how is nihilism not called realism?

[Gallstones]

I think my opinion is embodied in my signature.
I am unrepentant about that.

[Gallstones]

I like that poem <D>.

[Feck]

life is also Awesome and pointless ...It's got nothing to do with a point. You have chosen to express nihilism only in negative terms .

You assume I have free will!

OH dear

[Animavore]

I think nihilism may compound misery in those who are already miserable by their nature if they think misery is all they'll ever know with no happiness beyond.
Everyone is different, though. I have natural miserable tendencies but they have nothing to do with my inevitable extinction. I don't even usually think about or pine for an afterlife. All my misery is temporal and what keeps me going is the hope my life will be better in future. My corporeal life. I've no hope or wish for a better afterlife.

[Atheist-Lite]

I think nihilism may compound misery in those who are already miserable by their nature if they think misery is all they'll ever know with no happiness beyond.
Everyone is different, though. I have natural miserable tendencies but they have nothing to do with my inevitable extinction. I don't even usually think about or pine for an afterlife. All my misery is temporal and what keeps me going is the hope my life will be better in future. My corporeal life. I've no hope or wish for a better afterlife.

Some people will be miserable and using nihilism as a rationalisation. That is a choice for them. Maybe they should snort a line? It'll lift them up.

[Bella Fortuna]

Maybe they should snort a line? It'll lift them up.

Yes, but who?