Tag Archives: nihilism

Nietzsche in a Nutshell

Posted on August 5, 2013 by

__________ Once you perceive that you are flung into a cosmos in which God is dead (or silent), and your ultimate questions are unlikely ever to be answered, it’s time to stop worrying about who or where you are really—what the truth is—and just, say, make lion-man totems … Continue reading →

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Buddha’s Take on Suffering vs. Nietzsche’s

Posted on April 21, 2013 by

If you think about it, we respond to whatever arises into consciousness with desire, aversion, or neutrality. And the things that appear to consciousness are always in flux: they arise, they ripen, they decline from attention and disappear. Then others … Continue reading →

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What Is Truth After Sandy Hook?

Posted on December 17, 2012 by

Numerous parts of President Obama’s speech at Newtown on Sunday pricked me, but the following was especially jarring: Why are we here? What gives our life meaning? What gives our acts purpose? […] There’s only one thing we can be … Continue reading →

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Humanism vs. Nihilism: Has the Occupy Movement Gotten Away from Chris Hedges’ Nonviolent Vision for It?

Posted on February 7, 2012 by

From its inception, Chris Hedges has been a key intellectual supporting the Occupy movement, and he sees its lineage in the nonviolent tradition of Tolstoy, Thoreau, Gandhi, and King: absorb blows without returning them. This (presumably) arouses the conscience of … Continue reading →

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Mitt Romney Campaign Theme Song Suggestion: Live and Let Die

Posted on January 12, 2012 by

After watching, dumbfounded, “When Mitt Romney Came to Town“—the 28 minute documentary on Mitt Romney’s shenanigans at Bain Capital (the one put out by Newt Gingrich’s wealthy friends), I think Romney’s campaign theme song should be Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let … Continue reading →

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Catholic Church Christmas Bombing 2011: Boko Haram Means “Western Learning is Sinful”

Posted on December 26, 2011 by

The Islamist group that calls itself “Boko Haram”—northern Hausa language, meaning “Western learning is sinful”—and that blew up Catholics at a Christmas service yesterday, is described in the following manner by Reuters: The shadowy group from Nigeria’s Muslim north, blamed for … Continue reading →

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What is Humanism, and Where is 21st Century Atheism Taking Us, Really?

Posted on May 25, 2011 by

Just as Unitarianism is the featherbed for catching the falling Christian (Erasmus Darwin), humanism is the featherbed for catching the falling atheist. What humanism functions to conceal for the squeamish atheist and agnostic (and I am one of those squeamish agnostics) is … Continue reading →

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Checkmate: Death and Determinism are the Two Absolute Truths of Atheism

Posted on April 28, 2011 by

It’s sometimes asserted that atheism admits of no ultimate or absolute truths, but in the “D Girl” episode of the Sopranos (Season 2) is a rather nice exchange between Tony Soprano and his therapist, Dr. Jennifer Malfi, that suggests otherwise. The exchange concerns … Continue reading →

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Republican Governor Rick Perry Calls on Texans to Pray For Rain

Posted on April 22, 2011 by

Reuters reports that the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has called on Texans to pray to God for rain, and quotes him as saying the following: It is fitting that Texans should join together in prayer to humbly seek an … Continue reading →

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Good Reasons for Being an Agnostic Watch: A Fifth Force of Nature? Things Just Got More Interesting

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

A “bump” in the data generated at Fermilab has the physics world buzzing. The following is in the New York Times today: “Nobody knows what this is,” said Christopher Hill, a theorist at Fermilab who was not part of the team. “If … Continue reading →

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Are the New Atheists Insufficiently Serious?

Posted on March 25, 2011 by

R. Joseph Hoffmann, an atheist himself and the author or editor of numerous academic books—including Jesus in History and Myth (Prometheus Books 1986)—thinks so, writing at his blog recently the following: The mode of critique [by New Atheists] is lodged somewhere … Continue reading →

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Jared Loughner: An Atheist Motivated by Nihilism?

Posted on January 11, 2011 by

Of all the ink spilled so far over Jared Loughner’s shooting in the head of a Jewish congresswoman, Gabriella Giffords, the Mother Jones interview with Loughner’s long time friend, Bryce Tierne, is, I think, most illuminating, particularly with regard to Loughner’s underlying obsessions: … Continue reading →

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Atheism and the Quest for Meaning: What Does It Mean to Say That All of Existence is Contingent?

Posted on December 23, 2010 by

It means that life didn’t have to be—it was an accident—and yet here we all are. Our existence is neither inherently necessary or meaningful. Welcome! Now, as human beings, what do we do? Well, we can try to take the incoherence of … Continue reading →

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The Neoconservative War on Nihilism (and Thomas Jefferson)

Posted on December 7, 2010 by

Harper’s website has a fascinating interview with C. Bradley Thompson on neoconservatism and his new book (with Yaron Brook) about it. Although, in the interview, the phrase “Herderian nationalism” is not used for neoconservatism by Thompson, he strongly implies that this is exactly what … Continue reading →

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Is going to church a form of weakness (a way of not dealing with what life is)?

Posted on June 14, 2010 by

In a recent thread, Trishothinks moves in the direction of deism and says the following: I hate to say this (because of my strong Christian upbringing), but now I believe that people who go to church are “weak”. They need … Continue reading →

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Contingency vs. Conspiracy

Posted on March 14, 2010 by

A recent set of studies reminds us that we use telos and conspiracy theories to control our anxiety over what really seems to rule the world: contingency. This at Miller-McCune: A research team led by social psychologist Daniel Sullivan of the … Continue reading →

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Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Circles” (1841): The Creative Vitalist Lost in Space?

Posted on February 10, 2010 by

Below are a few excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Circles” (1841). In this essay he likens the creative artist’s framing imagination to something like the growing layers of an onion building themselves over the dark inner depths of the ontological mystery. Emerson’s thesis is in his … Continue reading →

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Richard Rorty on Making Ethical Choices in a Godless Universe

Posted on January 29, 2010 by

I think that Richard Rorty is right about this, but it’s a bit jarring to read it stated so directly and matter-of-factly. The quote comes from Rorty’s essay, “Kant vs. Dewey” (in the last collection of his papers, Philosophy as Cultural … Continue reading →

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A Life as Metaphor Poll!

Posted on October 17, 2009 by

Really. This two days ago at Pollster.com: StrategyOne polled Americans (n=1,000 telephone survey) October 9-12, 2009 with the following question: “People often use metaphors to describe their life… Which ONE of the following do you think best descibes your life?” A Journey: … Continue reading →

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My Favorite Agnostic Joke

Posted on July 16, 2009 by

I don’t remember Woody Allen’s exact words, but in one of his films he’s having one of his characteristic existential crises and asks his elderly father whether or not he believes in the existence of God, and whether the universe has any … Continue reading →

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