@richard mcnair,
richard_mcnair;107031 wrote:'Lies, damn lies, and statistics' is a famous phrase I was using rhetorically, I didn't mean you were actually lying...
I didn't take it as such. I thought you were aiming the comment at the "general upshot of the stats".
I agree - devoid of a broader picture stats are misleading - perhaps always so.
Quote:How can nihilism have nothing to do with atheism?
I doubt it can - I'll give you that.
But throughout Russian history people have been treated as arbitrary commodities - leading to extremes of behaviour in all forms in all sorts of people. It's a deeply traumatised place.
So Russia may well have thrown up some athiest-nihilists (though the sole example given in this discussion is fictional).
It also produced Christians like Ivan the Terrible.
It's the tone and progress of the history there that has led to a culture of arbitrary morality - not one single religious position.
Quote:Can you be a theistic nihilist?
Norse myth, I find, is pretty devoid of a moral guide. There's the "be a brave warrior or go to Hel" thing - but then the forces of Hel may triumph at Ragnarok (in some readings) so it's not like "Hel is for losers" in a binary sense. There was nothing heretical about a viking warrior honouring Loki (far as I know).
But if you believed it you would have beliefs - even if those beliefs needn't inform a morality. Mini-nihilism, I suppose.
In fact, a nihilist could have a subjective moral code that a believer lacks.
I also think some upshots of buddhism can support nihilism, and the Tao seems also to point to a flexible and subjective morality based on the need of the moment.
Though, in turn, I suppose it could be argued that such religions aren't really theisms, or religions anyway.
Quote:Well.. perhaps you can, but the nihilism that lead to the foundation of the various different ideologies - communism, socialism, fascism, etc were all due to the abandonment of the old religious order of things.
Most practical implementations of communism did suppress religion, but not because they had no morality - rather they sought to impose a new one. The values and beliefs of religion were not abandoned, but swapped or altered into the values Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and so on. They had 'faith' in the ideals of Marx - or at least professed them in order to seek power. They weren't nihilistic, because Marx stresses that some values and beliefs are integral to communist society (his main mistake, I think).
Dunno what socialism has to do with it, other than be the victim of dreadful press.
Fascism as a phenomenon seems to have arisen almost wholly in Catholic countries (Spain, Germany, Italy, Latin America), led by Catholic leaders (Franco, Mussolini, Hitler, Pinochet, etc), by and large encouraged by the Catholic church and supported by Catholic allies. Pro-Fascist argument has almost always been couched in religious terms. Mein Kampf often appeals to authority in the shape of God. "Gott Mitt Us" on every Nazi belt-buckle.
The "Old Religious Order" (itself responisble for Europe's most destructive war - the 30 Years War) and Fascism seem to get on pretty well.
