Re: MD Nihilism

From: MarshaV (marshalz@charter.net)
Date: Thu Feb 24 2005 - 12:08:28 GMT

  • Next message: Ant McWatt: "MD Nihilism"

    All,

    I'd like to keep this thread going.  Maybe just for myself.   I need to explore this word, this concept.  I hope you'll ignore, and forgive me if I ramble, but it's required.  There is no one in my circle of family and friends who think about such things.  I am an outlander. 

    I am not a philosopher.  I will appreciate and try to explore all assistance and challenges to my fuzzy thinking.  But in the end, it will be my gut, not words that will determine the next step.  

    If I say there is no absolute God to guide or save me, no absolute morality, and no absolute truth, am I a nihilist?  I think the answer would be yes.  If life is a process, a series of events, how could it be otherwise? 

    Or to explore it differently, what would the opposite of nihilism require?  Purpose?  

    What of the emotions, fear and depression, attached to this word, this concept?  Are they justified?   Does it follow that without absolutes, there is chaos?  Are fear and depression inherent in the definition of nihilism?  Or are they secondarily associated?  How do they arrive?  From what SD system to they come? 

    I have read more than once that there are know absolutes in the Buddhist philosophy.  Could the idea of nihilism flourish in the Zen philosophy.  It's meaning and/or its emotions?  Isn't this an important aspect of Eastern philosophies to be explored? 

    Or should the word "nihilism" be erased, banished from all Western vocabularies?

    Deep in my bones I know there is no answer, there never was a answer and there never will be an answer.  Yet,,, I keep asking.  I am such a foolish woman. 

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