That Nihilism Glaze
28 February 2005 by Bob”They were good people, and sometimes it’s hard to understand why things like this happen to good people,” Sainval, 32, said. “But they are with God now. Someday we’ll be together again.”
Yes, detach, disconnect, and let that nihilism glaze form over your eyes. You were agonizing over the deaths, and now everything’s all better.
28 February 2005, on 2:51 pm
Even if (and I say “if” only for the sake of argument) the promise of an afterlife were false. I fail to see how making fun of people who use such a promise to deal with their grief serves any purpose.
Choice A: “They are with God now” and those left behind feel better during a terrible time in their lives.
Choice B. “Your relatives are nothing more than a rotting worm feast now so you and your grief can just simmer in a big ol’ vat of crap stew.”
Hmmmmm
28 February 2005, on 7:04 pm
What if we all lived in a computer simulation for the amusment of some advanced civilization or if we were kept in this simulation to keep us occupied while we are used as a source of energy by robots? Should we remain ignorant of this if this ignorance made us happy?
Should we just give up on education? After all, if ignorance makes us happy, we would be so much happier without education.
People who believe that ignorance is bliss are ignorantly blissful.
28 February 2005, on 7:57 pm
I don’t know which is funnier, Frank: the fact that this “dilemma” is so obviously false, or the fact that the dilemma itself actually assumes the nihilistic attitude that I tried to show in my post. Nice job, Frank.
1 March 2005, on 8:19 am
Bob’s right; what a patheic false dilemma: Either believe in invisible daddy and eternal life in the clouds, or their lives can have no meaning. It’s hard to think anybody REALLY believes this. C’mon Frank; is your grasp on the worth of human lives so tenuous that it would REALLY just disappear if you found that there was no invisible daddy telling you human beings mattered?
1 March 2005, on 10:04 am
You missed the point on my comment — I’m not saying it is better to be ignorant of truth. I was just wondering what purpose it served to make fun of people who are grieving over the loss of loved ones and have found solice in the knowledge they are with God. I prefaced my comments with the statement “for the sake of argument” because the fact remains…there is a God. I, by no means, conceded that point.
1 March 2005, on 10:13 pm
It’s not really black and white. Yes, death of a loved one is painful and finding some solace from that pain is hardly a bad thing. At the same time, religion has so consistently used things like death and other painful events as opportunities to recruit and strengthen their hold over believers, criticism of this sort of automatic ‘they are with god’ rhetoric is fully justified. I would never go up to a grieving person and explain my beliefs to them, but this automatic publication of ‘they’re with god’ in the media, as if it’s a nice thing instead of a kind of sad side effect of the pain, is tiresome.
3 March 2005, on 9:23 am
We got the point — we’re just noting that the consequence of yourtrying to make that poing was to show just how much you accept exactly the bullshit nihilistic assumption (i.e., that without God, lives don’t matter) that Bob was making fun of. Thanks for illustrating Bob’s point.