my 2 cents.

Hi

I believe that in an N possibility universe, assuming absolute truth, specially under the human condition, is not just arrogant but mathematically incorrect. That cleared up, i want to express that i think everyone has the right to believe in flying tunas, Santa, the tooth fairy, and a homo centric universal order. I think humanoid father figure faith played its part in the early stages of society. Now its just mainstream entertainment. My whole family is church goin, god fearin, testifin, xtans. And that's fine by me. They don't preach to me, i don't preach to them. Its all peace.

I don't really like to engage in religious disputes. Its pointless. There are more important things to do. Life is way too short a ride to complain with the guy next to you about how sh***y the seats are.

My gods are the sun, the stars, and the oceans. And i know they're not.

I consider myself a positive nihilist.

I didn't think it was possible to be a "positive" nihilist.

What I don't understand is how someone can believe that there is no value in anything in life and still be "positive" in the same respect. Seems like a positive nihilist is a bit like a heterosexual lesbian.

Peterwafles - I think you are mislabling your position. By your own description of your view here:

"I don't really like to engage in religious disputes. Its pointless. There are more important things to do. Life is way too short a ride to complain with the guy next to you about how sh***y the seats are."

you don't seem to be a nihilist - a nihilist would not say that religious disputes are pointless because there are more important things to do, but rather that such disputes are just as pointless as everything else in life; for a nihilist, there aren't any "more important things to do", just one option of ultimately pointless action after another.

I think nihilism is flawed in that it jumps from the observation of a lack of ultimate meaning, to the lack of meaning in general. Meaning doesn't have to be ultimate and immutable, in order to be... meaningful.

For example, right now I'm enjoying a cup of coffee - I find the experience enjoyable, and the taste pleasant. This action has no ultimate meaning whatsoever, but it is meaningful to me, because I asissign it positive meaning; why I do so has probably to do with my personal history, and positive associations with a steaming cup of coffee, and the fact that I know caffeine makes me more alert, and I like being more alert.

The fact that the cup will be empty soon, and the experience forever in consigned to history is of no consequence - something doesn't have to be eternal to be meaningful to me.

Similarly, my life is finite, and insignificant in the scale of the lifespan of the Universe, small even on the scale of human history, but while it lasts, I am able and quite willing to assign meaning to it, and to things that I'm genetically, or through some personal quirk or learning, predisposed to wanting to find meaningful.

Society around me assigns other meanings - like the meaning of a lawful and free culture - that I am predisposed, as a social creature, to abide by.

Moral nihilism is likewise wrong, in my view - it claims morality to be essentially arbitrary, but as a consequence of simple observation of cultures around the world, this does not seem to be the case. While there are differences, there are also overreaching similarities which stem from the moral intutions which our evolutionary past as a social species has hardwired into us, and which constrain and guide the sorts of moral practices and rules that may arise in a human society. Morality isn't arbitrary, it serves a function of facilitating co-operation in societies, and is as much an adaptation as any biological freature we have; it is much like the language instinct, which is likewise fluid enough to allow multiple manifestations of languages with varying grammars, but which still guides human language to a small set of possible grammatical patterns.

We are hard-wired to find, say, couraugeous acts commendable, and cowardice shameful - in no culture is this reversed. We find courageous acts that serve societies or protect individuals within them meaningful in a positive sense, because we are genetically and neuroligically predisposed to do so.