Tired of being a nihilist

I'll leave you with this quote from my hero C.S. Lewis:

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
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I'm going to assume that you think your original post here was meaningful ... otherwise you wouldn't have posted it.

You're here in NoFap forums and trying to abstain from PMO because you know you'll get more out of life because of it. But in order to attempt to get more out of life, you have to believe there's something more to get.

If there were no meaning, then meaninglessness wouldn't bring you despair. Hell, if life has no meaning, then eat, drink and be merry; go hog wild, be hedonistic, embrace every pleasure you can find. But those pleasures will only leave you feeling empty.

I may be overstepping here, and if so, I apologize--but I'd suggest your problem isn't that you think life is meaningless. I think it's that you can't seem to determine what the meaning is. The fact that you're even here speaking about your concerns shows me that you think your life is worth saving.

 

How is having purpose any different than having meaning?

Both "purpose" and "meaning" are transcendent and almost interchangeable ideas.

This is a bit like saying, "if I have a desire for wealth, I don't need to search for riches." If you have a direction in life that you feel as if you're supposed to be taking (which implies moral conviction--you used the world "should" afterall), then you believe in meaning, even if you claim not to.

 

Both of these are fair comments.

@ChameleoManiac , who knows? But when I see someone making claims that are worth challenging, I consider it an act of service to challenge them--not just for the person making the claim (because our own ideas and opinions should be tested)--but also for those reading along on the sidelines. And while I'm confident that my worldview is aligned with truth, I'm also not arrogant enough to think I have all the answers. The people I challenge may very well teach me something. But I'll never find out unless I press a button or two.

@Brokenman123 isn't off-base to say that your post was condescending. How do you think people will respond when you basically refer to them as simpletons and "swine?" Has anyone's mind ever been changed by that kind of treatment? When you're dismissing people's thoughts and beliefs because they "rely on propaganda", how readily do you think they'll listen to anything you have to share?

In these kinds of philosophical debates, I believe the Christian worldview is right and that opposing views are wrong. But my aim is never to make someone else feel wrong, or to make them feel bad about what they believe, or to put them on the opposite site of some imaginary battlefield where I need to fire all my artillery in their direction. The aim is to ask questions in a way that influences people to ask themselves questions, to stumble upon the truth in their own time. Hell, maybe even phrasing it this way probably makes me sound arrogant--but I think it's a much more valuable approach than telling others how wrong they are.

 

How far are you willing to run with this philosophy? Are the beliefs of an ISIS solider just as valid as yours? Are the beliefs of a white supremacist just as valid as yours? You begin to see how complicated moral relativism starts to get.

It correlates because there's a reason you want your life to go in a certain direction. If your reason is simply "well, that's just because it's how I feel," then your purpose for life is no more or less valid than someone who chooses to become a suicide bomber. I'm making assumptions here, but I'm going to guess that your sense of purpose for your life has a bigger goal than simply your own personal fulfillment. I would guess that you want to have a positive impact on the world, on the people you care for, on your circles of influence ... but to even talk about something like "a positive impact", you implicitly have to believe in meaning, even if you claim otherwise.

Do you think charity and goodwill toward others is an important value? Without a sense of actual meaning in life, how can you even begin to define or speak of concepts like "good" or "evil?"

 

Nope. Truth is objective. The end, case closed. Anyone who says "my truth" or "his truth" is using the word incorrectly--they're talking about perception, not truth.

 

I'm a hypocritical nihilist as well, because I'm always sucking on the nurturing udder-bag of the welfare and kindness of others.

I can't even write a nihilist poem, without it incidentally becoming an upbeat+happy Weird-Al-binism of Sir Elton John's "Beyond the Yellow Brick Road" for example.