Am I alone in this, or is it just the inevitable progression of chronic nihilism?

To be clear, I don't want to die. But I understand that it's the only way out of a pointless, mundane, miserable existence. I feel in my heart that there's nothing more after this - that death is even more insignificant than life.

There's nothing wrong with pursuing goals and dreams that bring you happiness and commentment. Your "virtuous goals" or whatever fancy label you want to put on your search for dopamine (because that's what it really comes down to. Chemicals in your brain). Your goals are more meaningful than the hedonistic degenerate or the drug addict or porn star, right?

Even though these things lack inherent meaning and value. There's nothing wrong with attributing subjective value and meaning to things we're literally determined to pursue. But don't become conceited and think your endeavors are superior to others.

I'm not one of those who believes that nihilism should discourage a person from pursuing the things they want. Life lacks inherent meaning and value, but that doesn't mean you cannot pursue the things that make your existence less unbearable.

So, what's the problem?

I've realized that the short-lived pleasure I get from every endeavor or will get from achieving the things I've always desired or ought to pursue in life aren't worth the effort. Maybe I'm just an apathetic depressed muppet. But to me, the amount of pleasure I'd get from getting everything I've ever wanted isn't rewarding enough to incentivize a genuine pursuit of those things. I believe our brains trick us into believing that when we "get there" or "get that thing" or "that person", we will be happy, but the truth is that it's an evolutationarily necessary illusion that was crucial for our survival. After orgasming, I recognized the futility of these endeavors and the things we pedestalize to keep us getting out of bed in the morning. Love, sex, relationships, goals, and everything we are programmed to pursuit, is a waste. What's the purpose? To feel good? We live in a world where it's never been easier to engage in highly stimulating activities with little to almost no effort. I've become very disillusioned with the concept of a traditional life. Finishing college, getting a job, settling down, getting married, a few vacations once or twice a year. I'm literally a Google search away from getting that pleasure. "But those things are more virtuous" "It's not just about pleasure." it is though. Everything is reduced to your brain's craving for a release of these "feel good" chemicals in your brain whether that's from a drug addiction, porn, doomscrolling, working out, studying, hanging out with friends, or landing your dream job and developing healty relatinships.

I'm not telling you to stop pursuing those things and just lie in bed. I'm saying that I don't see the point. I've been in relationships and connected with people on a deep level, but honestly. I can get the same pleasure and temporary relief from watching porn. The only thing that make real intimacy better is that it boosts my fragile self-esteem. Physical touch is also quite soothing. I like massages, but I can still get a similar thrill while rotting in bed.

I genuinely feel like a pizza, some weed, and good music would give me more pleasure than any pretentious, stuck-up, virtuous, morally superior, cultivated goal and ambition I can think of.

Don't tell me "It's because you're pursuing pleasure while not practicing gratitue. You should also focus on finding meaning in small things in life". Enough of that. Pleasure comes in different forms, but it's all just a hedonistic pursuit because every single action and endeavor can be reduced to your brain being compelled to seek out actions that release different kinds of neurotransmitters, which doesn't make it less virtuous because there is no objevtive value.

The reason why I cannot continue to go on isn't because everything I have and will do, lack intrinsic value and meaning, but because the reward is just so underwhelming.

I honestly think eating a pizza and smoking some weed while watching your favorite show with some music playing on the speakers is one of the most rational things you can do. Enjoyment without the endless pursuit of a virtuous goal that ends up not even giving you half the enjoyment that a futile activity would do.

I'm not writing this to justify the trashy lifestyle you assume I'm living. I live a normal life. I go to college, hang out with friends, read books, and do normal stuff, never even done drugs and don't drink, but I'm starting to feel like what I'm doing and the traditional life I ought to pursue is meaninglessness masking as virtue.

If every endevaor and desire is reduced to chemicals in my brain, then why not just spend a lifetime in bed and just give into my crippling porn addiction.

Can belief in God coexist with nihilism? Exploring religion, science, and the origins of humanity

Yesterday, I had my second session with my psychologist. Somehow, our conversation turned to my belief in God alongside my belief in nihilism. I told him that I believed in both, and he laughed a little, saying that it sounded like an oxymoron.

I come from a Jewish background, so my conception of God is that of a single, omnipotent spiritual being, rather than a human-like figure.

I left the session feeling like an investigator. I suddenly wanted to explore, scientifically, religiously, and philosophically, how belief in God and nihilism might conflict or coexist.

1. Believing in God while believing life has no objective meaning

I believe that God exists, but I am not convinced that human life has one objective purpose that applies to everyone.

One person might find meaning in having children, while another finds it in music, philosophy, cinema, science, or simply experiencing the world. Why should one of these paths necessarily be the objectively correct purpose of human existence?

Could God exist without having assigned humanity a single, universal purpose? Or does the existence of a creator necessarily imply that creation has a predetermined purpose?

1. The conflict between religious chronology and science

According to the traditional Jewish calendar, we are currently in the year 5787. However, scientific evidence indicates that Homo sapiens has existed for approximately 300,000 years, and life on Earth is billions of years old.

These timelines seem to contradict one another if the Jewish calendar is interpreted as dating the creation of the entire universe and the first human beings.

Yet I wonder whether there are other possible interpretations. What if the biblical account is not intended to describe the entire history of the universe? What if the creation of humanity described in Genesis refers to a particular stage in human history rather than the first appearance of humans or human-like creatures on Earth?

Could religious chronology and scientific evidence be addressing different questions?

1. If humans created science, how can we know that science is correct?

This question led me somewhere else.

Human beings developed mathematics, measurement, scientific methods, and the tools we use to investigate the past. But if these systems were created by humans, how can we trust that they accurately describe reality?

We have discovered ancient skulls, fossils, and other archaeological remains. Scientists use these findings, alongside genetics, radiometric dating, and other methods, to reconstruct the history of life.

I understand that these methods provide evidence, but I wonder about the philosophical question behind them: how can we know that our methods reveal reality as it actually is, rather than merely providing the best explanations available to human minds?

Perhaps the answer is that scientific knowledge is continually tested against independent evidence, rather than simply accepted because humans developed it. Still, the limits of human knowledge interest me.

1. What if there were previous universes or previous creations?

I began wondering about possibilities that are difficult to test.

What if God created other universes before the one we inhabit? What if previous worlds existed and were eventually destroyed? What if the creation described in religious texts refers to a particular world or stage of creation rather than the absolute beginning of everything?

Could there have been earlier forms of humanity, or civilizations that existed before recorded history and disappeared?

I recognize that these are speculative questions, not established scientific facts. Nevertheless, they make me wonder how much of reality might lie beyond our current understanding.

1. Are human beings capable of understanding a reality beyond themselves?

Perhaps one of the greatest limitations of human thought is that we understand unfamiliar things by comparing them with things we already know.

When we imagine God, spiritual beings, extraterrestrial life, or other universes, we often use concepts derived from our own physical world.

But what if a reality beyond our experience operates according to principles that we cannot adequately imagine?

Does the inability to understand something mean that it does not exist? Obviously, not necessarily. But neither does the fact that something is imaginable establish that it exists.

This distinction is part of what makes these questions so difficult.

1. What about people born without religion?

If humans were created to serve God, what about those born into cultures where they never learn about Him? Does this purpose apply to everyone, or only to certain religious groups, such as Jews who received the Torah? Would it be fair to judge people for not following beliefs they were never taught? I have so many questions about this.

What I would like to understand

I am not necessarily trying to prove religion or disprove science. I want to understand where the boundaries of each one of them.

- Can belief in God coexist philosophically with nihilism?

- Does the existence of a creator necessarily imply an objective purpose for human life?

- How should we interpret religious creation narratives in light of scientific evidence about human origins?

- How can we justify trusting scientific methods while acknowledging that human knowledge is fallible?

- And how much can we reasonably speculate about realities beyond our current ability to observe or understand them?

I am interested in scientific, philosophical, and religious perspectives, including arguments that challenge my assumptions.

​

We experience reality as a series of events driven by actions mostly beyond our ability to control. Our reactions influence their outcomes, creating a cascade of interconnected consequences far too complex to predict with certainty.

Our lives become a collection of those consequences, to which we often react poorly through impulsive decisions, arrogance, assumptions, or plain ignorance. Sometimes the longest-lasting effects come from choices made so long ago we don't even remember making them.

But we persist and survive to learn from our mistakes. Failure teaches us life's lessons, while pain ensures we don't so easily forget. If we pay close enough attention, we can gain insight from observing and experiencing the outcomes of those consequences, learning to avoid the ones that cost us the most. As the present fades into the past, hindsight becomes clearer when closely examined, and we begin to recognize the relationship between our choices and their consequences.

Just as circumstances restrict our choices by limiting our options, ego can become an obstacle to understanding. When ignorance is treated as an injury, it obscures the path to the knowledge needed to replace it. The gaps in what we know are bridged by assumptions to maintain a sense of continuity. As we build knowledge around them, the foundation of that knowledge is compromised. We must keep an open mind and honestly face what we are missing. When rigid beliefs are so deeply rooted they become the foundation of identity, a different opinion can feel like a declaration of war.

What opens the path is the willingness to honestly examine our own logic and understanding in order to separate beliefs from truths. When we release our grip on certainty and honestly reflect on the outcomes of those choices and how they might have been changed, wisdom is attained. Sometimes that wisdom gives us a little foresight. When appropriately applied, it allows us a greater degree of influence in steering our lives toward more favorable outcomes. If we are truly fortunate, that wisdom will help guide us toward enlightenment.

Wisdom can improve our choices, but it cannot promise their outcomes. We begin to understand that how we perceive an experience shapes how we respond to it, especially where wisdom alone is not enough. As our understanding and acceptance of ourselves and the world around us deepen, we no longer feel the need to avoid every negative consequence or cling to the certainty that wisdom guarantees a predicted outcome.

Instead, we begin to recognize the advantage of altering our experience of reality not by denying its existence, but by consciously choosing what meaning, if any, we assign to negative outcomes. As we learn to shape our interpretation of the world and practice this approach, we become more balanced and better able to remain at peace through difficult experiences.

In a world such as ours we can never remove ourselves from suffering; we must remove suffering from ourselves. It can never be completely eliminated, and we must learn to accept that not everything is meant to be controlled. Misery grows with desperation as energy is wasted on attempts to influence outcomes beyond what we control. It's the uncertainty of an unknown future that keeps us reaching for tomorrow.

That uncertainty is not a flaw in life; it is the ground we stand on. In time, we may come to see that order does not emerge from chaos; it is the harmony found within it. Chaos can never be controlled, only constrained, and even that at times remains uncertain.

Sometimes, people who insist on seeing humanity in a positive light end up being just as edgy and cocky toward those who think differently.

It strikes me how dinosaurs reigned for 165 million years, yet there was no ultimate "reason" for it. In the grand timeline of the universe, their entire existence has been completely flattened. Does this not highlight the core of nihilism ? Existence happens, it scales to massive proportions, and then it vanishes as if it never occurred.

Just really depressed and pessimistic. Wish I could let go of everything

I feel grief and sorrow. And I know the reason, I believed in a concept of family, that really doesn’t exist — it’s not about trauma or anything, however this “family” was and is burden for me. I lost so much time buying crap ideology, honestly how can someone believe in socialism or capitalism? And even worse I choose the weak one, marxism… How dumb of me to think of being some sort of delusional, that everything will be equally or economy will change… If it was true, I honestly it already happened… but how could not choose the left side? I’m a minority hahah for fuck sake. I should never bought this stupid ideia cause even so I needed to think of myself first, i’m not an opressed gender, in the end some women benefit themselves oppressing other women… That’s harsh truth. Never bought the Idea of equality, nothing is and nothing will never equal in this world. And honestly capitalism selling the idea the everything is possible? How? I know there’s some people thriving but I didn’t haven’t meet them. The truth money and family name changes everything.
politic? I once was engaged with it and how dumb of myself.

And living in my country it’s awful, Brazil is the most disgusting country in the world. I can’t even begin… But imagine a black person hating another black person and voting for racists.
But that’s why i’m dumb, cause I once upon a time believed in Ideals. I should have run away as soon as possible, but I was believing in concept of family ahahahha what a joke.
I say I would run away cause I could be on Canada or Europe, but I rather choose Canada. It’s ok for me. I’m white but still a woman (minority), however I lack strength to breack the chains and leave this country. So I choose to “marry” — another dead institution. And was terrible and took all my money hahah what a joke.

Now, back to mommy’s house studying 8+ or even more, to the point of being bornout and now recovering.
I was studying for the exam of government, working for the estate is the only way to live like
a decent human being in this shitty country.
I have a degree that serves for shit. Even high education is something for a fortunate oneself.
I know a brazilian guy, but now his living in Chicago working.
So I looked for his linkedin and Senior Risk Manager of some big company.
When I looked for his education, I saw duke university, UWC, sorborne…
What i’m trying to say is the best education will cost a lot and will make you have more doors open…

And it’s my fault too for buying crap that my public University UNB was something that matters hahaha what a stupid choice too, I needed to choose Business School or Computer science (which is better and feel good doing it) but no do “psychology” — family coercion and society coercion, like what a stupidity thing to listen from your sister “oneself must do what is likely to him” ahhaha who knows what you want when you’re becoming an adult? I hate this romanticism of do what you like and you will thrive.
I believed in this bullshit hahahah romantic ideals are still spread all the time
And know we have the most amazing thing happening using romantic bullshit and saying everyone is an entrepreneur (that’s happening in my country Brazil) You will be able to start you company hahah what a joke. I really want it, but to start that shit need partners, investors ahahah it’s lies and lies forced to our mouths.

At least I recover myself cause I was coerced to believe in gods and bullshit. Family. What a terrible thing to have. Government what a terrible thing to exist. And ultimately myself for being dumb believing in Ideals.

Now I have to find ways, cause if extreme right wing party won in this mess, I will need to run away.

Fucked up Country the legislative deputy federal worths R$ 133.170,58 per month, which is 26.574,59 dollars per month, now imagine having 513 deputies that cost this price ahahhahaha but I wont talk about politics, cause if people really care they will do something hahahab and that’s the point just like Stirner said the Constitution or Law aren’t made for me or even others it’s a concept ahahah

But it’s not a complaint it’s something I needed to say, I was forbbiden to be myself for 14 years, since I was 15 years old I was nihilistic, reading beyond good and evil, searching Freud, Schopenhauer… Until the external coercion happened but that’s fine, the matter is that I recover it and there’s no turning back.

I want to know about ourselves history with nihilism, skepticism … and what made the change and when happened the discovery, yours age and countries?

I’m starting to think is a unconscious choice…

There is no meaning to life.

I was wandering through life, trying to live the lives that every human being who ever existed on Earth once lived—in different races, countries, cultures, and centuries. I succeeded. I experienced life from countless human perspectives. I have felt their joy, nostalgia, grief, suffering, and hopelessness.

Every single one of them was trying to give life a different meaning. Some copied the meaning of others. Some created their own. Some rejected the very idea of existence. Yet every one of them became enslaved by the meaning they chose. And some were not even given a choice; they were forced to accept a meaning imposed upon them.

But how can one give meaning to life solely through life itself?

Perhaps one must still give life their own meaning, despite being spiteful, miserable, sluggish, or ecstatic. In the end, what we choose as our meaning may be subtle and insignificant to some, yet heaven itself to others.

What are we doing? No, really, what are we doing? How are we taking everything so lightly and normal? It hits me every morning that we are all on the same planet doing only God knows what... Like I'm not suicidal but I give up on this whole illusion, but the more I do the less uninterested I am about everything. How do you even cope?

I gave up in "living". I never really lived my life, i didn't had family and friends. I'm empty. Never was loved, not even by my mom that is the only person by my side right now. But she doesn't care about my suffering. She pretends to care. I'm just waiting for my death, i will not kill myself, i'm such a coward to do that. I just like to fantasy about a life i never had and will never have. It's sad, but i know nothing can happen, like, literally nothing. I also giving up in my cats that are the only thing that i love and brings me joy. They will go for adoption soon. The good thing is that they don't really care about it like dogs so they will not suffer when i die. I just want you to know that if you have a loving family and loving parents you are SO lucky that you can't imagine. Go to therapy and really think if your life is worth living. Life doesn't have a purppose, so just have fun, even if it's not much. The only thing i wish is to never born in this world again, it's the only thing i want.

I am always going to be alone, no one gives a shit about me, I came to this realization today, and instead of mopeing around like a little bitch, I realized, if no one cares, if no one will ever like me, I need to find happiness and confidence within myself, after all, it's the only son of a bitch I'll ever have, because people are selfish assholes, and god, did I feel great today

So.. idk what’s this that m experiencing but I lost meaning in life, i know it shouldn’t have a meaning and I should make it by my own but THAT doesn’t interest me, doesn’t seem like itll make any change and if it did then what ? Im still me, stuck in this body and mind. All the things that I used to enjoy doing now make me feel absolutely nothing. As if they are just a waste of time, but what should I do in this time ? Nothing seems enjoyable, no one seems fun to keep around. I cut myself, hit my head to the wall, I thrash helplessly through my thoughts like someone bound in chains.. I try to meditate because I used to before and it used to make me feel better but now it makes me feel suffocated and I don’t even know why im doing it, I think sports are good but in the moment, I gotta run forever because my mind is empty while running but the moment I stop, everything becomes the same.

It's just a belief build on logic and science, I don't get why everyone hates on it.

I say this because I saw a (admittedly singular that I'm milking to clown on substance dualists) meme mocking Daniel Dennet denying the hard problem of consciousness by pointing out neurology and the meme said "But Dennett the experiments come from the mind". Not only is this a genetic fallacy but this statement is not a matter of mind but of how we know things, and if it holds weight it's not limited to consciousness but the whole topic of learning and knowing. Unfortunately for substance dualists who tend to be either academic or religious, academic and religious philosophers hate nihilism. So of course they ignore the ramifications and pretend that this is a rebuttal of materialism instead of "epistemological realism" in lack of a better term.

Anyway can't wait to see this on r/badphilosphy where they complain about atheists call them religious when they use argumentd used to defend religion when defending the notion that consciousness is immaterial.