In other words, you are saying that all that really matters in the end in the JoS worldview is individual existence, and there is no such thing as an objective higher moral in existence other than that which is an adaptive choice. Racial family and really all bonds with others in general simply serve as a means to an end for individual existence in this worldview as far as I can tell, rather than something that has value in itself. And the same goes with everything else.Zeffie of the Wind wrote:I think I understand what the issue is. It seems I may have misunderstood the entirety of what you have been trying to say but do please enlighten me if what im about to reply with is too another misunderstanding. From my point of view it seems the reason why you wish to find some sort of "objective meaning" to life is because Death seems to be too harsh for you. But you also seem to be aware of but unable to accept reality. If in the end one goes through spiritual death then yes at that point that existence is gone for good and thus become a meaningless "memory". If they leave behind nothing then all is lost and truly they are meaningless in the fullest of sense. If one amounted to nothing in life and then wastes away into oblivion, truly they are worthless and of no importance to anyone. If one falls due to war or whatever else then if its deserved then the memory of such beings will be honored to those left behind if any. Higher level warfare isn't simple guns and bullets but a fight with ones existence on the line. The winner survives and the losers perish for eternity.ConsistentMeditator wrote: You are saying that it is the adaptive choice for all existing beings to become immortal and continue existing, but something being adaptive is not the same as it being objectively good. Not that i disagree with this adaptive choice of course. Ultimately you seem to be defining existence negatively as merely an escape from Death. At that point, if the Gods could at some point establish a sure state of peace in the universe with no enemies or natural calamities remaining as any possible threat, further levels of advancement would have no necessary effect in negating death. Instead, further advancement would increase the quality of life, making the overall state of being better. This is way just defining "Good" as 'making the adaptive choice' seems limited, as eventually many choices would be equally adaptive, whether mediocre in quality or excellent.
Example A:Extremely advanced God increases their advancement 100 fold, fully dedicating themselves to advancement and providing many good results, and will exist for the rest of eternity.
Example b:A God that is just as immortal as the last one does not do anywhere near as much to advance, only doing a moderate amount, but will regardless manage to continue existing for the rest of eternity.
In peacetime if no enemies remain you can have results like that, where superior advancement does nothing to make one choice more adaptive/survival oriented. Then in war time you can have more disturbing results:
Example C:Extremely advanced God does lots of advancement, but because peace is not established in the universe yet and risks remain, they are killed in battle and erased for all eternity due to the war, simply due to being an active part of the battles, unlike God B who did far less for their race but ultimately continued to exist.
This is the problem, if you simply define meaning as the evasion of death, then advancement doesn't hold value in itself, and you end up with disturbing results where if someone died, then their meaning was less than the one who lived even if they were clearly better in every way. After all, whether they advanced their race more or not, their race can do absolutely nothing to save them if they are forever erased from existence by the enemy, as I would imagine sometimes happens in the war unless the Gods have discovered a way to conduct battles remotely without risking their lives. Of course this is an example of how all wars are dysgenic, but the point is that meaning cannot be defined by simple survival alone, there have to be standards of morality where even death can be good if it's for a good cause. I'm not trying to straw man you as I know you are probably not trying to support 'individual survival is all that matters' when faced with these examples, but I think these are disturbing conclusions of the moral system you are using which you do not realize might emerge.
Another thing, nature and the universe itself cares nothing to the beings living in it. It simply is and does whatever it does by design. If, and not to be a pessimist nor disrespectful, the Gods and in turn us ended up in a situation that inevitably lead to their oblivion then that is simply par for course. It simple another event that happens in this eternal universe. It simply is. There is no morality to it, there is no "meaning" to it. Just as their is no "meaning" to why gravity does what it does. It simply is.
You are trying to put morality into a universal truth, a universal law. Its as if the universe must adhere to your emotions and wishes but that is not the case. If someone close to me ends up on the path to oblivion, I will mourn but I will move on. Such is the way of this world. It is of no use to eternally feel distress over matters that cannot be changed by any means.
Inherently good? Inherently evil? Nothing of nature is so black and white. Saturn which is the number one thing everyone seems to complain about is not inherently evil. It has negative aspects to it as well as positive aspects to it. The only inherently "evil" are things that are an affront to nature and her laws. Life and Death are both natural parts of nature and neither are inherently good nor evil. Do not try and spin some sort of personal morality filled with emotion towards nature because nature doesn't care.
The only thing that cares about your existence is yourself and your racial family along with any allies you make. To joe shmo from planet burger? It matters nothing to them whether you exist or not.
At the end of the day without a deeper level of understanding gained through spiritual advancement any sort of philosophical debate on higher level concepts will end with nothing but sophism, ranting, and arguments going nowhere. If you believe the JoS's stance on life and death is Nihilism then I honestly don't know what to say as Spiritual Satanism is the absolute opposite of such ideologies. If you actually read anything that the clergy have written as well as the stuff in the JoS site that would be blatantly apparent.
I don't see how you disagree that the JoS worldview has key tenets that are the same as nihilism.. Nihilism is the view that there is no objective meaning to life. You agree with that, that all there really is in terms of meaning is making the adaptive choice for your own survival, and that's simply to avoid death, not to do anything with objective purpose. So how could the JoS worldview possibly be anything but nihilistic? Yes, it offers a solution of spiritual and physical immortality. However, that solution is simply an endless escape of the core truth of nihilism which is still accepted, that there is no purpose in life, nature is generally meaningless, and all that really awaits any individual is death if they fail. I don't see how you can disagree that this is the same fundamental worldview that nihilists have.
Lastly, as to what you have said about my argument about meaning, I realize that you see it as me trying to assert my own version of morality on reality, but I see it differently. I don't think it is meaningless to seek objective meaning, as if it exists, it is something that would grant life true value, rather than ultimately baseless values that would emerge if all that exists is individual decisions to grant value arbitrarily. The end result of such a worldview where all that objectively matters is survival, would be that all others become merely means to an end, and there is no value that can be placed higher than individual survival. All sorts of dishonorable and immoral things can suddenly flip to become morally Good if individual survival is all that matters. Society generally depends on placing survival of the group and some set of group values above the individual's life, but if survival is all that matters, then even the greatest crimes of betrayal can become Good as long as the individual doing them has a reasonable expectation that despite their great crime, they will still continue existing forever afterwards. You probably wouldn't use the word 'good', but nonetheless, I am sure you see what I am saying here. The end destination of this seems to be a Might Makes Right mentality where even the greatest atrocities like those the enemy perpetrates can be acceptable if they guarantee group/individual survival, and I simply can't agree with that. I'm not sure how much you even disagree with such a mentality, but you can try to outline your thoughts there on what even constitutes a 'wrong' action in moral terms. For example, any sort of betrayal, mass genocide, turning an enemy into a slave race, the underhanded tactics the enemy is using right now to win, etc. An action being 'wrong' in this context means that the action in question is not chosen due to its disagreeable nature even though it has a higher chance of guaranteeing group victory than another choice.