@pintswithaquinas Nihilism? An excuse to sin?! NO. 📱

Added: 2026-05-19

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[00:02:05]Oh my.

[00:02:08]Oh my. I'm just going to say right off the bat, we're going to get into this as quickly as possible and we'll see how it goes.

[00:02:19]I'm hoping for some disagreement and some fun with this one. Oh, hey. What's up? Uh, you're new here. So, I'm hoping for some disagreement from the chat. If you're new here, I'm an atheist. I look at Christian content sometimes and uh talk philosophy, the intersection of religion and politics uh and you know how uh religion in particular Christianity affects your mental health uh your outlook on life all that kind of stuff. It's it's a good time. It's a good time. We try to have a good time here and have some fun with this kind of content. It can be uh dry and boring sometimes, but you know, as we explore these ideas, uh I hope it's interesting to you. So, I'm on YouTube, pretty much YouTube. So, if you're getting this on some multi-platform thing, cool. Okay, so I need to get right into this because it's a lunchtime stream. I don't have a lot of time to doawle.

[00:03:26]So, let's see here. I decided to check in on Matt Brad, a hub of Catholic content. It's pretty interesting stuff, right? Catholicism.

[00:03:38]Oo, Matt Fred does lean into the more traditional apologetics. You know, Christians can cast a wide net of regardless of tradition, they can cast their net and grab in whatever apologetics they want from whatever philosophers, no matter what their their particular theological bent is, right? Uh recently, uh Matt Fred had Steven Meyer on. I don't know Stephen Meyer's beliefs, but I'm fairly certain they're not Catholic.

[00:04:14]Right.

[00:04:15]So, it's it's interesting how these denominations, these slices of Christianity are very particular, right, in gatekeeping of who is truly acceptable to God. And yet, when it comes to arguing for their faith, they'll just take anybody.

[00:04:40]Oh, you know, you're not acceptable to God, but you I like what you have to say, so come on in.

[00:04:46]Crazy. Cha. Hello.

[00:04:50]Hello, chat. This may be the case. Pizza on pizza on pizza on pizza on pizza on pizza.

[00:04:59]Let's say we're uncertain. So this uh little talk here is a slice of uh discussion he had with Dr. Buds Shizwki.

[00:05:15]I'm totally saying that wrong and I apologize for getting that wrong. Oh, let's go with the United States.

[00:05:22]Sometimes I divulge the f full information, but yes, I I will help the old man move.

[00:05:30]He's not stuck. I'm just not playing the video yet. All right. So, there's your intro. Let's go.

[00:05:36]>> What do we mean by nihilist?

[00:05:37]>> Okay. The root of the word is nihil is is nothing means nothing. The nihilist.

[00:05:43]>> Uh doesn't everyone say this as nihilist and press like what do we mean by nihilism then? Nothing. It means um there are different forms of nihilism. I mean there can be a there can be a radical denial of moral meaning or a radical denial that we exist or uh or a radical denial of a radical denial of our existence. Isn't that solicism?

[00:06:10]Like hard solopypsism and that's like a skepticism towards whether or not these objective human forms are these objective existing beings that are that they're a concrete like I'm not quite sure right.

[00:06:30]endless skepticis positions.

[00:06:34]Is that inherently nihilist? Well, maybe no.

[00:06:40]Right? It could be the case that we can be infinitely skeptical of whether or not there's a true us that exists.

[00:06:50]But there could be an ultimate meaning or substance to the universe, even to these finite creatures. This ultimate uh attribution is tacked on um to everything.

[00:07:12]Uh yeah, go on. Uh tell me why you can't support me. That that'd be interesting.

[00:07:17]I love disagreement. We're here to have uh fun >> of any kind of meaning at all, you know, but uh but basically it's it's nothingness and it's a sort of an adoration of nothingness. There are different forms of nihilism even there's Nietze found his own nihilism very very difficult claimed to have overcome his nihilism although he didn't in the 20th century you've got the existentialist >> I got to up the speed because sometimes people talk slow >> in the in the mid-century and they all anguished over this and they were in despair I was sort of like that so okay you've got the despairing >> so he has his own testimony of being in a despaired state right? That as he reflected on this idea that there is no ultimate meaning that maybe this is there is no onlogical uh objective purpose to life. Right? As he reflected on that, it led him to despair.

[00:08:16]Okay?

[00:08:18]This isn't unlike many Christian testimonies we hear, right? Oh, my life was headed nowhere to nothing. I thought it was for nothing and then I was given this answer to this existential crisis in the form of Christian belief.

[00:08:38]It could be very possible that there are forms of God belief that would still give you ultimate meaning, value and purpose. Right? Christianity is not the ultimate answer to this question. Right?

[00:08:54]It's entirely possible that there is something else >> nihilist. But you've also got pop culture nihilists who say, "Okay, everything's meaningless. That's cool.

[00:09:04]I'm so cool that I like things meaningless." You've got the Jerry Seinfeld show kind of nihilist who says who says nothing has any meaning. Where are we going to have lunch?

[00:09:11]>> Yeah.

[00:09:12]>> Right.

[00:09:13]>> Well, that depends, right? Are you saying that the Seinfeld view is that there that Seinfeld went all the way to a metaphysical claim that it's objectively true there is no ultimate meaning? I mean maybe I don't know. I don't think the writers wanted to delve into those kinds of e existential questions. Maybe Jerry was bored that day and he did. If anyone's more familiar with Seinfeld, please tell me if you if that's your interpretation of an episode that has that.

[00:09:54]>> Yeah.

[00:09:54]>> And it's very funny. But if you're not in it, but uh but it's uh but it's hopeless. I don't think you can argue yourself into it strictly speaking because it involves incoherencies. You know, we >> you can't argue yourself into nihilism because it um has what it's inherently has inconsistencies. How did he phrase that?

[00:10:17]>> If you're not in it, but uh but it's uh but it's hopeless. I don't think you can argue yourself into it strictly speaking because it involves incoherencies. You >> it involves incoherencies.

[00:10:32]I don't agree with the incoherencies.

[00:10:37]I agree that you can't necessarily argue yourself into it. Hey Trusty Ape, what's up? Good to have you here. Because I don't think that you can really choose what you believe. I'm with uh John Cohen, John the Unconvinced.

[00:10:57]I'm with him that I don't think belief is ne necessarily a choice. I think that you become convinced of something and your outward expression of that is your belief. Right? What what you are saying is a reflection of what you believe and what you're doing and all that stuff, right? I don't I don't think you can control what you're convinced of and the resulting beliefs that come from it. And so if you're convinced of a certain set of propositions about existence, you may be convinced that there are entailments to the those things that result in a nihilistic view in something that can be characterized as a nihilistic view.

[00:11:48]I can't right now. I can't convince myself to believe these ultimates exist.

[00:11:57]If evidence adjusts my personal and internal state such that I find these things convincing, then it would entail that I believe these ultimate things exist, that I have a I have access to them. I either experience them or I I just know that I know, right? The William Lane Craig being convinced that the Holy Spirit dwells inside of I know that I know that I know.

[00:12:33]You know, we for instance, we we said that that um if you really can't if if even statements about truth are meaningless, then you can't even say that nihilism is true.

[00:12:45]If statements of truth are meaningless, that means nihilism can't be true.

[00:12:51]Well, someone who's a nihilist could affirm local truth.

[00:12:58]That meaning is possessed in a truth statement based on um the localized perception and experience. and agreement of what that speech means, right? Uh a married bachelor can't exist because we've agreed on all the semantics that by definition those two things are contradictory. And so that statement, right, while it has meaning that we've uttered it, it doesn't um it doesn't um have any actual truth value to it, right?

[00:13:44]Happy husband. Oof.

[00:13:48]Oof. My goodness. You know, if you're married, um, I wish you the best. What does he even mean by nihilism? So maybe to steal man, his position, right? Or the idea he's speaking against is the broader metaphysical claim. And that the entailment is that every claim that you subsequently make in the world is uh is are themselves meaningless because they're not pointing to or based in some kind of ultimate right they don't have um some antecedent is that the word I'm looking for or relationship to an ontological ultimate um truth or meaning or purpose.

[00:14:38]Does that make sense? Am I is my are my philosophical chops on? Do I have my phil philosophical pants on? Or can someone um give me the rhetorical spanking that I need? I don't know.

[00:14:55]Hey, yeah, there's two ways to watch me.

[00:15:00]>> Well, philosophy involves making arguments. If arguments themselves become incoherent, how can you argue yourself into it? I don't think that I don't think of nihilism really as a philosophy. I don't even like to call a philosopher. He was a thinker. But um but even see he said he said rational thought is just rationality is just a mode of thought we can't escape.

[00:15:18]>> Rationality is a mode of thought we can't escape. I I think I agree with that. I think I'm convinced of that.

[00:15:28]Well, wouldn't couldn't um irrationality be a system of thought you can't escape as well? that if everyone else evaluates the claims that you're making as disconnected from the experience that everyone else is happening or the um the experimentally verified uh data that you come to is just disconnected from every claim that you're making. And so everyone else would just declare you irrational, right? You're not perceiving the world in a coherent way to all the other observers around you and to those who do believe in ultimate meaning and truth.

[00:16:15]You would be irrational because you'd be declaring a rejection of those ultimate things, what's ultimately true. So you're you're by definition irrational. But can every irrational person just automatically escape that rational uh irrationality? I don't think so. It if you're truly convinced by your experience and you've adopted those positions or your um mental faculties are bending you or convincing you of those positions or ideas, what are we supposed to do about it?

[00:16:58]What do we chemically alter someone with medications so that that their perceptions better align?

[00:17:07]We could, right? And that to me kind of says that rationality is mutable.

[00:17:15]Usually when people bring up nihilism, it's basically some straw man view that nobody has. They'll likely conflate moral anti-realism with moral nihilism or rejecting essentialism is semantic nihilism.

[00:17:27]Yeah.

[00:17:29]Yeah. There's um they there Yeah. There's anti-realist positions, but they aren't necessarily nihilistic in a in a total sense, right? There's anti-realist positions to um especially morality.

[00:17:52]And with the if you can't see it, by the way, the title of this video that we're watching is nihilism is just an excuse to sin. There it is, right? And so that is a conflation of uh anti-realism and nihilism.

[00:18:12]The anti-realist can say things like, "Well, I don't know that we have epistemic knowledge of objective moral values and duties, if they even exist.

[00:18:26]That's where I land. I'm not sure. I don't think I'm not convinced that humans have access that we can come to infallibly know that a truth claim, a moral truth claim exists or is in fact true. I'm getting hand gestury today.

[00:18:48]I hope that makes sense to someone.

[00:18:51]I think morality is just a fiction that we're um it's a story that we're participating in and we are gaining utility from our agreements and um the flow of that narrative. We're gaining the utility of extended survival, social cohesion, uh the propagation of our species, da da da da, all kinds of stuff. And even there's utility in just how we feel when we're engaging in some activity, which is a very nihilist thing to say.

[00:19:34]He um now so I don't think you can argue it into it. I think it's a a better way to describe it is as a version of a way of experiencing the sin of despair whereupon it takes on the garments of philosophy.

[00:19:46]>> But you can be a nihilist and completely happy and content.

[00:19:55]This is just motiv is it assuming motives or just projecting a psychology that you had when you were convinced that nihilism was true.

[00:20:10]It's despair wearing the clothes of philosophy. What?

[00:20:17]Okay. You could be like a completely content Buddhist monk or an aesthetic type person where everything in life, yeah, it doesn't have these ultimates that you're pointing to. You're just generally content.

[00:20:38]>> Oh, say that again.

[00:20:41]>> It's Matt had a philosophical orgasm.

[00:20:43]>> The way of experiencing the sin of despair.

[00:20:45]>> Yep. whereon it takes on the garments of philosophy. It cloaks itself in philosophical clothing.

[00:20:50]>> Why does it do that?

[00:20:51]>> Why >> is it for admiration? Is it >> for for selfjustification? You know, you can't It's just like I had commented that I that I knew deep down that there was a good and evil and I just told myself I didn't. Deep down, you have to know that even if you can't find the meaning of things, >> that there's got to be a meaning of things.

[00:21:07]>> Deep down, you know.

[00:21:09]Uh and see this is where my position on being convinced and choosing what you believe is uh believe is uh really important right because if you're not convinced that there are these ultimate goods that there are there is an ultimate objective evil out there then your belief will be the some of the entailments of that belief can be to you that of moral anti-realism that we don't have access to or moral truths may not exist.

[00:21:46]Right? So the idea that you know there is a good and bad out there which in his position in his worldview and in this framework it's a very CS Lewis way of understanding the world um that those things exist and everyone's just lying to themselves about whether or not those things exist.

[00:22:17]It's tempting as humans. I think it's very tempting to be accepting that there are these grander things that we need to appeal to.

[00:22:33]Otherwise, it is a game of force. It is uh subjective. It is unsettling and frustrating to not know, to not have an ultimate answer to these questions. And ever since the day that our species started to ask these questions, engage in this kind of thinking, these ultimate answers were the supposed or proposed solutions to these questions.

[00:23:11]Now did the philosophers engage in these, you know, millennia old discussions consider the epistemological access to these propositions?

[00:23:29]I maybe I'm I'm ignorant of that. if someone's in the chat or comments later and they have a resource for me to verify that oh you know the epistemological question has been answered for a millennia by uh Aristotle Socrates Plato great just throw it in there and or quote I'm not lazy I just didn't do that before this stream I just came across this video and I said oh let's talk about nihilism why are we even upset if we can't find meaning. Why do we throw bricks at the universe and say, "Well, you don't have any." It's because we're mad that our that our expectation of meaning has been disappointed. Why do we have that expectation? Because in general, things do make sense. People say, "Well, I can admit my own meaning."

[00:24:17]Well, come on now. I might say because I was eating a sardine sandwich once while watching Children at Play. I might say the meaning of and I associate them. I might say the meaning of Children at Play is is the flavor of sardines. But what what Okay. I I mean that seems irrational, right? To create this relationship that is complete those two experiences can be completely divorced from one another, right? You can experience the flavor of sardines whether or not um you're seeing children at play, right? The experience of children at play. Does that would the meaning of that be that you ought to experience the taste of sardines? This is just weird.

[00:25:12]Usually you would make some kind of correlation between the act of what you're doing or experiencing and something that uh would follow it that would seem to naturally follow it.

[00:25:27]Right? The meaning of me constructing a chair is so someone can fucking sit on it, right?

[00:25:37]I mean, wow. What a ridiculous straw man of what people are doing when they're making an attribution of meaning or relationship of meaning to an activity. I mean get do better >> this. No, I'm sorry. That's that's not what it's me. That may be my meaning quote unquote, but it is not the meaning. Right. The >> it is not the meaning.

[00:26:04]>> What?

[00:26:06]So you're if we're asking the question, do all exper do all of human experiences and actions have some relationship to ultimate meaning?

[00:26:20]Um, if we're asking that question, how do you know that your experience of eating a sardine sandwich and watching children at play has anything to do wi with that meaning?

[00:26:41]Right.

[00:26:43]Or what what are you doing to imagine that there could be a connection to ultimate meaning of that experience? Right? It's completely arbitrary.

[00:26:58]Right? Well, maybe the meaning of me watching Children of Play and eating a sardine sandwich is that there is a woman sitting next to me who really really likes sardines and she saw that and she's really attracted to me and she thought it was cool that I was you know laughing something the kids were doing and so you know that convinced her that she should marry me and then when we got married and you just create this chain of things that oh look it contributed to this grand nar look that contributed to the grand narrative of things. What?

[00:27:33]I think that's silly. Chat, do if any are you any of you watching thinking this is a little silly?

[00:27:40]The idea that there is the meaning to watching children and play and eating a sardine sandwich at the same time. What?

[00:27:48]How? How do we even get there?

[00:27:54]Somebody in the chat help me. I don't understand what you could even say is the objective meaning to that. Do I lack imagination?

[00:28:06]Am I stupid? I >> the the meanings of things are um the meanings of an awful lot of things are already there, right? I I I um >> am I uh uh conflating ideas of meaning?

[00:28:32]Oh, may maybe um you know, I'm eating the sardine sandwich because it's meaningful to my hunger, to satisfy hunger.

[00:28:44]Um yeah, >> there are meanings and purposes indwelling us built into the >> well meaning and purpose have a relationship >> fabric of our minds. This was >> we've known this about purposes for a long time. Natural teology is a big theme in natural law theory for example that the what is the what is anger for?

[00:29:14]It has a purpose. It's to arouse us to the defense of endangered goods. The ordinate defense.

[00:29:18]>> So an ordinate defense um yeah it's a oh it just goes without saying. You can it's my meaning. So um or how I understand the world da you know therefore meaning. Um, so is it ultimately the case that anger is X that that uh relationship of human experience is contributing or does have a relationship that is just ineffable.

[00:29:57]It's static. Right? Let's hear what he's saying about anger again.

[00:30:05]known this about purposes for a long time. Natural teology is a big theme in natural law theory for example that the what is the what is anger for? It has a purpose. It's to arouse us to the defense of endangered goods. The ordinance >> to rouse us to the defense of natured goods.

[00:30:20]>> What if you would say I'm feeling angry and you didn't get because you didn't get the highest score in a video game.

[00:30:29]Is this um hang on the purpose?

[00:30:33]>> What is anger for? It has a purpose.

[00:30:34]It's to arouse us to the defense of endangered goods. The ordinance.

[00:30:38]>> So is your high score is your anger for a low score, you know, not getting top tier in a video game a a defensive reaction?

[00:30:52]Uh is it a natur that you want to defend your top position is that you your cons concept that you're the best?

[00:31:06]Is it a is it a natur to protect superiority in all kinds of situations?

[00:31:12]What about people who just start experiencing madness? They're just pissed off to be pissed off.

[00:31:21]You can't You don't have a an explanation for that. Are they just divorced from ultimate meaning? How how do we know the defense of endangered goods? What is What is the eye for? It's to see. What are the sexual >> What is the eye for? It's right. What is the eye for? To see.

[00:31:43]Well, in a evolutionary framework, seeing is the label. We're giving the phen to the phenomenon of what these uh the capturing of light and its use or sorry its traversal across our nerves into our eyes in order for us to have interactions that continue our survival.

[00:32:14]in the universe, on this planet, in our immediate ecosystem, right?

[00:32:23]The purpose of an eye to see.

[00:32:28]Well, what if I just put googly eyes on something? Are those still eyes? Do those see?

[00:32:37]Oh, well, Nitty, it's the purpose of a human eye. It's a purpose of the eyes on living creatures to see.

[00:32:47]Then we just have to start playing with words or you have to come to uh an agreement with me that I is a polymius word. Is that where the word the word I'm looking for? It's a it's a word that well we have to be really careful. We have to make these qualifications to discover or to state the ultimate teology of these things. To see what to see how, right? Is it teologically important that we only perceive a certain amount of the electromagnetic spectrum?

[00:33:29]What about um moles?

[00:33:34]species of moles where their eyes are covered. What's the purpose of an animal that goes around like this and we dissect it and find, oh, it's got all the nerves. It's got all the receptors. It's got rods and cones in there. Uh, it's got the nerve connect, the neural connection, uh, that can go to through the skull to its tiny brain.

[00:33:59]And yet we're not sure it perceives any light whatsoever. Is it teologically entailed? That it had a per its purpose is in fact to see. It meets all the criteria of how we define I to see and yet it's completely covered over.

[00:34:22]Well, on an evolutionary account, it's okay for it to be that way because it's not there's no necessity to that set of uh attributes being present on that creature, right? It developed over time through the lack of necessity for that uh organs use. So that as they kept digging deeper and they were selected between each other to dig deeper, it whatever was covering uh you know a membrane and then skin to cover you know the nerves that would be in an eye. All that was selected for as um in their ecological niche, it became um more uh it benefited the population, we'll say to not possess that attribute, right? Or sorry, to have the form of the eye being covered. Eyes are often misunderstood. Spiders have more eyes than us. And yet testing reveals most spiders have extremely poor eyesight. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

[00:35:39]What is an eye? What are the purposes of it?

[00:35:44]Have to again narrow it down further and further until maybe you need a whole new word for what that thing being the eye, the per the purpose of it to see.

[00:35:59]It's tricky stuff.

[00:36:02]powers for for turning the wheel of the generations and for the union of the procreative partners. Now I those those those purposes are embedded. John Paul too was very good in recognizing that this is that's meaning is objective but he was very good at recognizing that this has a subjective side too. So by subjective I don't mean relativistic. I mean something the subject experiences.

[00:36:21]Um it has a meaning when my wife and I or any two people who engage in the mirror act they are gi >> engage in the marital act. Woo just say they have kitus when people have kitus themselves >> they have the eggs >> to each other it means that it can't not mean that even if we try to make it mean something different or over try not to think about it or overwrite it with some other meaning. So there are both inbuilt meanings and inbuilt purposes. This produces such >> what do you what do you define? Um I want to be really I don't know how to phrase this with that could be triggering.

[00:37:07]I mean so trigger warning. Do you define forced sexual behavior on a spouse as engaging in a marital act? Or rather, sorry, when one person lacks enthusiastic consent because you could say that that's not the other thing, right? But they view it as like, oh, okay, right? It it is that still the marital act.

[00:37:41]Um could you argue it's not maybe or is it okay just passive consent? All right, it's time.

[00:37:55]But what about you know when it when there's um content of force there?

[00:38:03]Is that still the marital act?

[00:38:07]Um, let's go back with what he said.

[00:38:09]Exactly.

[00:38:11]>> They are giving themselves to each other. It means that it can't not mean that. Even if we try to make it mean something different or over or try not to think about it or overwrite it with some other meaning.

[00:38:21]>> Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Right. Right. Right.

[00:38:23]Right. Can they engage in the marital act knowing full well that there will be no offspring or the likelihood of offspring is near zero?

[00:38:37]Is the purpose of the marital act objectively procreation?

[00:38:44]If so, do you redefine sexual intercourse between spouses as marital acts and non-marital acts?

[00:39:00]Yeah. Well, right, right. Of course.

[00:39:03]Oh, any Oh, any coercion. Oo. So, could you be emotionally manipulated into a marital act, right? you it's very difficult to characterize it as being a a forced action upon you. But in any other circumstance without the manipulation, you would say no.

[00:39:32]I mean, yeah. What what one thing that could be interesting is that you reframe meaning when you're evaluating it from another perspective.

[00:39:46]Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, see, I can agree with my chat, especially when they disagree or want to help me define things. It's great. So, if you're watching and you're like, uh, is Nitty humble or interesting? Well, fuck. There you go.

[00:40:02]Um, so anyway, back to this, like an observer can attribute a completely different meaning to an experience.

[00:40:12]Um, or add their own meaning, right? Uh, frame something in such a way that, um, they put that meaning upon themselves. So think of a couple in a church and their child passes, right? Well, that experience means that God is testing their faith, right? Their child became a divine screwdriver to tighten the bolts of how committed they are to God. Um but to an an outside observer, right, they could say something like um the meaning of this experience is just temptation, right? Oh, the temptation to abandon. And then if they do abandon, the meaning was uh to show that you can fall away from the faith, right? But to the uh people that experience the loss of their child, what if the meaning is it's not that they were tempted to lose their faith. They never had it in the first place, right? They were never saved. So the meaning of that was to show that they were never saved. Had nothing to do with being tempted to be unsaved or to walk away from the church.

[00:41:40]They just never had the faith to begin with. So the me what how do we know the difference? How can you tell the difference between those two claims that the person the meaning was objectively them being tempted to walk away or it was objectively to reveal that they never walked had walked that way in the first place.

[00:42:10]My wife uh really really uh knuckled down on cleaning the house uh for when my sister-in-law came over and her niece was the objective person to keep a self-image. Was the objective purpose to um impress? was the objective purpose to have it clean for cleanliness sake.

[00:42:40]Well, I'll tell you right now, it definitely wasn't that.

[00:42:45]But there are times when something is like a mess or even just a a little bit off or less than a personal ideal and then the objective to clean the house is to clean for cleanliness sake.

[00:43:04]So, we'd have to redefine what we mean by cleaning, right? Oh, okay. That wasn't the objective purpose. There's no objective purpose to that kind of cleaning.

[00:43:16]It's um you know, prepar preparatory cleaning, maintenance cleaning.

[00:43:27]We just have to play word games until we get to something that we can make the attribution. Oh, there there it is.

[00:43:34]There's the objective meaning.

[00:43:37]If any of my examples were really bad, just say so in the chat, too. I'll Okay, maybe that didn't work.

[00:43:44]>> So, there are both inbuilt meanings and inbuilt purposes. This produces such strong expectations of meaning that that's why we've come so frust.

[00:43:52]>> Do you play around with what the purpose of that cleaning is?

[00:44:00]Where does it switch from um meaning to purpose? I incentivize cleaning the house. So, it definitely is true for uh children. When you have children, you incentivize cleaning their room so they can find their shit. Where's this Barbie dress? I don't know.

[00:44:20]Buried under stuffies, maybe. I don't know. And so angry when we can't find it. or when we think we know what the meaning is but we don't like it because we want to do something different.

[00:44:31]>> This reminds me of that famous >> So you have to like hunt around for what the defense of that natural good is or natural not natural good substance that natural substances is is the defense. So if anger is the def defense mechanism of an unobtained natural substance I think that's it's our re like the re the reaction he said that anger is I mean wow the natural substances are just everywhere quote from that otherwise terrible movie where Cameron Diaz said to Tom Cruz who had fornicated with her you know what I'm saying >> no she said your body made a promise to me even if you didn't.

[00:45:24]>> Oh, that's very good. I never would have expected to find that in a Tom Cruz movie.

[00:45:28]>> Yeah, but that's what you're talking about. It can't mean the It can't mean something different, right?

[00:45:32]>> Right.

[00:45:33]>> Well, wait a minute. So, now the marital act has more meanings and purposes.

[00:45:41]What if you're both consenting, but you're just literally doing it to have a baby? whether or not you want to have an orgasm or whatever, right? What if your purpose in the marital act is to have an orgasm? Like that's if I'm not done when we're done, then ah I'm angry.

[00:46:14]It can't mean >> but I also at the same time in engaging in that act I don't want a child.

[00:46:20]So if to Tom Cruz and Cameron Diaz the whole point of their interaction was pleasure but it was still a marital act then what does it mean for that to be a marital act?

[00:46:33]Oh it's all of those things. It's a symbol of the union of the Christ in the church.

[00:46:41]Then that's all over the place. It just can like a sponge. It just sucks up subjective meanings in the wolf.

[00:46:48]>> It can't. It can't. You can now of course you can use a you can use a kiss to betray.

[00:46:53]>> Yeah.

[00:46:53]>> But the only reason that that using a kiss is so effective at betrayal is that it means something else.

[00:46:58]>> And the reason we find it so disgusting is precisely because >> it does mean that that it does mean that. You know, I can't I can't slap somebody in the face and say this means I love you.

[00:47:06]>> Yeah.

[00:47:07]>> Be well and prosper. Be well. Could you tell me a bit about >> but a kiss did uh did Judas's so Judas's kiss so betray maybe betrayal is kissing someone you ought not like that would be the objective per like when but what if a like would they say the objective purpose like when is kissing objectively good and objectively bad.

[00:47:40]And how do we know when a kiss can happen to different parties or even objects?

[00:47:49]Right? I is this objectively good? Like kissing this fucking pencil sharpener kissing like the OP like if Judas had kissed Jesus instead of Well, he did.

[00:48:07]Did he kiss Jesus? Right. Jesus uh sorry, Judas kissed the soldiers instead of Jesus. Would that be the betrayal?

[00:48:17]What if like we're walking down the road and we kiss our friend like I kiss another man just like on the cheek or what? Whatever is culturally acceptable actually. We like like we really kiss. We're, you know, that's how we greet each other.

[00:48:36]Then if I kiss my spouse the same way, did that actual act possess the same meaning?

[00:48:50]I don't know.

[00:48:53]I don't know. Do you know? Does anyone in the chat know Nietze? I think a lot of people hear about him. They're afraid to read him.

[00:48:59]>> Yeah. Well, I think I think that if you don't have if you don't need to read NZ that the uh the aversion to reading him is not a bad thing.

[00:49:05]>> I smoke.

[00:49:05]>> No, it's it's okay.

[00:49:07]>> Tell me but tell but I mean maybe make a steelman case for Niche over because I find too often Christians are too quick to dismiss.

[00:49:13]>> All right. All right. It is this is not something I I would expose younger people to. Somebody wrote me and said, >> why not why not induce critical think or encourage critical thinking of philosophy on younger people? Um, damn it, trusty ape. I was really hoping to greet you one day.

[00:49:37]Why not, right?

[00:49:40]What do you do when they're introduced to a challenging worldview like this and they, "Oh my god, I've, you know, uh, I've been kept ignorant of this for such a long time. I don't think it's right to leave people ignorant.

[00:49:59]That's that's literally what they're saying.

[00:50:02]>> I'm a I'm a high school teacher and I teach I teach a little bit of philosophy to my to my students at this Catholic school.

[00:50:08]>> Okay, good.

[00:50:09]>> Should I expose them to na? Should I expose them to nihilism? One of my fellow teachers says I have to because they're going to meet it in the broader culture and they need to have some >> just what I said.

[00:50:17]>> Exposure or they're just going to fall down like tenpins. Uh, well, there was something to that. People >> like saying you had to expose seminarians to pornography because they have to deal with it in the confessional. That's a thing that happened.

[00:50:26]>> Oh, I'm I'm a guy.

[00:50:28]>> I'm sorry to know it. That's very similar to to something that I'd said to her. I said it would be like >> Well, I think that's like a h >> teaching your children sexual ethics by having them watch pornography and then saying, "Now, this illustrates what's wrong with that." Okay, they >> But I mean, you could I think that would be up to parental discretion unfortunately.

[00:51:04]Um but uh and uh what was nature has to be studied in >> and I mean unfortunately as it's possible to um before their uh brains are developed to understand the uh so social and emotional impacts of certain physical acts that you should really really avoid exposing them to certain things that will have those impacts down the road.

[00:51:34]in and this would be my strongman case for studying it I guess not for not for nature himself nature has to be studied because as nearly as as nearly as anyone has come to making an argument for that for which you cannot make an argument because it's incoherent as nearly as you can come to making all these inco arguments and embracing the incoherency nature has done it >> could you sum up that argument I know it wasn't an actual argument >> but again that's just conflating the greater metaphysical claim than being convinced that we don't have access to knowing whether or not there is an ultimate meaning. You could just beg the question and say, "Well, because I'm a Christian, I just know because I have these subjective internal experiences that try to answer these big questions with, oh, therefore, it exists because I have this um subjective emotional need and attachment to this idea. Therefore, it must exist outside of me.

[00:52:35]Then, yeah, I guess you would think it's incoherent to hold a position otherwise because you you just assume that everyone else is convinced that there must be some kind of thing outside of themselves.

[00:52:50]>> But like, give me give me the force of what it is he says and why it is.

[00:52:54]>> Well, okay. You know, you know, >> you're convinced that other people are actually convinced. You're you're just assuming the convinced state of literally everyone else in the planet.

[00:53:06]>> Mostly the interesting thing about N is that he says a lot of things by indirection. He doesn't say here's my proof that there is no meaning. What he says is and this was very much my mood as anist. You know we've seen through this now he doesn't say here is an argument against existence and against the existence of God. What he what he does is he has his character say say to another character in in thusra uh hasn't he have has you have you not heard that god is dead? Now notice that that's an interesting way of putting it. He doesn't say there is no God. He says God is dead. Now, of course, that kind of a statement slaps a Christian in the face because you think God is eternal, inextinguishable, he cannot die. But the point of this was that if according to Nze, I mean, he denies among other things the >> I have to pause just to try to avoid uh copyright shit.

[00:53:48]>> He he refuses to acknowledge even even a real distinction between the observer and the the observed. The the the when he says you have to make up your own values, you have to have your own tablet of values.

[00:53:58]What most simple simple-minded relativists think is I can have my own values and leave reality as it is. But no, for your >> what no no no. If you're convinced the reality is we don't have access to these things or it's it's possible for everyone to be wrong, then that's not casting reality aside.

[00:54:23]That's embracing it and trying to make sense with it being the case that these things are relative and tough shit.

[00:54:31]That's what we have to deal with values to be to be made up to to suit.

[00:54:36]You'd have to be able to make up reality, too. And nature really thinks that that's sort of what we do every day. God was just one of those things that was real quote unquote only in so far as anything else is real quote unquote. And that's that we've we've constructed it. It's part of this. It's part of this manifold of of uh of interpretations of of interpretations of interpretations. He's part of it.

[00:54:59]>> Well, I don't think that's actually incoherent. A lot of people just don't like that.

[00:55:05]It makes them uneasy, especially when you are demanding the cognitive closure of does this ultimate thing exist? Well, lots of people will have the subjective emotional draw to saying, "Well, that is pretty satisfying."

[00:55:24]>> And so when we stop constructing him, he isn't there anymore, so he's died.

[00:55:29]Now, that's many people.

[00:55:32]>> Do we really construct God?

[00:55:36]I don't think that I was convinced of a God of my own making when I told myself or sorry when I was convinced that God exists and that Jesus Christ died for my sins. That was not something that I constructed.

[00:55:53]Would I have chose to? I mean, I don't know.

[00:55:57]But I think it's very unlikely.

[00:56:00]I think many people who they might say construct their idea of God don't come up with Christianity.

[00:56:10]Um they come up with things that would be antithetical to it as well.

[00:56:17]But I became convinced of a god that I believed was real but lacked my own personal construction.

[00:56:29]though it wouldn't be the case that um all people construct a god and come to understand a god that they made unto themselves.

[00:56:42]You know I am convinced that people adopt god concepts that they find convincing.

[00:56:54]They understand and are convinced of a particular set of god propositions and those become their god propositions.

[00:57:04]They're inescapable. They express their belief based on their convinced state of those propositions. There's it's inevitable, right? Yeah. They can't consent. And so they're convinced because what is adequate to convince them is authority and the evolutionarily developed trust they have in uh the people who brought them in to this world.

[00:57:40]But under his worldview uh even under his worldview people don't construct God. God has like an onlogical uh he's the causer act as purists where creation bottoms out right it's impossible to construct that god and then people become convinced or maybe they they choose to believe something and thus they tell us they're convinced under their worldview right and where Where did that come from under the Christian framework? Well, that came from a God that wasn't constructed but was transmitted between people.

[00:58:27]So, it's impossible for them to connect themselves or agree with a niche. uh if this is the best steelman of Nietze, it's impossible for them to accept that proposition because they are unable to exit the framework that it's possible for a god to be constructed.

[00:58:52]sorry that it they can't um exit the unconstructed god people who that's a that's a different kind of strong of steelman argument than you're going to hear from from some people who get a steel man argument because they think that there are arguments in nature I don't really see them I don't really see them he just his character just asserts does he not know that God is dead it's kind of like when I thought >> well don't you assert wouldn't you assert that god is not constructed and you experience erience or come to the knowledge of that unconstructed god.

[00:59:26]What? Oh, I haven't been believing in him for some time. Right. He just asserts it. It's like we've seen through that now. Um and uh and a lot of this a lot of the appeal of Nichza it was it's especially powerfully intoxicating to many young people because of the uh the rhetoric the language that he uses the images of camels being loaded down and and uh and dragons and snakes eating themselves and and people >> No, I think lots of people become unconvinced of God's existence through different kinds of arguments through uh evidence they perceive as convincing or sorry, they're convinced by evidence that is contrary to the claims of Christianity or just suffering.

[01:00:12]You know, the problem of evil just flat convinces them that God doesn't exist.

[01:00:18]So, it has nothing to do with these illustrations whatsoever, choking on them and so forth. it it just sort of blows you away and staggers you and a certain kind of mind that is vulnerable to that says gee cool or uh or yes I'd suspected that it was like that all along. So I I it's hard you see I'm I'm struggling here because I can't extract a rational argument for nihilism but >> you can't Well that's not good. Are you Is this guy a professional philosopher or just like a theologian or something?

[01:00:52]I should look him up. I should have researched this guy. A damn you Monday because that's not good. That means you can't you can't what oi here I'll help you. There's no justified. We don't. The nihilist could say there's humans don't have a justified access to ultimate meaning there. Done.

[01:01:33]I think that he wanted he was certainly let's say put it this way producing an apologetic for it.

[01:01:39]>> Was he a believer in God at one point in his life?

[01:01:40]>> Yeah, he was. His father that's my understanding biographically his father was a Lutheran pastor, wasn't he? I think he was.

[01:01:45]>> I've heard something like that.

[01:01:46]>> Yes, he was. And uh some people have even spoken of of Nichzche's Christian unconscious mind. Uh Paul Cy Vitz, a psychologist has uh has written a book on Freud's Christian unconscious.

[01:01:56]>> Thank you very much for watch.

[01:01:58]>> All right, Matt. I don't care.

[01:02:01]Okay, everybody. That was your lunch hour nitty. If uh YouTube failed to notify you that I streamed, I'm sorry.

[01:02:10]YouTube sucks. I mean, YouTube, you're an amazing platform. I can't do without you.

[01:02:18]Oh boy. Well, you know, I hope that I was worth your time, that this discussion on ultimate meaning, purpose, whatever was interesting to you. Um, that engaging in pints with Aquinus was fun.

[01:02:40]Oh, wait a minute. Brad smokes cigars and drinks alcohol. Is that like okay?

[01:02:48]Is he in good standing with God? Tell me in the comments.

[01:02:53]Tell me in the comments. He sounds like a professor. Dr. Doctor, you know, some people think uh you know, my house is a place not worth being in and that I should delete my channel.

[01:03:08]they have like a gripe with the fact that um I've stepped off the platform before.

[01:03:15]Nothing wrong with that. People do it all the time.

[01:03:19]People do it all the time. And you know, everyone needs a different house to spend some time in to engage in an idea that they're not used to.

[01:03:31]Um, right. People may like the informal engagement. people may be really drawn to the Marvel aesthetic that's happening in the background and say, "Wow, this is a person that uh is convinced of what I'm convinced of and they're really relaxed and their content is interesting to me and I want to be that voice for you and a place to have some fun or just disagree with, you know, let let's do it. Let's do it." And if I ever say something that's really problematic or stupid or something, just tell me. So, I mean, my goodness, it's not hard. Okay, well, thank you everyone for tuning in.

[01:04:14]I will see you next time because that's Nitty. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

[01:04:34]Heat.

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[01:05:25]Heat. Heat.

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