Bill Burr?
Um...not exactly a religious authority, is he? I mean, he's funny and all...but is this supposed to prove something? You'll have to explain, I guess.
"To God all things are right and good, only to man somethings are and somethings are not." Heraclitus
Heraclitus was a pagan Greek, of course. He believed not in the Western or Judaic conception of God, but in "gods," in the multiple superbeings of Greek mythology, and behind them, to a big "Force" or "Fate" that governed even them, and would one day destroy them.
That's actually a totally different "God" concept. So whatever he said, he was not speaking about our situation.
"There is no such thing as right or wrong, only thinking makes it so." Shakespeare
That's an interesting quotation, even if you've misquoted it.
Hamlet is speaking to his treacherous friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whom he is misleading in order to convince them he's insane. So he's babbling, making jokes that only a madman would make. Here's the original:
HAMLET
Denmark's a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ
Then is the world one.
HAMLET
A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.
ROSENCRANTZ
We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET
Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
it is a prison.
So Hamlet is playing word games with people he does not trust. He says of them later, that his plan is to "trust them as adders fang'd,"(i.e. not at all) and have them "hoist by their own petard," (meaning "blown up by their own landmines") and , and that he will "delve one yard below their mines, and blow them at the moon." (i.e. dig underneath where they are laying their mines, and plant deeper mines that will blow them sky high) So he's out to wreck them.
It's in that context that he makes that claim about "thinking making it so." The goal is to confuse and destroy his enemies, not to inform his beloved friends of truths they can trust. He's not offering a philosophy for us to follow, but a stratagem to perplex the plotters and ultimately destroy them with their own plots.
And taken in that sense, is it advice any of us should wish to follow?
There is a deeper truth to Nihilism in that the physical world is indeed utterly meaningless in the absence of a conscious subject.
Let's say that's true.
But if God is the Conscious Subject in question, the problem is solved.
So, to my way of thinking Nihilism is not just negativity it is a metaphysical reality
Then you can't be using the word "nihilism" in the way Nietzsche used it. He wanted us to think "Nihilism" was bad. He wanted us to understand by it what you talked about before -- namely, the negation of "the life force" and "the will to power." You're now speaking about it as if it is a grounded fact, a truth about how reality actually is. Nietzsche would not be happy to be reversed in that way, I'm sure.
...to be grounded
To "ground" is "to provide grounds for," or a foundational claim upon which subsequent deductions can be based. Nietzsche had no foundational claims...his were all assumptive.
...one must believe that the individual is the creator of all meaning
That's bound to be wrong. How can we, contingent creatures as we are, who come into this world and go out of it within a few decades, be the "creators" of all meaning? We can't. The "meaning" in question would not only die with us when we died, but also would change as often as the person in question changed...so that there is no longer any point in speaking of something "having meaning" intrinsically, or of people "finding meaning" that already objectively exists. What we mean by "meaning" becomes no more than "totally temporary, totally personal delusion."
...which the individual then bestows upon the meaningless world.
The world, then, is objectively meaninglessness. And "meaning" is just a thing the imagination of the individual foists in an untrue way upon the objective randomness of reality. In other words, a delusion. People make up "meanings" because they can't stand to face the truth. But their meanings, thus invented, have no reference to truth or reality. They're just comforting but foolish bedtimes stories for children, which the more mature and courageous would be far better off to get beyond altogether.
To have an intelligent dialogue I would like to know what your definition of the real is.
Let's start light on that, then, and work toward a substantive definition.
One definition of "reality" that has been offered is
"Reality is that which pushes back against our wishes."
Now, of course, that's not the total definition, because sometimes reality allignes with what people happen to wish; but it makes a good point: reality is that thing that is going to be what it is regardless of one's beliefs or preferences. It's going to be what it's going to be, and we're going to have to come around and allign ourselves with it, or pay the price of not doing so. That's reality.
And, of course, it's to "reality" that Nietzsche is ultimately appealing. He's trying to say, "Belief in God is not reality." He also wants to say "religious Nihilism" is a failure to grasp reality. He never says it in those words, so far as I know: but if Nietzsche's view is not to be understood by us as having a claim to being "more realistic" than alternatives, then on what basis can he commend us to take it seriously? So it follows he must have his own concept of reality in mind, and it must be something like,
"That which pushes back against the beliefs of religious Nihilists."
You seem to be toying with it to undermine Nietzsche's statement about the Nihilistic nature of Christianity.
"Toying"? Interesting choice of words, but no.
If you follow Nietzsche carefully, you'll see why.
Nietzsche's
own nihilistic view of morality undermines his own claims about religious Nihilism." You might say that Nietzsche's own theory "delves one yard below" his own "mines," and "blows them at the moon." If "good" and "evil" are gone, then religious Nihilism cannot even possibly be "evil." And Nietzsche's vitalism cannot possibly be "good." How then can he recommend his program of beliefs?
In other words, you don't need any religious critique to know Nietzsche was in logical trouble. He ran afoul of himself, his own views; and even with reference only to those, they don't add up.
