Can someone believe in nothing?

What is believing ?

Where does it start?

What part of your body do you use to believe ?

If you cannot decide which your heart, mind, or leg. Then how do you determine whether or not some people can believe or not. B/c if we can't determine where believe comes from. How can we determine whether or not we believe.

Do you believe in the wind?

Even if you do not believe in the wind, you will feel the effects of the wind.
If you believe that if you set yourself on Fire you will not burn you will not burn right?

Then what about Jesus and the Shadderak, Mishek, and Abindigo. Why didn't they burn ?

this is one sad sick post.

first off, beliveing in nothing is silly.

second off, they didnt burn because supposivly God didnt let them burn, had nuthin to do with man power, but God.

stupid post like these... I cant belive im replying to dis

believing in something stems from your childhood mainly. The values that you are taught by your parents and family traditions that are carried from one generation to the next. When you become older, you incorporate your own belief system into your own life, and the lives of your children.

It is a strong feeling that is based on knowledge you have gained throughout your life. I believe the feeling is generated initially by your brain.

For example, the person who believes this to be a stupid post has learned through observation of other posts in this forum, that there are certain guidelines and criteria to follow when making a post. Thus, his comment above.

I, on the other hand, believe that if there is a genuine search for knowledge within a post, that it should be treated respectfully and given a proper response.

My beliefs stem from my childhood, where I was taught to respect the voice and opinions of others.

Maybe someone can confirm if the feeling of belief stems from the brain or not.

B56

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Belief is an attachement to an idea.

Since we as living things are, at our core, emotional all beliefs have some emotional element.

Beliefs can be purely emotional as in faith, pragmatic as in experience, or logical as in deductive reasoning.

A purely emotional attachment to an idea implies an emotional/psychological need to belief something, which takes it from the realm of the rational.

The question is can a person believe in nothing. Many people change their belief systems from time to time. Cynicism is the belief that all things are essentially negative, Optimism is the belief that all things are essentially positive. The pragmatist would base their beliefs on past experience. I think science comes from the pragmatic and extends to logical extrapolations. The detachist would say the future is totally unpredictable so belief is a waste of time an energy.

I guess i would put myself somewhere between the pragmatist and the detachist.

I think science works well for some basic things, but is unable to address many things of extreme importance to me, either because they are too complex or maybe they are fundamentally unpredictable.

Note: by detachist i mean life has no meaning, it is simply an unexplanable kinetic, sensual experience. You simply give yourself to the experience, because that is all there is. I personally believe my biological system will persist if it does not encounter any fatal encounters, and actions have social and personal ramifications, but in the depths of space and time self-reference is the only truly relevant operating framework.

In the end you don't have to explain anything to anyone except yourself, so relax, be gentle and enjoy.
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Originally posted by Slicky1313
stupid post like these... I cant belive im replying to dis

I rather enjoyed the thread and every response in it. But yours.

Nihilism is an interesting concept. Or if you prefer, belief in relativism rather than any absolute truth.

But ....if you believe in "nothing" aren't you believing in something? Or is the nothing...truly nothing, therefore non existant..but if you thought of it..then it exists in your mind, so it is no longer nothing..it's a conundrum I tell you

I've thought about this before as well. There was even something similar to this idea in the Carlos Casteneda series. I think the trick is not to believe period. Forget the capability to believe. Double think yourself.

Believe not in nothing but dont believe anything,just look and think about the word believe....what the hell is believe, it is just a word, its all in your mind everything is in your mind/brain so just dont believe anything....except your mind.

Wow i have just confused myself! Feck it,i dont care because its christmas and im merry and drunk!

ok, beliveing in nothing is crazy.

cause something has to be, so if u belive in nothing, then its just stupid. do u belive in nothing? well... if u could somehow proove that nothing existed, then that would then be proving that soemthing exist, cause if u didnt exist u wouldnt be able to prove nothing exist, thus proving something exist by proving noithing exist.

Originally posted by NetStorm
But ....if you believe in "nothing" aren't you believing in something? Or is the nothing...truly nothing, therefore non existant..but if you thought of it..then it exists in your mind, so it is no longer nothing..it's a conundrum I tell you

I'd say this is probably the best way of explaining it. Esentially the problem that arises with 'Belief in Nothing', comes from the concept of 'Nothing'. To belive in 'Nothing' would mean that 'Nothing' would have to be 'Something' which is able to be belived. But then it's 'Something' and not 'Nothing'. You can see where this is going.

It is possible to beleive in nothing... Perception is reality...

point blank............if your brain functions at all even 1% you believe something. unless you were kept in a dark soundless foodless hole.....it is impossible for you to believe in nothing.

In fact I believe in very little but am open to many things. Open, but rarely will accept them as truth therefore still believing in very little. Call me sitting on the fence, neutral so to speak. I like it there.

- Nazgarn

To me believing in nothing is like acheiving enlightenment... The way I see nihilism; is like being in that infinite void of meditation... Were everything exists yet nothing exists...

I think our beliefs come from our souls. Our souls give us mysteries that we must solve to piece together the puzzles of our existance and our world.

Originally posted by psychosgirl
point blank............if your brain functions at all even 1% you believe something. unless you were kept in a dark soundless foodless hole.....it is impossible for you to believe in nothing.

Belief is a choice. The comprehension of an idea is not a prerequisite to 'believe in it.' I can ponder the existence of four-headed aqua gnomes, but that does not mean that I believe in them. Would you not say that acts such as this one constitute more then the use of 1% of a brain?

Originally posted by ghostsoldier
To me believing in nothing is like acheiving enlightenment... The way I see nihilism; is like being in that infinite void of meditation... Were everything exists yet nothing exists...

Give the man a cuppie doll or, in the case that you are female, how about a howitzer? The idea that the Everything and the Nothing are identical is not a new idea. You can find it in many eastern philosophies as well as modern-day physics. This idea itself can be categorized as a belief, but it is the belief of non-beliefs. As you can see, describing a ‘perceived’ paradox with another paradox is like washing yourself with a bar of dirt. Unfortunately, only paradoxes seem appropriate to explain other paradoxes.

Originally posted by Jonna

Originally posted by ghostsoldier
To me believing in nothing is like acheiving enlightenment... The way I see nihilism; is like being in that infinite void of meditation... Were everything exists yet nothing exists...

Give the man a cuppie doll or, in the case that you are female, how about a howitzer? The idea that the Everything and the Nothing are identical is not a new idea. You can find it in many eastern philosophies as well as modern-day physics. This idea itself can be categorized as a belief, but it is the belief of non-beliefs. As you can see, describing a ‘perceived’ paradox with another paradox is like washing yourself with a bar of dirt. Unfortunately, only paradoxes seem appropriate to explain other paradoxes.

Yeah I've been practicing Zen Budhism (or my take on it anyway) for a while now... It all makes so much more sense to me then Christianity...

Its true about the paradoxes being used to explain paradoxes, I would have liked to see Lao Tzu do it himself...

Sure you can! It's easy to be believe in nothing. It's just like this...

Hahahahahaha .... you're silly....

No you have to believe in something to be human, even believing in nothing is believing in something, because nothing is a word...

to not believe is to not exist...

even a rabbit has to believe that the food their eating will nourish them...

belief is a way of rationalizing chaos... its a systematic way of archiving symbols and senses as well as feelings... belief encompasses all 3 and belief is the end result... kind of like the file cabinet..... so it's important to section your thoughts with rationale and reason.... because your file cabinet can get cluttered and you might need to make a folder for what I'll call Bull Crap ... its a good idea to have a folder with that label so that way you can reference it and perhaps rationalize the truth.

Hope that helps ...

EDIT: Believing in nothing includes not thinking AT ALL ... no words... there wouldn't even be such a thing as a word ... to begin with... also no beginning.. and no end... no you ..

in a round-a-bout way.... You created this world... in your mind... like a math equation ...

SENSES+EMOTION+SYMBOLS=Belief that you're alive... without those 3 Belief wouldn't exist ... You could look at it like the trinity of humanity...

[edit on 16/3/05 by dnero6911]