A) Belief, B) Disbelief, C) None of the above

For the last three days, I've been writing a piece attempting to nuance my definition of nihilism. And it was brilliant! Marvellous metaphors, jolly japes, pretty pictures, and even a little alliteration. But in amongst the frivolity I had some questions about that mumping villain Nietzsche and dipped into Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. Dear oh dear, how little I know. Never mind Nietzsche, whatever clever guff I had to say on the subject of, let's call it scepticism, I was perpetually being beaten to the punch by the Greeks of two millennia ago. Bloody Greeks! How dare they reach out from the past and shatter my illusions of me as great sage and equal of heaven!


Happily, the nature of monkey is irrepressible, so here I am blathering on with another 1000 words that hopefully I won't have to junk. (Hmm... perhaps 'happily' is the wrong word what with Monkey being on a mission to abandon his monkey nature 'self', but never mind). Anyway I'll start again and fingers crossed none of those rotten ancients gate-crash the party.


And so on to the grand topics! Take belief. Please! Any number of people will tell you that belief is a wonderful thing and without it we're all doomed or somesuch. That's all very well, but my problem is that there are so many beliefs, half of which are completely at odds with the other half, that one's necessarily forced to pick one or t'other, or some combination thereof. Sure enough, in choosing what one believes, one automatically rejects any number of other beliefs. Which is to say, a person who extols the rightness of belief is ipso facto simultaneously condemning the falseness of it. Or to put it another way, they're asserting that a false belief is better than none at all.


To be honest it never works that way. The epic majority of proponents of belief are not so much keen to have me, as unbeliever, believe in something-anything-as-long-as-I-believe, so much as to have me believe in their specific version of that-which-must-be-believed. It seems it's less about belief per se, but rather about whether or not one has chosen a belief that accords with that of the commentator. Hmm... perhaps belief is not so very different from teenage fashion sense, ie. it's little more than an expression of peer group pressure, which is to say 'fear'. And a fig for that.


What then is a self-described nihilist (that would be me) to do about otherwise credible people telling me stories completely beyond my ken and otherwise requiring my belief? Ha ha ha, is everyone here familiar with the phrase 'beg the question'? 'Beg the question' does not mean 'prompt the question'. Rather, it means to ask a question in which something is assumed or taken for granted that really oughtn't to be. And that sentence at the beginning of the para is a classic example. It assumes that one must either believe a thing, or reject it in its entirety. Which is to say, take it holus-bolus or throw the baby out with the bath water.


What's that clippety-clop noise? Is it some philosophical knight on horseback come to rescue me from my dilemma? Oh wait, it's the Buddha banging two coconuts together - a Python fan obviously. Says he, ever sensible, we may choose the middle way. Both belief and rejection are two diametric extremes. If one is convinced that belief is fraught with paradoxes why should it follow that disbelief is automatically the correct position? It's the equivalent of a nine year old in a car swerving from one over-correction to another.


So, er... what are we meant to do exactly? Neither believe nor disbelieve? Sure why not? Subsequently yours truly, otherwise full of loud-mouthed opinions, will upon hearing mind-boggling stories hold no opinion at all. Like I've said elsewhere, I dismiss nothing. I hear a thing, I hold it in my head, and I turn it this way and that: maybe I make something of it and maybe I don't. Do, don't, it doesn't really matter - whatever it is I've been told merely 'is', and nothing more.


Thus for all manner of things, from my friend John's curious preternatural encounters (Hey John), to Les' messages from the Devic Realm (Hey Les), I choose to form no opinion. The only thing I can say with complete certainty is that I have no experience of these things. And between what I have experienced and what I haven't, one makes the other look like Charles Atlas' 97lb weakling. For me to make declarations about what they tell me would say as much about me as them. Besides, here I am conveying thoughts to you the reader in spite of the fact that we're separated by hitherto unimaginable distances. 'Hitherto' is the key word there - when those smarty-pants Greeks were kicking around to even suggest that such things were possible would have been laughed off as a lunacy, or otherwise something belonging to the gods. And now we just take it as read.


Speaking of the Greeks, I'm off now to finally read Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. I'm keen to see if any of those marbled ancients knew karate. Okay, perhaps not the thing itself but at least the intent that inspired its name. For those who don't know, it means 'empty hand', which I might paraphrase as 'with no pre-conceived idea'. And the Japanese didn't call it that for nothing. It's an acknowledgement that in a meeting between two entities, no one can know what the stimuli will be, nor the response. And crucially (not wishing to beg the question again) - nor if one is even necessary. It's a simple fact that within the concept of the open hand is the perforce possibility that one may do nothing at all. Hmm... I'm pretty sure the Greeks mastered the concept. Well, it would certainly explain why they all turned into statues, ha ha.

Don't believe anything they tell you about nihilism

Those nihilists are nuts aren't they? Take me for example. Here I am tapping away at a keyboard that I don't even believe exists. I'm madly putting words in some kind of idiot order that can't possibly make any sense for non-existant people whom I don't believe can read, since there's no such ability. You'd wonder why I bother.

That's what a nihilist is, isn't it? Someone who madly thinks nothing exists? Has anyone met such a creature? Roll it around in your head - 'a person who thinks nothing exists'. Does that make any sense? Does it sound sustainable? How does it work on a day-to-day basis? Why would this mad fellow eat? Or scratch his arse? Or bother living at all? Honestly if you're prepared to entertain such a thought you really should wonder at yourself. The whole idea is idiotic on its face. And yet that's what I get accused of being. Since I choose not to believe in things, somehow nothing is real.

What nonsense. Real things don't require belief. They just are. The butcherbird singing a song on my windowsill in the hope of getting a piece of ham doesn't require a stretch of my imagination. It doesn't require me to take someone's word for it. I don't have to dispel doubt that he's there. No belief is needed because he's Right Fucking There, singing that berserk song. G'day mate, yes I know you're there, and no, you're not getting any ham. I'm a cruel man but fair.

What other things apart from butcherbirds don't require belief? Well, it's simple. Everything you can see, hear, smell, touch and taste is completely unconnected with the idea of, or the need for, belief. To attack an otherwise rational person on the basis that he can't tell the difference between what is and what isn't, is, gee whiz, I don't know... I just shake my head at the stupidness of it. But believe it or not, ha ha, I've encountered it many times. It's the standard sleight of hand employed by religious types to conflate a belief in a thing (ie. religion) with an absence of belief (ie. atheism/nihilism). Says they, these are equivalent 'beliefs': a Christian believes God exists; an atheist believes no god exists; whilst a nihilist goes further and believes that nothing exists. God spare me. It's a crap argument but crap arguments is all religious types have.

Perhaps when arguing with mad Christians it's better to concentrate on shared disbelief. Do Christians believe that that blue-headed elephant guy is a god? No? Okay cross him off. We could go through god after god in this fashion and have a lovely time agreeing with each other over and over. Cross, cross, cross. Yay! We smash fake gods! If we were to come up with a complete list of gods, the Christians and I would be in complete agreement over the non-existence of 99.99% of them. Go figure why they'd get all huffy about a single god amongst this uncountable multitude. Apparently this one god is special. But aren't they all? Who would worship a god that isn't special? Christians shouldn't take this personally. This line of logic is not specific to any particular religion. It's a 'catholic' argument, if you like, ha ha.

Anyway let's say we've arrived at the obviousness of atheism. Then there's the unavoidable question - why stop with gods? If I'm prepared to make that final tiny step from 99.99% atheism to 100% atheism, might I not cast my jaundiced eye at everything else I'm meant to believe? There's no shortage of these things. They define us and bind our society together. For instance, I am meant to believe that it is right that one should have unlimited desires and go to great lengths attempting to satisfy those desires. Apparently I should base my life on this. To moderate my pursuit of this self-gratification, there are certain fear-based proscriptions on my behaviour. All our laws pivot on the assumption that I shall not do a thing because I will be fearful of the punishment that will result. Is that the best we can do? We geniuses? We white men? Honestly?

What bullshit. I reject desire. I reject fear. A fig for arranging society thus. See if I can't do better, ha ha. I gave it a try just to the right here with my abjectly unsexy continuum. Between self and selflessness no belief is required. The less cluttered it is, the better. There are no proscriptions, no rules, no loopholes - merely an ideal to be aimed for.

Think about it. Nowhere here do I ask anyone to believe in anything. Nowhere do I say, Take my word for it. In fact, for the record I say, Don't believe it. Belief is not required and will not help you. Sure enough, in the meeting of the pursuit of selflessness and the mindset of perfect nihilism, there is no clash, only harmony. In fact I'll go further and state, right here, right now, that they are the same thing. True nihilism involves embracing the ultimate truth that there is no self. There is only a self if you believe that it is so. A person who can abandon this belief will know the mind of Buddha. You, me, anyone. If other people choose not to think about this, to use it as a self-serving straw-man argument, turn it arse-about, or any other goddamn thing, a fig for them, ha ha.

PS. And then there's the Buddha - "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense". Now that's nihilism.