Nihilism, Friendship, And Finding Meaning

Feeling pulled to choose a side in every room you enter? We bring a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist to the same table to ask a harder question: if life doesn’t come preloaded with meaning, what should we build together?

We start by untangling nihilism from its stereotypes. Passive nihilism stares into the void and shrugs; active nihilism treats the blank space as a canvas. From that lens, we revisit Joseph Campbell, Nietzsche’s much-misread “God is dead,” and the cultural panic around moral relativism. Along the way, we connect these ideas to real life: how nihilism once felt like a relief from perfectionism, how parenting teenagers turns abstract meaning into daily practice, and why empathy has become a modern civic baseline that few can publicly reject.

The conversation widens and deepens. We test the limits of logic and faith in debates like “something from nothing,” admit where reasoning runs out, and reflect on the social pressure to perform certainty. We examine evolution, entropy, and the stubborn pattern of life to persist—not as proof of a creed, but as context for how values might emerge. Then we get practical about knowing: defend epistemic rigor, keep Chesterton’s fences, and be cautious when “different ways of knowing” are used to bulldoze standards that keep planes in the air and bridges standing.

By the end, our common ground is simple and demanding: choose active meaning. If objective foundations remain contested, we can still act with courage, compassion, honesty, and care—especially for those watching us learn in public. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves a good disagreement, and leave a review with your take: where do you find meaning when certainty runs out?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Framing A Divided World
• 0:17 Progressive Christian Meets Conservative Atheist
• 2:24 Active Vs Passive Nihilism
• 4:20 Joseph Campbell And Meaning
• 6:08 Nihilism As Relief Then Responsibility
• 9:55 Memento Mori And Parenting
• 11:15 Misusing Terms: Nihilism And Narcissism
• 13:08 Optimistic Nihilism And Nietzsche
• 16:25 God Is Dead And Social Meaning
• 18:20 Evolution, Energy, And Survival
• 21:24 Why Does Anything Persist
• 24:20 Something From Nothing And God
• 27:16 Logic, Faith, And Respectability
• 30:04 Moral Nihilism And Empathy
• 34:08 The Source Of Objective Truth
• 36:40 Fundamentalism Across Ideologies
• 39:14 Epistemological Nihilism And Limits Of Knowing
• 42:05 Keep The Gates: Epistemic Rigor
• 43:29 Planes, Bridges, And Standards

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Does it feel like every part of your life is divided? Every scenario, every environment, your church, your school, your work, your friends, left, right, conservative, liberal, religious, secular. It seems you always have to take a side. This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground. Do you think if we left today, we would still be friends? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04: 0:35

But we're friends.

SPEAKER_06: 0:43

Oh well, we want a few games. Y'all fools think that's something? Man ain't nothing, y'all. And you know what else? We ain't nothing either. Yeah, we came together in camp. Cool. But then we're right back here and the world tells us that they don't want us to be together. We fall apart like we ain't a damn bit of nothing, man.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17

Alright. So uh I I stand corrected. It's nihilism.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23

I don't think it is. I I think that it's I think you can say it both ways.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26

I don't I don't mind being wrong. It happens all the time. I don't mind telling you you're wrong when you're wrong. All right. Yeah, I mean you should because it doesn't happen often.

SPEAKER_02: 1:36

So gotta take opportunities when they present themselves.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39

Okay, so to get us started, I am going to allow uh this person on TikTok, which I'm still not on, to um to tell us exactly what's okay. It's still listening to you, even if you're not on nihilism, is all right. And I cannot get it to start from the very beginning. So he's not he we're gonna might we might miss where he says what is nihilism, but anyway, here we go. It's short. Hold on. I said here we go. And it's good radio, man. Well, you know, the ridiculous part is it's yeah, it's annoying because TikTok won't allow me to like you go anyway. I'm not gonna this is not about how bad TikTok is.

SPEAKER_02: 2:20

You're probably gonna get sued now. That's good. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 2:23

And here we go.

SPEAKER_01: 2:24

For some, it's just the idea that life has no inherent meaning or value. This is what's referred to as passive nihilism. Now, some might associate that type of nihilism with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, but they would be very wrong. Nietzsche is critical of that type of nihilism because he thinks it turns people away from the creation of value. He was an active nihilist, meaning that the proper response to a lack of meaning or truth in society is to create it for ourselves. So while a passive nihilist might see the world as an empty and meaningless place, the active nihilist would see it as a blank canvas for the creation of something new. So when we're pointing out the passive nihilism in culture, media, and society, we're also pointing to the possibility for active nihilism to create new values in the world. So to all our fellow nihilists out there, cheers.

SPEAKER_03: 3:14

Cheers to you. Okay. Yeah. I like the way you did that. All right. So I think that that's a really great distinction, right? So passive and active. So are you an active nihilist?

SPEAKER_02: 3:31

Um well, I mean, that uh uh that was a very short description.

SPEAKER_03: 3:38

I mean well, I mean, I figured the episode could be about five minutes long because we're gonna I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02: 3:44

Solve it.

SPEAKER_03: 3:45

Yeah, we'll solve it. We're gonna solve it.

SPEAKER_02: 3:47

Yeah, it reminds me of um a clip that we played, um, I don't know if it was a year ago or six months ago or what, but um when we were talking about um uh Joseph Campbell, the anthropologist, historian, mythologist, um, in his uh the interview, series of interviews that he gave to Stephen Moyer at the end of his life. Um and the question um was about meaning, the meaning of life. And um, here's Joseph Campbell, who has spent his entire life studying myths and trying to, not just studying them, but trying to bring the meaning of these myths to modern people uh and and help them understand that that these stories have deep, deep resonance. They are not irrelevant. The the human experience continues and always continues and always will continue forever and ever, amen. And he says, well, of course life has no meaning. What we mean when we talk about life having meaning is we really are talking about human life. So what we're always talking about because he goes, uh a shrew lives, you know, mold lives, but it's no meaning, right? There's no end, there's no purpose, it's just life, right? It just is. And so that's how I think of when I think about nihilism. Um I think uh it's again one of these things that is inescapable to me when I think about it philosophically.

SPEAKER_03: 5:46

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 5:47

Um but and we and I mean we've talked about this in the past where I also don't at this point it was very, very helpful for me. Nihilism was very, very helpful for me um ten years ago.

SPEAKER_03: 6:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 6:08

Um and and that is because to me, the idea for myself, for me, Lucas, the idea that at some point I'm going to die, and that will be it. And there's no finish line, goal line, you know, it just is everyone that I've ever known or ever will know will die and be forgotten, just like everyone else before us. It was whereas I can understand for a lot of people that is very upsetting. But for me, it was so relieving. It was it was such a relief. And that was mostly because I have my identity is based on is like foundationally a knowledge, a deep knowledge that I am a disappointment. And so embracing the idea that I did nothing and nothing is anything, it just is was very relieving to me. Now, that was ten years ago. I have kids now, kids who are growing and developing. They're not 30 years old. They're 13 and 16, 17, whatever, he's gonna be 17. And uh I don't I don't w um it's not as helpful now. It's not as relieving. It doesn't relieve me uh to to think about the nothingness. Right because I always did say, even even in that experience of no meaning, I still always went, but of course I have desires. I have desires, I have uh values, I have motivations. From whence they come, I don't know. Neither does anybody else, but I have them, and I know that some of them are to uh be courageous, be honorable, I do see, be truthful, right? Um, be compassionate, be uh to to you know, all of these things, not steal, not you know what I mean. Um and so I would always say that now uh it is far more um important to me at this stage in my life, with my kids being at the place that they're at developmentally, it's just a lot more important to me to lean into the subjective experience that I have, which is we need to have a vision for the ideal and to be developing into that. And I want I want to uh develop into that. I want to look at the parts of myself that seem to be reactive or seem to um just fall into a a habit and go let me change that, let me be deliberate, you know, mostly to try to be an example for my kids, you know. Um so that's where I am now. I I don't reject it, it's just not as helpful to me as it used to be. I'm very grateful for it and the and and what it was. Sure. What it has to be.

SPEAKER_03: 9:56

Well, so you know, when you said that, um, of course, I now my mind goes to Memento Mori. Yeah. And um, and so I think that it can shift, right? So at one point maybe you find comfort in that, but I think also it can shift into then it gives um it it gives more value to the time you get to spend with your kids and things like that. Yeah. Right. Also, I would just say this um that uh a deep, deep knowledge of the fact that you're a disappointment. I I know some Lucas groupies that would disagree with that. Um, but uh anyway, all right, a couple thoughts as you're talking. Um I looked it up. Nihilism is um so the terms that he uses where he talks about active and passive, those aren't necessarily, as far as I can tell, commonly used.

SPEAKER_02: 10:49

They're not like technical terms. Yeah, he's just kind of using that.

SPEAKER_03: 10:52

Because you've actually got yeah, because they'll say that there's three branches of nihilism. I think what he's describing is what I might call the potential outcomes of nihilism. Yeah, right. And so um one of them would be called uh pessimism, right, which is uh what I think he called the uh what he described as passive, right? So that it just it lead there's just a nothingness. Yeah. And uh, and so here it talks about how it might lead to um despair and hopelessness. Yeah. And it's in it's it has been my experience that when when someone says that unless you can believe in connecting back to the last episode, that you can believe that there is an objective truth, that eventually you end up in uh nihilism, um, that's what they're describing.

SPEAKER_02: 11:38

Yeah, what they mean is despair and misery and hopelessness.

SPEAKER_03: 11:42

So they're actually misusing, I would say, the concept, or they're using the um the common uh the the common perception of the common vernacular.

SPEAKER_02: 11:54

Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's very similar to how people will use the term narcissist, narcissist. Narcissist has a psychological.

SPEAKER_03: 12:02

There's an actual that's an actual diagnosis that we like to throw around with anybody that thinks too much of themselves. That's exactly right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 12:09

Who we seem we think of them as like prideful, and so we call them a narcissist.

SPEAKER_03: 12:13

A narcissist, right? Yeah, and I mean, because there's I mean, let's be honest, there are times when I um I fall into that category. And then there's other times when I um am the complete opposite of whatever that might be. Sure. Right. So um we all run those gamuts, and I think that we all have that. But then the optim the the potential outcome in this article I'm looking at uh would say optimistic nihilism, which I think is what he would call the active. So I think he's I think he's taking the potential outcomes and and turning them into branches, which is a little uh I get what he's doing, that's fine. But this is um basically suggests that since there is no inherent meaning, that uh individuals create their own meaning and life purpose.

SPEAKER_02: 12:59

And I think that that again, that is a that's a statement to that to me is just prima facie true. Right. It just seems on its face. Yeah. And I just repeated myself. But anyway, that's okay. Um you know it well, and and I I like that he's talking about Nietzsche's actual positions. Um, it reminds me of Nietzsche's statement that God is dead, um, which is interpreted again in in our uh comma vernacular as like some sort of um gloating on the back on on the part of Nietzsche, which it was exactly the opposite. He was it was all wrapped up in this idea that society has killed the concept of God, we have become completely secular, and that is a problem. It's a problem because we have um we had before we thought about it, almost kind of prior to reaching up and and grabbing the apple off the tree, prior to that, we could live forever, right? Because we didn't have a concept of death. So you could live forever. Conceptually, I mean this is this is all mythological, but prior to in in Nietzsche'stimation, prior to the awakening that he saw society having, which is, oh, there is no greater force directing all of this, right? Uh prior to that, we didn't we didn't think about it. And so then our meaning of life was inherent. It it we just had it because we knew, not believed, we knew that there was this force we called God, which directed. And so his estimation is we've killed that, and now we are spinning out into nothingness and we have to create it on our own. And that is a real problem for society. It would have been better, maybe, if we could have stayed, you know, without the knowledge that God is dead. Yeah. Accord uh, you know, again, this is I'm kind of paraphrasing Nietzsche here.

SPEAKER_03: 15:23

Well, and I didn't so whenever I've heard nihilism, I've always connected it to Nietzsche. But apparently there was um someone prior to him, a Russian author, Ivan Turgenev. Have you ever heard of that?

SPEAKER_02: 15:37

I have heard his name. I don't know much about him.

SPEAKER_03: 15:40

I don't know anything. I just I'm sitting here looking at an article and I just read it, and I was like, huh, that's interesting. In fact, it's his it's his picture that pops up. Um so all right.

SPEAKER_02: 15:51

Well, and I would I would uh suggest anyone listening to this who wants to hear a a really good um conversation or um discussion about uh Nietzsche and uh nihilism and all of this to listen to Martyrmaid's episode where he um talks about Nietzsche and Dostoevsky um together.

SPEAKER_03: 16:15

It's that I still reference that when I talk to people.

SPEAKER_02: 16:18

Yeah, it's a really good episode.

SPEAKER_03: 16:20

Yeah. Um so branches according to this article, slightly different than what our um TikTok video shared with us. Uh existential nihilism, the belief that life is without purpose and that existence is ultimately meaningless. Which is a little bit what you were describing. Um I want to park there for a second because it allows me to circle back. Um I I completely agree with uh who was it again that talked about whenever we talk about meaning of life, we're always talking about human life.

SPEAKER_02: 16:58

Joseph Campbell.

SPEAKER_03: 16:59

Okay. Yeah, I I mean, yes, whenever we start talking about meaning of life or life having meaning, we're talking about the the it's sort of the um again, sort of like the uh the unspoken understanding that that's what we're talking about is human life, right? But as I was reading um the Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, there was something in there that was said that really sort of got me thinking. There's a lot of things in there that got really got me thinking, but this one connects to this in my mind. And they talked about how uh plant, two plants that are the same plant, that one of them develops like poison um and becomes uh uh um inedible. Inedible. And then the other one though becomes a great source for nutrition. The same plant. And and they said this. They said the one um has has evolved this way because it has a desire to not die.

SPEAKER_02: 18:12

Um anthropomorphizing plants.

SPEAKER_03: 18:16

Yes. And and then I know you and I had this conversation on on Sunday because I'm thinking through all this stuff, right? And I and so I'm trying to figure out like I'm trying to think about again, I'm trying I've been thinking a lot about obviously faith all the time. Um, and I've been thinking about uh physics and energy, right? And that it's and it's all energy. I mean, there's a little bit of matter, but the vast majority of reality is energy. Um, and and I'm and again, I'm I'm butchering this as I'm talking about it, but um, but then I was trying to think to myself, actually, I was having a conversation with Gary the day before on Saturday, and I was having a con I was thinking to myself, like, I I can't wrap my mind around comp like completely embracing evolution. Okay, right. Because I think at some point I I go back and I'm like, man, that's a that's a huge leap to be able to say that that happened, right? And then I started thinking about it and I was like, okay, so energy, let's think about energy. So you have energy that expands and it causes this big bang, right? And then from there, um uh let's just stick with evolution for a minute. And this is all gonna come back to nihil, uh uh uh nihilism, I think. I'm gonna try, I'm really trying. Um, and so um, so anyway, uh so we're back at the big bang. Back at the big bang, and I'm gonna bring it all the way to and then and then you end up with a single cell organism on this rock.

SPEAKER_02: 19:56

You're going all Vladimir Putin on us.

SPEAKER_03: 19:59

How's that?

SPEAKER_02: 20:00

You ask you a question about nihilism, you gotta take it back to the big bang. You do.

SPEAKER_03: 20:04

Um, and so then um, so then you end up on this rock that we're on that uh, and a single cell organism begins to what? And and all I can think of is that there must be something, the energy that makes up that single cell organism, there must be a desire to survive. And I can't think of it, like I cannot, and and I can't again is that anthropomorphizing this, yes. But I can't think of a better way of trying to understand what's happening for that single cell organism to split and to continue to evolve and to eventually develop into something that um every every every phase of its development is in order to help it survive and and um and so what is that what is that there's this will, this apparent will to survive. Um so then the the only reason I bring all that up is because if we get to this idea that um that life is without purpose and that existence is ultimately meaningless, I I would look at that single cell organism and I would think to myself, again, it doesn't believe that. Because it's striving to survive.

SPEAKER_02: 21:37

Yeah, I I this is the this I mean you're getting back to the fundamental question of existence. Like why does anything exist? The reality is I think nobody really knows.

SPEAKER_03: 21:51

That is true.

SPEAKER_02: 21:52

Um, but it you know, it it's funny when I when I teach I um I've taught a macro econ class for homeschoolers for a long time. And um when I teach the class, I I usually start off with a a lecture about what trying to get them to understand what economics really is. Um and a lot of times the conversation goes back to what we have to realize is that all of existence wants to continue to exist. We don't really know why. That's where I start because I don't I'm not gonna go back beyond that. That that appears to me to be true. It seems like existence wants, for lack of a better term, to continue. Don't know why.

SPEAKER_03: 22:40

And why does it start to begin with, right?

SPEAKER_02: 22:43

Yeah, I mean, what why do um I mean you're talking about entropy and what's the the opposite of entropy? I don't actually know the term. I'm sure there's there's a term for the opposite of entropy.

SPEAKER_03: 22:57

It's interesting because entropy just showed up in something else I was re uh studying.

SPEAKER_02: 23:01

But like why um why do um atoms you know, I think it's I think it's enthalpy.

SPEAKER_03: 23:14

Um that's that has to do with um energy.

SPEAKER_02: 23:19

Because to me uh the the process of evolution by natural selection, um, it it makes absolute perfect sense on a long enough time frame.

SPEAKER_03: 23:28

Say that one more time.

SPEAKER_02: 23:30

Uh evolution by natural selection. It just it just makes perfect sense to me. Um as long as you've got enough time to explain it, um, then it then it makes sense to me that nothing is trying to um get better, quote unquote. Nothing's trying to do anything, except existence is trying to continue. That's the only thing. And then environmental um pressures push in metaphorically on the sides of all life changing its form. That's all evolution to me is. It's just the pressures of the environment pushing in on the side of life.

SPEAKER_03: 24:16

Sure. And so that that has to adapt in order if it wants to continue to live.

SPEAKER_02: 24:21

It yeah, well, I would say it just does adapt.

SPEAKER_03: 24:26

It would have to if it wants to continue to survive.

SPEAKER_02: 24:30

Because it because existence seems to want to survive. Want to continue, yeah. Yeah. And I don't know why. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_03: 24:37

Negentropy.

SPEAKER_02: 24:38

I and I will say that like again, this is this is where um the the argument from uh the argument from existence uh for uh deistic God and or a theistic God doesn't really convince me um because I just think um that the arguments just back up one step, call it God, and then stop there. And I just say I don't need to back up. Um I'm fine with just having existence be. Because I think that that's how everyone is fine with they just call it God. Sure. And then that is existence. But um, but the question is is well put. I don't know why. I, you know, I yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 25:31

Well, I But it just seems like everything. I do know I do know people that would argue against you um and say that there's more to God than just the backing up one more step. Um I'm I don't happen to be one of them.

SPEAKER_02: 25:44

I mean it's the uncreated creator. I'm saying that particular argument. Yeah, and I was saying that particular argument of uh when when you get into um uh debates about the existence of God, and one of the the arguments is um something from nothing. The concern about you can't have something from nothing. Why is there something instead of nothing? And um and built into that question is the answer of you can't have something from nothing, therefore you must have a creator that created it. And I would say you generated the something from nothing, and I would say, but of course when I was growing up in the in the faith, um, deep in the faith in a apologetics type way, um, I accepted that as a like as a truism. Like obviously, these these people who are rejecting this position just haven't thought of this because this is an obvious they're putting themselves in such an obvious corner. You can't have something from nothing. Therefore, you have to have a creator. It has to have been created. And for whatever reason, I never considered because the because the the concept of God was outside of the realm of what I considered. So I just never I just never considered the fact that if I was going to use that argument, I would have to use that argument for the creator, which of course would be uncreated. And so how could that possibly be? But of course, those rules don't have to offer right, right. That's that's the issue.

SPEAKER_03: 27:28

Yeah, no, I get it. And and I think anytime that you try to take uh faith or theory or whatever, and you try to say um that beyond any shadow of a doubt, this is this is the truth of it, right? Objectively, this is the truth. You have painted yourself into a corner.

SPEAKER_02: 27:50

Yeah. And by the way, I I want to say, I actually have no problem with somebody who will say, um, uh, yeah, that it it doesn't actually make logical sense. And it doesn't, that's fine. Because that's that's okay. That that um the the problem is if we want to start using the rules of logic, well then those rules have to apply all the way through the argument. You don't get to use the rules and then stop using the rules. But I am fine with saying uh actually these rules don't apply and I don't have a reason. But of course, that's a problem most of the time because that means that you have to take yourself out of the logic conversation and whether people realize it or not, rationality and logic are the currency, that's the currency of uh respectability in our in our society. And so it you don't want to do that. If you're if you're a a theologian, if you're a theist or a deist, you don't want to take yourself out of that conversation because that's going to hurt you socially, which I understand. Um, so you you kind of want to have it both ways. You want to operate within the realms of the society that we're in and have the social respectability, but also reject those same rules when you run into kind of the backstop of what those rules can can support. Um anyway. I don't yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 29:42

Yeah, you mentioned about the respectability stuff. I I was actually having a conversation this morning with someone about um how we have like communication and um debate, the the like following those rules is gone. Um and I think that we're losing respectability and respect for each other. And it's showing again, it's another circular thing, but um because we've lost, and I know it's a different direction. Okay, moral uh nihilism. The view that there is no objective basis for morality, right and wrong are human conventions, not inherent truths. This was a big discussion at that uh um conversation coalition a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_04: 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 30:34

And um and again, it it it ground that conversation ground to a halt when one side refused to believe or refused to acknowledge that even their position uh required some subjectivity.

SPEAKER_02: 30:51

Well, this is this is the but the this is a concern for all people, I think. You know, it's a I think it is a Again. I can um I can hear my left-leaning friends and my right-leaning friends, my conservative friends and my progressive friends all concerned about the um rejection of the idea of an objective morality. Um because by on on what standard would you on what foundation would you stand to uh again say that racism was wrong? Right. On what foundation are you gonna stand to uh to say that well uh you know that um there is a another primary virtue of our modern society, I think, is empathy. Now, I I know that some people will say, well, that's not true because some people don't have empathy or they don't have enough empathy or they don't care about empathy. But be that as it may, no one can tolerate in our society, typically, being um identified as someone who doesn't have empathy. And you can see this, like the someone will have an argument and someone else will say, Well, that's a racist, for instance. That's a racist position. And what will the first person do? The person A who made the statement or the argument or whatever, they won't say, Yes, it is. What will they do? They will say, No, it's not racist, because X. Now, person B might reject that that rationalization, but the fact still remains the person A cannot tolerate being called a racist or sexist or whatever, right? The you'll reject that label. Why? Because it's been because empathy is the is a primary virtue that we all want to, we all want to have, right? And so um, you know, I can I can I can hear my my progressive religious friends saying I see you looking at me. Uh-huh. Saying, well, at the end of the day, God is love.

SPEAKER_03: 33:24

Yeah. Um, by the way, I I I reject uh being called a progressive, but go ahead.

unknown: 33:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 33:29

That's fine.

SPEAKER_02: 33:30

No, that's fine. That's fine. Um I can do whatever I want. Yeah, that's right. You can do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_03: 33:34

I live in a nihilistic world.

SPEAKER_02: 33:35

There you go. Um but that right there, right? Like you'll you'll hear someone say, Well, I don't, I'm I'm not holding on to a whole lot of um uh positions, you know, with certainty. All I know is God is love. Or love is the most important thing, or all we need is love, or whatever, right? Love is the okay, so there's your objective truth. Right. That you've that you've backed up into. All right. Still have one.

SPEAKER_03: 34:10

All right. I think that the real issue. Yeah. And I don't want to get too much. You're about to get to the objective issue. I don't want to get too much back into the objective because that was last week.

SPEAKER_02: 34:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:22

But I do a couple things. Uh one is I think the real argument is the source of objective truth. Where does it come from? Sure. That's the actual argument. Sure. Is it a social construct or is it is it a divinely given? Is it is divinely given, or is it something that over the course of millennia has developed in order for the sustainability and um the uh is it is an example of uh negantropy, I'm gonna start using that term um as that how these this morality has developed. Um okay, so that's just that's just a thought. The other thing, too, is I really appreciate the fact that you used the terms conservative and progressive, because I've also been thinking about this. And as I was listening to um two weeks ago's podcast, I said something in there. I I hate that this happens all the time. This is one of the things, this is another reason I've been doing a lot of writing lately. Is because when I'm writing, I can be very careful with the words I use. When I'm speaking, sometimes I use a word I don't necessarily mean.

SPEAKER_02: 35:37

Right. This happens to me when I re-listen to our episodes and I go hate it. Yeah, I don't I should have changed that or whatever. I shouldn't have said that.

SPEAKER_03: 35:44

And I use the word fundamentalist.

SPEAKER_02: 35:46

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03: 35:48

Here's what I think. Um, and this is the reason I appreciate what you're doing, what you said, is that there are all kinds of fundamentalists. There are progressive fundamentalists, there are conservative fundamentalists within the Christian tradition, right? Yeah. There are um there are Democrat fundamentalists, there are Republican fundamentalists, there are atheist fundamentalists, there are libertarian fundamentalists. It to me, it's the person who holds a position with complete certainty and that everyone else is wrong. Yeah. That's to me what I think what I'm coming around to believe is fundamentalism. Yeah. So to so I don't think that, and then I think I think you were kind of uh hinting at that, or maybe you just came out and said it, but um with just different words, yeah, is that your progressive friends that you're talking about when we're talking about uh moral nihilism and and and this and and what do we do if there is no objective truth type stuff, it's often the fundamentalist of both perspectives that will and and it goes back to the idea that of course there's objective truth. I know it. Uh and so really the debate becomes um what's the source of the objective truth? And then that can be broken down and and continue to discuss.

SPEAKER_02: 37:14

Another way of saying um something that I've enjoyed saying over and over again, which is that God always loves the things I love and hates the things that I hate.

SPEAKER_03: 37:23

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 37:23

Always, right? Even if it's something that um that maybe I'm not doing correctly right now, or I feel like I should be, blah, blah, blah. Well, the fact that I think I should be is an indication that I value this thing, which of course God is not going to, my God is not going to uh be for something that I actually think is a wrong thing. Otherwise, it wouldn't be God.

SPEAKER_03: 37:54

Right. Right. Yeah. I cannot wait for you to read um what I'm working on right now. I don't know, I don't know when it'll end up published, but I think I really want to hear your. I'm gonna publish it before I let you read it, though, because I don't want you to tear it apart first. I want I want you to I want it to get out there. All right. So the the final one is uh branch that that's in this article is epistemological nihilism, the position that knowledge is impossible or that true reality is unknowable. I think that goes back to my argument last week about or my suggestion last week that uh objective truth may exist, but but for but it's not actually attainable. And so I I guess uh in the sort of in the strictest sense of it, I would be a uh Christian nihilist.

SPEAKER_04: 38:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 38:44

Which then I would be told by some persons that I know that, but there's all kinds of reasons that I would be told I'm not a real Christian. Um and uh I I just say you're wrong. And I'm certain about that.

SPEAKER_02: 39:00

Yeah, that's right. There you go. All right, and what's your reason for that? I don't have one. How about that? How about that?

SPEAKER_03: 39:07

All right. Do you have anything you want to say about epistemological nihilism? Otherwise, we're gonna wrap this up.

SPEAKER_02: 39:11

Well, I will say this I think that um epistemology is very, very, very important. And I do think I like a society that believes that epistemological um uh rigor and um and correct epistemological methods are valuable. I like a society that believes that. And I want a society that believes that, and I don't like the idea that we just start uh as a society you know, tearing down our epistemological Chesterton gates, Chesterton fences, so to speak. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 40:02

Which I now know what that means after uh I think I think you I think you had to tell me like three times before I finally remembered that.

SPEAKER_02: 40:08

I just I am I am always going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03: 40:10

And then I read it 24 uh Hunter and Gatherer's Guide for the 21st Century. I that's where I read it. And I was like, aha, I know what it is. And you know where Lucas got it.

SPEAKER_02: 40:19

Is that where you got it? I didn't get it from their book, but um I think uh Brett was probably the first person. It was either Brett or Heather was the first person that I heard use the analogy. Now you all know. Um but I I'm just always I'm just always going to be on the side of in our present time uh keeping what is. Not that I think that reform should not exist, and not in this particular circumstance that I think that um, you know, that uh our particular epistemological methods are perfect. Absolutely, I don't think that. However, I'm going to be on the side of let's keep them the way that they are. Everyone else can argue on the other side, and hopefully we'll come out in some sort of, you know, better evolved way down the line. But the but starting from the position of there is no epistemological truth, no epistemological methods that are better than others, therefore tear them all down, and let's just like whichever this is this is expressed in the um in the phrase uh different ways of knowing. So you'll hear this sometimes. This is a critical theory um area as well, uh, that there are different ways of knowing. You'll hear you'll hear people talk about indigenous ways of knowing or mythological ways of knowing, right? Um, and I just um it's not that I don't think that in a vacuum those things don't have uh some interest and and value, but um I uh am on the side of keeping things the way that they are and applying epistemological rigor to the things that we think we know because I would like bridges to continue to be built by particular specifications and planes to continue to fly, you know. And um again, I I know that that's not perfect. Um I just I see a lot more tearing down than keeping the status quo, and so I'll just stand with keeping the status quo for now, not hoping that it'll never change, but just hoping that the change will be very, very, very slow. Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 42:50

All right, let's wrap this up. So uh we're gonna use uh our our friend uh from the beginning of the episode, we're gonna use his language, active and passive. Yeah. Um our common ground is that is it that we both um that we both seem to in our own way adhere to active nihilism. I think it sounds like it.

SPEAKER_02: 43:17

Sounds like uh both of us are trying to create our own meaning.

SPEAKER_03: 43:20

Yeah, I think so. All right. All right, see you next week. See you next week.

SPEAKER_00: 43:29

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