At its most pure and fundamental level knowledge is faith and faith is knowledge.
This is the essential difference between theism/spiritualism and nihilism, it is the question of epistemology, of what is knowledge. I know that this equation of knowledge with faith is false or at least self-defeating. I agree, atheism is false, but that it is false exactly to the extent that its still not absolute nihilism. It is because people still think of the world in an essentially spiritualistic way, that they fear nihilism and it is because they are still spiritualists, that they have something to fear from nihilism. But to know there is no intrinsic value is the knowledge required to know what value in general is, how to create it and improve it. By having faith in intrinsic value, one is abandoning the quest for knowledge of value, and thus any chance of progress. It is accepting the world as it is, barbaric and unjust. Spiritualists believe in writings on the wall only because they still live behind one.
As a nihilist I think higher of people that, like CoinCube, know the reasons for their belief, no matter how false, than of those that believe blindly and quote inspirational posters as the basis of their belief.
It is a bit late to respond this post but later is better than never.
There are various shades of nihilism but essentially nihilism holds that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value, that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Human or even the entire human species is essentially insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. What is the antithesis of nihilism? I would argue that it is faith.
Faith holds that life has inherent meaning. It proclaims that there is an objective status for ethical ideals grounded in the very bedrock of creation. It teaches that man is created "in the image of God," and therefore has inherent dignity and immense value. It offers mankind a purpose in this universe.
I respect nihilists as they are almost always members of the intellectual elite. However, I believe the philosophy itself is inherently dangerous and self-destructive.
http://www.arasite.org/WL3/nietnihil.html#_ftn1It (nihilism) is the continued destruction of all meaning and signification. It is the belief that nothing really matters any more, because nothing really has any meaning. We have no system of beliefs or values which could orientate us. The old systems of belief, like religion and morality, still exist, but at best we only follow them half-heartedly, and at worst, think that they have no meaning whatsoever. They exist only the edges of our lives and consciousnesses. But it isnt just the world that doesnt have any meaning anymore. We ourselves dont have any meaning to ourselves. Why should we choice one course of action over the other? What does it really matter anymore, since no-ones individual life really has any significance in the grand scheme of things...
Nothing is worth much anymore, everything comes down to the same thing, everything is equalized. Everything is the same and equivalent: the true and the false, the good and the bad. Everything is outdated, used up, old dilapidated, dying: an undefined agony of meaning, an unending twilight: not a definite annihilation of significations, but their indefinite collapse.
By rejecting intrinsic value, one is not abandoning the quest for value but certifying the absence of value. Faith demands we not accept the world as it is. Faith provides an ideal and asks us for ethical perfection. It is a goal we fall far short of a world to strive for. Nihilism provides none of these things for at its heart it is a philosophy of emptiness.