Sure it does, just most people don't define their beliefs by saying you don't believe in a bunch of stuff and then saying: whatever's left is what I believe. You just didn't offer any positive belief. I suppose that's appropriate given the nature of your beliefs (now that I know them).
The reason I gave that response is because people often ask me that question, and I think it's strange that religious ideas are so pinpointed. There are so many things in the universe, but the question hinges specifically on whether or not I say I believe in a god or spiritual forces. The way reality works is, as far as I can see, very complex and unintuitive, so it is hard to give a positive belief that is actually satisfactory in their scope. I believe in the laws of physics, you could say that. I wouldn't be inaccurate, just incomplete.
You seem pretty smart, so I feel like you would know better than me--does that count as nihilism? It seems to.
I decided to look up nihilism. One definition is the absence of belief in a greater purpose, so by that, I would be a nihilist. Regarding moral nihilism, I find my position much harder to explain. While morality is the experience of an individual, there are many individuals, and they are real, and they express their morality, and their minds are rooted in physical stuffs, so in a sense there is an objective existence to morality, but not in the way most people mean objective morality.
I avoid the word nihilist because it has many erroneous associations and negative connotations.
Also, how does that feel, to believe that? Does it kind of suck? I don't mean that in a disrespectful way. And obviously I'm not using that as an argument to prove you wrong (because I assume you don't equate truth with feeling good), I'm just curious if you have a hard time feeling whole and motivated with this worldview. I'm not sure (I don't know you and haven't lived out your beliefs), but it sounds like it would be a bit depressing sometimes. But I guess your motivation/needs are probably a lot of different than mine. Do you ever accidentally catch yourself projecting meaning where there is none?
I am a depressive and anxious individual, but I cannot directly attribute that to my beliefs for many reasons. When I think about it, I find the alternatives would not make me happier. As has been pointed out for as long as the term existentialism has been around, the existence of God would not actually answer any fundamentally existential questions, it would just add one more inconclusive step. There's also the afterlife problem. I am a coward toward mortality, and I find oblivion terrifying, but I've given an afterlife many thought experiments and I've found that no matter what it is always disturbing. So it really makes no difference.
There is a kind of concrete accessibility that is actually nice about my beliefs. I find it deeply unfortunate that the devoutly religious often seems to waste their entire lives away for an imaginary life that will never come. Wanting happiness, avoiding sorrow, and knowing that there are billions of others (far more than billions if we count other species) who have the same experience and whom's experience I can influence, is the best motivation I can think of.
There's an old thought from Plato, which is that even if there were a god, it still wouldn't make sense to do what he says if he does not give a good reason, and if he gives a good reason, then he is merely an unnecessary middleman and we should act on the basis of the good reason, not god's will. Basically, the presence of god would not make the above cease to be my motivation.
I think I've projected meaning onto things that didn't have meaning. I think virtually every human being has done that. It seems to be a kind of cognitive bias and I suspect it actually plays a part in why religion ever came into existence.
Do you think people who believe to be a little silly, then? I'm not trying to bait you or anything, I'm just curious. If you think it'd be better not to answer that, I totally understand.
I don't know about the specific word to use. I can say that I think the belief is unnecessary, less accurate than other beliefs which should be easily available at this day and age, and that with the advancement of civilization there seems to be an according decline in religiousity.