Why Nihilism Is Wrong
And Why There Probably Isn’t A God…
I’m an atheist and nothing will convince me against that. In fact, meeting God face to face would just prove my point. As we know, proof denies faith, meeting the big guy — proving he’s real — would deny any need for faith. I wouldn’t need to believe in him, I’d be able to see him. Ultimately, belief in the big guy isn’t going to happen for me.
And yet, with that certainty is an element of jealousy. I wish I could override my mind and go with the flow. To be able to put my belief in a higher power. For any religious people out there, this is just my opinion, please don’t be offended. I am definitely not saying you’re wrong. In fact I hope that I am wrong. I’m just saying this is how I currently view things through my lens on life.
Never have I wished that I could override my way of thinking than when I went down the rabbit hole of nihilism. As an atheist, it seemed a good fit. I read John Paul Sartre’s Nausea and was stunned; fittingly to a point of feeling sick.
Nihilism is a doctrine that states that there is no point to anything, that you live and you die and nothing actually matters. Not only is there no God, there’s no anything. No purpose, no meaning. When I fell down that rabbit hole, long before I became depressed over a decade ago, I felt my first pang of depression.
And as quickly as I came across it, I forgot about it. It was too terrifying to imagine a world that was pointless. To extrapolate a time line where in a trillion years time there would be nothing left of Earth. Nothing left of human history, nothing left at all. Just an ever cooling universe with atoms stretching to extreme isolation from each other. To a point of absolute zero energy. My brain simply decided it wasn’t a helpful thought.
Yet, this week I started thinking about it again. But this time from a rosier point of view. Whilst I am still an envious atheist, and I still believe that there is no purpose to life that is governed from a higher power. I now realise, from a point in my recovery from depression where things are much happier and my mental health is largely well looked after; I can see that there is a point to it all. A meaning.
The meaning of life is us. It is within us all. It may not be created by a God, but it is created by us and our capacity to dream and imagine. We have a short time on this Earth, and an opportunity to make the most of our fleeting time on this rock orbiting our sun.
I want to make the most of my time. I almost cut it short permanently. So I guess, as I reflect on that dark time in my past, I have given myself the power to find a meaning in life. I want to be a writer, I want to help people, I want to be a good dad, I want to be a good friend. Definitely not in that order, but those four things are the meaning in my life.
So as I sat there starting to think about nihilism, feeling trepidatious of where I’d end up in that rabbit hole, I ended up sitting there feeling very comforted. In a world where I’d never find God, instead I found a meaning. For me, that is all I’ll need, the crutch that over the coming years I’ll have to lean heavily on.
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