What Is Life Without Meaning

Dan Doyle

This article is going to be a bit different. It responds to a common atheist argument that was presented to me as a challenge. The meme stated the following: “Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick and choose wisely.” And it was preceded by this comment: “Take your pick. No more BS. People going on and on about an invisible man in the sky.” The tone struck a chord in me. My response follows:

This meme is an excellent example of atheistic nihilism. Atheism cannot tell its own story because it does not believe in stories and, therefore, has no story to tell. Is there a point in doing anything if there are no stories about meaning? In atheism, ‘meaning’ is only ‘relative’ and is, therefore, meaningless at any level beyond the individual ego. Ultimately, atheism cannot judge, has no right to judge, anything as right or wrong, true or false, because without stories there is no ‘should,’ or no ‘ought.’ Meaning, in the endless variety of postmodern, atheistic philosophies, is only that which flutters in and out of the individual, finite, and fickle minds of each isolated, solitary individual.

The problem suggested in the comment above is not God but human stupidity and arrogance. The 19th-century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, is often quoted using the simple phrase, “God is dead.” But what he really wrote was this: “God is dead, and WE (emphasis is mine) killed him, and there will not be enough water to wash away all the blood.”

As a result of this insight, Nietzsche went on to predict that because of this loss of the ancient Christian moral compass, the 20th Century would see the rise of ideologies (Communism/Nazism–false gods), and unimaginable wars, and there would be the spread of a spiritual nihilism, a sense of infinite nothingness…no meaning. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a contemporary of Nietzsche, recognized that without God everything (any cruelty) is possible. Cruelty is not God’s problem. It is ours. Natural disasters are not God’s problem. The problem or solution to natural disasters is in how we choose to prevent them in whatever ways are humanly possible, or in how we choose to respond to them when they strike. Everything depends on our human choices, not God’s absence or indifference.

Here’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. God did do something about human suffering. He entered into our humanity in the Person of Jesus, as one of us. He willingly suffered and died on a cross out of an infinite love for each one of us, for all of humanity, even in the midst of our prideful rebelliousness. In doing so, he conquered sin and death, once and for all, and rose again. Jesus’ last command to us was to love ALL others as he loved us, willingly sacrificing everything, even life itself, if necessary, for the real good of others. That is ‘real meaning,’ the fullness of what it means to be human. Egoistic, atheistic nihilism is essentially cowardice in the face of real life.

If we want to see an end to all of this meaningless, depraved, human suffering, we must have the courage to escape the prison of the ego and to humbly love as he did, even to the point of total self-sacrifice for the good of others. God has given us all that we need to be able to do this: intellect, conscience, and free will. Always before us are choices between help or harm, life or death: choose one. (Deuteronomy 30: 19) And know that the consequences of every choice are both real and ours alone. And the responsibility for all of the consequences of our choices is ours, no one else’s.

Atheism is nothing more than the ultimate expression of despair. Nothing good can arise from despair. In the end, God’s existence is the reason for hope and ultimate happiness, even joy.