[MD] Thoughts on Nihilism

[Steven Peterson]

Hi All,

Though religious people often say that without their faith life would
be meaningless, we know that some people's faith itself leads them to
the same conclusion. What is life compared to Heaven? Life for the
religious is sometimes viewed as merely a means to an end without
meaning in itself.  (To such people who see the afterlife as the only
meaning in life we may ask, what is the meaning of the afterlife?) It
is not surprising that American voters are not too concerned about the
environment or social justice when polls indicate that nearly half of
us expect the second coming of Jesus and the glorious end of the world
within the next 50 years.

The first step toward nihilism is not disbelief in God. The first step
toward nihilism is acceptance of the notion that for the existence of
the world to be justified it must have some external purpose to guide
it. It must be the shadow of some truer world than this one that has
the power to grant meaning to this world, and if no such other world
exists then this world ought not to exist. Note that this is quite
similar to what James described "the religious impulse." It is this
impulse rather than atheism that produces nihilism.

Nihilism is the rejection of at least some aspects of the value of
life, and it is attached to the notion that meaning must come from
somewhere outside one's self and in fact outside the world of ordinary
experience. It is the religious impulse to seek justification "out
there" rather than having doubts about religion that is the first step
toward nihilism. One can take this step toward religion and find no
convincing externally imposed meaning. On the other hand, if one never
goes looking for meaning to come from somewhere "out there," one never
encounters nihilism. Some people actually do find such an externally
imposed meaning and are still nihilistic. An extreme case of religious
nihilism is the suicide bomber who is nihilistic in rejecting the
meaning that others find in the value of human life while having a
deep conviction in the externally imposed meaning of his own death
through martyrdom and divine reward in Heaven.

The suicide bomber is indeed nihilistic. He may be thought of as
having placed some value on the lives he takes as fulfilling some
religious purpose, but in doing so he is decidedly rejecting many
other aspects of the value of individual human life. In Kantian
language, he is treating others solely as means to serve his purposes
of glorifying God rather than as having worth as ends in themselves.
That is a form of nihilism--a radically religious nihilism.  One might
argue that the suicide bomber is not nihilistic because his death and
the deaths of those he murders had profound significance to him in
glorifying God. But the question of nihilism is not whether death has
meaning but whether living life has meaning. There is no stronger
version of nihilism that valuing death above life.

A far more subtle but still dangerous form of nihilism exists in the
US with respect to the environment. In a country where the majority of
people are Christians and expect the immanent end of the world, it is
no wonder that it is difficult to get some people motivated to take
care of the world for future generations. Sam Harris addressed poll
results on expectations regarding the second coming of Christ:

"It is therefore not an exaggeration to say that if the city of New
York were replaced by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of
the American population would see a silver lining in the subsequent
mushroom cloud, as it would suggest to them that the best thing that
is ever going to happen was about to happen: the return of Christ. It
should be blindingly obvious that beliefs of this sort will do little
to help us create a durable future for ourselves- socially,
economically, environmentally, or geopolitically."

Note that I am not saying that this sort of nihilism is a necessary
consequence of all Christian belief. I am just saying that
Christianity gets interpreted by some (such as the murderer of the
abortion doctor) in very nihilistic ways where aspects of the meaning
of life are deemed entirely insignificant next to Eternity. Nihilism
is not then part of a problem with atheism as it is often claimed.
Nihilism is in fact incompatible with a thorough-going atheism that
has ceased to seek meaning "out there."  Nihilism is not the
inevitable result of anti-religious skeptism but part of the religious
impulse which includes the supposition that such an external order is
necessary and foundational to all value, meaning, and purpose that the
world of our everyday experience can ever have. Atheists only become
nihilists when they take their atheism with a this small dose of
religion. Atheists inclined toward pessimism sometimes take the fact
that the world seems to exists without such external justification as
evidence for the absurdity of existence. Some atheists respond to the
human condition by saying that we must live life in such a way to make
it a worthy protest to the injustice of death. Such a response is one
of a very religious sort of atheist. This is the sort of atheist
existentialist who announces the death of God but seems to be angry
and in great despair about that fact. This sort of nihilism is an
unconscious sort of nihilism that Nieztche called "religious
nihilism." In fact, there is no other kind. Nihilism depends on the
affirmation of another world as the only possible legitimate source of
all value and the denial of this world as able to sustain its own
value. All nihilism is religious in this sense.

The nihilism of the religious is often not recognized as such because
it is often an optimistic sort of nihilism. The promise of the next
world is thought to be the assurance of everything that one could ever
think to hope for. But then, we know how that sort of thinking in the
suicide bomber works out for the rest of us, so even optimistic
nihilism can be something to be concerned about. Religious people who
think that believing in God makes them immune to nihilism and the
nihilism is part of "the atheism problem" should turn to the Bible and
reread Ecclesiastes which has Solomon, son of David and renown for his
wisdom, "Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is
meaningless." Clearly even the Bible demonstrates that that nihilism
is not just a problem for skeptics.

Though the one who never look to other worlds to justify this world is
less nihilistic than the one who takes this first step toward nihilism
even if she does find meaning "out there," an avowed religious person
who takes the first step toward nihilism by seeking meaning in the
great beyond is unlikely to consider herself a nihilist.  The most
prominent authority on meaning among Christians today is Rick Warren
who sold 30 million copies of The Purpose Driven Life. He seems to be
the heir-apparent to Billy Graham as a widely palitable representative
of Christianty. Both McCain and Obama needed to be interviewed by him
to validate their positions with respect to the so-called "values
voters" in the 2008 election (as though only conservative Christians
make decisions based on their values.) In the Purpose Drive Life, Rick
Warren wrote,

"If there was no God, we would all be 'accidents,' the result of
astronomical random chance in the universe. You could stop reading
this book , because life would have no purpose or meaning or
significance. There would be no right or wrong, and no hope beyond
your brief years on earth."

This declaration is not merely one small step but a giant leap toward
nihilism. Warren has hung all his hopes upon the need that a single
fact turn out to be true. Clearly Rick Warren, who it is granted has
found meaning and purpose in life, is still by my lights teetering on
the brink of nihilism since all sense of meaning for him depends on
the need that one sentence be true.

A believer such as Warren is not likely to recognize the nihilism
behind his statement and his belief that without some external source
of worth our world would be worthless. Instead he is more likely to
mistake those of us who accept this world as sufficient unto itself as
nihilists. But doing so is indeed a mistake. Consider what it would it
mean to be complete in the lack of nihilism. The complete lack of
nihilism is not to deny the "objective" meaning of life but to stop
thinking of the question as one even worth asking--to stop looking for
the justification the world to come from somewhere else. The complete
opposite of nihilism is not to be able to affirm the objective meaning
of life, but to never need to go looking for meaning. Meaning abounds.

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but asking
bad "philosophical" questions like, 'what gives one's life objective
meaning?' if taken too seriously can also make life seem not worth
living. We don't need to be convinced by some philosophical or
theological argument that life has meaning or feel at all like
something is lacking in not being able to provide a Cartesian
foundation that stands outside of time and space upon which meaning in
life can rest. How could anyone who loves another be convinced by a
logical argument not to love them? Likewise, how could I become
convinced that life has no meaning when I already love or if I simply
refuse to accept the premise that meaning must come from some "true"
world of which this world is a mere shadow? Meaning abounds for all
those who love so long as they don't get fooled into thinking that
love needs a philosophical foundation--that "why love?" is a question
that needs an answer. Only the psychopath needs a reason to love.

It takes a lot of intellectual wheel spinning to even get one's self
to the point in thinking that the love of family and friends and our
efforts to make the world better than we found it are not meaningful.
This whole question of meaning only becomes a question when one
follows the religious impulse to search for meaning "out there." It
comes from the idea that meaning must come from outside one's self and
even outside the world altogether. It is important to emphasize that
nihilism is not an atheistic phenomenon. Both atheists and theists are
capable of denying aspects of the meaning of life. As we have seen,
nihilism--the belief that the world in itself is without value,
meaning, and purpose--is not the inevitable result of atheism.
Atheists only become nihilists when their lack of belief in God is
taken together with a half-measure of religion, while the theistic
nihilism of the suicide bomber is the result of taking a full measure
of the wrong sort of religion.

Best,
Steve