If I were not a Christian I would be a nihilist, and I regularly have to keep my natural tendency toward existential nihilism in check. There is a reason Ecclesiastes is my favorite book. It is the most hopeless and nihilistic book in all of scripture. Despite my optimistic, idealistic, and altruistic nature, I thrive on hopelessness and despair.
If you do a quick inventory of my favorite movies (Dogville, Match Point, City of God, 28 Days Later, the Last Kiss, etc), you will see that they are ones in which there is no redemption and where people treat each other callously and without any remorse for the harm they inflict. They often get away completely guilt-free with murder. I would also personally act this way toward others if I truly embraced nihilism, as I am inclined to do – and I know there is real malevolent evil in my heart. That is why those films resonate so personally with me.
In a world completely devoid of any true or ultimate justice, this is truly the way things are. There is no reason at all for a rational person to not act consistently in a manner of complete and total selfishness, even to the point of murder and mean-spirited deception even for entertainment’s sake, so long as it maximizes one’s own rational self-interest. If a person can kill their mistress without getting caught and live with the guilt for the rest of their life because her death will ultimately bring them a far more pleasurable life in the long run (as happens in the plot of one of the films I mentioned above), this is completely morally acceptable. There is NO reason at ALL to condemn this action in the absence of moral values and ultimate justice.
Likewise, in the absence of any moral values or ultimate justice, there is no grounding upon which to condemn infant rape, instrumental rape during war with machetes, brutal female circumcision, animal mutilation and abuse, the torturing and murder of homosexuals going on right now in the middle east and still in our country, generations of racism and violence, or any other heinous and violent act that we consider to be a violation of justice. There is no grounding at all upon which to cry “FOUL!” The best we can do is to say that we just don’t like these acts, but we can never condemn them as truly wrong, because the very concept of ultimate, objective wrong does not even exist.
No humans will ever agree on exactly what actions should be defined as “right” and “wrong” in a moral sense – that has been culturally, religiously, and sociologically dependent even person by person for as long as humans have lived in society together. Even in a marriage no two people are ever going to completely agree on every moral and ethical issue. But if we can’t even agree that the concept of objective, transcendent moral values actually exist (meaning outside of our own collective human consciousness – in other words, outside of our own heads), then we’re really screwed.
I’m not arguing that we should go put up the 10 Commandments at any Capitol buildings. That’s just stupid. My point is much more philosophical and is far broader than any issue that encompasses any religion.
I would be a nihilist if were not a Christian and if I did not believe that objective moral values exist external to the human mind. I do not pass judgment at all on anyone else who believes otherwise, but if I did not believe what I do, I would personally lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, and live my life to fully maximize my own rational self-interest (in other words, completely selfishly). Yes, I might even murder if I thought it would benefit me in some way – and I highly doubt that I would feel a shred of guilt about it. The “guilt gene” seems to have skipped a generation with me. That is why I absolutely love this Aldous Huxley quote (and I also adore Brave New World, incidentally):
I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning–the Christian meaning, they insisted–of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.”
[Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means, 1937]
Huxley admits that he had reasons (namely his unrestrained sexual freedom) for believing that the world has no meaning. It seems that the Christians are not the only ones who start from a conclusion and then work backward to their premises. They just happen to get accused of it far more often. Hmmm…
The reason I am a Christian is not merely because I am convinced that objective moral values do exist, but also because of what I find to be an encyclopedic body of evidence in support of the basic claims of the faith‡, and because of the absolute lack of coherence and rationality I find in all alternate worldviews that I have explored. I was a sincere agnostic/atheist from about the time I was around 10 yrs old, through my entire teenage years, and into the beginning of my adult life. Not to mention that the horrors of the flipside of the ‘problem of evil’ are almost too much for me to handle. All of this hit me as a 14 year old atheist when I was writing death poetry in my own blood about how we will all ultimately be turned to dust, with no hope and no redemption.
The ‘problem of evil’ in this world is simply not a problem for me and it never was. However, the problem of no ultimate justice for the Holocaust is a HUGE problem for me, and it’s a huge problem for atheists as well. I guess their only answer is, “it sucks to be Jews.” At least believers in some semblance of a justice-fulfilled afterlife have a kind of response.
Additionally, personal experience is not at all why I believe (especially since it all happened after my conversion), but there have been some very odd coincidences in my life since summer 2001 when I officially “converted” or whatever you want to call it. Yes, granted, it is entirely possible that they are all just coincidences, but the statistical improbability of some of the things that have happened (on specific dates, etc) has been very strange.
Anyway, to sum it all up, I’m a Christian who struggles with nihilism. I still struggle with the evil in my own heart and mind and with the idea that I should care about anything in the world at all. Also I know that I am personally capable of truly heinous acts. People are NOT basically good. That statement is complete and total bullshit. I love the MGMT song Time To Pretend because it is sublimely true. The band has managed to write the ultimate anthem to nihilism. Here are the lyrics. Enjoy.
I’m feeling rough, I’m feeling raw, I’m in the prime of my life.
Let’s make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I’ll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.
This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We’ve got the vision, now let’s have some fun.
Yeah, it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute.
Forget about our mothers and our friends
We’re fated to pretend
To pretend
We’re fated to pretend
To pretend
I’ll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms.
I’ll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world.
I’ll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home.
Yeah, I’ll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone.
But there’s really nothing, nothing we can do.
Love must be forgotten, life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we’ll get a divorce.
We’ll find some more models, everything must run its course.
We’ll choke on our vomit and that will be the end.
We were fated to pretend
To pretend
We’re fated to pretend
To pretend
Yeah, yeah, yeah
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‡ Note that I said BASIC claims of the faith – if you get to know me you will find that I will only try to defend solidly 2 or 3 main issues. The rest of the doctrinal concerns are entirely debatable as far as I’m concerned. I’ll just be over here trying to feed the poor, care for the sick, and fight for those who don’t have a voice. Even if I’m doing a bad job at it, which I admit that I am most of the time.
