Does Atheism Imply Nihilism?
Most atheists do not identify with nihilism. Atheists are not necessarily nihilists. Nihilism tells us that existence is meaningless and purposeless. This does not directly imply atheism because existence can be meaningless with or without a god.
Those who accept the proposition that life lacks inherent meaning can draw their own conclusions. They may even reject the label of “existential nihilist” because the classification lacks logical rigor.
The word nihilism comes from Latin, and at its root, we find the radical “nihil,” which translates to “nothing.” Nihilism can be translated as “nothing-ism.” Nihilists often claim that nothing exists, that they themselves are illusions. (But everyone exists, whether they like it or not. Whether they like it is irrelevant.)
Many religious zealots think that atheism leads to moral chaos because it supposedly leads to nihilism. In general, atheists insist that we can make life meaningful through our own actions, thereby avoiding nihilism.
Atheism is historically and logically a humanistic ideology. Humanism is a philosophical position that evaluates humans from a materialistic perspective of reality. In other words, humanism rejects religious dogmas, supernatural views, and pseudoscience. Humanism presupposes that humans can remain moral without religion and without belief in deities. The humanistic stance on life emphasizes the unique responsibilities that humans face and the ethical consequences of human decisions. The concept of secular humanism is based on the firm belief that ideology, whether religious or political, should be evaluated rationally by everyone and not just accepted or rejected on faith. Furthermore, an essential part of secular humanism is the constant pursuit of truth, primarily through science and philosophy.
Humanism asserts that humans have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their lives. Humanists advocate for building a more humane society based on human capabilities and differences, seeking a society with democratic values that is closer to nature.
By stating that without God, reality has no meaning, the basis of nihilism becomes the need for a supernatural conception of meaning inherited from a religious tradition. Therefore, nihilism is just a stage between religious despair and pure atheism.
The atheist who identifies with nihilism is merely someone with religious values, someone who laments because they would very much like there to be a deity to make their existence supposedly special. Every nihilist is just a proto-atheist.
Nihilists, due to their remnants of religious mentality, like to claim that atheism is a negative philosophy. They assume that atheism implies a disenchantment with reality because, according to them, it would be better if God existed. Of course, this is a tremendous fallacy because, for example, anyone can perceive that many definitions of God are negative. The God of the world’s largest religion can be considered a malevolent and perverse entity, meaning the Christian God is trash, a pathetic being, a dictator, a demon. Many among those who are not atheists recognize that it would be better for the human species if such an entity did not exist, or if God were different. Therefore, even among Christians, there is a rejection of the Old Testament, where the Christian God manifested in a negative way. Christians themselves often reject the God of the Old Testament as if it were a different deity. (Most Christians live without really concerning themselves with the divine dictator, not practicing what their religion preaches and only trying to maintain appearances).
For nihilists, truth does not exist because they repeat the religious discourse that God is truth. Therefore, for an atheist nihilist, if truth does not exist, then God does not exist. However, it is evident that this mindset of associating God with truth is a remnant of the religious mentality. For actual atheists, i.e., materialists, truth is found in nature and the laws of physics, and it is impossible for anyone to prove that truth does not exist.
Many fans of nihilism, who are generally disturbed, vagabonds, and moribund, engage in all sorts of logical and philosophical distortions in an attempt to save the nihilist ideology. Nihilism denies ethics and morality, so by definition, a nihilist would be someone who commits absurdities by violating both morality and ethics. However, the vagabonds sympathetic to nihilism often mumble that nihilists can be ethical just because the supposed nihilist would have no reason to kill or to die. It is clear that this is a significant semantic error. It makes no sense to use “apathy” as a synonym for nihilism, especially when this apathy contradicts the definition of ethical and moral nihilism. In other words, someone who tries to be consistent with nihilism has no values and does not attempt to preserve their own life, let alone the lives of others.
The nihilist has no value because they are a suicide. The nihilist has no value because they are unethical. The nihilist has no value because they worship nothing. I advocate for the death penalty only for nihilists. Those who deny life and are suicidal should be thrown back into the void!
I believe that atheism may one day prevail in the advancement of human thought, filling the void left by religion. But as long as the misconception of equating nihilism and atheism persists, the atheist movement will not truly progress. True atheism has always been and will always be aligned with humanism.
Book link: https://a.co/d/eYhadZ5
