What is your religion ?
When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then believe in anything.
Those children I never wanted to have, they don’t know the happiness they owe me !
This incredibly witty aphorism from Emil Cioran, one of the 20th century’s most prominent nihilist, could be the motto of an increasing number of Western youth, who desert the idea of having children.
I feel that every people I come across are either devastated by the current state of the world (wars, climate, poverty), or too afraid of looking at the world, and taking their eyes off their daily business. To me, Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran perfectly embodies the spirit of the time. He who notably wrote :
“Without the idea of suicide, I would have killed myself since a long time”.
Now, the reason why so many people are in this nihilist predicament now, is the one I mentioned in a previous publication : they fail to identify any clear meaning and direction to their existence.
Meaning comes from a tension between what is, and what should be. Nietzsche wrote that “God is dead”. Meaning that the notion of sacred has deserted our societies. But sacredness used to help us order things. It would tell us what we had to come closer to, and what to run from. It would give us meaning.
That tension is vital to our well-being, according to psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. He thought what we need isn’t balance, we need to struggle for a meaningful purpose chosen freely. Because Man has ceased behaving like an animal long ago, he cannot trust his primal instinct to tell him what to aim for. More recently, traditions, which had an immense influence on Man’s behavior, were deprecated.
Because these primal instinct and traditions are gone, many of us are snatched by angst, and live under the idea that life has no meaning. Sometimes, we don’t even know what we want to do. The subsequent existential vacuum reveals itself through boredom.
The 3 exits to boredom
Our mind hates boredom. We have a need for being busy, diverted. Some foolishly believe they can live without meaning, and try to compensate their vacuum by chasing power, money and pleasure. But as I wrote in another publication, meaning is oxygen to a human soul.
And our soul usually refuses to suffocate. To find meaning, it has to choose between 3 different paths :
Conformism (doing what others do).
Submission (doing what we others want you to do).
Prophetism (re-creating religiosity).
I do not believe any of these options to be inherently wrong. But it is important to know which one you will follow. “There are no atheists, only people who don’t know which god they serve.” allegedly said Jordan Peterson. Let it not be the case for you.
21st century religions
When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then believe in anything. (G.K. Chesterton).
Because the human soul could not accept meaninglessness, and to escape the boredom that came with it, it came up with new religions. These religions are a set of beliefs, teachings, rules, signs, symbols, prohibitions and prophets.
Religion of existentialism (human nature does not exist.)
Religion of Human Rights (respect of Human Rights is our ultimate purpose.)
Religion of climate (every sacrifice should be made to prevent Global Warming.)
Those religions have a number of common traits. Born in the Western world, they have the ambition to impose their dogma on both its supporters and non-supporters, and to shape society as a whole. Human Rights supporters, climate change activists, French theory supporters, they are all on a mission. They are the 21st century missionaries, trying to spread the new gospels.
I have to say that to me, they are but a desperate attempt to escape the angst, existential vacuum and meaninglessness of the modern Western individual’s life.
Paul