It turns out…

…that immersing yourself in a culture that says you are loved, there is hope, your life has meaning, and your choices really have eternal consequences for eternal happiness leads to lowering your likelihood of depression, while being told you are an unusually clever piece of meat whose origins are chaos, who lives by enmity, and whose destiny is oblivion (so work, buy, consume, since tomorrow you die), leaves people wondering “What’s the point?” and living in depression.

Ironically, those enamored of the New Atheism often solve this problem of an empty meaningless existence by worshipping their own intellects and aggressively preaching the gospel of the New Atheism.  It gives them something to do to fill the silence of the Void.

Sacred text: In the beginning there was Nothing.  Then Nothing exploded.  The Nothing became Meat and dwelt behind my eyeballs, full of pride and a sense of settled superiority.

It’s a pretty barren gospel, more like a virus than an actual idea (one might even call it a “meme”), since it consists of the negation of the Logos.  But the funny thing is that the depressing barrenness of the thing is sold by atheists as a feature, not a bug.  “Ours is a high and lonely destiny” is the tenor of the thing.  “We do not lean on hope as a crutch.  We are the strong men of metal who look into the emptiness and meaninglessness with courage!  Not like the simpering weaklings who need a Father figure to give their lives meaning, etc.”

Right. Talk to the antidepressant prescription rate, pal.  The Big Talk may work for a while, but outside the little hothouse of the evangelical atheist Circle of Affirmation we both know atheists are as troubled by the Big Existential Questions as any nun and are just as prey to the fears and doubts to which flesh is heir as the most credulous snake-handling bumpkin in Appalachia.

Does this render Christian truth claims true?  Of course not.  But it does render Evangelical Atheist BS about being Okay without God, Meaning, and Ultimate Hope the BS we all know it is.  There’s a lot of whistling past the graveyard in atheism.  And religious people are not the only ones who put on the shiny happy face and pretend they’ve got it together when their lives are in misery and chaos.  Atheists are quite as capable of being full of utter denial and BS about their unhappy, screwed-up lives as any Christian.  Only atheist dogma and pride leaves atheists with bloody few resources for confronting that while Christians have someplace to go with it that actually helps them deal–a fact now empirically demonstrated.

If you are a depressed atheist, why not take a suggestion from a Christian who struggles with doubts about the point of his life, whether there is really hope, and all the other questions you struggle with and consider the possibility of taking it to God.  To paraphrase Pascal, what have you got to lose?  If we Christians are wrong, you spent some time to talking to four walls and hanging out with some nice people. If you are as tough as you say you are, you can survive that.  If we’re right, you have a chance to tap into the Meaning of Life.  Worth the wager, at least.