Another day, another speech by a cleric, frustrated that all their historic entitlements are fading away.
“The alternative is a vacuum that can express itself in nihilism and the growing phenomenon in our schools of self harm,” he said.
Fuck nihilism. It’s a trope used against atheists for so long, you would think it should be given an honorary peerage at this stage.
As an atheist for over 25 years, I feel about as un-nihilistic as it’s possible to be. I find meaning in so much: my friends, my children, my thoughts and my many different enthusiasms. The idea that this life is meaningless to me is laughable.
The truth is that meaning is not exclusive to the pious. There is so much wonder and fascination in this world that it would be impossible to get through it all in a lifetime, nay, twenty lifetimes. Finding meaning in things is what we all do, whether that be helping kids, building Lego towers, watching football or blogging random thoughts.
The non-religious life can be as rich in thoughts, emotion and meaningful achievement as anyone wearing the sunglasses of a faith. It just comforts some people to think otherwise.
The diminishment of religion in our schools will not herald in a life without meaning. The doors to a life of curiosity, fascination, purpose and love have always been open to us. You don’t have to believe in a deity to appreciate this fully.
Passive Impressions 
Sure, what you say is cogent, but there’s no reason to go all ballistic on “nihilism.” It has been the go-to anti-phrase of scorn for eons – now -everybody hates nihilists. you don’t like something, you call lit nihilistic, and that ends the conversation, case closed.
Which is why i enjoy using it – something so universally and thoughtlessly rejected must have something to it, and it does.
You have to find “meaning” in your own life, and that most everybody will do, but there is no greater meaning in social issues left at this stage of modernity. Global social crises abound, and are headed, inexorably, for far worse. Only a blind optimist, or a cretinous religious believer, would argue otherwise.
Climate change, economic inequality, nuclear weapons, the political rule of dunderheads, and the fortunes of the national Irish soccer team – ain’t moving on up, none of them.