We are, all of us, searching for water in a dry and desolate land; stumbling in the dark; groping for something stable to support us and give us direction . . . and that’s the way we like it. Deep down, hidden beneath a host of questions and doubts, we realize we are lost and don’t want to be found. We are hedonist at heart, and lazy ones to boot: we’d much rather watch pornography than discover Truth. We are too selfish and controlling to even want Truth; because Truth is outside of our direct control. Truth is not something we can create, or tame, or manipulate; it’s too restrictive and limiting and, thus, untenable. It works against our inner narcissist. Hence, we rest, quite contently – with only the slightest and most obligatory hint of angst – in the void of cynicism and doubt.

Sure, we pay lip service to the notion of Truth . . . but do we really desire it? Years ago I met with a group of teenagers who fancied themselves Atheists and Agnostics. I led discussions on a variety of philosophical and theological problems at a local coffee shop. I remember asking one of the students, who attended regularly, what she thought the goal of our discussions was? Her response was revealing: “well . . . mainly to have fun, you know, talking about different ideas.” Like so many in our culture, she wasn’t thirsty for knowledge; she was indifferent; she just wanted to have fun. As many of religion’s “cultured despisers” did in the time of St. Gregory of Nazianzus:

“Who should listen to discussions of theology? Those for whom it is a serious undertaking, not just another subject like any other for entertaining small-talk, after the races, the theater, songs, food, and sex: for there are people who count chatter on theology and clever deployment of arguments as one of their amusements.”

The majority of young people I talk to have this attitude. They are like the Athenians who, “spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17: 21). Discussions about God, morality, meaning, or value are just “small-talk” – an amusing pastime, like baseball. There’s no substance to their questions and no deep desire to find answers. More often than not, their “intellectual” struggles – which prevent them from accepting objective truth – are merely a facade maintained to justify elicit sex and drug use. For others, the questions are asked in an effort to appear sophisticated or edgy. Very few young people thirst for knowledge and actually want to find an answer to the question of value.

Put bluntly, our culture has lost its desire for meaning and replaced it with an insatiable lust for “reality” TV and Starbucks Frappuccino’s. This is why the New Atheists will acknowledge the universe is utterly meaningless, that life has no intrinsic value, and that morality is rooted in the blind, ruthless, unintentional, irrational, laws of evolution (which is really just another way of saying, there is no morality) . . . and then shrug. “Well, I like my life” they say; or, “life has meaning when we give it meaning.” And what, precisely, is the meaning we ascribe to life? Ultimately, in the West (and especially in the United States), life’s meaning can generally be classified in one of the the following three categories: (1) our elation over the new Star Wars film directed by J. J Abrams, (2) our intense love for shopping, and (3) our constant and unbridled desire for orgasm. This is why we look at people in third world countries and wonder, “how can they stand to live that way?” It is also the reason we can’t understand why the majority of people in third world countries have a deep faith in God and a firm belief in the supernatural.

It’s only in the face of tragedy that we Westerners are forced out of our drunken stupor . . . and, even then, only for a little while. In the face of intense evil and hardship the reality of our fate often begins to sink in; the reality that we are weak, fragile, finite, temporary, shifting shadows. In the midst of pain and suffering we are reminded of the absurdity and futility of our existence. When we realize that our fate is no different than that of the irrational beast or the unconscious rock, we then start to consider the question of meaning more seriously. When our dignity has been violated and we are standing on the edge of a cliff, we then find ourselves asking the same haunting question that William Shakespeare posed in one of his most famous monologues:

“To be, or not to be — that is the question:whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them / To die, to sleep no more, and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”

To exist or not to exist? Have you actually considered this question? Have you ever taken time to meditate on how utterly futile human existence is? Or is Albert Camus just cool, hip and trendy? Is it just fun to quote Nietzsche, to feel intellectual, and have a good laugh–or have you actually absorbed the implications of Nietzsche’s thought? Have you, not just thought it, but felt it in your heart and soul? It’s easy to shrug off the purposelessness of reality when you’re busy trying to look and sound cool . . . and trying to get laid. It’s not so easy when your dignity and value has been utterly trampled on and life seems hopeless and unbearable.

Everything you think gives your life meaning becomes mere dust blowing in the wind when you have been violated or when life hangs in the balance. Your cars, your computers, your video games, your films, your music, your beer, your pornography, your books, your drugs, your sexuality, your pets, your wealth, your sports, your technology, your scientific advancements, your successes, all fade into nothing when you are the girl who has been raped or you are the child sold into sex slavery, or you are the one lying in the hospital bed dying of cancer, or starving to death while living in a trash heap. Suddenly, words like meaning, purpose, value, and eternity take on new life. Suddenly trite answers like, “you give your life meaning” feel stupid and hopeless. Especially when you understand that, if the nihilists are correct, there is no meaning, purpose, value, or eternity for the individual.

You’ll only want Truth when you realize that all of the things you think give your life meaning have no meaning at all apart from Him. When you internalize the fact that we are completely helpless – slaves – in a world that is, at rock bottom, irrational, uncaring, and unintentional, you’ll finally be in a position to hunger and thirst for the Truth. In that moment you will understand why Truth says,“I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

Re-Blogged From: Truth is a Man