Nihilism and the Benevolent Cosmos

I had a conversation with a friend the other night about philosophy and in particular nihilism. By nihilism I mean the belief that life is meaningless; that human reason is impotent; that there is no such thing as good or bad in an uncaring, hostile universe. As someone who studied philosophy intensively for a decade or so, I made the point that most philosophers nowadays are nihilists, though few admit it and many are inconsistent in their beliefs.

Then I really was struck by my friend's observation that many philosophers start with the conclusion that the universe is "malevolent" and then filter all the evidence to prove that. I found this a rather striking expression for him to use, since he is essentially secular in outlook, but it also reminded me of my recent reorientation to the universe as fundamentally filled with the divine. Yes, the universe is in many ways awful however you slice it; for example, our best case scenario for Earth is to be cooked in a billion years when the sun expands. On the other hand, life itself is extraordinary, and human sentience (and that of perhaps a few other animal species) even more so. Looking at the vast emptiness and violence of space, life can seem like more than the random collision of atoms, but even if it is built into the laws of physics (which I believe, of course), it is difficult not to feel awe at the universe that coughed us up.

A purely secular person can feel this same awe, but must bow to the fact that the cosmos is simply this way, that it is simply our limited perspective that makes it seem so remarkable. What of a Pagan? What of a Wiccan? Can we look at the world around us and say that it is not only the work of the laws of physics, but that underlying those laws is a force that is continuous with but not limited to the physical universe, one that made life, or made life possible, in order to express joy and love? Are the God and Goddess, whether sentient beings or manifestations of the cosmic polarity or something else, really guiding our existence in meaningful ways?