Now at age 61, I rejoice that I have been an atheist all my adult life. I was raised in the mainstream Protestant tradition and pretty well accepted it, but one hot summer day here in Ohio when I was about 15, I was mowing the lawn and thinking about everything I had been taught in Sunday school and in confirmation classes, everything I had read in the Bible, and all the sermons that I had heard. And I realized in a flash that it was all a crock. If anything stood out about the supposed god, it was that he and his effects were utterly absent from this world, that he was constructed from the stuff of imagination, and that he was preserved as a social construct chiefly to enable social elites to control people's behavior.
This insight was profoundly liberating on many levels, and has been a great source of joy to me.
I rejoice that I have understood that the only persons to whom I am accountable are myself and my fellow human beings; that morality is about one's participation in human society, and nothing that is ordained by a supposed god. This realization has guided my decision making in many ways, but it would go too far afield to recount them here.
I rejoice that I see that fate, chance, and men's own actions and social interactions are all that determine the welfare of men; and that there is no role in this for gods, angels or demons.
I rejoice that I belong to no church, seeing as I do that the practical effects of religion in this world, notwithstanding the enormous individual good will that is poured into them, are very frequently evil. Indeed, organized religion is a principal tool of man's exploitation of his fellow man. That is so obvious that it is unnecessary to list here its many forms and mechanisms.
I rejoice that my precious time in this life has not been spent listening to sermons, as if a supposed priest had any more understanding or moral perspicacity than I did; studying obscure and frequently distasteful ancient texts, as if they were anything more than examples of ancient literature; or praying to a nonexistent god as if there were the remotest chance that it would avail anything; or thanking him for what has come to me only by fate, chance, my own labor, and the labor of other men.
I rejoice that I am free of the need to reconcile physical reality with a supposed god, or the teachings of one of "his" religions. Particularly I rejoice that I have understood that I am an animal, just as my dog, the neighbor's cat, the birds in the sky, or the worms in the ground are animals. I am not separated from the animal kingdom by some god's having conferred upon me a supposedly "immortal soul," but I am united with the animal kingdom in my entirely chemical nature and my mortality; and that my mind, while more powerful than my dog's or the neighbor's cat's, is not a fundamentally different thing from their minds.
I rejoice that I have understood that I am mortal, and that when I die I will exist just as little as I did before I quickened in my mother's womb. I do not say it is pleasant to look over the edge of that bottomless abyss and to know that soon enough this little light show behind my eyes will go utterly dark. But understanding this has engendered in me at least the desire to use my time well, and it has freed me from the ridiculous delusion that there is an immortality that can only be obtained by doing thus and so.
I rejoice that I have not been craven; for I see that there is something craven in the subordination of one's existence to a promised reward of everlasting life, whether false or true, or to the commands of a supposed god, whether or not he is real. What is good should be done because it is good, not because it is god-commanded or that it will produce reward -- even the reward of immortality. I would not become a servant of the supposed god even if he stood before me and commanded it, nor would I particularly rebel from his commandments: I would simply do as I myself saw fit.
I rejoice that I have understood that not only is there no need to explain the physical universe, but that it is futile to attempt to do so. Science, of course, can explain this or that aspect of the universe in terms of this or that other aspect. But whatever it is that constitutes the totality of things, this grand set cannot itself be explained. Explanation, whether scientific or otherwise, can only relate one thing to another, and there is no thing outside of the set of all things, to which that set can be related.
Thus at last when I behold the magnificent, deeply awesome cosmos on a clear night, knowing that it is ultimately absent of explanation, absent of perception, absent of intelligence, absent of purpose, and absent of any concern for humankind, I nevertheless rejoice that it exists, and that I in my tiny self and my little time on my small planet have been able to behold it and to be a part of it. And I think that any attempt to cast it into a human form, or into something friendly to men or even cognizant of them, or to subordinate its immensity and inexplicabilty into some sort of an immortality-getting game for human beings, is a hideous sacrilege.
This insight was profoundly liberating on many levels, and has been a great source of joy to me.
I rejoice that I have understood that the only persons to whom I am accountable are myself and my fellow human beings; that morality is about one's participation in human society, and nothing that is ordained by a supposed god. This realization has guided my decision making in many ways, but it would go too far afield to recount them here.
I rejoice that I see that fate, chance, and men's own actions and social interactions are all that determine the welfare of men; and that there is no role in this for gods, angels or demons.
I rejoice that I belong to no church, seeing as I do that the practical effects of religion in this world, notwithstanding the enormous individual good will that is poured into them, are very frequently evil. Indeed, organized religion is a principal tool of man's exploitation of his fellow man. That is so obvious that it is unnecessary to list here its many forms and mechanisms.
I rejoice that my precious time in this life has not been spent listening to sermons, as if a supposed priest had any more understanding or moral perspicacity than I did; studying obscure and frequently distasteful ancient texts, as if they were anything more than examples of ancient literature; or praying to a nonexistent god as if there were the remotest chance that it would avail anything; or thanking him for what has come to me only by fate, chance, my own labor, and the labor of other men.
I rejoice that I am free of the need to reconcile physical reality with a supposed god, or the teachings of one of "his" religions. Particularly I rejoice that I have understood that I am an animal, just as my dog, the neighbor's cat, the birds in the sky, or the worms in the ground are animals. I am not separated from the animal kingdom by some god's having conferred upon me a supposedly "immortal soul," but I am united with the animal kingdom in my entirely chemical nature and my mortality; and that my mind, while more powerful than my dog's or the neighbor's cat's, is not a fundamentally different thing from their minds.
I rejoice that I have understood that I am mortal, and that when I die I will exist just as little as I did before I quickened in my mother's womb. I do not say it is pleasant to look over the edge of that bottomless abyss and to know that soon enough this little light show behind my eyes will go utterly dark. But understanding this has engendered in me at least the desire to use my time well, and it has freed me from the ridiculous delusion that there is an immortality that can only be obtained by doing thus and so.
I rejoice that I have not been craven; for I see that there is something craven in the subordination of one's existence to a promised reward of everlasting life, whether false or true, or to the commands of a supposed god, whether or not he is real. What is good should be done because it is good, not because it is god-commanded or that it will produce reward -- even the reward of immortality. I would not become a servant of the supposed god even if he stood before me and commanded it, nor would I particularly rebel from his commandments: I would simply do as I myself saw fit.
I rejoice that I have understood that not only is there no need to explain the physical universe, but that it is futile to attempt to do so. Science, of course, can explain this or that aspect of the universe in terms of this or that other aspect. But whatever it is that constitutes the totality of things, this grand set cannot itself be explained. Explanation, whether scientific or otherwise, can only relate one thing to another, and there is no thing outside of the set of all things, to which that set can be related.
Thus at last when I behold the magnificent, deeply awesome cosmos on a clear night, knowing that it is ultimately absent of explanation, absent of perception, absent of intelligence, absent of purpose, and absent of any concern for humankind, I nevertheless rejoice that it exists, and that I in my tiny self and my little time on my small planet have been able to behold it and to be a part of it. And I think that any attempt to cast it into a human form, or into something friendly to men or even cognizant of them, or to subordinate its immensity and inexplicabilty into some sort of an immortality-getting game for human beings, is a hideous sacrilege.
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