Also to anyone reading, I respect your views, so please have the common decency to respect mine. I do not seek to convert anyone to atheism. Please do not attempt to convert me to your own religion. I appreciate that you see such a conversion as being for my own good, but understand up front that such an attempt would be akin to the old adage of teaching a pig to sing. It only frustrates you, and annoys the pig.
The first reaction people often have when confronted with my lack of faith is: âHow do you explain
- how life first arose from non-living things
- the creation of the universe
- the laws of nature
- the inexplicable coincidences that fill our lives
- miraculous recoveries and other unexplained phenomena
- fill in your own favorite here."
Why do these things need to be explained in the immediacy of now? I do believe that there are explanations out there that can be researched and discovered. It doesnât bother me that we havenât discovered them all yet. If the explanation is something that Manâs mind can wrap itself around, then weâll get to it, sooner or later. If it doesnât happen in my generation, then the next will tackle it, or the next after that. Every answer brings with it a host of new questions, and the questions are what make life an adventure worth living. As a species, we will discover these answers, and all the new questions these answers uncover. I find beauty and wonderment in that.
Another question Iâve had posed to me: How can I face death if I donât believe in a hereafter? When I was a child, death bothered me. I was an avid believer in God through my mid-teens because it was easier than believing in my own mortality. Death was something that scared me so much that I spent a great amount of time thinking about it. And, in thinking about it, I found my way out of the fear. I did not exist before my birth. That does not bother me. So why should it bother me to not exist after my death? It is a perfect symmetry, like so much else in nature. What happens after I die shouldnât matter. How I live my life is what is important. Those of you who have read my previous diary entries know that I almost died four years ago. I knew, when it was happening, that I was dying. Iâd had enough medical training in veterinary school at that point to know that the dizziness, the fatigue beyond description, the bloody froth coming out of my lungs, my ears shutting down making me effectively deaf, all pointed to the fact that my heart had stopped working correctly. The immediacy of death did not bother me. What bothered me was the unfinished business I was leaving behind me. The saying that there are not atheists in foxholes is wrong. If you have thought things through and are comfortable with your beliefs then you do not need a God to see you through crisis and death. You have the strength within yourself to do that.
I have been challenged once or twice: Prove there is no God. To that I answer that you cannot prove a negative. I cannot prove there is no God, any more than I can prove that there is no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy or Elvis walking around backwater towns in Oklahoma. This failure to provide proof does not make me an agnostic, as one person has tried to argue with me. I do not believe in the Easter Bunny because there is no evidence. I do not believe in the Tooth Fairy because there is no evidence. I do not believe in God because there is no evidence. I guess Iâm a bit of an Elvis agnostic â some of those pictures in the tabloids are damned convincing. (Thatâs a joke to lighten the atmosphere a bit, people.)
Once I was told that I must be immoral since I do not believe in God. After all, what defines good and evil for me if I donât abide by His word? I have a personal code that I live by. I abide by the laws of the land I live in because they are, for the most part, good laws designed to protect people and promote fairness for as many as possible. When I see a bad law, or a bad application of a law, I protest it. I see that as my moral responsibility. I believe that if I expect to be treated well, I must treat others well. I do not necessarily believe in âturning the other cheekâ, and I certainly donât believe that justice will come to all in the end. If there is an injustice, a wrong, an inherent unfairness, then a way must be found to make it right. I am a moral being, and I believe in good and evil. I do not need a God to define good, nor a Satan to define evil.
Again, this is not meant as disrespectful to anyone who has found faith. If you have a credo you are comfortable with, then by all means stick to it. I am incapable of blind faith in a God, though, and am comfortable with that fact. I certainly canât say believers are wrong, and I am right. I just wish theyâd treat me the same way.