PrinceMyshkin
06-14-2007, 10:20 AM
I call myself a lapsed atheist because, after all, I can no more prove the non-existence of God than can those who profess to believe in Him/Her/It prove His/Her/Its existence. But above all, I do not choose to define myself by what I am against so much as by what I am for.
I am for open-mindedness. I am for wondering. I am for working out the best possible moral code that I can. I am for temperance and moderation and curiosity about the views of others.
If I am against theists it is because so many of them are so loud, so lustful for my soul and for the souls of those who do not believe as they do. I am against them because they appear to me to confuse believe and wishful thinking (or “faith”) with knowledge. They not only know that God exists but they appear to know exactly what He/She/It wants!
But here is the world without God, as I see it. It is a terrifying world because I do not know where it is going or whether it will still be there for my grand-children and because I do not know whether I am doing all that I could to ameliorate things. It is, in some ways, a hideous world because of all the genocides that have been committed throughout the ages and especially in the last century and that continue today in Darfur; and because of the various savage conflicts that are going on in Iraq, the Middle East; and because even where there is no conflict there is political oppression and hunger and brutality.
All this is happening because there is no God; or if there is one, He/She/It is indifferent - or malevolent!
But it is at the same time a magnificent world precisely because we - and we alone, without a Supreme Leader - have the power to see it clearly and to set our sights on improving it. And we alone have the power to love if we choose to. Not because we are commanded to; not because we will be rewarded for doing so or punished for not; but because we have the power that above all others defines us as a species: the power to choose.
Without God that power is ours and ours alone.
May we use it wisely!
I am for open-mindedness. I am for wondering. I am for working out the best possible moral code that I can. I am for temperance and moderation and curiosity about the views of others.
If I am against theists it is because so many of them are so loud, so lustful for my soul and for the souls of those who do not believe as they do. I am against them because they appear to me to confuse believe and wishful thinking (or “faith”) with knowledge. They not only know that God exists but they appear to know exactly what He/She/It wants!
But here is the world without God, as I see it. It is a terrifying world because I do not know where it is going or whether it will still be there for my grand-children and because I do not know whether I am doing all that I could to ameliorate things. It is, in some ways, a hideous world because of all the genocides that have been committed throughout the ages and especially in the last century and that continue today in Darfur; and because of the various savage conflicts that are going on in Iraq, the Middle East; and because even where there is no conflict there is political oppression and hunger and brutality.
All this is happening because there is no God; or if there is one, He/She/It is indifferent - or malevolent!
But it is at the same time a magnificent world precisely because we - and we alone, without a Supreme Leader - have the power to see it clearly and to set our sights on improving it. And we alone have the power to love if we choose to. Not because we are commanded to; not because we will be rewarded for doing so or punished for not; but because we have the power that above all others defines us as a species: the power to choose.
Without God that power is ours and ours alone.
May we use it wisely!