A lot of people I care about have come back with some really bad god-damn diagnoses in the last few months. Mom’s not well. Two friends have cancer, but they’re both holding it together.
It’s throwing me, frankly. I’m getting older, and I wonder if I’m due for some similar bad news. Are some of my cells even now going berserk, turning into the cancer that will kill me in five years? I look at Miss Perfect and she looks at me and we wonder how many more days we get to have together.
I know some people get comfort from their belief that after this life, a supernatural being will allow them to live in peace and happiness with loved ones forever. And there will be pie in the sky when you die. It’s a nice thought. I can see why people turn to it in times of existential uncertainty.
By comparison, atheism doesn’t seem to offer much comfort. We’re here, we die, and there’s no reason to think that any supernatural beings exist to revive us. Fine if you enjoy accepting the harsh realities, but not much in the way of comfort. Which is fine with me. I’ve always cared more if something’s true, rather than if it’s ‘comforting’. You could say that drugs offer a degree of ‘comfort’, until they wear off and it’s back to reality.
And for me this is the problem with the comfort offered by religions. It’s a comfort only if it’s true, otherwise, it’s a cruel illusion. If atheism doesn’t provide comfort, the false comfort offered by religion is even worse. It’s expensive and time-consuming.
How, then, do we explain the diseases that strike those we love? If you believe in a god, you have to believe that he has the ability to heal you, but for some reason, might not. (He certainly doesn’t heal amputees.) Then after he lets you go through pain, death, and uncertainty, he’ll whisk you away to paradise. And what kind of heaven awaits? Christopher Hitchens (another unwelcome cancer diagnosis) opened my eyes by pointing out that the Christian version of heaven is not an eternity we should wish for:
We would be living under an unalterable celestial dictatorship that could read our thoughts while we were asleep and convict us of thoughtcrime and pursue us after we after are dead, and in the name of which priesthoods and other oligarchies and hierarchies would be set up to enforce God’s law.
But for those who look to the natural world, the explanation is different. Our bodies know how to carry out the processes we need in order to live, but they don’t always do so optimally. We’re engaged in an evolutionary struggle of survival with other individuals and other life forms. Evolution has seen to it that we survive pretty well most of the time, but sometimes not.
So is that it? We’re just going to die, and then that’s the end?
No. We’re going to live, and then that’s the end. And how amazing to have lived on this world! How unlikely! Some humans made a human child with a brain that could experience consciousness, and that human was me. I may not know how long I have to live my life, but I’m not going to waste any of that time in church, helping to support someone else’s comforting scams. I get my comfort knowing that when it’s my turn to go, as we all do, I will have lived fully, loved deeply, and kept my mind as free of delusion as best I could.
This life is full of people, love, food, knowledge, questions — and, yes, difficulty, pain, and sorrow. Even so, I’ll take it.
There’s a song that keeps coming back to me: What a beautiful life. It makes me feel optimistic when I hear it. Maybe you’ll like it too. It’s true, you know.
5 July 2010 at 3:16 pm
This was a really a beautiful post. I know that comment sounds strange, but I have found that knowing life is temporary has made it more valuable, more rich, and more about the moment rather than the future. So no, there is no comfort, but there is the gift of the moment in atheism!
5 July 2010 at 7:00 pm
Sorry to hear about your mum and friends.
Death sucks, grief is the very worst feeling. Belief in an afterlife or not, the loss of a life or the impending loss of your own is a terrifying reality which can serve to crush or to inspire you. Sometimes one then the other and sometimes both at once.
Reina summed it up awesomely. Life is more valuable because it is temporary.
Maybe that makes life mean much more to an atheist. Which makes death more painful to bear. Quite the bitch isn't it.
6 July 2010 at 5:17 am
I have thought about this a lot lately too. It is a bit scary to think that this life is all there is, but that does make it more important to make the most of it.
7 July 2010 at 2:07 pm
When I first left the LDS church I felt uncomfortable about the idea of atheism even though T seemed to be embracing it. It certainly scared me. Slowly I have been becoming aware of how much I have procrastinated doing the things that would really bring me joy because, well I thought I would have eternity to do them. I had been looking at this life as some kind of boring queue that just needed to be endured.
You know from my posts and our conversations that I have been struggling with my beliefs. Accepting that this life is all we can be sure of has really made this life seem a lot more real to me. Each action or inaction actually seems more significant. I am trying to clear out the 'time wasting' activities and actually live.
Sorry to hear about your family and friends. I guess if I were to repackage the advice you have been giving me then I would say that atheism provides comfort through fellow atheists. You have learned how to really value this life and the people in it and so in times of loss you will not find yourself wondering why you didn't spend more time with someone, you will have filled your time with family and friends, having always put that as your first priority.
9 July 2010 at 1:32 am
Absolutely beautiful.
9 July 2010 at 3:21 am
A Christian person I was having a discussion with once asked what I was living for…I said 'I haven't found it yet, but I'm not going to believe in something for the sake of having something to believe in'. Then he said the strangest thing; 'Isn't it better to be careful, just in case you're wrong?' I was astounded that he based his beliefs on 'it's better to be careful'.
11 July 2010 at 7:34 pm
Well, I'd like to commend you for your courage in posting something important to you, when you weren't sure it'd be received well. It's also good that you're aware that it sounds kind of 'out there' — it means you still have a grip on reality.
I'd like to suggest that there are other explanations besides clairvoyance. People with a knowledge of mental magic — James Randi and Derren Brown come to mind — are able to do what psychics and clairvoyants do using perfectly ordinary non-supernatural techniques. Many people go to psychics, and they come back saying exactly what you've said, that the psychic 'couldn't have known' certain things. But people are often unaware that they feed the psychic information that the psychic uses in the reading.
If you want to know more about this, hit YouTube for some Derren Brown videos, and google 'cold reading'.
Finally, is the universe an empty place? I don't think so — I think it's full of astonishing things — but it won't become fuller by believing things that are false. Nor will it become more empty if we embrace reality. If you enjoy Friday nights talking to your friend, then by all means do so. Just be aware that none of us is too smart to be fooled.