We all know that our life can end at any minute, today, tomorrow, or
several years from now, from diseases, accidents or natural causes.
Suppose we are all convinced that, after our death, we will simply cease
to exist; for each one of us, it will be as if we never were. Some of
us will go home, shut the door and cry desperately for a long time.
Others will fall into apathy, wandering the rest of their days without
purpose. On the other hand, there are others who will try to live
intensively, in order not to waste any single minute. And there are also
those, the bad ones, who will lie, rob and kill so that they can fulfil
their ambitions before dying. Life would lose much of its meaning and
will turn into chaos.
Suppose, however, we are all convinced that
we have an immortal soul and that we are accountable for everything we
do on this earth. When we die, our souls will go to another dimension
where we will be rewarded for the good things done, or punished for sins
and crimes committed when we were alive. In this case, the rules of the
game are clear and straightforward; the fear of death will probably
remain, but there is definitely some hope.
Doesn't the second
version look like the same thing you do to an infant, telling him that
if he stops beating his younger brother and finish his home work, he can
go out and play with his friends tomorrow; otherwise he'll be grounded
for the rest of the week? In his small and inexperienced brain, the boy
doesn't know yet the difference between right and wrong. He needs an
encouragement, a reward, or the threat of a punishment, so that he takes
the right path.
The vast majority of human beings, young or old,
needs encouragement and motivation to do the right thing. One needs the
proper incentive in order to perform as a good person in life, as well
as to keep his/her job as a good employee, for example. The salary you
get will provide for all the things you need to survive and enjoy life,
thus encouraging you to do the job right. Consequently, the hope that
your immortal soul will be rewarded after your death will inspire you to
be a virtuous person.
Only those who are enlightened will do the
right thing without hesitation. They don't need encouragement or
motivation because they simply assume that this is the only acceptable
way to behave. But, unfortunately, these are not the majority of us.
Because justice is not always done in this world, and crime can go on
unpunished, it makes us feel confident when a clear and ever present
reward for the good guy, or an awful punishment for the bad one, is
expected after death. The good guy will go to paradise; the bad guy will
be sent to hell.
When a religious person tells me that he believes in God, but the
only thing he has to offer me to justify his belief is his own faith,
then he has just transmitted his state of mind, a subjective feeling,
without any philosophical importance. If a believer wants to be taken
seriously, he must be prepared to offer some plausible justification.
However, most of the time, as incredible as it seems, it is the
nonbeliever, the atheist, who is asked to prove that God doesn't exist.
Until recently, I considered myself an antitheist, i.e., not only I
didn't believe in any god, but I was also against such a belief.
Thinking of a permanent divine presence, keeping track of all our moves,
reminded me rather of Big Brother in Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
But, after a little bit of serious thinking, I have changed my mind in
being utterly against religion. So, contrary to many atheists, I welcome
religion. I welcome it only because I believe that most human beings
have not yet reached a level of understanding that would cause them to
behave in a civilized manner, based on the simple conviction that it is
the only sensible way to live together on this planet.
It is a
known fact that the more you know science, the less you will believe in
God. In the scientific world, only a small minority of scientists are
believers. Hence, one would say that, in our modern world where science
takes a prominent place and is made widely accessible to the masses,
religion should lose ground. Strangely enough, it is not so, and we
observe a rise of fundamentalism in some religions and societies.
The most powerful nation on the planet, for instance, maintains the expression "In God we trust"
as its motto, and most surely would not elect an atheist for the
presidency, thus violating the separation of church and state, clearly
stated in its own constitution. It seems that the world is returning to
God, despite the growth of educated people and all the advancements in
scientific and technological areas.
This is probably due to the
fact that being alive is just not enough. After all, we are the only
beings on the planet who are conscious of death. The other animals
simply have an instinct of preservation, i.e., they must avoid any
danger at all costs in order to survive. They are aware and afraid of
pain, but death for them, is an instant experience, at the moment it
occurs. Humans know that even if we succeed in preserving ourselves,
we'll die of old age one day. This constant awareness of an inevitable
end is disturbing and devastating, unless we can make it more
digestible. Furthermore, good is not omnipresent in our brains. After
thousands of years of civilizations, mankind is still busy with wars,
violence, killing, robbing and raping. Enter religion, that will give us
what we are missing: strict rules for living and a fantasy for the
after-life.
This is soothing and even necessary for the most of
us. It prevents us from going astray and diminishes the agony of knowing
about death.
Unfortunately, religion is not all good, and it has
been responsible for some of the worse atrocities in the history of
mankind. Why is it that humanity has never been able to create a loving
God, with no wrath or punishment in His dogma? Or is it that we are only
able to create gods in our own image, using our own methods? The word atheist simply means "the person who doesn't believe in the existence of any god", which is exactly the opposite of a theist,
"the person who believes in the existence of a god". Logically
speaking, we should all be atheists because we don't believe in any of
the gods humanity has created throughout the ages, except for the fact
that we have the tendency to embrace the last one (I think it was Prof.
Dawkins who originally mentioned this, in one of his lectures).
This
refusal to go all the way and reject all manufactured gods is most
certainly due to the reasons outlined above. Most of us are not yet
prepared to accept death as the ultimate end. We need hope, as a
navigator needs a compass. Without hope for an after-life, we will be
lost in the middle of the ocean of life. Atheists, on the other hand,
are able to dispense with compasses, and navigate calmly under the
stars...
Throughout the ages, the believers of a god never felt
real comfortable with the idea that there are some of us who reject
their faith. They must convert us or destroy us (the wars against the
infidels). As a matter of fact, there is antagonism even between
factions that believe in different versions of God (the wars of
religion). Curiously, atheists do not feel any need to force, or even
convince, anybody to drop their gods. I challenge you to point me any
war initiated by atheists; they just go on living quietly with their
disbelief, taking care of their own business.
Because of that, I
sympathize with my fellow atheists when they demand that those who need
religion in order to go on living happily, should keep it for themselves
and respect those of us who don't, leaving us in peace. Atheists should
be considered as normal human beings, with full rights and entitled to
freedom of thinking. Actually, I consider it an insult if anyone would
try to convert me to any religion. It's like telling me that I don't
know what is good and what is evil, that I need a candy, like a child,
in order to behave well, or a beating to force me in the right
direction.
However, there is a big issue with friends that are
very religious, since they are told and firmly believe all atheists to
be damned. Because they want to save us from our everlasting punishment,
they develop the rather annoying notion of converting us before it is
too late. I can't be really angry with them, on account of their action
being motivated out of love and true friendship.
In order to make
those friends feel a bit better, and also to get them off my back, I
always try to reassure them by saying that if their God exists and is
truly a merciful god, when I meet Him after my death, He will not care
whether I believed in Him or not; the important thing for Him to know
about me is that He has nothing to reproach in the way I lived my life
on this earth. He'll then probably tell me: "My son, even without
believing in me, you have naturally and spontaneously followed all the
principles of humanity, and because of this you are better than those
who need to be taught and continuosly reminded. Therefore, my son, I
forgive you and welcome you to my reign in heaven!".
In other words, don't worry so much about me, folks, because any honourable atheist is sure to end up in heaven... ;-)
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