Inspired by the diatribe I just left on a fellow mommy's Facebook page, I have decided to clarify a few points about how the faithless exist, and why being faithless makes sense.
There a millions of blog posts out there that cite reasons why religion shouldn't be believed. Historical concepts, conflicting accounts of biblical text, issues with accuracy and proof that being "of faith" doesn't make you a good person. I don't know that any of those address a gnawing problem that those "of faith" have with the faithless.
" How can you exist without faith?"
Wow...big question- I know! The truth is that faith gives the faithful something. It makes them whole and gives them a sense of peace in a world full of chaos. This is something I understand, even as someone who is faithless...and it's might be the reason I hold on to "agnostic" with two tight fists, instead of jumping right off my fence onto the atheist side. I will explain.
I am envious of the faithful. I don't know that you can have children and not be. Here is the truth: I want there to be a heaven....I want there to be a god....I don't want there to be a time where I'm not with my child, and should she or I pass away, I want there to be a way for us to be together again. That is a testimony to my love for this child. That is unshakable and more real than anything that has ever existed.
But... I want a lot of things.
The truth is that faith gives peace to that kind of love. It makes it okay to be scared, and it makes the fragility more palatable. It lessens our vulnerability. It's a safety net for the worst that life can bring. It punishes the people who do wrong and it rewards the people who do right in a world that often doesn't. It allows us to sleep at night without being terrified that it can all slip away. The deepness of that kind of love comes at a cost, and the cost is being constantly afraid it will leave us, and faith gives us the ability to not really pay that price. I want that...but, again, I want a lot of things.
So, to the faithful, imagining a world without that seems pointless and sad and hopeless in a way that they can't even imagine. Trust me, I feel that sometimes...but even the most faithful feel that sometimes. I'm not here to describe what despair feels like. I'm here to describe why the faithless don't live in a state of constant despair.
" If there's no hereafter, there's no point in trying"
This is a largest fallacy that exists in the minds of the faithful. I've often heard it cited that without faith, there is no reason to do good, to fight evil, or to strive for being better. There is one glaring problem with that: this perspective dictates that this life is not enough, that our place in it is insignificant, and that good is only worth something if the doer of the good deed is rewarded in some measure. For this, I have some questions:
- If you knew tomorrow that there was no heaven, would you never do another good thing again?
- Is your intent for your good deeds a reward?
- Does a good deed cease to be good if there is no reward?
- Is your battle to be a good person only measured against the punishment of being a bad person?
- Do you not ever want good things for others just because you want it?
- Do you not think that you have the capacity to make life better?
- Finally, who is the more moral person: the one who does good because he wants to, or the one who does good because he is rewarded for it?
With all of these in mind, I propose this: I am a good person without god. I am a good person without fear of punishment or promises of rewards. I do good things, and every time I do, I am taking a risk that those good things will either impose good into the world, or they will not. I do good things because I see the worthy of this life and the people that inhabit it. I am good not because god told me to be, but because I want to be, and my "good" could come with no reward at all. I am not kind to you because someone or something told me to be, but because I think you are worth being kind to and deserving of good things in your life, and that is the only reward I will receive.
" I know God is real because I have seen him make my life better."
I have heard this one a number of times. Would you believe me if I told you that I have a good life? Seriously- without god(s), I have found love, happiness, success, fulfillment, and joy. I live a very very good life... and the credit goes to the people who made that happen. Those people are not invisible or secretive or off in another realm. They are flesh and blood. They are me... my husband...my child...my mother...my sisters...my brother... my friends... my employers...my teachers... strangers. Those people made my life good, and I do not for one instant want to detract from what they have done for me.
In fact, since really finding my agnostic side, and letting faith slip away from me entirely, I've been a much happier person. When I did explore areas of faith, bad things happened to me. In the last 20 years, since I've been faithless, less bad things have happened. I've seen bad things happen to people of faith. Using this rational, having faith actually makes you more likely for bad things to happen. I've seen not believing in god working in my life!
Now, clearly I don't mean that... total hyperbole. But, let's try this on for size: Good things AND bad things happen to you regardless of what you believe. If something good happens to you, it was going to happen no matter what. If something bad happens to you, it was going to happen no matter what. Just for a moment, let's stop thinking that good and bad are related to somehow to something else, and just accept a reality. Things just happen. We are far too easily swayed in some idea that one thing is related to another. If my house is robbed tomorrow, it's not because I didn't pray, and it's not because my house is tan, and it's not because just the other day I said "I've never been robbed" and didn't knock on wood. My house got robbed because a series of unconnected events led someone to my house to rob it. That's it...end of story... shit happens. There is a pattern, and the pattern is chaos. There is nothing wrong with embracing that.
I have seen, several times, where people have " praised God" for something that is entirely man-made. Too often, I see praise for god in medical situations... that god intervened and made someone who was sick better. Well, there are two points I have to this. First, you misspelled "science". That medication was the result of the efforts of people...people who sacrificed time from their families and time for themselves to give you something amazing that would heal that sickness. By George...it's almost like their good deeds were the result of them wanting good in the world without reward! Is it "kind" or "good" of us to heap praise onto an invisible force when there are real people who deserve credit for these things? I have seen people throw money at their church for their answered prayers, but nobody is getting into their car to drive to Cleveland to shake the hand of the scientist for all of their hard work to create that medicine. In my faithlessness, I am able to see those people for what they are- a flesh and blood "blessing" that I can give proper credit to in this life. THEY make my life better. They are beautiful and amazing and worthy of the praise they deserve.
They took a risk...they poured everything they had into giving other people more moments together in this life. Under the ideas of religion, it was all "for a reason" and it was in god's hands, so those professionals- scientists, doctors, nurses... had they embraced that idea, would have just walked away.... because clearly they can't compete with the power of god's plan! Interesting how "god's plan" is only apparent to us after the fact, and "our plans" don't really ever play a part.
There was a Frontline special on assisted suicide I saw a few years ago, where a man with ALS flew overseas to have a physician assisted suicide. At some point he said ( I'm paraphrasing) " People say that killing myself is interrupting God's plan. I tell them that if I went by God's plan, I wouldn't be in a wheelchair and I would have starved to death long ago because I can't swallow. It's only through science and man that I'm still alive. God would have killed me long ago."
My second point is a much more serious one, and it is really the inspiration for this post. A mom I know, that I wish I could call "friend", but unfortunately, I've only had the chance to meet her a few times in person and so "Facebook Friend" is a more accurate description, lost her baby girl a few years ago. She "lost" her faith ( although, I would argue she found something else) after this horrific experience, and on one ( slightly drunken) night when I did get to hang out with her, she told me what made her an atheist. She told me that, while her child was sick, while there were HUNDREDS ( if not thousands) of people praying for her daughter, people told her that god would provide and heal her little girl, and in the aftermath of her daughter's passing, she was hurt and angry at the idea that her daughter was not "chosen" by god to heal.
To the faithful, I want you to absorb the enormity of that and do the world a favor; Please do not tell a person in the midst of a crisis that god will intervene, because if and when that doesn't happen, it is devastating. Then, to backtrack, and tell her that "there's a reason" or to tell her that her baby girl is an angel being taken care of by god... her "creator". Let me very very clear about this. This mom was this child's creator. She held that beautiful little girl in her belly for 9 months. She loved that child before ever laying eyes on her, and continues to love her with a deepness that is unmatched by any invisible force. She earned the right to see who that little girl would become and to say that her being robbed of that right was 'for a reason" and that some invisible force gets to enjoy her little girl, while the mom just gets to suffer in her grief and loss....I'm sorry, but anyone who has done this should be ashamed of themselves, because you have allowed the band-aid that your faith provides to cloud your judgement on being a good person. What you have said is that god deemed this mother unworthy... you have unilaterally diminished her place as that child's creator, undermined her place in that child's life, and told her that her pain is justified by an invisible something that she is not allowed to question or argue against without fear of punishment. You may have the best intentions, and I'm sure you do, but, again, you need to think about the impact that you actually have on the world around you, and that your place in this life, and in the lives of others, is not insignificant. This mother is worth more than that.
"See, the world is too horrible to live in without god!"
No, the world is just horrible. God or no god....still horrible. Life is hard...it is filled with pain and chaos and fragility. Now that I've appropriately bummed you out and chastised you for not giving proper credit to both yourself and others for the impact we do have, let me arrive back at my point. We have the ability to take it all and make something beautiful out of it.
There is wonder and awe in chaos and fragility. Being vulnerable to the fact that there is no safety net, no reward, no punishment, and no hereafter, it frees you, and empowers you.
Last year, I sat in the carpool line, picking up my kindergartner from school as news of the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary poured across my newsfeed on my phone. Tears welled in my eyes and for the next few weeks, I was paralyzed in the face of my worst fears as a parent. See, I know what panic looks like on my childs' face, and I know where her cries sound like when all she wants is her mommy there to protect her. Those pictures and sounds in my head...every parent knows them, and if forced to see them when they close their eyes... there only relief from that pain is to grab your child and hold them tight, feeling the realness of them next to you and knowing that, if just for that moment, they are safe.
In the days after Newtown, a friend of mine, a fellow non-believer, was relaying a conversation she had with her faithful sister, who was undermining the impact the tragedy must have had on my non-faithful friend. My atheist friends reaction was perfect. " No, you are wrong. To you, this life is temporary, and these kids..their stop in this world was just shorter than most and they get to go on to a better place. To me, this is a fucking unspeakable travesty, because this was all they had, and it's gone forever. I want to make this life better more than you do because this is all there is."
THAT is how I feel. To me, I have to make every moment count, and I have to do as much as humanly possible to make this experience of life as amazing as possible because this is it...for me...for my daughter... for everyone. I'm not passing the time between realms with an eternity of happiness to look forward to. My happiness has to exist here and now, because I don't get another chance. If you knew that you only had one moment to experience, and nothing after that, wouldn't you make it the best one you could? Wouldn't you invest in making it beautiful and amazing? I don't get to love my daughter forever...I get to love her NOW, and so I love her as much as possible while I can.
The only time you will ever see me quoting a country song... Live like your were dying. We are all dying...some more slowly than others. We don't want to think about that...we usually spend our days feeling like we aren't dying, and in the moments where death is real to us, we tell each other that it's not important, because death isn't really the end...there's an afterparty!!! We have funerals to have an entire ceremony devoted to the idea that it's totally okay that this person died, because they didn't really die... you totally get to see them later. And just so that you know where they are going to, we are going to revisit all the great things they have done so you know they they are going to be having a great time while you can't see them. So, we push away death... we make it seem like it doesn't happen...but it does! We die...we just do... it's the great equalizer. Instead of pushing it away, I'm embracing it. I'm going to die and that is all there is... no more Noel forever and ever.....and I'm not taking advantage of the moments have been between now and then for anything.
Can you see how freeing that is? Can you see how beautiful it is to live in what you know is real, instead of viewing it as a stop before something you can't be sure of? My little girl is not just beautiful now and ethereal in the hereafter that might exist later... she is everything now and every moment of thinking about later is a moment wasted.
That mom, the one who "turned her back on god".... she has spent her time going to school, becoming a nurse, with the intention of working with families going through exactly what she did. She saw those people, the medical professionals who worked hard to keep her child in her arms...she saw them for what they were... her blessing. She didn't see them as insignificant...pawns in a game that an invisible force controlled. They gave her moments that wouldn't have existed if they didn't do their good deeds without reward. She took the hurt and the pain and the chaos and the fragility and turned it into something beautiful . She had completely embraced it all and decided that she is not insignificant... she can matter to someone else. She isn't "doing god's work". She is doing HER work...the work set in motion by her pain and her loss that is the result of her love. Her reward is that others benefit, in THIS life, from her love for that sweet baby girl. By embracing the randomness of it all, she finds her strength...not bestowed by god...this isn't "the reason" her daughter died...it's her...and she deserved the credit for that. She is free from being a pawn and is owning THIS life and her place in it. Nothing can take away her pain.... her work doesn't diminish the immense loss that she feels every single moment of every single day. She took feeling that insignificant...being told that she was deemed unworthy by god, robbed of her moments with her child, and turned it into something amazing and beautiful. She is part of the system that gives more moments to families in this life. She is someone elses' blessing, and she deserves all of the credit in the world for that. I'm not particularly interested in what invisible forces can do when there are amazing women like this mom right here in my own backyard.
So, the world is horrible...and instead of turning to something I can't see to make me feel better about it being horrible, I'm going to turn to myself and ask how I play a part in that. I'm going to see this for what it is...short, fleeting, fragile...and worth so much more than I can put into words. I'm going to not allow the world to say that I'm insignificant... I'm going to embrace my worth and your worth and the worth of the grandchildren I might never meet and make it worth it. I'm going to be someone else's blessing. Along the way, many people will likely credit god for my hard work, and I'm okay with that. I just hope that they can stop seeing themselves as insignificant, and truly embrace this life and their place in it.
I know that faith gives people something, but please do not discount that being faithless does too. I prefer to exist in my life, knowing it's fragile and short, being full of the richness that is promised to others after this life in religion. Maybe if we stopped thinking that our potential comes later, we would take better care of each other now.
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