For 35 years I believed in God, an Eastern religion variety. Or maybe I just believed in believing in God. Can’t be sure. Probably the truth is that I bounced back and forth between a belief in God, and a belief that it was good to believe in God, even if I didn’t truly believe in God.
Okay, that probably is clear as mud. So let’s move on to a simpler topic — the 20 or so subsequent years when I didn’t believe in God. At least the sort of God that occupied my mind during those 35 believing years.
My current atheism didn’t take hold instantly. It was a gradual process, the transition from God to no-God. For a while I embraced sort-of-God. Hard to put into words, more of a universal consciousness, I suppose, than a Supreme Being.
Now, though, I’m pretty firmly in the atheist camp.
I’m confident of this, because atheism is simply the absence of theism, as denoted by the “a” before theism. It really isn’t a belief in no God. Again, it’s the absence of belief, which is akin to how I feel about cricket. The sport, not the bug. I don’t dislike cricket. I just never think about cricket, unless it is to be an example in a blog post about why I rarely think about God.
Since I’m deeply devoted to being as happy as possible, if atheism didn’t make me happy, I wouldn’t be an atheist. Here’s five reasons why I’m a happy atheist.
(1) My Sundays are more pleasant. I used to feel that it was my duty to go to meetings of my religious organization. Not only that, often I had to give talks about the religion’s teachings. Now on Sunday’s I usually have coffee and conversation with an old friend. We talk sports, politics, entertainment, philosophy, and whatever else we feel like talking about.
(2) Feeling special, because members of my religion supposedly were chosen by God to return to Him, was a burden that I didn’t recognize until it was lifted from my unbelieving shoulders. It’s much more relaxing to simply be an ordinary person rather than living up to being a disciple of a guru who was considered to be God in Human Form.
(3) Everyday life is a better teacher than any guru. I’m convinced that the Buddha would have been better off if he’d lived a married life rather than going off on his ascetic spiritual journey. Having been married for 54 years (albeit to two different women), I can testify to the fact that a reliable way for a man to experience loss of ego is marriage. Whenever I feel proud of having loaded our dishwasher, the clinking of dishes as my wife rearranges them reminds me of how little I know.
(4) Immorality is more fun than morality. In my religious days, Five Deadly Foes raised their ugly heads: Lust, Anger, Greed, Attachment, Egotism. You know, the things that make life worth living. I’d worry that I wasn’t living up to a high moral standard. Now the pressure is off. Atheism allows me to decide what morality consists of. For me, not anyone else.
(5) It’s nice to flow with life wherever it takes me instead of feeling that I had to swim upstream against the current of godless materialism to a supposed union with God. That sort of dualism, where this world is viewed as a barrier, or even a prison, preventing me from experiencing that world of God, was the source of a lot of unnecessary stress. Life is difficult enough as it is. Adding in the pressure of escaping life as it is to a fantasy life as it might be — absolute craziness!
Bonus reason: I don’t worry about trying to save my soul, because I don’t believe I have one. Instead, I worry about saving the United States and the world from Donald Trump.
Discover more from Church of the Churchless
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Hi David,
Am in same boat as you now.
In those 35 years as a die hard follower of RSSB, did you ever experience any inner lights?
“Atheism is simply the absence of theism, as denoted by the “a” before theism. It really isn’t a belief in no God; it’s the absence of belief.”
Good to have the meaning of atheism aired again. We do like to ‘pigeonhole’ people; it’s a way of dismissing them with their beliefs, practices, lifestyles, and views. Sadly, we all do it; it’s probably a survival thing; we make ourselves (our minds) safe by not actually killing others; we just terminate them psychologically.
On that note! I posted several years ago about Kevin Nelson’s book ‘The God Impulse’. A neurologist with three decades’ experience examining the biology behind human spirituality. His research: – “Offers the first, comprehensive, empirically tested, peer-reviewed examination of the reasons we are capable of NDE’s, OBE’s and other mystical states.” By no means does he decry spiritual states, regarding them as a valuable aspect of human life and, for some, at certain times, helpful.
Neuroscience shows that various brain patterns demonstrate that spirituality is not only a psychological concept but also a biochemical and physical event in the human brain. Practices create lasting structural and functional changes in the brain: Spiritual practices such as prayer, chanting, fasting, and meditation can influence its structure.
If only we could have our particular practices and acknowledge their effects without resorting to overlaying them with subjective beliefs. Or is that perhaps too much to ask of us human beings who continually demonstrate that real, everyday life with the experience of being alive is somehow not enough.
Hi Brian Ji
I love what you said, and agree with about half of it. Isn’t that progress?
One point that deserves deeper consideration:
Everyone believes their own version of their stated system of belief. It is the best they can do. We are, after all, just bags of chemicals that hold the mystery of life and consciousness somewhere inside.
So, when you wrote that you believe in atheism, that is going to be your particular version of it. Some atheists don’t hold a belief in God, but have no opinion one way or another. They know they don’t know enough to make a statement about the reality of God, or much else, and it doesn’t play into their daily lives.
Others who claim to believe in Atheism have strong and negative views towards both the possibility that God exists in combination with a viral disgust with how formal religion and human stupidity create their own Gods, calling them God, and who commit atrocities in the name of God.
Of course plenty of atrocities are committed by human beings without any reference to any version of God.
This is quite different from the mystic experience. They see, hear, feel, experience something entirely different, and which includes for them, the wisdom, love and presence of a benevolent God in all things. They see, as part of their daily experience, that they are no more than an atom on a grain of sand on an infinite beach, on a planet among a universe of infinite worlds. They know they are nothing, absolutely zero, but they live in a reality that is a sea of love, and connected, part and parcel to everything and everyone.
And they celebrate, with great compassion, the variety of experiences around them, and how sacred each one is, not only to the individual, but to the creator enjoying the show, however connected or disconnected, however insightful or ignorant. They are all equally experienced. So they have their reality.
Intrigued by Spencer’s ref. to mystics, I looked up what their qualities are- and realised that Brian is probably a mystic.
10 Signs You Are a Mystic
If you resonate with the following signs, you might have a mystical inclination that can be nurtured and developed through various spiritual practices.
1. Valuing Personal Experience. You prioritize your personal experience and own encounters with the divine over external teachings or beliefs. Trusting in your own spiritual experiences forms the core of your spiritual path, guiding you to deeper truths.
2. Deep Curiosity About Existence. Your mystical experiences drive a deep curiosity about life, purpose, and the universe. You are constantly seeking to understand the deeper meaning behind existence, guided by a connection to a higher power.
3. Embracing Solitude. Solitude is a cherished part of your spiritual path, where you find solace and profound insights. These moments of personal experience are essential for reflection and deepening your connection with the divine.
4. Sensitivity to Symbolism. You perceive deeper meanings in symbols, dreams, and everyday occurrences, viewing them as messages from a higher power. This sensitivity enhances your spiritual experience and guides you along your mystical path.
5. Experiencing Unity. You often feel a sense of oneness with all life, a key mystical experience that transcends the illusion of separateness. This unity is a profound realization of the interconnectedness fostered by a higher power.
6. Inner Authority. You trust your inner guidance over external authorities, following your own spiritual path based on your spiritual experiences. This internal compass is more significant to you than societal norms or traditional dogmas.
7. Altruistic Service. Altruistic service is integral to your spiritual path. You recognize that serving others not only connects you to them but also to a higher power, making it a sacred duty that enriches your own spiritual experience.
8. Appreciation of Paradox. You comfortably hold contradictory truths, understanding that the spiritual path is complex and multifaceted. This appreciation stems from your mystical experiences, which reveal the rich tapestry of reality.
9. Creative Expression. You use art, music, writing, or other creative outlets to express your mystical experiences. These acts of creation are both personal explorations of your spiritual path and means of sharing your insights with the world.
10. Transcendence of Duality. You strive to move beyond black-and-white thinking, recognizing the interconnectedness of all aspects of life. This transcendence is a deep spiritual experience that challenges and expands your understanding of the universe.
Quote: “Since I’m deeply devoted to being as happy as possible, if atheism didn’t make me happy, I wouldn’t be an atheist.”
I hope you will not mind, Brian, if I pop back in briefly, from quietly and sans comment reading your posts as I tend to do of late, to disagree completely with this perspective. That, to my mind, isn’t how belief works, at least not in any reasonable rational sense, as I hope you might agree, now when I point this out.
One believes things, factual things, when there’s good reasonable factual reasons to do that. One doesn’t when there aren’t. Whether or not the consequences following from such are good or bad or ugly is entirely irrelevant to whether or not we believe something.
If Elon Musk, who’s given to throwing his money around to promote his whackjob ideas and values, were to promise you and I ten million each tomorrow if we were to start believing the sky appears not blue but red like the blood in our veins, or that God exists: then I put it to you that even if it were the case that getting the ten million might actually make our lives much better, but yet we would simply not be able to turn on our belief on demand like a faucet. We might pretend, sure, but we couldn’t actually believe. Likewise, even if our absence of belief in God were to make us miserable, even so I don’t see how we might change our belief to theism. Belief simply does not work like that, not for any reasonable rational sane person.
It’s why Pascal’s Wager is a nonsensical proposition, right from the get go. It’s also why the whole struggling-with-faith idea, that is a common enough motif in religion, is, likewise, complete nonsense.
Basically, textbook argumentum ad consequentiam.
———-
Pardon me, for one more time coming in with this contrarian view. I don’t of late, preferring to read in silence: and back I’ll go to doing that after this: but it’s just that this ties in like completely with what I’d said in my last comment here.
We needn’t be all solemn about it: but investigating and understanding spirituality is serious business.
If our intention to clearly understand these things that we’re talking about, then we cannot afford to be cavalier over our own standards of rigor. We cannot and need not aim for never ever being wrong, it isn’t as if we are required to be infallible, absolutely not! But I really don’t see why we cannot go back and correct our errors when these are made clear to us, right? I mean, what else is the point of even bringing up these things at all, and talking about them, unless it is to actually and fully engage with them, and thereby facilitate better clearer understanding all around?
And it’s like I said, back in my previous comment. This continued spate of complete utter bilge that comments from regular commenters here so often tend to amount to? The endless flood of nonsense from the Trump worshipers, the Jesus worshipers, the Gurinder worshipers, and every other stripe of crazy? And not just here, but this insanity that’s seemingly overrunning all facets of life everywhere around us, with the sons of Caliban seemingly taking over the world today? We’ve no way to keep these out, or of differentiating our own views from this kind of complete utter halfwittery, not unless we’re mindful, ourselves, of the standards of rationality and rigor that we hold ourselves to.
Which is why I feel so very strongly about this sort of seemingly innocuous looseness in “our” thinking — as opposed to the miles-wide chasms in the thinking of “others”, from whom I expect no better. And why I wasn’t able to now hold back from interrupting with this contrarian comment, one more time now.
“Since I’m deeply devoted to being as happy as possible, if atheism didn’t make me happy, I wouldn’t be an atheist.”
There are some things in life that are so important, so meaningful that it’s ok if we suffer for them. In fact we wouldn’t give up even a second of that suffering, because in that moment of suffering we are free. But when events becomes static, when there is no movement, what might seem ideal to some, is a form of death to those who long for the intimacy with that awesome light and sound, conscious and benevolent as it is.
Then suffering is itself a joy, the distance is itself a joy, because little by little that distance is shrinking. We are moving!
Like prisoners in a concentration camp, suffering is all around us, and those prisoners who appear better treated, in warmer clothes, happy with their gaurds and even complicit with the commandant, still, their numbers diminish also with everyone else as the lottery for the next shower is called.
But when we hear the faint thunder of liberation in the distance in the middle of the night, getting louder and louder we are excited about the destruction of the entire camp, and look forward to shedding these rags for real clothes, a real pair of shoes! We are most happy for the children who will never have to answer that lottery. The thunder can’t come soon enough! Because the approaching thunder, faint as it may be now, is our approaching freedom. And while some recoil in fear when they too hear it, and decide it must just be a storm, just imagination, and turn up the Furher’s music blaring day and night on the radio to escape it, even when they argue about it, and question the integrity, sanity and loyalty of those fellow prisoners who welcome the thunder, it’s ok. That fear will grip those who are afraid of the unknown, of course it will. But that will also end. Liberation will happen for them also.
Being henpecked and criticized by a bossy wife is not my ideal of what every day life should be about.
“Bonus reason: I don’t worry about trying to save my soul, because I don’t believe I have one. Instead, I worry about saving the United States and the world from Donald Trump.”
I worry about progressives who don’t believe in the American system of democracy any more than they believe in God. America had an election, your side lost. If you can’t respect that, you’re just as bad as Donald Trump when he claims 2020 was rigged.
I doubly worry when these progressives admit that they no longer believe in morality, as if this is something to admire.
Just kidding. I don’t believe you ever believed in anything, including God, atheism, or that Donald Trump is ruining the world. Your vaunted ideals on politics and religion are no more to you than what pro teams are to a sports addict. You have your favorite teams, and you’re elated when they win and angry when they lose. Nothing more profound than that.
In that way, you’re no different from me and most people.