Christian Acquaints Atheist

Chris:

I'm afraid I forgot to ask a very important question. Perhaps I could guess, but what do you know as your message? What animates your sense of mission? Although I am something of a pushy proselytizer myself, I do not aspire to this role - I aspire to humility and empathy, any amount of which would make my life easier. Perhaps one can preach and be humble too? I believe that the authentic self cannot know anything for anyone else, hence must be humble, but it is then that I am most effective in communicating and most valued for what I might say. So I might speak-to and be authentic, but preaching and authenticity feel like alternative states for me. Hence, I aspire to unlearn preachy-ness, pedantry. How do you put these together?

I do not identify with many of the characteristics associated with atheists. I think there is usually a view of them as hyper-rationalistic without any humanity. Many atheists are simply anti-theists or just rebelling without really understanding just how optional the "God" hypothesis is, actually remaining in conversation with God the way a child continues to fight with estranged parents even after leaving home. Many atheists really did arrive at their atheism via rationality. My atheism is a truly mystical form - I did not arrive at it using logic, I got there by experiencing, in my whole being, a universe that does not need a creator or a director. I observed the universe, invested my faith in the beauty of the knowledge of science, and found a universe that made sense and invited me to create meaning. I did not find in it a purpose beyond manifestly being, and I did not find in the universe any universal moral truths. I found only the freedom to choose. So if I want to really stretch the definition of God, as many philosophers and theologians do, as being "the cosmos", it would be a God devoid of many of the elements that people who profess a belief in God need to have in their definition: Human emotions, human-like creative process, a human need for connection and reassurance, a human sense of morals, a human desire to control and cause. I am a true atheist. God, in any of the usual definitions, does not exist for me. There is nothing that any of the usual definitions of God offers that I want.

One dissonance for me, that causes me to be an atheist, is that having a belief system has an inherently corrupting effect, because once a person fails a belief system, they become divided and cannot manage their flaws of character. Only those people whose faith returns to something inside, is directed toward some sort of inner guidance system, can actually keep their beliefs in consonance with their behavior. But once a person accepts the literal do's and don'ts of prescriptive religion, the division of the self into good and bad is inevitable, and once divided, conscience is lost. I like about atheism that I cannot avoid responsibility for my choices, and my conscience is undivided from the choices I make.

So many "believers" condemn atheists for being amoral, without a guidance system. I have met one atheist I would characterize this way. But I do not find, if we observe the fundamentalist type of religionist, that having a morality is really sufficient. Sufficient is to have a conscience, which is not assigned by religiosity. I am an atheist with a conscience.

So yes, I would hope that there is something of value about my atheism.

When I needed to put my email account name on my landlady's internet account, she had to check with her minister to see if it was OK!

Stephen Alrich Marshall