Posted on 11/27/2005 6:32:15 AM PST by machman
Morning Edition, November 21, 2005 ·
I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The Atheism part is easy.
But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.
Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.
I see sports stars in postgame interviews constantly crediting God with helping them defeat the other team.
I see people constantly proclaiming things like 1 person out of 20 surviving a plane crash as a "miracle" (then what were the other 19?)
Might it not be possible God is a lot more understanding than you give Him credit for being?
And God forgives them for this blasphemy.
Not that one... I've read "The Four Loves", and a few other pieces, I am looking forward to Chronicles when it comes out.
There was a very interesting show about it on PBS, about his relationship to Freud. It talked about Lewis's rediscovered faith near the end of his life, after meeting his second great love.
But can't we pray for them?
There is this story about two old fellows arguing about believing in God. There is no God, prove to me there is a God, says one of the fellows. Well now I’m not sure I can do that says the other fellow, you see, I believe in the almighty and feel very good about it, but I’m rather simple minded and can’t explain all things. I just know that when I die God will have someone at the gate waiting for me and I’ll see all my family again and oh what a time that will be. If there is no God that will be ok because I’ve had a good life, loved my family and my neighbor too. Now when you die and there is no God I guess we’ll hear you laughing at all us old fogies. But then again when you die and there is a God and he is at the gate, what are you going to tell him?
They have Jello in hell?
I thought Penn was a libertarian. If so, he is a hypocrite for taking money from taxpayer-funded PBS.
There comes a point in boot camp when almost any Marine will complain about the "stupidity," pain, and arduousness of some of the training he is required to undergo. "Why am I doing this?" he will ask himself. "The DI obviously doesn't care whether I live or die."
The older I get the more I am convinced that perfection of the soul is not possible except at the cost of the transient imperfection of the body. As God said to Paul, "My strength is made perfect in weakness."
Harsh...? I said I don't care what they think. It's not my job to convince anyone that there is a God. I'm too busy with my own life to care about anothers non belief.
If you consider my not caring as 'harsh' then I suspect that claiming to not have faith is simply a way for people to get the attention they crave. No thanks
You assume they paid him. It is my understanding that the This I Believe project does not pay their contributers.
I see people like Charles Barkley and Scott Pippin and every other two-bit self-absorbed jackass strutting around the hoop or end zone proclaiming to all the world that they're the greatest.
I see people constantly proclaiming things like 1 person out of 20 surviving a plane crash as a "miracle" (then what were the other 19?)
See that often, do ya?
Mostly you hear of "Gifts from God" in relation to windfalls or runs of good luck.
Liberalism is a mental disease.
Really? And what has God said that gives us a clue as to what is right or wrong? If we're talking about the 10 Commandments, similar sets of rules have been created by other societies without recourse to Divine intervention. The "Golden Rule" is universal and had been formulated in non-Judeo-Christian societies.
Methinks you sell the human desire to live peacefully far too short in this regard.
Pray for whomever you want. It's not my job to save the world.If a person is so self shut off from God that they take pride in proclaiming they have no belief in him, I'm certainly not going to be dragged into their attention seeking drama. But by all means your more than welcome to.
No, I don't. That's my point.
But I always hear "God is dead" after some disaster befalls us.
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