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 I agree there's a problem with losing your god and [not finding] yourself in the process but I don't think that Atheists are obligated to provide the solution for others. I personally feel some obligation and, it's obvious to me anyway, that others do also. It can be very frustrating to see that we have no effective methods for bringing the superstitious around to reality, let alone the means to comfort and entertain them once they cross over. It's also apparent that some may lack vision and thereby become dejected.

Religious or not, we all live and die in what appears to be a purely absurd pattern of life. What for, what's the use? We're going to die anyway. The earth will eventually pass away along with the sun and our galaxy. Oblivion awaits our hopes and dreams. History supports our greatest fears. Science is cold and offers no hope for salvation. From the foxhole of despondency the dispossessed clutch at the illusions of supernatural stability.

We want to stay here, forever if we can. We want to be loved, fed, caressed, protected and entertained. It probably doesn't help that our species spends such long time in that youthful state where our needs are being taken care of by our parents and heroes so that these god-like metaphors become burned into our neural patterns.

 "There is no empirical reason a person should endeavor to leave the world in any particular condition, worse, same, or better. Why then does it feel "right" to say that leaving the world a better place is worth attempting? Must we reject that idea, as some surely will? No, there are other reasons than that, but I have to admit, altruism could work equally well to motivate an Atheist or a Theist. There has to be a better reason for dumping altruism, if it should be dumped." 

As for me, whatever I choose to explore, I will do my god-damned best for purely selfish reasons and never worry that I cannot know if the world is better off for it. This is not nihilism. Religions may choose to build up but I choose to explore outside those buildings. If they try to block my way, I will turn and bare my teeth at them. I am simply going about the business of living which to me is exploration and discovery. I find it exciting and satisfying. This is the climax of life for me. The religious can have their religions, just don't fuck with my freedom to explore and discover.

Still, I actually do think there are things that apply universally but I don't see them as the things we can take a vote on or try to enforce. To me the true climax of life resides in exploration and discovery. This is what living is all about and I think it applies to everyone.

When a child is born, it begins to look around, to crawl around, to listen, smell, taste and touch everything within its grasp. The sensory input is processed and banked away to serve as a refinement for future exploration and discovery. Adults find fulfillment in the very same way. Regardless of how we perceive life, exploration and discovery is what we actually to live for.

I don't think we live to reproduce. Reproduction is an exercise in exploration and discovery. I don't think we live to serve the gods either. I think gods are created by us to serve our imagination and curiosity.

Life is essentially a creative process involving both our experiences and imaginations, or more scientifically, our observations and perceptions as we explore and discover. We open doors to discover new doors. When these experiences are shared with others, the explorers and their discoveries become the heroes and monuments of history. Our collective creative genius is realized in exploring and sharing the discoveries with others even if our motives are purely selfish.

Sometimes we explorers tend to get clumped up at the doors of discovery. Maybe we all begin to think alike and share the same motives but our progress slows for some reason. Those who break away from the pack to discover something monumentally new, only appear as superior explorers because they have dared to venture into different territory than the rest of us.

Just like when you go searching for something in the wilderness, it serves us as explorers not only to have extra help but also to spread out so we can cover more ground. When we finally re-group to compare notes, we gain insight and new direction. New doors are opened to us.

To me, religion represents those who bog the doorways down with false claims of discovery ..."I found it! There's no need to look any farther." They find comfort in certain monuments and heroes of history which they use to try and bar the doorways. They hope to fend off what they perceive as evil winds of change. Their life is compromised because they can not get over their discovery. They put their energy into the maintaining their monuments and heroes of stability. They build upwards and that can be a fine thing, but when they block the doors of discovery, they have lost the ability to recognize that their own heroes were themselves explorers. They enter through the doors of discovery only seal up the room like a stifling church and bar the exits with blind-faith and unquestioning belief.

The Agnostic dares to peek and is reprimanded for it. The Atheist throws the door wide open and walks through it. They are often hated and feared for not allowing belief to retard their progress. As living entities we are all explorers, only some are engaged differently than others. No matter what the path or horizon we face, from science to sociology, it's almost always the Atheist that takes the first step into new territory. Refusing to venerate the heroes and monuments simply because they are old and established, the Atheist takes bearing from them and moves on, neither discarding them entirely nor giving them more than their due. The Atheist is about the business of living through exploration and discovery.

We may never be able to determine whether or not we leave the world better off than we found it, but good or bad, through our exploration we can discover more of the world and thereby open the doors for others to go through as we become the heroes and our discoveries the monuments, for the generations to come.

 Guitar

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Copyright ©2005 by Lloyd Harrison Whitling and the author. All rights reserved. Visit http://www.lloydwhitling.com for permissions and more free stuff.

"To deny a right to the experience of pleasure is immoral unless that denial can be justified by a valid presentation of how pain will result from that experience in an amount that would render the expected pleasure regrettable; or, if it can be shown that pain will be induced in others innocent of any involvement. The role of science in moral issues should be to test that, predict that, and find harmless ways to demonstrate that."

— L. H. Whitling in the eBook, Secular Morality, soon to be released