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I Am an Atheist
Does that make me bad?
by Lloyd Harrison Whitling
SML158
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I believe I only
live once, and this time is it. I don't believe what people tell me about
gods and angels and devils, so only I am responsible for what I do, and if
anybody will forgive me it has to be whomever I did it to. I have to
apologize instead of praying. I would rather talk to someone I can see
than someone who never answers and never lets me know if I've been heard.
I don't believe we go anywhere once we have died, and so this place is it.
Except for maybe "Out", like a light bulb burns "out".
Those are some things I don't
believe. Some people get scared by that, because they are afraid to tell
anyone what they don't believe. I am afraid of those people. They tell me
they
trust in God. I don't believe that, either, because they act like they
still think they have to take matters into their own hands. I don't trust
them.
The things I don't believe
cause me to act differently from them. If I am only going to live once, I
have to get the most out of this life I am living. I cannot waste this
precious time feeling mean and miserable about all the stuff that goes on
around me that is really none of my business. I have to pay attention to
my own business, and take care of that. I am responsible for what I do,
but not for what my neighbor is doing, unless he is doing something that
will end up being harmful to me or harmful to what I am responsible for. I
cannot bother to judge him for interests that are different from mine and
none of my business.
Since I have to be responsible
for myself, I don't have to blame God for bad things that happened. They
happen as a matter of course, because I did something to cause it, or
somebody else did, or it just happened the way bad weather does. If Aunt
Ethel died, it was because she got old and worn out, or sick. It was not
because God wanted her in Heaven. How does anybody know she didn't get
banished into Hell? Maybe she was a nice old woman, but do we know all her
secrets? Earthquakes and hurricanes don't happen to punish cities or
countries. If God announced that to a couple of grouchy old preachers, He
ought to have told it to all of us! If I swing a hammer and hit my thumb,
I might get to announce my displeasure to the world, but it's still me who
has to doctor my wound and remind myself that wasn't the right way to be
holding that nail in that place. |
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God didn't do it. God does not
exist in any way I can discover but, if He does, I still cannot blame Him.
Or, Her. Or, well, It?
What I don't believe has caused
me to realize I am wasting my life if I do mean things, because having fun
instead is much more enjoyable. It is more fun to love people than to hurt
them. It is more fun if people help because they want to when I need help,
and not because they feel like they have to. It is more fun to dance and
make music than to fight and make war. It sounds prettier, too, and makes
more friends.
It's friends that are
important, and family. We are known according to those with whom we
consort. If I associate with trustworthy people, I will be with people I
can trust. I will be influenced by the value of honest thoughts and deeds
and act accordingly. I will suffer less guilt and shame, and not have to
worry about getting caught if I don't misbehave. If I am always honest and
own up to my misdeeds and mistakes, people will more quickly believe my
claims of innocence when I get blamed for something I didn't do or say.
If I don't steal, cheat and lie
so people find out that they can trust me, my enemies will be few, mostly
those who tell me things I don't believe so I can't trust them. If I take
good care of myself as much as I can, I can take better care of my family
because I will be healthier, happier and stronger. I want people to love
me because they want to, not because they have to take care of me. I want
to love people because we are friends, not because I owe that to them.
I can't bother to hate someone.
What a futile way to waste my precious life! I learn more from discovering
how to understand those about whom I could have bad feelings. I discovered
that helps me know about more things that I can use to benefit myself. Why
should I waste an opportunity to do that? Learning useful stuff is a lot
more fun than hating. Using what I learn is more fun than destroying
stuff.
If this is the only life I will
get to live, there's not enough time in it to waste on feeling bad.
Feeling good is better. It's healthier. We'd all be stronger and less
anxious about everything if we'd just stop wasting so many hours and days
thinking about and doing all the things that make us feel bad. Why waste
the best opportunities that come to us by just not recognizing them and
then feeling bad about them?
Bad feelings and anxiety wear
people down. They make that plain to me, even when they're trying to get
me to be just like them. Why would I want to be like that? You watch them,
you'll soon enough see just what I mean. They act angry a lot. They say
things about other people that make them look bad, and I wonder if they
talk that way about me.
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Even Harry
Potter couldn't make it in This World! |
Do you think
they say bad stuff about me, just because I don't believe the things they
do? I'll bet they do, but if those things are true, wouldn't they tell me
how they know, too, so I could have a chance to improve myself? I wonder:
Maybe, if they say stuff about me that isn't true, I should pay no
attention to all the stuff they say about our neighbors. Maybe that's part
of the reason I don't trust them. Maybe that's why, when you get right
down to it, I don't believe all the stuff they try telling me about their
gods.
I don't want people to not
trust me that way. I want them to know I am honest and take responsibility
for what I do, and that I prefer to love people, and to show that, than to
hate them. I don't want to waste my life being any other way. That's what
I don't believe causes me to be like.
So, think about it just for a
minute. Does that make me a bad man? |
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Copyright ©2005
by Lloyd Harrison Whitling. All rights reserved.
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"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 — |
This page last edited on
01/20/2008
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