The God-Shaped Hole (A Personal Reflection)
Offline Happy New Year to everybody reading! I wouldn't usually say this at the beginning of a post, but I believe it is quite relevant. New Year is a time of reflection for me. It's nice to look back on the events of the previous year and look forward to the dawn of the new one. I was thinking how 2007 was the year that my relative agnosticism turned to strong atheism through literature and casual debate with a Christian friend.
But, more to the point, it was also the year I really thought of what happens after death. Even to me it is a scary thought - though gladly not because I'm anticipating eternal torment! My thoughts turned to the God-shaped hole. It would be so very easy to throw down my atheist beliefs, raise my hands into the air and delude myself into believing there is something up there watching me with a tear in His eye.
I guess humans want meaning to their lives - I'm sure many would like to think they're liked by people around them, made a positive difference to others, be involved in a cause worth fighting for.
They want to be remembered - why else would a vandal plaster his name over civic monuments. This is his subconscious urge to be recognised. This is why we respect the dead, erecting monuments for those who died for what they believed in. This is why people want their names in lights - so that they'll be remembered after they die - effectively living on after death.
Nobody really wants to be forgotten. Given a chance, the loner would like a friend, despite what deceptive song lyrics might tell you.
If He did indeed exist, a God would do these things for the believer. He would give them meaning, remember them in the afterlife, and give them companionship for all eternity. I've been told by many believers that it takes "real courage" to join their ranks. I have never, however, received a decent answer to the question "Why?". As I outlined above, it would be exceptionally easy to join the 'Club'. In my introduction pack I'd recieve some fellowship, invites to meetings, and maybe even some tax breaks. And when I die, I will be inducted as a fully fledged member will access to the clubhouse and get to meet Number One, as well as the other perks I have outlined earlier.
Tell me, where is the strength there? The atheist doesn't get any advantages. Not even the satisfaction of an "I told you so!" when a theist dies. Who is the strong one?
To close, though I have been strongly tempted by the "God Delusion" in recent times, I believe I am right when I say that there is no such thing as a personal God, no matter how much he loves me. My God-Shaped Hole will remain unfilled...
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I'd rather be right than happy.
I'd probably be pretty damn satisfied with my life if I truly believed I was going to win the lottery tommorow, and if I died before then, how would I tell the difference?
But now that I see religion for what it is: a total sham, the prospect of believing in it simply makes me sick, not happy. Would I take the soma? Would I accept a lie, just to be happy? I don't think so. I think I'd be pretty happy if I were completley ignorant. Maybe if I removed my frontal lobes...extracted my memories...something...I'd probably be pretty happy. But when you stop to think about it, when you think about it globally, it can't do anything but make you sick. All of these people walking around so sure of themselves, so confident in their facts. They all think they're going to win the lottery tommorow, but they're going to die beforehand, and they'll never know the difference. That's the irony, isn't it?
Here's my advice: make meaning for your own life. Don't buy anyone else's. You alone have control of your thoughts and feelings, your life. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you can always find meaning, purpose, even if it doesn't exist on a magical, universal, absolute scale. And besides, is it not better to live to serve humanity, rather than some fictional man in the sky? Isn't that a higher, better meaning? Sure, we all want to be loved, but I think its time that humanity loved itself, rather than inventing a fictional being to love us.
I think the idea of an afterlife is tempting. The only problem is that there is no free ride. The more serious someone becomes about a religion, the more it costs in this life. I would rather live for this life, instead for one that I know at heart can not exist.
Replace "real courage" with "real fear" and they'll have an accurate statement.
Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity. Saul Bellow, Herzog
Kryters,
I have no idea if this will help or not, but you know how sometimes, one of your friends goes through a horrible breakup and swears that she'll never love anyone again, and all you can think to say is, "I know it doesn't feel like it, but I promise you won't always feel this way." I've been an atheist for well over a decade now, and it took many years before I was able to look at life without some of the tint from religion coloring it.
I'm convinced that religion is not a natural state of humans. I believe the god shaped hole is much, much smaller than we think, if it is even a normal thing to have. My hope for you is that you'll discover the same thing, and that it won't take too long.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
About death: have you ever think that you die every day, every second?
I'll try to show what I mean: could you say that you are the same person that you were a year ago?
Every moment of your life a part of your brain and a part of your body die, every second there is another you. Can we really say that you die every second? I think NO, I would say that you change every second of your life.
When you will die your body will become part of something else, the energy that you spent will not disappear, what you did will remain on the earth, you will simply change (or die).
You are only anatman in the Tao, you can say that you are nothing, but you are part of the whole.