On atheism, responsibility, and meaning.

[lonetread]

Part I:

Been all over the blogosphere today, and ran across this post that I wanted to address. To quote:

In an atheist world view, the only thing that cares about us is other people. Other flawed, crazy, messy people, living on the same human scale that we are. (Well, plus some cats and dogs and stuff... but you know what I mean.) There's no immense, eternal, perfect being watching our every move, feeling elated at our triumphs and devastated by our failures. Just a bunch of other screwed-up bags of water and flesh, with their own problems.

And this can be a hard pill to swallow. It can be hard to ask yourself, as Douglas Adams put it in the first Hitchhiker's book, "Does it really, cosmically speaking, matter if I don't get up and go to work?"... and have the answer be a pretty resounding, "No."

But it also relieves us of a certain amount of responsibility. I mean, I have a hard enough time feeling hyper-responsible just on a human scale. I have a hard enough time with the burden of responsibility for the effect I have on poverty and racism and corporate imperialism and global warming. It's kind of a relief to not have to worry about whether I'm letting down the World-Soul as well.

I see it a little differently. I find atheism personally enriching because (to me), with religious belief, came the belief that whatever I did was part of the Plan. Whatever I did, I was meant to do; whatever I didn't, I was meant not to. I had no reason to leave my comfort zone; no reason to seek out new experiences, or any experiences; no reason to change, to become a better person, to live a fuller life, because I was automatically, by virtue of existing, Doing It Right.

And yet, intellectually, I've long not been able to really believe that. I was wasting my life -- other people told me so, and I would readily admit it (note: I'm speaking for me personally, not saying that this is necessarily the case for religious people in general). I knew that couldn't be the Ultimate, Ineffable Plan of anything worth worshipping.

So, now, it's not that I'm relieved of responsibility at all -- it's that I have a newfound responsibility to find or create my own meaning and purpose in life. I get to make my own plan for my life, not be shuffled along in the supposed path of someone else's (one that looks oddly like my life would if it were guided only by my own apathy). And this is the only life I get, so I better do well the first time.

All that scares me. It really does. I haven't yet gotten used to creating such a purpose, breaking out of this rut of introvertedness and apathy and reclusiveness that I've been in for years and actually making something of myself. I don't yet trust myself to do it well. But, likely, I just need practice.

To have the potential to do it at all is awesome.

Contrary to the canards that get tossed around about atheists by people who've never bothered to talk to one, atheism doesn't mean that life has no meaning. It simply means that we get to create our own meaning. The meaning of our lives isn't handed to us by someone else: we get to choose the meaning of our lives, based on the wiring of our brains and the values of our culture and the experiences that we and we alone have had.

And the same is true for the importance of our lives. Being an atheist doesn't mean that life isn't important. It means that we get to create our own sense of importance.

And how cool is that?!

(Also, from here, there's this related gem: "Letting go of thinking that everything happens for a reason has helped me have more courage to change things that I can, more serenity to accept things that I can't, and more wisdom to know the difference." <3)

Part II:

Some interesting links:
Is God Irrelevant?
Do You Care Whether the Religious Ideas You Believe in Are True or Not?
Atheism and the Argument from Comfort
"You Can't Disprove Religion": Three Counter-Examples
"Evangelical" Atheism, Or, Is It Okay to Try to Change People's Minds?
Atheism, Openness, and Caring About Reality: Or, Why What We Don't Believe Matters
Why Did God Create Atheists?
10 myths—and 10 Truths—About Atheism

Part III:

A poem by Richard Coughlan (YouTube's coughlan666): Atheism Is... [video; 3:10]

And this great poem by Cuttlefish, from the comments of the blog post A Safe Place to Land: Making Atheism Friendly for The Deconverting:

I try to be a safe place to land
I don't think I always succeed
I try to show wonder, I try to show love,
To give what a "lander" might need

I try to be open, remembering what
It was like in that scared little place
Before I abandoned the smallness of God
For the beauty (for instance) of space,

Or the wonders of physics, a tour of the brain,
The genetics of flies or of mice,
Of science applied to the whole of my life
Of Einstein, and "God playing dice"

There are times I fall short; I'm not perfect, I know,
I get angry, and say something mean.
Even then, I can hope, I can set an example--
I'm human, and not a machine.

I suppose that the best I can do is to be
Who I am (is that "taking a stand"?)
If they hate me--oh well. If they like me, I guess
I'm one part of "a safe place to land".

Comments

[dime-for-12.livejournal.com]

ugh, I friggin' hate LJ >:P

Anyway, I think you're right when you say that religion is a singular event for every individual. I'm...uniquely apathetic to world views. I'm pretty simple and slightly...Shakespearean, maybe, in that I can sum up my belief as really just: I am. It's simple, easy to remember, and surprisingly (usually) angst-free :DDDDD (and these useless comments are why I happen to refrain from religious discussions of any nature. Unless I have a really, really strong urge to debate a topic, that is)

Although, I did snorfle at your "introvertedness and apathy and reclusiveness" comment. Because that's me, in a nutshell!

[lonetread]

Aw, what's it doing now? (Sorry, btw, for the epic-length post. If you're tracking me like I'm tracking you, well, I'm sorry, lol.)

Useless comments are still comments, and thus are happy-making! So it's all good. (As is debate. Good times.)

Heh, we just keep finding more in common. Sure, none of it's anything good, but at least we're not alone in it, I guess? *g*

[dime-for-12.livejournal.com]

it's randomly eating comments again. I did have a much better one halfway done when eljay apparently took a dislike to it, ate it, and then booted me back to my friend's page (a hint, do you think, to mind my own business?)

And, meh, I'm pretty happy being introverted and rather aloof. Everyone else in my family is...gregarious and just watching them will tire me out, LOL. And besides, I get the "ooooo, she's mysterious" comments all the time, and I just make the o_O face right back at the general public and refrain from telling them just how tediously average I really am.

It's...nice *snerk*

[lonetread]

Aw, that sucks, hate it when that happens. Stupid LJ.

Lol, yeah, introvertedness is one thing, I'm fine with that too (whenever I take the Myers-Briggs, it gives me a slightly different result every time -- I always say if it ever says I'm extroverted, that's when I'll know it's just started making shit up for the lulz). My problem is the reclusiveness (wouldn't be hyperbole to use the word "hermit"). It is actively detrimental to my life, or what life I would have if not for it, on a daily basis -- during the summer, I rarely find reason to leave the house; during the school year I can regularly go entire Saturdays without leaving my dorm room, much less the building -- and I know it is, but I have done exactly fuck all about it. Like I said, rut. It sucks. (Half the point of this entry was "If I say this enough, I'll do something about it!!1!". Alas. I do believe what I wrote here, but I don't think that's enough.)

Anyway, yeah. I'll stop complaining. That's what therapy's for. 9_9 At least it'll work out for me after surgery -- I'm an expert at sitting around on the computer and watching TV all day. :)