This is something I started thinking about over the last few days, looking back on my transition from conservative Christian, to loosely Christian, and finally to atheist. I'm probably going to ramble a bit here, so y'all are forewarned. ^_^ Following are some thoughts that have gradually assembled in my head, and sort of came together yesterday when talking with a friend. When I was a Christian, I spent a fair bit of time trying to justify my beliefs, so to speak. I felt a need to prove that God existed, and that he was indeed the Judeo-Christian god. Thinking back on it, I guess I wanted to convince myself and others that my way of living was the "right way" - that if there was a god, we were bound by some moral law to worship and obey him. One of the first directions I approached the question from was science, attempting to prove creationism - the idea that the earth was created a few thousand years ago, with all organisms existing in the same forms they do today. I had the mentality that if I could prove God through science, and other disciplines such as history, it would prove my choice of religion to be "right." When I fell away from religion for various reasons, [1] I took the same approach from the other side. I felt a need to prove that God didn't exist, and that I had no need to fear hell, etc. for being an atheist. I would enthusiastically grasp onto evidence of evolution, etc. that showed the universe came into being in a definitely non-biblical manner, and to find historical research that discredited the religious interpretations of the bible. Over time, my fear began to fade a bit, and I started to absorb into my life the true meaning of a wonderful quote by Marcus Aurelius: What I realized is that it no longer matters to me if God exists or not. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it would be an amazing scientific discovery if someone could conclusively prove the existence or absence of god. I'm also quite confident that at this point, we have no evidence for such a being, and definite evidence against any of the gods preached by religions. But it is my responsibility to determine how I will live my life, regardless of the existence or absence of any god. Where there used to be fear of making a "wrong choice" and suffering for it, I have learned to live, as the quote says, "without fear." If there is a god, and he chooses to punish me for living as I think is good and right, then so be it. I would choose, even with the certain knowledge of such a god, to live by my principles, and accept with pride whatever hell he chooses to send me to for doing so. So, that probably sounded a bit grandiose and pretentious. This was just something that's been floating around in my head, and I wanted to get it out in words. [1] To make a very long story very short, I met some wonderful people who were non-Christian, and couldn't accept that they were going to burn in hell just for believing differently... and I visited a lot of churches where the "love of God" didn't show through at all.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - Science Saved My Soul.[/ame]
Just want to pick a couple of bits out: I've never heard that quote before but I love it. It's like a thinking person's Pascal's Wager. I've always lived by the principle of treat others how you'd want to be treated. It's an ancient philosophy that goes way way back beyond Christianity and is common to many religions and belief systems. I find that on the whole, because I do, the majority of people I encounter treat me by a similar standard in return and quality of life is increased all round.
