What it Means to be an Atheist!
Why, I ask is the Atheist maligned today? Why are people shocked to learn, or even admit to themselves or others, that they are an atheist? How can a person be an atheist?
The lack of evidence for spiritual ideas is so great, it is the elephant in our living rooms. It is there, but no one talks about it. Do angels exist? Do devils? How about heaven, hell, souls, purgatory AND yes, even the idea of a God in heaven? These are all mystical ideas created by whimsical, imaginative men who had everything to gain over an ignorant populace, most who could not read, and if they did, they would find little opposition to the stories they read in the Bible over a thousand years ago.
But the atheist is a critical thinker. The atheist is unafraid to speak the truth about religion. Many atheists are proud to have a good, if not great understanding of Science. Included among these is the science of Astronomy from which we get our understanding of the known Universe. It is, what I like to call, “The Big Picture,” because it shows us everything that is.
Astronomy has expanded our view of the Universe continually, throughout history. It wasn’t so long ago man thought the entire Universe was our solar system and that everything revolved around the earth… around us. But unlike religion, science never stands still. Scientists are always asking new questions and finding new answers through experimentation and careful observation.
Consider the case of Galileo Galilei one of the first great astronomers. He was convicted of heresy in 1633 by the Roman Inquisition. He was imprisoned by the Catholic Church for having written that not everything revolved around the earth. (He had observed four of the Jupiter’s moons through his primitive telescope), and horror of horrors, he had written that he now had observational proof to support the Copernicus idea that the planets revolved around the sun! (See Reference 1 below.)
We now know there are over two hundred billion stars (There may actually be more than 200 billion stars. See Reference 2 below.) in our Milky Way Galaxy, and there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies like our Milky Way in the observable Universe.
Astronomers have only recently learned ways to discover exoplanets, that is, planets orbiting stars outside of our own solar system. If we assume an average of ten planets per star, and two hundred billion stars in the Milky Way, that means our Earth is just one of roughly two trillion planets in the Milky Way!
This means that even if we were to examine one billion planets and still don’t find life, there would be nine hundred and ninety nine billion planets remaining in the Milky Way for us to look for life. The sky is so big and the numbers are so large they are truly mind boggling!
Are we alone in the Milky Way? I doubt it, and I find comfort that I’m not alone in my belief that there is intelligent life elsewhere. On September 8, 2014, Time Magazine published a extra issue, which they titled, “The Answers Issue — Everything You Never Knew You Needed to Know.” In that issue, Time’s authors estimated we would find intelligent life by analyzing radio signals from the stars, by the year 2040. How could they know? Time Magazine estimated that by that time we would receive an intelligent signal after searching (listening to and analyzing) radio signals from ten million planets.
But in addition to knowing the Big Picture, many, if not all atheists are existentialist who understands that he (or she) is part of the animal kingdom. He knows that he, like all the other animals on earth, will rot after he dies. If, like me, he doesn’t believe in the mystical soul, or the concept of heaven, he knows he will never see his dead relatives again in some make-believe, pretend afterlife.
I know these are not pleasant thoughts, but they are real nevertheless. It is sobering indeed to know that life is short, and is often filled with hardship. Like all people, atheists cannot escape death. We just don’t kid ourselves about what it really is, and what death really means for ourselves and others.
However, I believe there is tremendous freedom and responsibility in being an atheist. I don’t let someone else tell me what to think, or what to believe. I judge every idea on its own merits and accept only those ideas that make sense to me. All new ideas must “fit” with all that I already know and understand about the world.
Atheists are not influenced by superstitions, voodoo, shrines, statues or holy waters. We demand credible evidence for the things which we believe.
I don’t care where I will be buried, because I know that when I am dead, it won’t make any difference. Many of us prefer to be cremated, and ask our families to donate the funeral savings to a good cause. After all, caskets are a waste of good metal, and a waste of the money that buys it.
Perhaps the most important lesson is this. Because our lives are finite, our lack of belief in an afterlife makes each day we live, more precious than the last. Time, not money, is our most finite resource. It is the most precious gift we can give to others. We can always find new ways to make money, but without an invention of a time machine, or without some dramatic improvements in medicine, to slow down the aging process, none of us can gain an additional day.
At the end of each day, I often wonder how I could have lived it better, and know that I will try harder tomorrow to be a better version of myself. I will try to correct any mistakes I may have made.
A friend of mine once said that the only thing that matters, is how we treat other people. And I would add…how we treat others is the only thing that matters, because in the end, it will be all that our loved ones will remember about us.
I don’t know about you, but I want the people in my life to remember how much I loved them, and how much joy and laughter I brought to their lives. I want to know that I made a difference in the lives of those I loved. And I hope they realize that I always spoke the truth about everything, as best I understood it.
References:
- Author Unknown, Stanford Solar Center, http://solar-center.stanford.edu/galileo/, sampled June 9, 2019.
- Author Unknown, Space Dictionary Organization, https://spacedictionary.org/milky-way/, sampled June 9, 2019.
