How to find faith without belief in god
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The chaplain, volunteering at the hospital, said a prayer for the patient. The family in the waiting room thanked the chaplain.
The surgeon, exhausted from hours of work, announced the patient would survive. The family in the waiting room thanked god.
Where does a person turn in a time of tragedy? A christian may look inside, close to the heart, where belief and conviction are strong.
Where then would an athiest turn? If god is love, surely a godless one would be cold and lonely.
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Close to my own heart, my faith is stone solid. There is comfort, hope, and strength. But there is no god.
I stare into the heavens at night with awe. To think the stars were created by design might fill a person with assurance.
Consider this instead: our knowledge of the stars has expanded beyond what should even be possible. How old they are, where they are going, what they are made of... we know all of these things and more. With certainty.
One answer at a time we have solved mysteries in the heavens without ever leaving the ground. THIS is profound.
Much more so than a myth which dates back to a time before people could explain gravity.
The capacity of human intelligence is astonishing. Centuries of accumulated knowledge sits in thousands of libraries across the planet. I don't quiet my curiosity with ancient proverbs. For answers, I look to mankind, not a ghost.
Imagining my lost loved ones floating around in an abstract eternal fairy tale does nothing to bring me comfort. Knowing that I am connected to others who share memories of the people who were so very important to me gives me great peace. I can accept that they are gone. I can't accept that they are waiting around to meet up with me later, if I'm deserving enough.
Attributing events you can't explain to a supernatural source is an old human habit. It quiets the noise of fear and confusion that is caused by a question that can't be answered.
In this century, we know the earth is not the center of the universe. We are certain that mental illness is not actually demonic possession. We can't yet prove what existed before the Big Bang, but I know that we will in time. My faith is stone solid.
Faith gave that family in the waiting room strength to endure their fear and anguish. They did their thanking backwards though. They should have thanked god for the chaplain, who had made himself an instrument of their religion. But god did not save that patient's life; the surgeon held the scalpel.
Is your curiosity stronger than your fear?
Believing there is no god gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have. -- Penn Jillette
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Comments
I AM THAT I AM...
I wanted to respond to your thoughts only.I AM THAT I AM 's thoughts and views are quite different....
Thank you for responding to my question.Enjoying the journey with God.>peace to you.
Peace back to you :-)
Fine thoughts, well expressed!
Thank you for the compliment Paraglider!
very well put wyanjen, I think that more people should give credit where its due in stead of claiming it was higher power...
Great Hub. This life is all we have - it is not a dress rehearsal. That's why we have to make the best of it - no-one can do it for us. I am not sure of the existence of a god, I just know that we live in a beautifu, fragile world with beautiful, fragile creatures around us who are deserving of our care and respect just because they are here with us.
Love and peace
Tony
@Lee: I wonder if there is a course in med school that teaches new doctors how to be gracious when patients say "thank god" instead of "thank you". It's true that people are not intending to be rude, but if I was a doctor, I'd be saying "Hey! I just busted my butt!".
@tony: Beautiful and fragile - exactly. Well said. Compassion is a human quality, not a divine quality.
Peace all around.
W, its weird, you won't likely hear people say.. "no worry doc, its god's will" if the operation doesn't go well... they would then look for errors the doctor made.
And sue.
I don't know how many times I've heard doctors say, "I wish I could take credit for this, but I only played a small part." Often the patient's frame of mind and emotional state play a giant role in their prognosis. And there are occasions where the docs are completely baffled by an outcome. I have spent my life around doctors and cannot ever remember hearing one begrudge God His due. As for Penn - if he's right I'll sleep alongside him for eternity. If he's wrong..I won't.
I am quite good at what I do too, and sometimes looking back wonder how I got to some outcomes, I have not yet suspected that a deity was at work though. Sometimes when you know what you are doing you go into a "zone" where things seem to happen automatically... everyone who drives a car has had this experience. Just wondering if it happens to doctors too.
Driving in the "zone" freaks me out a little bit. I get where I'm going sometimes, and suddenly say to myself, "Did I stop at that red light?!?" I once sat out a red light a from a block away - I was in a new city, in my defense, looking at a map - but I was a at stop SIGN a block away from the light.
Certainly no intervention there. That was the most embarrassing thing I may have ever done. Luckily, not a single car around. If there had been though, I maybe would not have seen "red" and slipped into holding-pattern mode. HA
@hoipoloi: penn is the loudest atheist I've ever heard. He has so much conviction when he talks. After listening to him, I for the first time was confident enough to come "out" to my Catholic family after years of wondering why I just couldn't fit in with them. I'm so glad I did because they don't judge me any more than I judge them. Finding peace in your beliefs is what matters. We don't press the issue, we find what we have in common.
I've seen a few uncomfortable smiles from doctors in this situation.
Reading a scientific magazine regularly I realized that many scientists are coming back to religion, because they realized that we will progress in our knowledge but we will never know everything just because our mind, our brain has a limited capacity to absorb everything.
That does not mean that there is a god, it simply means that we have to be humble enough to realize that we may be the smartest primates on the earth, but that is it.
Scientist also confirmed that we are able with our conscius mind to improve our health, our life...that means if we really believe in something, it help us to get better. Therefore people need to believe in something just to stay positive and healthy. Gloomy mind brings gloomy life. Ignorance brings fear, more we know less we need to believe in divine, but what will happen when we suddenly realize that we never will be able to know everything about universe...we come back the whole circle, back to divine, back to God.
In spite all of this, I believe just like you in the humanity, in love and connection with other people.
I have just read in a science magazine about the discovery of the eldest ever found skeleton of likely human ancestor. One new scientific theory based on this discovery puts into our attention that one main reason for our evolution is hidden in our social behaviour. Our ancestors abandone a vicious fighting with other males for the attention of females. They opted for the pair-bonding and staying together to rear their offsprings. They helped each other and shared food, first just the couple, then more couples together and then comes our first 'community'.
IT IS JUST A THEORY BUT IT IS SOMETHING YOU AND I BELIEVE - HUMANKIND AND GOODNESS IT CAN /IF DECIDES/ BRING TO THE WORLD.
I think that there is no "one size fits all" when it comes to religion. Too much evil has been blamed on God. And, I have run across way more angry, arguementative Christians than athiests. I liked your "coming out" comment about your Catholic family. It feels that way exactly: that I have to pretend one thing when I'm around family and be myself at home. But, I just don't want to hurt my Christian family...they fear so much for my eternal soul as it is.
Beata: We do share the same idea about the connections we have with each other. My underlying belief is certainly atheism, but this article really leans toward humanism. That's where we are when we are talking about the power of humanity.
If you are curious, click the "What's Your Spiritual Type" quiz from the link on this page. I've taken it myself more than once. It's fascinating.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Carrie: When I told my mother that I do not believe, I was shaking in my shoes. But I was in an unfortunate situation that forced me to speak up. Catechism was so difficult for me and it is the only thing I can remember the two of us fighting about when I was growing up.
After I poured out my soul, she told me that she loved me. Just as simply as that. It was a beautiful moment.
Before I came out (that actually is the correct term LOL) I would bow my head without praying. I would smile politely and I hope respectfully. I still do the same now but only for my family. We can share spirituality without caring what the source is. I am lucky in this sense.
I'm right there with you about not wanting to hurt family. If not for that situation we found ourselves in, we would most likely have never had the conversation. It was not worth the confrontation to me. Do your best to be yourself at all times; it's a very difficult thing to juggle.
Peace
Jen
The idea of interconnectivity with not only other people,but with all organisms is so profoundly beautiful!Its hard to look back on our path as humans without an overwhelming sense of awe.Compassion,Empathy,love,all things that are truly human nature and key to our survival as a species.Its sad to see them chalked up to the invisible hand of someones imaginary friend.Remember the words of the late great Jim Morrison.."No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn"
How true! Credit where credit is due.
It's due to us :-)
What a perfect quote! Thanks for adding it here.
Awesome hub. I had to read this one twice just to get the full effect. Faith is part of being human, even though faith can have a different meaning to different people.
The stuff out there; the stars, galaxies, planets, etc. We are all made of this stuff. And we will one day return to this stuff. And possibly be made again into some other stuff. Yes, reincarnation is real; but just like a box of chocolates, we don't know what we're gonna get :-)
You hit the nail on the head :-)
It's fascinating to think about, isn't it?
Thanks for stopping by fatfist!
Jen
Hey Jen, read another.(lol) I rated this up too.(lol) Thank you for sharing your own insight.
Hi!
I'm glad you stopped over. :-)
Dame Scribe says:
3 months ago
I prefer to just stand aside and let people practice what they feel is right for them as it's not my place to impose upon others. Great thoughts. :)