So it went.

...

Beneath the surface, moisture started pouring into the corpse. First, after a few days of rain, the soil saturated, the wooden box began to warp. And mud and worms and the occasional critter discovered this tasty trove. And they ate of its meaty parts. And the they defecated on the corpse. And soon, what was still left of the corpse was plump and crawling with bacteria. The eyes fell apart and holes opened up throughout the torso exposing the empty cavity where the organs had once lived. Nothing went to waste, some was eaten and what was not simply decayed more and more until it was no longer flesh, or goo, but soil. And this was the story of all pieces of this once-was person, from being to corpse, to goo, to ooze, to soil. The bones took much longer. And trees pushed roots through the cavity to disassemble the skeleton until no recognizable order could be found.

Eventually, nothing was left except fertile soil and compost. And that was that.

"Saved" By Mother Nature

I'm debating whether or not this space and the writing that fills it can be considered "constructive." Whatever the case may be, this evening I turn to it in lieu of certain large papers that are bearing down.

Of late my encounters with Christianity have been many. From the encounter with a friend about an early blog, to an unsuccessful conversion attempt to, to a recent viewing of "Jesus Camp" and culminating this evening with news about killings in a missionary training facility and televangelists on late-night TV. Maybe someone is trying to send me a message?

Perhaps without taste I asked a different friend (whom I knew to detest missionary work) if she had been in Colorado recently. Such is the reality of humor many times. Still it provoked a brief conversation where she asked if anti-religious sentiments might be the motive. While I'm sure that the perpetrators of this crime in Colorado will be accused as hating god and religion and once again sully the name of atheists, the irony of the situation is that those who are "against" religion are not the ones that have tendency towards violence. Some might call us peace-nicks. Indeed, still another friend (for isn't through others and the world around us that we truly perceive and realize ourselves?) jokes at my being walked over or avoiding conflict due to my pacifist ideologies. Why is it that without god the world suddenly becomes a much more reasonable, happy and peaceful place? It must be that pesky devil seducing my mind with such temptations.

Religions are interesting in that they tend to accuse sects within their cosmologies more of being, say, not Christian, than they do competing religions. This comes to light in Christianity the most, although I know Muslims are won't to criticize Suni or Shia Islam. The evangelical movement in the United States is an interesting case, then, for they say that they are saved and that other forms of Christianity, say Catholicism, got it wrong. The reverse is true when "true" Christians condemn the often militaristic message and practices of extreme evangelicals. Still other Christians might speak out against all church organization period, claiming that finding Jesus can only happen on an individual message (yet they still try and tell others to find Jesus in the same way). With all this bickering within the Christian faith, what are we to make? It is not necessary for me to add other religions like Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism into the mix to further complicate the message of true salvation that all sects of Christianity offer for one or another.

I am glad, then, to have been "saved" by Mother Earth, Darwin, Marx, Vonnegut, Einstein (and the like); indeed saved by my own logic and critical nature. For atheists have an opportunity to experience such religious bickering from a different perspective. What I see is that many many different, often irreconcilable, cosmologies are stubbornly preaching that it is their way and their alone that will offer the individual salvation and make one's life complete. Individuals within each cosmology, then, feel the right and NEED to say that others are incorrect and (drawing of my own experience) imply that their lives are forfeit (pointless?) and that they are too arrogant to accept the "truth." Who has the right to make such statements? Not I, not the Christian faith, not anyone. Truth is not an absolute concept, it is individual, fluid and dynamic. Nothing incites more disrespect within me than when someone has the nerve to tell me that my way is wrong, their's is right and that I need to see that or accept my fate as a hopeless soul. My ideology is not for other's to judge just as other's are not mine to judge. Clearly I have opinions of Christianity and am not afraid to point out discontinuities, but have I said explicitly in this blog that Christianity is wrong? That Christians are denying the Secular Humanist truth? That they are too proud to humble themselves to reality? No, because no one, be they a deity incarnate or not, has the place, experience or cognitive ability to say that one way is right and the other wrong.

Is it an atheist who likely killed those missionaries in Colorado? Is it someone like me, who by seeing beyond god, allows (indeed, humbles) his mind to the fact that it is not all-knowing? Was it someone who respects not only all human life, but all forms of human thinking (without feeling high and mighty enough to PITY the helpless ignoramus)? No. Likely this perpetrator has put faith in some sort of concrete ideology that offers no questioning, only comfort in not asking questions, a false certainty. Is this perpetrator likely to be Christian? I don't believe so. Muslim? Even less likely than Christian. This was probably purely random. Perhaps for that reason it has little connect to this rant.

I am an atheist. I have concluded, through what I conceive to be logical thought, that the physical realm that we inhabit is the only one we can fully experience during our cognitive biological life. When we die, our organic remains are recycled by nature and we travel into the same nothingness that we spawned from. There is an equilibrium of energy in the universe and always has been. Seeing that this life is all that we have, we might as well make the most of it, without shrugging off the problems and turmoils as tools of the devil and illusory. I'm not perfect. I'm not saved, I'm not loved. I'm responsible, to myself and to humanity. All who wish to prove me wrong and tell me that I am blind to the "real" truth. To all those people: Kiss My Heretical Demonic Ass!

Beauty in Truths

A friend and I discussed how he was frustrated by the fact that so many find solace in Vonnegut, but that Vonnegut offers a recapitulation of the words of Jesus Christ, and that recognizing and accepting Jesus offers more than does recognizing Vonnegut. His argument presupposes a belief in a god however, implied when he added that Jesus offered so much more; the "more" being miracles and a path to God. When I asked about how he would explain atheism he answered that it was essentially pride, that atheists are too proud to humble themselves to God and follow him. Again, this explanation reaffirms his own belief and really doesn't quite reach what I was trying to get at.

To rephrase, how do you explain different and opposing realities or truths? We're not so different he and I, we're both not fans of religion, both heed a call for basic good, both liberals (however one wishes to construe such an identity), both having found our place in the world. How then does he reconcile that I don't believe in a god? (Without saying that I am wrong.) Essentially, we both came to the same place, a place where we reflected on our life and the world and what we were taught. We then each chose two completely separate truths. Here's where I am: My truth accepts all truths, I see millions upon millions of different truths, each equally as valid as the next. Who am I to say one's truth is false, or that it really fits into other truths? This is not say that there are no truths. My truth recognizes the fact that there is no one single answer, each person's answer to life is unique to them, even if it falls under the realm of Christianity, Islam, Humanism, Atheism. I know that my answer isn't everyone's answer, but, as everyone does, I think that my answer is the most logical.

So, to make my point in a different way I ask myself the same question. How do I explain theism? Belief in God is an individual's reckoning of the world they live in, the things they've been taught and an inward search. They find that there is a higher power that has put us here, that we have fallen out with it, but that we are striving to reach again in an eternity. How do I explain atheism? Atheism is an individuals reckoning of the world they live in, the things they've been taught and inward searching. They find that science explains the world in predictable ways and that the world can only be reasonably understood by what can be observed. How do I explain Humanism? Humanism is an individual's reckoning of the world they live in, the things they've been taught and inward reflection. They find that, despite all the seemingly endless and irreconcilable contradictions, that all people on this planet share the human condition; respect of the human condition as it exists in the material world frames how they act. By reconciling different beliefs and ideas in their own terms, instead of my own, I create a world view that accepts multiple real truths all creations of individuals in unique time and space. This doesn't make my ideas or anyone else's more or less valid, but simply recognizes them as they are. (I cannot possibly get inside my friend's head, nor he in mine, and because of this neither of us can alter the other's truth.)

I don't think that Jesus or Vonnegut are the ultimate truths, that one or the other is better to find solace in, both only share their message on their own terms. Jesus believed in God the Father (a reflection of his own personal experience as being the son of God), Vonnegut was cynical of religion and the wars that he perceived to go along with it (a reflection of his horrifying experience in World War II). I identify more with Vonnegut then because we share the same cynicism. However, I reckon a truth on my own terms, that while influenced by Vonnegut, certainly does not take an identical form.

I think that recognizing other truths and beliefs is not so much a specific path that runs in opposition to other paths. It's not an absolute ideology, but rather more of a courtesy within or complement to an existing ideology. I think that by doing this we can find beauty in our own truths as well as others'. I hope that he, my friend, need not be frustrated with Vonnegut, and that this frustration, no matter how profound, would keep him from reading his words. Indeed, some things are easy to learn, some things are fun, others force us to continually be critical and thoughtful and are terribly frustrating and difficult; even exhausting. Nevertheless we should never deny ourselves knowledge and experience, for this is the only way we can know better who we are.