And what we had imagined we believed.

It was always a goal of mine to write here just what it is that I believe. To commit it to the cloud and be done with it. When you think about it, it's a very vague question to answer - "what do you believe?" - I mean, there is so much I believe about so many different things! But everyone knows what that question is asking, so lets get to the point: when you boil life and existence down to their fundamentals what do you believe is left? What of God and all that?
It might be easier to begin with what I do not believe.

I suppose I was always a bit of a "doubting Thomas", and I think that one of the first things that brought doubt into my mind was the nagging suspicion that I only believed what I did because that is what I was brought up to believe. Christians, the evangelical kind especially, are adamant that their religion is the only true religion and all others are misguided and false. But isn't that confidence shared by people in most all religions? How can I be so sure about my own? From that doubt others grew until I found that I simply could no longer believe, and all the threats of hell and eternal damnation could not persuade me. Who could come to hold a genuine belief simply out of fear? Pascal's Wager is for that reason one of the most desperate and futile attempts to inspire belief that anyone has ever come up with.

But lets take a look at Pascal's God. This is a god who never changes, so I assume he would not regret this command to Saul: "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." Can you feel the love tonight? But that is only the tip of the iceberg. This is the same god who created everything, including us, and takes so much delight in his creation that he turns people away from the gates of heaven, damning them to endure eternal torment for the crime of not believing in him. Some little old lady might die today, who through all her struggles lived a life of kindness and compassion towards others, but because her voice was not included in the chorus of those praising God she will suffer for all eternity. Some Christians recognize the viciousness of this hell and wonder if in fact it is not just an eternal "separation" from God. Maybe the punishment is just that you die and are no more. I appreciate the attempt to soften the edges, but the fact still remains that here we have a god who punishes and rewards people based fundamentally upon their belief and love for him. Insecurity and megalomania are not becoming of a wise and benevolent god if you ask me. 

No, I can't and won't believe in such a thing. To me the idea of it being true is much closer to a nightmare than a pleasant dream. It makes all that has been endured on this planet a mere test; here we have that god Albert Camus mentioned, who has "come into this world with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering."

This is all pretty harsh I know, and I'm willing to give people the benefit of a doubt that Pascal's God is not their own, that they have rationalized out a much different "personal god". But, for me, once my belief was lost I could not recreate it in my own image, so to speak. Once that pillar fell the whole structure collapsed - I was not convinced that any gods existed, and I still have not been convinced. Of course, I understand that there is something intensely mysterious about the universe, and to think on it is enough to scramble the mind, but just because I acknowledge the mystery does not mean that I have any desire to invite a deity in to solve it. I'm willing to admit that there are some things I do not and will never know about the origin of everything. Because I hold no beliefs in gods but am also not willing to say that I know absolutely for certain that there are no such beings, I consider myself an agnostic atheist.

On a side note, I find the concepts of heaven and hell very interesting in themselves. I actually like heaven, because to me it represents human hopes and the longing to be at peace. It is a moving, if somewhat sad, testament to the best desires we have; to be with friends and family, to live in security, without pain and war. Hell on the other hand represents something just as human but far less agreeable: the desire for vengeance and total justice. The universe just doesn't seem proper if Hitler isn't out there somewhere writhing in agony. But hell isn't just reserved for people like him. When I was a young Christian confronted by someone like, say, Christopher Hitchens, there was a part of me that thought, almost with malicious glee, "you'll see! Someday you'll believe, but it will be too late". Hell represents something ugly in us. 

Now, what I do believe.

Here on Earth I am - we all are - a part of a 3 billion year old story of life. Having all descended from one common ancestor - humans, ants, fish, maple trees, everything - we are all related. Perhaps my relation to a tree is distant, but I can still easily recognize our similarities: we take in nutrition, we grow, we live. If spirituality is the belief in something bigger than oneself, as I sometimes take it to be, than life is that belief for me. I am not above the animals, destined for a special utopia set apart for humans only, I am with the animals, heading for the same fate as any one of them. All non-human life amounts to more than just window-dressing, or some inconsequential thing happening in the background as humans live out their divine purpose. 

                                                                 Can you find the Homo sapiens?

Here, all the millions of varied and diverse lifeforms constitute a thin and delicate film over the surface of a large rocky planet. This planet did not come into existence fully formed but coalesced under the force of gravity from gas and dust in a nebula that long predates our own star, the Sun. The Sun itself was formed by the material in this nebula, which itself may have been the remnants of a much larger star that went supernova. 

I say "may have been", because there is another origin, other than supernovae, for the material that forms a nebula; that is, the very early stages of the formation of the universe. 

It has been said that we are stardust, because most of the elements that comprise ourselves, and everything we see around us, were fused in the center of a star, and then flung out into the universe in all directions when that star went supernova. 

So, not only am I related to every single living thing that ever existed, I am made of elements that are many billions of years old, and those elements are made of atoms that are nearly as old as the universe itself! We are all just as much a part of the universe as a galaxy or a star or a nebula, and if I may be excused for getting all new age here, it is all one.  Everything is the product of the laws of nature, and in this way I have much more affinity towards Spinoza's God than any god who directs it all from the outside. 

But lets come back down now. Down from exploding stars and ravenous black holes, through unimaginably large expanses of inhospitable cold space, through dense clouds of hydrogen and cosmic dust, back down to this lonely blue planet on the fringe of our galaxy - one galaxy among hundreds of billions. In the face of all this we are supposed to feel insignificant and alone, but if there's anything that all of this emphasizes it is that we are not alone. We are surrounded by life, and more than that we are surrounded by other people, all like us in so many ways - but not exactly like us. Everyone has their differences, and unfortunately us humans have historically been quick to lay upon those differences with vehemence and scorn. Almost exactly a year ago I posted a tribute video to Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot, and in it Sagan does a perfect job of showing the absurdity of our infighting. Back in 1990, when the Voyager I spacecraft was 6 billion kilometers from Earth, Carl Sagan requested that the probe be turned toward our planet and a picture taken. This is what they saw:

That image inspired the following thoughts from Sagan:

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” 

For me this view of the world can easily be the foundation of a perfectly good and reasonable system of morality. This isn't the playground of some jealous and insecure god, and this isn't a test. If the atmosphere were to blow away tomorrow that would be the end for us, and there would be people who die having never lifted themselves from the mire and absurdity of their racism or other unreasonable hatreds. 

I consider myself a humanist because I understand something, if only a small part, of the struggles of living in these conscious bodies. I understand that we need comfort and hope, and that not everyone wants to dispense with beliefs in heaven and God. There is no desire in me to be the one responsible for someone losing their faith in these things because I am not certain how each individual would handle such a loss. But I also know that I feel a much deeper sense of awe and wonder now than I ever did as a 'believer'; to be a part of this long and still unraveling story, and to be one of those lucky enough to be able to contemplate it seems to me a great privilege, and I would urge anyone religious or not to look into this story - there are no words to aptly describe it. Also, think twice about these frankly evil ideologies of hell and eternal punishment, I do not think they come from a good place. 

Anyway, that is pretty much the bare bones of what I believe. 

By the way, a video for those interested in evolution. A pretty good 7 part documentary produced by the BBC. Part 1 is mostly a made for TV movie based on Darwin's "dangerous idea", but it is good. Better, I think, than any of the movies made for the big screen. I agree with those who say that of all the discoveries ever made in the field of science that species evolve over millions of years is the most profound and influential. Most other discoveries have led to further conveniences and technological progress, but the Theory of evolution makes us look deep within ourselves, makes us contemplate and understand our very origins, which to me is just amazing.