Some of the Struggles of Being an Atheist

“Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful. Hence one must choose a master, God being out of style.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“In order to overcome his sense of inner emptiness and impotence, [man]...chooses an object onto whom he projects all his own human qualities: his love, intelligence, courage, etc. By submitting to this object, he feels in touch with his own qualities; he feels strong, wise, courageous and secure. To lose the object means the danger of losing himself.” Erich Fromm

Fear of Life: “...the fear of the reality of the intense focalization of natural wonder and power; the fear of being overwhelmed by the truth of the universe as it exists,..” Ernest Becker

Crusty Old Religion Guy

Let's just get this part out of the way: regardless of beliefs, there is a difference between being religious, believing in a God and being spiritual and they can all be mutually exclusive (as far as I'm concerned, you don't have to agree, but then, this is my post).

Myself Defined: ex-Catholic, non-religious, spiritual, agnostic at best.

Raising children: I was raised Catholic, my wife, Baptist. Neither of us wanted to raise the kids as either of those. So, we converted to Presbyterian (figuring that was safer).

Long story short: We've moved around different churches, partly because I just can't stand ANY church--don't like them, hate going. But also, to find something the kids would at least like.

Caveat: Just so everyone knows, there is evidence that supports a genetic propensity to be adverse to organized religion...my father was, I am, and I think my son is (my daughter is my step-daughter so there's no biological factor involved for her--from me at least).

My "other' problem: Aside from my distaste from attending, I also can't seem to escape my "catholic-ism"--Any other church just doesn't feel like church if is isn't done the same was as I'm used to--so much for being liberal and why I'm ultimately a crusty old religious guy in this area.

Current situation: We are in the freakin' heart of the bible belt--TX--baptist churches as large as compounds and one on every corner just like donut shops. Then there are the "other" types of churches that claim to be non-baptist, they call them fellowships or non-denomination churches but they all seem to take their cues from the baptist way of doing things (like full body dunking of baptism)...

Baptists and my crustiness: If you have never attended a real baptist sermon, well, and please forgive me, those who do attend, but remember I was raised catholic so, what can I say, but a baptist sermon is like a Vegas show to me, run by P T Barnum type ministers and boy do they know how to "close" the deal, just like a real sales person--they try to get you to commit to what you just heard and pledge to the church.

Current, current situation: So, now we attend this "fellowship" type church that has it's central location in one town where the minister is, but then has satellite churches in other towns and states. So, when you enter the "church" you sit in front of a screen and watch the pumped in sermon. Also, before it goes live, you get a live full band playing christian rock and all the attendees are dressed, for the most part in jeans.

This to me is NOT church (and isn't it odd that most, not all, but most attendees are of the younger set?) I suppose if I were 18 I'd have preferred this one, with their young hip ministers singing rock songs and wearing jeans and nose rings etc...but having been brought up catholic, I just can't escape the fact that it doesn't "feel" like church. (I do the same thing for any other church as well, when it comes to communion--you don't take it unless you've been to confession and to church the week before, so I can say I haven't taken communion since I stopped attending catholic churches.)

So, here I am, still attending, hating every moment of it, out of (catholic) guilt because I'm supposed to "for" the kids. But guess what, my father never attended and we were only holiday catholics. And despite my beliefs, I'm not an evil person.

And frankly, the fact is, it doesn't matter to the kids if the parents attend or not, whether you believe this or not, the facts don't support it...it really comes down to what their peers do....that has more affect on them than we parents.

Flavors of Existentialism

According to Wikipedia:

Atheistic

Atheistic existentialism is the form of existentialism most commonly encountered in today's society. What sets it apart from theistic existentialism is that it rejects the notion of a god and his transcendent will that should in some way dictate how we should live. It rejects the notion that there is any "created" meaning of life and the world, and that a leap of faith is required of man in order for him to live an authentic life. In this kind of existentialism, belief in a god is often considered a form of Bad Faith.

In this kind of existentialism, the way to face the absurdity of the world is to create a meaning for yourself. This creation of meaning ex nihilo doesn't degrade your meaning as such, as all meaning would be created meaning. In other words, creating a meaning of your own life is completely legitimate, as long as you do not base it in "objective" existence, or let it be the main "pillar" of your life. According to Kierkegaard, one would be in a perpetual state of despair (although it would be an unrealised despair that one would flee from whenever it showed itself) if one had some meaning (It doesn't necessarily have to be one single meaning; even a multitude of meanings is fragile) as the main pillar of one's life.

Two leading 20th century figures among atheist existentialists were Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

[edit]Theistic

Theistic existentialism is, for the most part, Christian in its outlook, because the way traced by Kierkegaard, Gabriel Marcel, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich and others is even nowadays quite strong. But there have been existentialists of other theological persuasions, like Islam (see Transcendent theosophy) and Judaism. Unlike atheistic existentialists, they posit the existence of God, and that God is the source of our being. It is generally held that God has designed the world in such a way that we must define our own lives, and each individual is held accountable for his own self-definition.

I think it fair to add Agnostic Existentialism here...for those who, well, are agnostic and not sure one way or the other

Idolatry: Part 2

Two things made me think to add this addition to the subject matter. First, at work, an avid AZ fan had gone to the Super Bowl. His explanation of how he felt when his team lost mirrors this line from Jack Lemmon in one of his movies, "I want to be in love with something."

The AZ fan lived a serious part of his life through his football team. The character Jack Lemmon played wanted the exact same thing--something; a pet, a team, a person, a thing to live a serious part of his life through. It's the same thing you see on American Idol for those who do not make it--they feel their lives are over.

I wonder to what degree this is a natural part of our life. After all, we've all experienced the ups or downs (the pulling of our heart strings, as it were) when something we like fails or succeeds. Or is this filling a gap in our modern world?

Ernest Becker, in his book, Denial of Death, reviews this exact subject matter. He covers art, passion for another person, religion all as ways of handling the fact that we know we are going to die and that we don't want to think about it. We want to deny our mortality. An interesting question here is, how does this tie into Julian Jaynes' theory of the origin of consciousness? Did we "know" we were going to die before consciousness "came about"?

I'm not going too deep here, the books are out there for further exploration if one chooses. So, let's tie this all back to the original point. I believe that a fully mature, mentally healthy adult realizes and lives his life knowing life comes from within, not from without (I am not, unfortunately, one of these individuals, nor do I know very many--perhaps one or two in my lifetime). While I may enjoy watching my team win, the win shouldn't feed something missing in my life, after all, I, me didn't DO anything. I achieved nothing. It was an outside entity that achieved that win. Conversely, I shouldn't feel bad inside that my team lost because I didnt' lose anything.

The same is true of "wanting to love something"--we should love ourselves (not narcissism here). We shouldn't need something or someone to fill us up.

As for love, Erich Fromm's book is a good source for those interested in exploring further. Here's a great quote from from that is appropriate:

There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives to his life by the unfolding of his powers.

Why We're Here or...Idolatry

Was reading an interview with prog-rock musician Neal Morse and he said something that made me stop a moment because I think he's come to the wrong conclusion for the wrong reasons.

He said,
"One is that God made us to worship. He created us to worship him but since we in large in part don’t worship him then we have to worship something, because we’re made to worship [laughing]. So we find people and stuff that we can see, and in a way it makes sense. You find somebody that you can see whether its a musician or a movie star. It can be good things that we idolize, or a pretty girl that sings well like Britney Spears...The problem is we were made for that and idolatry kills you know? It’s bad for the people that do it and it’s bad for the people that are idolized too. It’s just not how God made us so we suffer."

I don't think we were made to worship. I, for one, would not wish to have anything to do with a "god" who made me to worship him/her. That need is an inherent weakness and thus, "god" cannot be perfect as we are always told, at least in the Christian faith.

What I think is that people get caught up in all the mess Neal mentions because as a species Man is basically class oriented. We, like other simians, live in a hierarchy. From early on, Man's societies have always had a ruling class, be it religious, political or militaristic in nature. In our society, people want prestige and prominence, they want to feel special, above others...in one way or another...this explains why American Idol is such a huge hit.

We idolize what we want to be...thus, if we idolize a movie star it's because we want to be like that movie star and thus if we idolize a "god" it also is because we want to be like that "god".