We interrupt the series Can You Hear Me Now? to bring you even more combinations of 26 letters and 10 punctuation marks.
I’ve begun receiving more than the usual number of questions about my “path” vis-a-vis religious questions — which as it happens is the topic of my chapter in the newly-released 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists. So I’ve decided to post the chapter here.
First of all, a note about the cover of the book, which I mentioned in passing a few weeks ago. I asked the co-editor Russell Blackford what the thinking was behind the snuffed black candle in darkness, which I thought might play into the idea of atheism as the death of hope.
No, he said:
It is supposed to represent the light of reason kind of snuffed out, and surrounded by the darkness of superstition. When you open the book, there’s a reference to this in the introduction, but then each essay has a lit candle near the top of its first page, next to its author’s name, as if the various authors are relighting the candle of reason.
Lovely. A bit subtle for the average cover-skimmer (c’est moi!), but there it is.
I just received my copy in the mail last week, so I’ve only just moved beyond cover-skimming to page-riffling, but it looks like a good read. Russell and Udo’s idea was to gather personal stories from prominent nonbelievers (and me) about why we believe as we do. Surprisingly, this was something of a gap in the literature, and I’m happy to be a part of filling that gap.
My contribution is too long for a regular post, so instead it’s a link in the sidebar, and will remain so. Might be a good thing, since I manage in the course of the essay to answer most of the common questions I get about my own background. Now, instead of stringing together letters and punctuation over and over, I can point and grunt.
Read “The Unconditional Love of Reality” by Dale McGowan,
from 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists
I read the cover as meaning that atheists believe in the snuffing out of all joy and mystery in life… or something equally melodramatic. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to expect people to guess that the cover is what the atheists of the title DON’T want.
Nonetheless, look forward to reading your contribution!
Comment: karenlgould – 02. November 2009 @ 9:39 pm
It’s beautiful, Dale. My details are different than yours, of course, but much of what you wrote is exactly what I would say if I were as eloquent as you are.
Comment: codysmom – 02. November 2009 @ 10:47 pm
Dale, I’m curious to know more about your fear of death. I’ve been tentatively exploring the agnostic/atheist point of view after 10 years as a skeptical christian. What you and other freethinkers have written just makes so much sense, which has encouraged and emboldened me to learn more and to think critically about faith.
Out of nowhere recently, the realization hit me all of a sudden that when I die, I will cease to be. Well frankly, that really freaked me out, on the level of a panic attack. For the past few days it’s been all I can do to keep imagining the last moments of my life, and then after that… What?
I get the fact that I had a beginning. But for some reason it just seems so wrong that I’d have an end too.
Anyway, would you mind sharing how you think about death, and what sources of consolation keep you from going crazy about the implications?
Comment: kj84 – 03. November 2009 @ 3:01 am
A beautiful and eloquent essay, Dale (to be expected, of course!)… well done and congratulations.
I was pleased as punch to see Prof Schüklenk’s name on the cover… he spent quite a few years at Wits University in Johannesburg and is well-known in South African philosophy/ethics circles.
Comment: Theo – 03. November 2009 @ 8:03 am
@kj84: It’s the hardest thing about being a conscious thing. I do go crazy about the implications. And then I recover, and find mortality quite acceptable and even lovely. Then I land in the middle for awhile, then start over. It’s a lifelong process, and even though I’ve made tremendous intellectual progress, I doubt very much that I will ever be simply okay emotionally with mortality. (Evolution has in fact seen to that.)
But there are several ideas that have helped me immensely. The main one is that I will return to my condition before birth — which didn’t bother me one bit at the time (Twain, I think). Another is serious meditation on the sheer odds against me ever coming to be in the first place, which makes me realize that fussing about it not lasting forever is a bit piggy. These are not complete solutions, of course. There are none.
Two post series that might be worth a look:
The Long Habit (Three parts starting here)
Where All Roads Lead (two parts starting here)
Comment: Dale – 03. November 2009 @ 9:43 am
Having kids helps me with mortality reality. I realized this with visceral rather than mere intellectual force, when my own parents died around the same time the kids were being born.
I now can think of myself as a way the meaning of their lives is “living on” and in the same way, as I infuse all that into their descendants they didn’t live to see or know or teach, it comforts me to realize my children will someday be part of me living on, keeping the flame of “me” alive in my grandchildren. Ramen.
Comment: JJ Ross – 03. November 2009 @ 10:27 am
@kj84: As a nonbeliever who was raised without religion, the promise of an afterlife was never an option–so I honestly have no idea what it’s like to grapple with the loss of that comforting idea. However, I feel very at peace with my own mortality, and actually attribute this sense of calm to my atheism.
Like Dale, I am floored and humbled by the awesomeness of the natural universe. For some people (like my atheist husband, who has recently begun suffering from a bout of mortality-induced panic attacks), the cosmic insignificance of human beings is upsetting or terrifying. For me, though, our speck-ishness is utterly comforting and calming.
For one thing, I take comfort in knowing that people are not the center of the universe–that the world wasn’t created for us, that we don’t have some special cosmic purpose, that we’re not the final product of evolution, that God doesn’t have certain (unrealistic) expectations of us, etc. That realization really takes some of the pressure off, don’t you think?
I revel in the thought that after I’m dead and gone–hell, after all of humanity is dead and gone–the world will keep spinning, plants will keep growing, animals will keep being born (and dying)…That I am but one little dot in the long, long line of history, and that history will keep marching on after my teeny, tiny, itty-bitty section is over–that is utterly reassuring (and, actually, pretty awesome) to me.
In other words, the world won’t end just because my single consciousness ceases to exist. It’s okay for me to die because life will go on–which is the point of life, I think.
This is not to say that other people’s mortality doesn’t freak me out (because it does). I am terrified of my family and friends dying–because I actually have to deal with that (i.e., think about it, be conscious of it during/after it happens). My own death will be easy–as Dale said, I’ll just be returning to my state before birth, where I won’t have to think about it anymore.
I don’t know if my way of thinking is any help to you. My husband certainly doesn’t understand it (or most of the ways I think about people and culture, for that matter), and is searching out his own way of coming to terms with death.
Regardless, I hope you continue to think about it, and don’t give into the impulse to shove it under the bed so it doesn’t bother you anymore. Because, really, that’s a very temporary solution to a very permanent problem…
Comment: smarah – 03. November 2009 @ 10:55 am
Thanks Dale! As usual, you have brilliantly expressed what I suspect we all wish to say about why we have become Atheists. Truth being the most important part of any questions of faith or religion – if its not true, no matter how beautiful the ideal, if its not true, its not worth the “belief”. This was the argument that finally won me over to being “receptive to de-conversion”.
Oh, and got the book on order! Can’t wait to read it!
Comment: NyssaBurks – 03. November 2009 @ 1:21 pm
Dale, RE: Death and Dying
Have you considered cryogenics? According to some people who have thought on it, it’s not even close.
Comment: Chuck – 03. November 2009 @ 1:40 pm
@smarah – that was awesome. Literally.
Comment: JJ Ross – 03. November 2009 @ 3:22 pm
Naw. Don’t quite have the required ego for that. I’m committed to the logic and ultimately the beauty of returning to the insensate universe. My plan is to devote my maturity to accepting the natural order, not subverting it, which would only keep me underfoot, putting a worrisome strain on the dwindling world supply of red curry beef.
Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. — Susan Ertz, dead person
Comment: Dale – 03. November 2009 @ 3:50 pm
What does ego have to do with it?
Comment: Chuck – 03. November 2009 @ 4:28 pm
@Chuck: Speaking only for myself, I can’t imagine a grander gesture of self-regard than freezing my personal head (or whatever) at great expense so that I might live another day to consume even more resources, lengthen even more grocery lines, and burn even more carbon while others who lacked the cash or opportunity return to the soil. I’m a nice enough gent, but I just don’t see that I merit that kind of special dispensation.
Comment: Dale – 03. November 2009 @ 4:51 pm
First, this morning there is a very lovely essay about how to consider life – and death, in particular – in the New York Times.
Here’s a link:
http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/happy-ending/?ref=opinion
As both Dale and the above essay have eloquently described, our own “ceasing to be” isn’t an easy matter to contemplate. But some measure of comprehension of the fact is vital to LIFE. Though macabre to us Westerners, I’ve long thought Buddhists monks are on to something when they go to visit decomposing corpses as a means of appreciating the temporary nature of self-hood and the changing nature of all things.
Finally, great essay, Dale! So many parallels for me, and for many of us, I’m sure.
Comment: Brad – 04. November 2009 @ 7:52 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Global Atheist, Dale McGowan. Dale McGowan said: New post @ Meming of Life: 50 Voices of Disbelief http://bit.ly/4ke5GT [...]
Pingback: Tweets that mention The Meming of Life » 50 Voices of Disbelief Parenting Beyond Belief on secular parenting and other natural wonders -- Topsy.com – 04. November 2009 @ 8:27 am
Thanks for the comments and links all. It helps to know that others share the same fears of death. As I’ve been thinking about it some more, I think a big part of it are the things in my imagination that I won’t get to see realized. I’m not talking about the the realm of fantasy or science fiction, but instead the things in the future that I hope for that could happen after I die.
When I was in college, and still a zealous christian fundamentalist, I made a conscious decision to forsake my career path in architecture to become a missionary and save souls. It was explained to me (and I whole-heartedly believed) that in light of the fact that people are dying and going to hell every day, why would I do something as selfish as architecture? I mean “it was all going to burn” one day anyway.
Now a decade later I’m finally returning to my love of design and going back to grad school. It sounds crazy to me that I actually bought all of that stuff back then, but then again the fundamentalism synced up nicely with my idealist 20-something self.
Comment: kj84 – 04. November 2009 @ 2:42 pm
@kj84 I’m sorry that you had that experience of giving up your dream. Glad your back on track. Be assured, good design CAN change the world profoundly. Check out the efforts of Project H. (https://xd.adobe.com/#/featured/video/393)
I’m an artist, former born-again Christian too. Recently learning to experience transcendence in the effort of art itself. Inspiration can be found documentary about sculpture/nature artist Andy Goldsworthy called “Rivers and Tides”.
Comment: amrezen – 04. November 2009 @ 5:23 pm
@kj84: Wow, it’s crazy how many of your sentiments sound exactly like things my husband has said! He, too, has expressed a sadness that he won’t live to see what happens in the future, and has also said things to the effect of, “What’s the point of X when we’re all just going to die anyway?”
Other than the very real biological drive for self-preservation (which Dale has discussed), I feel like there is also an element of selfishness/ego involved in an overwhelming fear of death (kind of like what Dale was saying above about cryogenics): “I [emphasis on the "I"] don’t want to die; I [emphasis again] want to see what happens in the future.” Which is totally understandable, since, you know, you’re YOU; your own consciousness/existence is the only one you’ve ever known, so that’s the existence with which you’re first and foremost concerned. Makes perfect sense.
However, I think this I-ness also reveals some good ol’ fashioned, red-blooded American obsession with the individual. (Not to say that being overly afraid of death is a specifically American thing necessarily–maybe more of a western thing? I wonder how things like this play out in cultures where the group is emphasized over the individual? …Just some armchair theorizing.) Yet again, echoing what Dale said re cryogenics: “I am special; I am great; I don’t deserve to die; I deserve to see the future and keep being special and great in the future!” Or something along those lines (and not trying to pick on you, kj84).
All this rambling is (at least tangentially) related to my earlier comment: Perhaps the reason why my husband and I have such drastically different ways of thinking about death is that he’s very focused on the individual (i.e., himself) while I’m more focused on my place in the grander scheme. My husband focuses on something like, “The world [or the future or what have you] will end when I die because I [emphasized I] will not be there to experience it,” whereas I focus on “The world won’t end just because my single consciousness ceases to exist.” And, really, the whole world ending is pretty scary, don’t you think?
Ugh. Didn’t mean for this to sound like I’m such a fabulous, enlightened person who never thinks of myself or something…Because, really, I can be pretty darn selfish. My husband and I were talking about all this yesterday, so just thought I would share some of our conversation…
By the way, Dale: I sent my husband to the posts you suggested to kj84 and he found them very helpful. So, as always, thanks.
@JJ Ross: Thanks!
Comment: smarah – 04. November 2009 @ 7:23 pm