Been A While

Been a while, hasn’t it? There I was, all rip-roarin’ to go. Had a few posts under my belt, was eagerly reading every blog I could and posting comments where I dared. Then suddenly: nothing. Poof. Vanished, like smoke in the wind. I turned invisible, yes, but like the God I once believed in I promised that I was still hiding somewhere in the background, waiting for the proper moment to emerge.

And the moment is now! Ha ha! Well, now-ish I guess. I can’t guarantee that any more posts will be forthcoming, but at least I’m making an effort. Not that I’ve yet developed any readership, really. A scattered few at best. Still, I press on, for after all, this blog is as much my outlet as it is for others to read.

I recall that the last time I wrote was in mid-December. It’s now almost June, which means it’s getting on toward six months. What’ve I been up to? Working. Getting my life together. In the post-college slump that I find myself in, I’ve needed to devote a lot of time to pressing matters of economic and romantic importance (which is to say, getting a job and finding a girl). Alas, I am but one man, and something had to go to make room for these other issues.

But I haven’t forgotten about atheism and what it means to me. The liberation I’ve felt in the year since I became an atheist still astounds me. No more time wasted with prayers when I could be doing something more productive. No more fear of punishment for believing the wrong thing or failing to adhere to some obscure, unknown tenet. No more guilt over trivial “sins”. Along these lines, I’ve admittedly had someone throw the “you’re pretending there isn’t a God so you can do evil things and not be punished” argument in my face. Uh, no. I don’t need your God’s rules and laws to guide me—which, I might add, are really just projections of your own ideas about what’s right and wrong—and, in fact, I never really did. Even when I was a believer, I still generally did what I felt was right, which in a few cases conflicted with what I’d been told by the Church.

I’ve had some discussions with believer friends over matters of faith and I must say I’ve held my own pretty well. Those hours spent poring over articles and blog posts were not wasted. After coming out as an atheist, I thought I’d be under assault from all sides, but surprisingly that wasn’t the case. Most people either didn’t notice, didn’t care, or were too afraid to bring it up. Regardless, only one friend actually rang me up and gave me the third degree about it. That was an interesting evening. I think we’ve reached a bit of a standoff: she thinks I had a bad experience in college and I’ll come back to the faith in five or ten years, and I think she’s so desperate to believe in some kind of higher power that she’ll redefine “God” to slip and squeeze out of any logical sleeper hold I might wrassle him into. And that’s fine. Whatever she wants to do.

This entry has been a bit… rambling. Apologies. Guess I’ve just got a lot on my mind, and no focus whatsoever. I won’t swear that another entry is on the horizon… but I think my non-faith will become a matter of greater interest to me in the near future, and perhaps that will motivate me to write more. We’ll see.

RE: Dominion

Well, it has been a while since I posted anything in here, hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I’ve been busy with the holidays. You know how it is. I hope to have some posts about Christmas to throw at you soon, but in the meantime, I want to give you something to hold you over. So how about this: A comment on one of my old entries, and my reply! The thrills never end. Let’s get to it!

Original Post

Robert Walker said...

You are correct, in a way. We do indeed have dominion over all the earth. And, we may at times want to control all of it. But what should separate us from "beastly protocol" is a central value system. Hence, the rest of the bible. I'm sure if man "ruled" his "dominion" as God stated within Genesis, we would be fine. But we have strayed from that "value system" via independant "higher thinking" most of which end in "isms" (Socialism, Atheism, Denialism, etc).. Once we started "managing" the earth, as God intended, out of our own "wisdom" instead of by HIS value system, things did indeed begin to "go to hell in a handbasket." So I do indeed agree with yo my friend..

December 1, 2009 6:52 AM

My reply:

@Robert Walker: Thanks for your comment. A few questions for you, if I may?

"But what should separate us from "beastly protocol" is a central value system. Hence, the rest of the bible."

Right off the bat, I want to know: Why the Bible over, say, the Koran? I know you'll probably tell me it's because the Bible is true and other books aren't, but I have no reason to agree with you unless you provide some evidence.

"I'm sure if man "ruled" his "dominion" as God stated within Genesis, we would be fine. But we have strayed from that "value system"..."

Excessive quotation marks aside, can you be a bit more specific about what God tells us in Genesis with regard to taking care of the Earth? As far as I am aware, the story goes that God made this awesome garden, threw Man in it, and told him to rule the animals. But the animals weren't wild, and Man didn't need to farm to keep himself alive, so ruling it was pretty easy. After the Fruit event (which I like to call the Biggest Cosmic Setup Ever), God kicked Man out without so much as a "how-to" pamphlet. I don't recall any rules in Genesis about how to handle floods, tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, blizzards... or how to deal with animals that wanted to eat Man, rather than the other way around... or how to balance the desires of a species that was told to "be fruitful and multiply" with the desires of, oh, every other species on the planet, so that one doesn't snuff out the other. I guess what I'm asking is this: can you be a bit more specific about the "value system" you mentioned?

"Once we started "managing" the earth, as God intended, out of our own "wisdom" instead of by HIS value system, things did indeed begin to "go to hell in a handbasket.""

Again, what exactly do you have in mind when you say "HIS value system"? And moreover, unless you're an advocate for living in trees and eating nothing but berries (which I somehow doubt you are), I don't see how any value system could avoid stepping on the toes of other species. According to Genesis, God put Man here to be the ruler of everything, and "fill the earth and subdue it." How are we supposed to do that without bumping off species that would diminish our survival?

I think you missed my point in the last paragraph of my post. It reads: "Whatever the reason, too many people fail to see the difference between earning our place at the top of the food chain and deserving said position. We fought our way to the top. We were not put here."

We're just like every other species because we evolved just like every other species. Humans were lucky enough to be the first species to develop an intellect capable of the kind of thought we've come to take for granted. Along with that intellect came a weird feeling of entitlement: we feel like we were gifted our place at the top of the food chain, rather than realizing the truth; that is, the fact that our species struggled for millions of years to get to this point. If just a few things had gone awry, humanity as we know it wouldn't exist. Perhaps something else would instead? A reptilian race, or a canine or bovine one... who knows? The point here is this: there is simply no way to reconcile what the Bible says God wants us to do (multiply, dominion, subdue, all that) and how we actually feel about doing just that (I hope I'm not the only one who feels bad for wiping out other species). If, however, we face up to our evolutionary back-story, we’ll realize that this is just the way we are, and there isn’t anything wrong with it unless we deem it so. Species come and go. That’s life. It is, to put in simply and in one word, natural. And the sooner we get that through our heads, I think, the sooner we’ll be able to adopt a more reasonable, thoughtful, rational attitude about being the most powerful creatures on the planet.