Don’t pray in our school….

….and we won’t think in your church

http://outcampaign.org/

I read a lot of Atheist Blogs.  I read them almost every day.  I like the fact that I can keep up with what is going on, as well as feel somewhat a part of something..being somewhat connected, even though don’t always participate in the conversations.  I’m no activist — I don’t speak out much — I haven’t had much to say on the subject, other than I am an Atheist.  And if people don’t like it, they can fuck off.  Yup..that is my mentality.  I think I have lived with it for so long that pushing my own thoughts, feelings and general lack of any respect for all organized religion out there for the world to hear — I just got tired of aruging.  But….  I should be more vocal.   I’ve been too damned quiet about it.  Perhaps standing on the roof of the local church (and there are 2 on the street I live on, 4 within 5 blocks of my house), might not be a great idea, but I think, in my own limited way, I should speak out more.

My reason is as follows — I read a few posts on My Sister’s Farmhouse that really inspired me.  Rechelle, the author of the blog, has recently become an atheist and has written a few really amazing posts.  She wrote a parable about her experience, the end of which sent me to tears:

She especially knew that she did not believe in the bible.
Because the bible was completely full of shit.
So she walked away from her church.
And she went back to her dark house.
And she tore the curtain off the window.
And light streamed into the room.
And she danced in the golden beams.
And warmed her hands in the silvery streams.
And the glorious light bathed her mind and filled her heart.
With the truth. The truth. The truth.
There is no god.
And it was good.
It was VERY GOOD.
And yeah…
She was going to die.
But she was not going to hell.
Because there was no hell.
When she died… she died. It was over. That’s all.
And it made every second of her life much more precious.
Because now, every minute needed to be spent well, spent carefully, spent honestly and spent joyously.
And also spent telling the christian homeschoolers that they are COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT TOO!
And that is how I (the woman in this story in case you couldn’t tell) became an atheist.

See?  Damn, I just teared up again.  Her article entitled “Former Christian Apologizes for Being Such a Huge Shit Head for all Those Years” was just fantastic.  I look forward to seeing what else Rechelle has to say. She really has inspired me to write here more often on my own thoughts on being an Atheist.

I really wish Rechelle well on this new journey into life that she has jumped onto.  There will be times she she feels totally alone — losing that community that a church gives you is hard to do — so, in case Rechelle happens up on this non important post of mine,  and just because I felt like it,  is a list of the Atheist blogs I read keep up with:

• Atheist Ethicist
• Atheist Media Blog
• Atheist Revolution
• Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
• Daylight Atheism
• Debunking Christiantiy
• Friendly Atheist
• How good is that?
• Mr. Diety
• Pharyngula
• Proud Atheists
• Reason Weekly
• Richard Dawkins
• The Religion Virus
• Unreasonable Faith

A few links from this blog:  My Atheism and Death and Grief as an Atheist

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Be good, so you will go to heaven.
• Don’t be bad, or you won’t get into heaven.
• God is watching you from heaven.
• There is an angel from heaven  right beside you, helping you.
• Jesus is in heaven, and if you are a good girl, you will get to see him when you die.

Grief for a death was consoled by those thoughts.  Grandma is in heaven now.  Grandpa is with all the people who love him in heaven.  Aunt May is in heaven and an angel now.

I was taught to believe in those things, so that when a death came, I could handle the grief, because heaven existed, and I would be able to see that person again.  I didn’t need to be sad, but happy for that person – they were with god now.

That did help me when I was 7, and my grandfather died.  He was so important in my life, and the thought that he was watching over me, the thought that I would get to play with him again, consoled me.

As I got older, and more deaths happened in my family, I utilized that same idea again and again.  They were in heaven.  I would see them again.  It wasn’t so bad.  They were looking down at my tears and unhappy about it, so I should stop my crying. And I did.

The problems came for me when I realized I wasn’t falling for that anymore.  I became an atheist at a young age, and have never rectified the solution to death and grieving.  There isn’t a heaven.  There isn’t a god.  There aren’t any angels with harps playing beautiful music.  There is just a dead body, sad people, and an empty loss.

For a long time, I was in a place in my life where I could put any emotion away, be it sadness, or anger, and let it go easily.  I buried my feelings, deeply.  I could not allow myself to feel, or my life (at that time), would have fallen apart in to a mess of pieces.  So when death came, I just put the sadness, the loss away with the other emotions and feelings I had.  My atheism sustained me then, because I didn’t have to *feel* sadness at a death.  I had buried it.

Then divorce came.  And I finally could allow feelings back into my life.  I’ve had to learn, and relearn, how to deal with them.  It hasn’t always been easy for those people in my life.  I am sometimes too emotional.  Sometimes not emotional enough.  It is a learning process for me.  During this time, I really have not had to deal with death.  The grief and sadness that it threw at me was rather unexpected and strong.  I wasn’t prepared.

Which brings me the point of this post.   An important woman in my life passed away at the age of 73 and her funeral was yesterday. 73 might be old to some, but she was never old.  She was young in her heart, as well as her actions.

I went to the casket and felt like had forgotten what it was I was supposed to do. She looked like she was sleeping – so lifelike.  Her red dress looked perfect. Her badge there beside her.  Pictures of her playing on a video next to the casket, with beautiful music and flowers surrounding her.  Her family behind me, in the first few rows of the church.  There for the mourners to greet, comfort, and be comforted by.

And there I was.  Thinking Fuck. She is dead and I won’t ever have the chance to sit with her out in her lawn chairs, in the heat of an August summer day, in the cool shade of the maple tree. No more being able to listen to her stories or hear her good advice, while sipping orange kool-aid.  I won’t get to tell her news of my son.  I won’t get to get a hug from her again, with the whisper in my ear from her, saying “Everything will be okay.  Take it from this old lady – I know it’s the truth.”

Here is where I am supposed to say that yes, I know I’m not supposed to feel that way.  Because she wouldn’t want that.  Because it is selfish to feel that way.   But screw that.  I AM sad.  I am selfishly sad.  I am selfishly feeling an emptiness inside.

Death is really the one area..the one aspect of having god/religion that I envy.  The ability to not be so sad.  To have that dreamy illusion that you will be with that person again — see that person again.  That the person is in a better place.  That they are with the ones they love.  That they are in some sort of heaven.  That death is just a beginning to another life. And you know for sure, deep down, that  when you die, you will be reunited with the people you love, who love you, and all will be wonderful and grand.

Blah blah freaking blah.

Instead, it’s just Fuck and selfish sadness.

My boyfriend gave me some good advice earlier tonight.  He said, very gently to me, that one alternative was to think of all that a person had accomplished.  That I should not think of how sad, and empty I feel at the loss of this woman, but instead, think of what a great life she had — how fulfilling it must have been, and all that she accomplished and achieved within the time she had.  Think of the jobs she had of which she was so proud.  Think of her children, and how great a family she raised.  Think of what a fulfilling life she had.

Which is excellent advice.

Except, uhhhhhh…. There is that pesky selfish sadness again.

I’m honestly at a loss here.  I don’t know how to allow myself to feel any sort of comfort in her “accomplishments”.  I mean great that she lived this life, and that she did good things, had good children, was a good person…..  But now she is dead and gone from here.  There isn’t a heaven where I get to wave at her while she is surrounded by angels playing those golden harps and her family.  I don’t get to return her silly smirk, as I walk on a cloud towards my own family and friends.

I’m really kind of pissed off that I was not taught how to deal with grief, other than to think of heaven.  Yeah.  That pretty much sums this whole experience up for me.  Pissed off and selfishly sad.

I wonder how other atheists deal with death.  What are the tricks?  What do they tell themselves when they stand beside a casket?  How do they console themselves?

I really wish I knew.

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I was born a cradle Catholic, and until I was 14 years old, I really didn’t overly question the existence of a God.  I had a few times questioned the priest when he taught.  And I’d gotten in quite a bit of trouble with the Nuns at the Catholic school I went to because I questioned them, and questioned the teachings they thrust upon us. (Oh, Please.. 40 days of a flood and  a big ark??  Rising from the dead — if that could happen to some guy purportedly Gods son, why could my Grandpa not come back from the dead — I checked, every time we went to the cemetery — just in case).

I was lead by the ear a few times by Sister John to stand against the brick outer wall of the school during recess. Once when we played “Noahs Ark” on the monkey bars, I was playing Noah’s wife, and everyone drowned because I figured if there was a God, he’d save us when I pulled the plug from the bottom of the ship/monkey bars.  Back to the wall, lead by the ear I went.  I was not a trouble maker, just a trouble “questioner”.  The things I was being taught never seemed to jive with me.  Not the way my parents, the priest, or the nuns wanted it to.

I didn’t just decide one day not to believe in god.  Circumstances of my life caused me to really question god and religion. And by the time I was 14, religion had became something I had to do in order to live in my parents house.  There was no way to get out of it.  My father was very proud of the fact we were being raised catholic, and going to a catholic school.  My mother was involved in some sort of women’s group (cleaning the sacristy/alter area I think).  So there I was on my knees every Sunday, and confirmed into the Catholic church in my senior year of high school because that is what good daughters do (especially those that don’t want to get into trouble, nor cause it).

When I was about 15,  the priest loaned me books on history, and religion – perhaps thinking I really would not read them.  Not only did I read them, I read as many as I could get out of the public library (small town, so there weren’t many).  I didn’t stop either.  I learned about religions.. why/when/how.  I looked at it objectively, like a problem to solve.

I sat in the priests rectory office one day with a list of questions I had written down, and worked on over the course of about 18 months.   I was sure the priest could alleviate these fears I was having, could really give me the answers, and be able to make me understand where I went wrong.  The priest was exasperated with me, and told me that  “You just need to have faith in God, forget what you “think” you have learned, and forget this silly little list. Faith in God will bring all the answers to every question you could possibly think to ask.”  But by this time,  I had come to the understanding, in the back of my mind,  that god was an invention of man.  What the priest could not understand was this:  The questions I had were not for me to understand, but questions with which the answers could persuade me there really was a god. I really wanted to feel like everyone else, and be satisfied that there was a god.  “Have Faith” was his answer, and I simply could not do that. I could not accept that.  I wanted answers.  Real, honest to goodness answers.   My mind just would not wrap around the abstract thought of “have faith” as an answer to anything.

I moved to New York when I was 18, and religion stayed in Nebraska.  I dutifully went to mass with my family when I was visiting them, but otherwise, I never went.    I was married in the Catholic church, because that is what my husband and family wanted and expected.  Our son was baptised in the church, again  because that is what his father, and our families wanted and expected.  When my mother asked if we were going to church, I yes’ed her, because I knew if I did not, I’d not hear the end of it.

For the next couple of years, I was still questioning, and unsure of what I felt, what I knew to be true, vs. what felt comfortable to me.   It was  hard for me to balance out.  On one  hand, it was more comfortable to believe as other people did — in a god. But the truth was, I just didn’t.  The other hand knew too much… understood too much, and all religion did was create unanswerable questions.  But the answers did come — not from books, but from my own self. The answers came when I put down the books, put the fear of what my family would think away, and finally.. really.. allowed myself to be what I really was:  an atheist.  A quiet one, though.

In all this time I never pushed my own thoughts, questions or beliefs on anyone.  I never judged any one’s beliefs (okay.. maybe the fundies, but that is just different).  I was comfortable being a lone atheist, and out of respect for my family, allowed religion to be part of my child’s life, to a certain extent.  For a long time, I kept quiet about it, writing about in my journals.  Finding my way, word by word, page by page.

Although this is not the first time I have mentioned my atheism online, or even on this particular blog, this is one of the first times I’ve written about it for public view.   As I said at the beginning of this post, this post was written so people who read my future posts will understand a bit of my background.  Because.  Well….Because I’m kinda tired of keeping my mouth shut.  I’m kinda tired of allowing others beliefs to overshadow my own.  And because I have some things I need to say.

Watch out ;)

“Most noticeably, however, the once commonplace refrain of “Merry Christmas” has been replaced by the vague, ubiquitous “Happy Holidays.” But what holiday? Is Christmas some kind of secret, a word that cannot be uttered in public? Why have we allowed the secularists to intimidate us into downplaying our most cherished and meaningful Christian celebration?”

I ask you: How many people do you know?  Now, how many of them are Christians?  Jewish? Muslim? Buddhist?  Shinto?  Atheists? I’ll bet many of you can say a lot more than you really realize.   I’m pretty sure that a Buddhist wouldn’t respond to “Merry Christmas” as he/she is celebrating Mindfullness Day, or those who are Zuni & Hopi who are celebrating the Shalako Festival.  The Sufi might get upset if you said Merry Christmas to them, as they mourn the death of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.  And I’m quite positive that people of the Jewish faith would respond to a Merry Christmas with a Happy Hanukkah.

As a practicing Atheist, I hardly wish anyone a Merry anything, but I have always given and responded with “Happy Holidays” — How the heck do I know what religion a person is?? It isn’t as if they wear a band on their arms (Been there, done that and we all know the hell that happened).  It is presumptuous and rude to assume that every person you see in the month of December is Christian.

I do celebrate Christmas – We have a tree and everything.  I make good food, we listen to carols, we wrap gifts, and exchange them on Christmas morning, while the yule log plays on Channel 2.  I wish my son a Merry Christmas and I love the songs “Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel” and “Little Drummer Boy”.  I also love “Carol of The Bells”, “Jingle Bells”, and the way Schubert’s “Ave Maria” fills the very air with musical light. But what I don’t do is celebrate the religious aspect of Christmas.

Christmas, for me, is more akin to Thanksgiving day.  It’s a day to celebrate my family and friends, to say thank you to them for sharing their lives with me.  To “rejoice” in the fact that our lives are good, and happy, and that we are together.  I’m going to keep saying “Happy Holidays” because it pleases me. Oh, and uh.. here is a little WII game, and some socks, wrapped in pretty paper under a dying pine tree, lit with pretty lights and decorated with fat little Santas and Gingerbread ornaments.  Just enough make the house smell lovely, to piss off the cat, and leave pine needles to find come June.

But back to Mr. Paul’s question, “But what holiday?”.  Here is a list (incomplete, I’m positive), of the holidays celebrated in the Month of December, for the year 2008.  Do you think, Mr. Paul, that everyone on this list wants to be greeted by a “Merry Christmas”?

Holidays – December 2008

• * 11/27 to 12/10: Hopi & Zuni Shalako Festival.
• * 11/28 eve to 12/28 eve: Dhu al-Hijjah.
• * 11/30 to 12/24 (OC 11/28 to 1/6): Advent/Festival of Lights.
• * 12/1: World AIDS Day–Day to pray for healing of all those suffering with AIDS and HIV.
• * 12/4: Yoruba/Santeria feast of Orisha Shango, Defender Against Evil.
• * 12/5: Day for meditation on Tantric Bodhisattva Goddess Red Tara, protector against evil and harm.
• * 12/6: Mindfulness Day–Zen Buddhist day for mindfully seeing and acting with compassion for the poor and oppressed.
• * 12/7 eve to 12/8 eve: Eid al-Adha–Muslim day of sacrifice to the one universal Deity for the good of all.
• * 12/7 eve to 12/15 eve (12/14 peak): Geminid Meteor Showers, to remind us all that God is our Almighty
• * 12/8: Rohatsu–Zen Buddhist celebration of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
• * 12/8: Christian feast celebrating St. Anna’s conception of Blessed Mary.
• * 12/8: Death day of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1111), Sufi saint who taught about unity of the soul with the one universal Deity of 99 names and attributes.
• * 12/11 eve to 12/13 eve: Feast of the Immanent Feminine Divine Spirit–honoring Goddess as Maha Devi Shakti (Hindu), Allat Ruh Sakinah (Old Arabic-Sufi), Eloah Ruach Shekhinah (Jewish Kabbalah) & Holy Spirit Wisdom (Christian). * 12/12 (11:37 a.m. EST): Full Moon (Snow/Fire Moon).
• * 12/12: Baha’i feast honoring the one Deity as Masa’il–Mystery.
• * 12/12: First Appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of God and Mother of the Oppressed, at the former shrine of Aztec Moon Goddess Coatlicue (Mexico 1531).
• * 12/13: Feast of the Light-bringer– honoring Goddess as Juno Lucina (Old Roman) & Lucia (Old Swedish); merged with the Christian feast of St. Lucia.
• * 12/14: Christian feast of St. John of the Cross (d. 1591), whose suffering–for advocating church reform–generated mystical union with Deity.
• * 12/15 (A 1/25): Old Egyptian festival of Neteret Amenet-Rait-Mut, the primordial Great Mother.
• * 12/15: Death day of Fr. Pavel Florensky (1943), Orthodox Christian mystic who taught that Holy Wisdom is Our Mother, the Holy Spirit, third part of the Holy Trinity.
• * 12/15: Day the Catholic Church silenced Fr. Matthew Fox for teaching Creation Spirituality (1988); day to mourn the silencing of all religious dissenters and reformers.
• * 12/16 to 12/24: Christmas Novena/Las Posadas–Christian remembrance of the journey of Blessed Mary and St. Joseph to Bethlehem and their taking refuge in a cave-stable.
• * 12/17: Yoruba/Santeria feast of Orisha Babalu Aye, Healer of Deadly Diseases.
• * 12/17: Day to give thanks to our God for the air we breathe.
• * 12/17 to 12/23: Saturnalia/Opalia–Old Roman festival honoring God Saturn (the weak Sun) & Goddess Ops (the fallow Earth); celebrated with gift-giving, revelry, and abolishment of all class distinctions.
• * 12/17 eve to 12/24 eve (12/22 peak): Ursid Meteor Showers, to remind us all that God is our Almighty.
• * 12/21 (7:04 a.m. EST): Winter Solstice/Solar New Year–Marks the beginning of Winter and the shortest day and longest night of the year; celebration of the darkness with dancing near the hearth fire.
• * 12/21 to 12/22: Festival of Evergreen Trees; merged into International Arbor Day. Celebrated by planting trees and hanging wreaths (symbols of eternal life).
• * 12/21 to 12/25: Old Romano-Egyptian festival of Goddess Isis giving birth to God Horus.
• * 12/21 eve to 12/29 eve: Hanukkah/Festival of Lights–Jewish festival commemorating a victory in their struggle for religious freedom and rededication of the second Temple of Jerusalem to Elohim. Menorah candles are lit.
• * 12/21 to 1/9: Hopi & Zuni Soyala New Year Festival of purification and renewal. Homes are cleaned, fires doused, and personal restraint is observed.
• * 12/22: Taoist festival honoring Wang-Mu/Empress Mother, Mother of Compassion and Wisdom, and manifestation of the Tao (Cosmic Power of Creation and Destruction). Also celebrates the peak of the feminine Yin half of the year and the Shen of Earth, North, and Winter; prayers are made for rest and renewal, and offerings are made to the Cosmos.
• * 12/22: Tohji-Taisai–Shinto rite honoring Sun Goddess Amaterasu. Storm God Susano-o angered Her, and She withdrew into a cave until enticed out with music and dance.
• * 12/22: Beginning of Capricorn (the Goat).
• * 12/22: Birthday of Lily Montagu (1873), who co-founded Liberal Judaism in 1902. She was the first Jewish woman to serve as lay minister, both officiating and preaching.
• * 12/24 eve: Mother Night– Christian vigil for the laboring Blessed Mary.
• * 12/25 (OC 1/7): Christmas– Christian celebration of Blessed Mother Mary giving birth to Child Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.
• * 12/25 to 1/5: Yule–Old Anglo-Teutonic festival honoring Freyr and Freyja (Deities of Fertility) and the new-born Balder (God of Light), son of Frigga and Odin. Celebrated with evergreens, fires, and feasting.
• * 12/26: Day commemorating the death of Zoroastrian Prophet Zarathustra (551 BCE). Zoroastrians worship by making offerings to a sacred fire.
• * 12/26 to 1/1: Kwanzaa–Festival celebrating positive African traditions; emphasizes unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.
• * 12/27 (7:23 a.m. EST): New Moon.
• * 12/28: Day the Endangered Species Act. The day to mourn those creatures already extinct.
• * 12/28 eve to 1/7 eve: Muharram/Muslim New Year (Year 1430) & A’ashurah.
• * 12/31: Oharai/Grand Purification Festival–Shinto rite exorcising evil from the world.
• * 12/31: Yoruba/Santeria festival of Orisha Yemaya, Mother of the Sun and Moon.
• * 12/31: Baha’i feast honoring the one Deity as Sharaf–Honor.
• * 12/31: Feast of Father Time, who ultimately overcomes us all.
• * 12/31 eve: New Year’s Eve–Vigil for the new year; night for self evaluation and resolving to better oneself.

by Richard Packham

Even those who have decided that the particular doctrines of their religion (such as Christianity or Mormonism) are false, and who now tend to doubt all organized religion, may be wondering about “spirituality,” “moral values,” “meaning,” “Truth,” etc.

I had the same subject come up recently in a private three-way correspondence between me, an evangelical Christian, and a prominent (almost “official”) Mormon apologist. The Christian and I easily agreed that Joseph Smith was a fraud, but then the Christian and the Mormon quickly agreed that, since I was an atheist, I had no ability to understand “spiritual things.”

I’d like to share a few thoughts that might be helpful to others who are struggling with that apparent contradiction between atheism and spirituality/morality.

A new atheist (former Mormon) was recently talking about how awed he is at the miracle of his child growing in his wife’s womb, and he wondered if the awe that he felt was somehow a contradiction of his disbelief in God. Others have expressed similar thoughts. Here’s my opinion, for what it’s worth.

One can admire and feel reverent toward the awesome powers of nature, the amazing way in which life reproduces itself, the sheer immensity of time and space, without necessarily imagining that there is “somebody” running it all. It is amazing. It is immense. It is almost beyond human comprehension – although little by little we humans are beginning to understand something about how it works (thanks to science, by the way, and not to religion!).

I live on a large piece of land. We have our own forests, hills, meadows, trails and roads, located in an area of Oregon where the climate is very mild. We raise cattle and timber. We are right now in the middle of the spring calving season, during which we will have about 30 calves. We should be used to it, nonchalant about it, by now. But every new calf is a thrill, an excitement, to see it emerge, find its legs, and find the milk. What a miracle! Every element of it is a miracle, and awe-inspiring.

To me, it seems over-simplification to suggest that there is somebody who is overseeing every step of this process. It happens by itself, following the patterns that have developed naturally over countless millennia. And it is a neutral process, neither good nor evil. Every once in a while we get a deformed calf, or a dead calf. We don’t presume to blame that on “God,” which we would have to do – logically – if we thought God was overseeing the production of new life.

When I wander in the woods, in the silence broken only by the sounds of the birds and the breezes in the treetops, I find great peace in looking at a wild flower or a tree and realizing that the difference between them and me is so minimal. The purpose of the flower is to be, to grow, to reproduce if possible. Or perhaps it really has no purpose. Nobody cares about it, but it doesn’t seem to mind. There’s nothing wrong with that, for the flower, or for me.

Someone recently mentioned C.S. Lewis’ book “Mere Christianity.” I am a great admirer of Lewis. He is a talented writer and a great apologist for Christianity. His own life was a model for the “good Christian.” However, sometimes (actually, quite frequently) his arguments are faulty. Early in that book he tries to prove that we have an innate sense of being sinful, because we all realize that we fall short of perfection. And if we are not perfect, then we are sinful. I look at my animals, my trees, my rocks, my flowers, my hills. None of them are perfect, none are ideal. But that does not make them sinful in any moral sense. They are all the products of the forces that produced them. And so am I. The bent sapling may try to grow straight, just as I may try to overcome my innate faults. But I am not overcoming any moral fault. I am just struggling to be a better tree. The tree has no reason to feel shame, nor do I.

I resent suggestions that, because I don’t believe in “God,” I cannot possibly have a reverence for life, for the beauties of the mind, for the powers of nature, for the incomprehensibilities of our immense universe, for the mysteries of what we don’t know yet and cannot see, that somehow I am to be pitied because I refuse to accept one of thousands of contradictory “revealed” answers to these great mysteries.

It’s better to go through life without an answer to such questions than to base one’s life on a false answer.

A friend recently shared her views on this topic with me, and I have her permission to pass them on. She expresses my feelings exactly. This is a beautiful expression of spirituality, by Melissa Hardy:

I think we often look too far away for gods and miracles, and ignore the ones all around us. We want to think that we, as a species, are different, that somehow we are endowed by god(s) to do whatever the hell we please with this world. But the world was not created for us (if it was ‘created’ at all). It exists FOR ITS OWN SAKE, not as a proving ground for future gods or a stage for a cosmic struggle between good or evil, or a playground that one species is meant to use as its personal possession. It is vaster by far, and wilder, and more beautiful than that. There is an elegance in the life cycle of salamanders, of diatoms, of trees, of beetles. In a growing embryo there is more complexity and beauty and holiness than in ten thousand thousand hymns of praise or prayers for sanctification. If you listen, every organism, every species, every cell has its own song, a hymn of praise and holiness more deep and fierce and beautiful than we can even comprehend. And, here is the clincher, the priceless gift of the cosmos. WE ARE PART OF IT! We BELONG here….we are not strangers or sojourners, or even “spiritual beings having an earthly experience.” We belong HERE, with our siblings, our relatives, our parents — the birds of the air and the fish of the sea and the plants of the earth. We are they, and they are us. Each atom in our body is on loan to us from the world, and each atom has been part of innumerable organisms, and will be again. We have been the diatoms. We have been the tulips and the polar bears and the lemurs and the ants and the grass. And we will be the deer and the tiger and the wheat and the E. coli and the penguin. We belong to the system, tangled beyond extrication with every other living thing. Isn’t this enough holiness and beauty for all of us? The gods of this earth live in the mitochondria, genes, synaptic gaps of our body. And they live in the grasslands, the deserts, the rivers, the mountains. We are they, and they are us. You are god and gods and parts of gods. We are descended from gods and give birth to gods. They are us, and we are they. We live in a world filled to brimming with gods, and yet we still look beyond the clouds, beyond the stars, beyond ourselves, for a cosmic Easter Bunny who can make all our little dreams come true, when, in reality, we carry the kingdom of heaven within us every moment. It is there, peopled with enzymes and nucleic acids and glycolipids and ionophores. And, although it is within us, we are part of it as well. Heaven is here. The gods are among us.

Can an atheist pray? Why not? I don’t believe in God – at least not the God as described by the majority of theists – but I DO believe that there is plenty of evidence that we human beings can summon up powers to help us in difficult times. I don’t venture to guess whether these powers are within us or outside us, but I don’t think it matters what their source is, they are there. And we can benefit from them.

Those who believe in God summon up these powers by calling upon God in prayer. Those who
do not believe in God use other methods – meditation, visualization, altered states of consciousness, whatever. They work for the believer, and because they sometimes work, the believer’s faith is strengthened, because the prayers are answered. They work just as well for the non-believer.

I guess what I am saying is that one doesn’t have to give up one’s access to these powers just because one has given up belief in God. They are still there. I use them, all the time. Whereas I used to address a prayer: “Dear God, please…” I now simply place myself in a meditative state, relax, and put my feelings into words (sometimes only mentally) addressed to whoever or whatever may be listening. Even if it is only some part of my inner self, something happens to bring me peace, self-assurance, confidence. My fears are calmed, my sorrows are soothed, and I am reminded of my unassailable right to my tiny place in the universe, and that somehow everything will turn out all right in the end, or, if it doesn’t, it won’t really matter.

At one time I was participating in a Twelve-Step program, and at the end of each meeting, the group would join hands and recite the “Lord’s Prayer.” It always bothered me to be addressing “our Father” when I did not believe in such a being. And yet I did not want to remain silent. So I wrote my own prayer, and no one noticed that the words I was reciting were slightly different from what the others were saying:

ATHEIST PRAYER

Our Powers are within, Whatever be their name. What they have done, what still may come, This Earth can yet be as Heaven. Live then this day, and without dread, And forgive your own trespasses As you forgive those who trespass against you. And be not led into temptation, But flee away from evil, For Time is the Healer, With power to restore me, Forever and ever,   Amen.

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©  1998 Richard Packham    Permission granted to reproduce for non-commercial purposes, provided text is not changed and this copyright notice is included