Of Reality, Life and Death (Part II)

So, continuing on...

Using the intellectual parameters my ethics professor set for us all those years ago, imagine we can know for certain there is no God.  There is no heaven or hell.  A lifetime of self-sacrifice will never be rewarded, nor will a lifetime of self-service be punished. 

This model was deeply troubling to me at first, and it still is to some degree.  Imagine a grieving loved one who's only solace is the knowledge that someday they will be reunited with those they have lost.  Or a woman who has watched her rapist go free, and can only console herself with the thought that though there may be no justice in this world, there will be justice in the next.  In our intellectual experiment, both of these people may be left without any hope.  And one may further pose the question, without a God, what is there it keep human kind honest, so to speak?  Would people be more selfish, more self serving, without the rewards and punishments a belief in a higher power can offer?

I guess I never really contemplated the question on the level of all humanity.  I've always felt that I can't really control how other people behave, so I'd best examine and change myself if I can.  Hence I feel I came to an answer more about how my morality would be affected without a belief in a higher power, as opposed to how it would affect society at large.

By the time I was posed this question, I had firmly decided on Catholicism as my faith of choice.  It was a large part of my life and world view:  I went to mass on Sundays, was an alter server, partcipated in bible study groups and church service trips.  But when I came to a crisis, in my life and my faith, this question came back to me: what is a moral system, a life outlook, a world view without a God?  What purpose does life have if this is it?

I have since abandoned my belief in a higher power.   It seems funny to me now, but many of the Buddhist principles I learned from my father carry a special meaning for me now.  Buddhists believe in the beauty of transience: a flower, a fine morning, a life, is made more beautiful by the fact that it is temporary.  And that question in the back of my mind makes my experiences even richer: I hold my son just a little tighter, kiss my husband just a little longer because maybe this is the only time I will ever have with them.  And if I were to imagine that this time and this time only is what we each are given, how can I justify selfishness?  Anger?  If I were to be unkind, I would be taking away something irreplaceable.

I wouldn't say I believe in nothing.   I just, in the words of Clarence Darrow, "do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure".  But that uncertainty is always what pushes me to live the best life I can.  Because maybe, just maybe, this is all I get.

Of Reality, Life, and Death (Part I)

Ladies and Gentleman, I proudly present to you your daily dose of awesome:


Video Link

This awesome video is from an awesome website called Symphony of Science, hosting a total of six equally awesome videos about science, our world, and the universe. (Did I mention it was awesome?) Thanks to these videos, my two year old can now identify several planets, and knows the words "galaxy","nebula", and "molecule". We're working on "large hadron collider".

However for the sake of being relevant to my blog and its initial purpose, I will draw my perceptive reader's attention to one particular line of the video, courtesy of Richard Dawkins:

"Matter flows from place to place, and momentarily comes together to be you. Some people find that thought disturbing. I find the reality thrilling."

In high school we had a history assignment to interview someone of a different faith. This proved a challenge for many of my waspier classmates in a rural Wisconsin town which truly had more cows than people. My life was made quite simple, however, by the fact that my father was a practicing Buddhist. I "interviewed" him sitting on the couch in our living room, where he gave me a basic overview of the various Buddhist precepts, his own mediation practice, the belief in reincarnation, leading to the inevitable conclusion of "and if a Buddhist is diligent in his or her practice then over the course of many lifetimes it is hoped they can realize their own Buddha nature and achieve nirvana."

My next question was "Well, then what?"

My father didn't quite understand. "What do you mean, 'then what'?"

"What happens after you reach nirvana?"

"Well nothing really. You are taken out of the cycle of life and death."

I got quite worked up over this idea. "So, you just stop? There isn't a heaven or something? All that work and you just 'cease to be'?"

My dad laughed. "Well, yeah."

My exact words were, "Well that sucks", and I walked away from the conversation convinced that my decision to follow my mother's Christian practice was the correct one. At least we got heaven for a lifetime of getting up early on Sunday mornings.

At fifteen, I truly wasn't able to contemplate the idea that maybe there was no afterlife. It was, as Dawkins so rightly put it, "disturbing". I couldn't conceive of "just stopping".

Later, in a college ethics class, my professor posed an interesting question to a group of mainly catholic students. What if there were no God? No afterlife, heaven or hell? Would there still be any reason to be moral if you knew for certain that your deeds would never be rewarded (or punished)? He never pushed us to answer the question, just contemplate it. And for me, it rattled around in my brain for several years before I was adequately able to come to my own conclusion.

Stay tuned, part II to follow. (And I promise, sooner than later.)