From the Past

October 6, 1996 – Age 11

Today I felt the Love of God. We went fishing today, got some bites, but caught nothing. 

From the Present: 

In discussions with theists it’s a common question posed to those without religion, “How do you live without God?” God is so central to the life of a committed theist that living without that seems as ridiculous as breathing without lungs. And when you live and breathe god, and attribute every stirring of joy to him/her/it/moose, then it’s not hard to see why they feel that way.

Without jumping into the normal rhetorical comparisons to belief systems, let me merely say this: When I was younger, my religion was more than just something my parents told me to believe in. It pierced deeply into who I was. It gave me something to attribute every nuanced joy to: God. And to the theist who cannot imagine living without that, I can say one thing for certain: That joy, those inner feelings of love are not dependent upon a religion as I’ve discovered as self honesty made way for a departure from faith.

Without religion, those inner workings of joy, of bliss are still present. A sense of wonder at life, at living, still pervades you in inexplicable ways. Whatever “this” is, this life, this world, this earth, this universe; it’s something larger than our ability to understand it. What I called god’s love when I was 11, I still feel some days, I just call it by a different name. And in some ways, a humbler perspective, the perspective of, “I don’t know what this is all about,” brings joys that the theist who “knows” the underlying essence of the universe perhaps never fully experiences.

My second sentence, perhaps sums up the feelings I would have towards religion a decade later, “We went fishing today, got some bites, but caught nothing.” 

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