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Posted by Theresa on October 6th, 2006 filed in Believe It or Not

From the book Philosophy Made Simple: A Novel by Joseph Hellenga -

Think of Jean-Paul Sartre’s paper cutter. This paper cutter, according to Sartre, had a purpose in life because someone had designed it. Someone had had a plan. Someone had wanted to cut some paper and had designed a paper cutter to do the job. But a human being doesn’t have a purpose in life because no one designed a human being. No one had a plan. Human beings are just here. That’s existentialism in a nutshell: a paper cutter. Or the opposite of a paper cutter.

Oh, there was more, of course. At the kitchen table, Rudy turned the pages of the last chapter. What he concluded was that we’re all heading into an unknowable future; there’s no way to chart a course with certainty; we face death troubled by angst and nausee and ennui; we search for ways to set the world on a firm metaphysical foundation, but we have no reason to believe that such a metaphysical foundation exists. The only meaning our lives have is the meaning we give them.

And from an article I read the other day Turning Away Anger - The Myth of the Angry Atheist:

If there is no afterlife and no assurance of divine justice, then the suffering of innocents matters far more, because this is the only life we have and the only chance we have to get it right. Every evil that happens and goes unpunished is, in a sense, an opportunity forever lost. On the other hand, it is very strange that so many theists seem to display such anger and hatred. After all, if they are correct and God is truly on their side, they cannot lose in the end, and surely God’s infinite power cannot be thwarted or diminished in the slightest by anything any atheist could say or do. If religious people truly believed what they say they do and were consistent about it, they should no more feel anger towards atheists than the lord of a mighty castle should feel angry or threatened by a child throwing pebbles at the wall. Yet many religious people do seem to feel upset and threatened by atheists - they must, or they would not bother to hurl such epithets and threats at us. What else could make them attempt to cow us into silence?

What motivates the “angry atheist” stereotype? The most important reason, I suspect, is that it is a defense mechanism. I have said in the past, and still maintain, that some believers are fundamentally threatened by the very idea of atheists existing, because they have been taught that only through belief in God can one find happiness, meaning or purpose. The existence of a happy, content atheist leading a meaningful life would throw their entire worldview into question, and so they deny this psychologically threatening possibility by asserting that atheists are intrinsically “angry” and therefore lacking in peace or satisfaction (italics mine).

What struck me about both of these pieces is the thought that living for today is what is important, not living for a future pie-in-the-sky kind of existence. What we do now is important because of the effect it has on us now and for future generations that will come after us.

The part I put in italics rings true for me - for so long I thought that only real Christians (not the ones who just went to church on Sunday) were happy. But you know what? I am happy and I haven’t been to church for years, nor could I (or would I) call myself a Christian, My life has meaning (well at least it means a lot to me!). I know happy church-goers, I know happy Christians, I know happy agnostics, I know happy Mormons, I know happy atheists, I know happy nature-lovers. I know happy Christians who live a life of “sin.” and I know happy “sinners” who who claim they are Christians. I know happy people who have never even given God a thought. Christians (real or otherwise) do not have the monopoly on happiness, meaning of life, purpose, joy, contentment, peace or well-being. It is available to all who seek it and live their life in pursuit of it.

“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.”

John Ruskin - English critic, essayist, & reformer (1819 - 1900)