We look to whatever sources we have to figure out what we should do with these wonderful lives that we have. You may do that to serve God and I may do that to determine what to make of it all and how to proceed. The exercise is the same.
That may be very nearly the crux of it all, Karen.
From that point on, we go down very different paths, seeing as how I come to a belief in God and you do not.
The fact that you have sufficient consciousness and abstract thinking to even meditate on this exercise, is to me compelling reason to think that we are more than just the most intelligent and resourceful of the animal kingdom; merely the top of the food chain among earth's creatures. I see this as persuasive evidence that somehow we have acquired a conscience that distinguishes between what is good for us and what is the right thing to do. I see this as proof that even in the absence of belief in an external moral authority, we are still constrained to evaluate and regulate our conduct to be in accord with some innate standard that exists within us of what is fair, just, ethical, and good.
I cannot accept that this part of our consciousness has come about through what we have been taught or from what we have been told. I don't think that explanation can account for the power that these thoughts and emotions have over our behavior. I don't think that explanation accounts for why we often choose to give up our happiness, our pleasures, our cravings, and, in some cases, our very lives, for the benefit of others. I don't think that explanation sufficiently accounts for altruism, charity, self-sacrifice, generosity, compassion, nobility, or many other common human attributes that go against self-interest. I am totally unconvinced that any kind of a "social contract" could have the power to inspire such behaviors, on anywhere near the scale upon which we see them happening among our kind.
So, for me, this leads to a belief that these uniquely human imperatives are a window to the soul; a deep part of our consciousness that contains an absolute sense of why we are here and of what is expected of us in this life, and which did not come about through evolution or learning, but rather is an endowed aspect of our being.
Thus I believe in a God that created me. That makes me "religious" whether I belong to a religion or not, whether I live up to the standards of a Church or not.
You are demonstrably a good person. That you explain your existence without God does not make you any less so. That your search through the "accumulated wisdom" has not made you a religious person does not make you any less so.
We are just two people, both rational and sensible, who look for answers as to how we came to be, and how we should lead our lives, and who have arrived at different resolutions. |
