My dog is dying of cancer. The past two weeks have been pretty sad - she won't put weight on one of her paws and is in a lot of pain from the fluid buildup causing her bones to swell.
It's hard to be an atheist when people and things you love are dying or die.
Would it be comforting to think I'd see them again when I died? Yes, of course it would. But believing in an afterlife is like drinking ... it's numbing you to reality.
For me, this is it. Life and time is precious because I get one shot at it. Death is death.
I've known I was an atheist for a very long time. Before I was 10, for sure, but I wasn't allowed to say I was. ("Stop scaring the babysitter," was what one parent told me.)
It would be great to think the people and things I loved could hear me and I could speak to them. But I don't believe in God and I'm not going to start because death is coming.
I will grieve, but my grief is rooted in the knowledge that there is nothing after we die.
Living in the South for the past three years, I've learned to avoid talking about church and religion. Most folks don't know I'm not a believer, although I'm sure many of them suspect something is up.
Militant atheists are as annoying as militant religious people. Two sides of the same coin if you ask me.
I work for a public institution, so I am always pointing out when we may not want to come across as endorsing religion.
However, this does not mean I do not support the religious beliefs of my colleagues. Good Friday means there are like of us non-Catholics at the office that day. It doesn't bother me; if I had an equivalent holiday, I would be granted the same leave as them, so why be upset about it?
I also made sure that this Friday, when it was my turn for the weekly breakfast, to make sure nothing had meat, since it's Lent. Do I observe Lent? Nope. How do I know it's Lent? The gazillion "fillet o' fish" commercials for McDonald's. That's how.
Nevertheless, I recognize that Lent is a particularly important time for my Catholic colleagues. Thanks to the Internet, I was able to read up on the particulars of the requirements and so I was able to accommodate their dietary restrictions. (If anyone gave up anything particular for Lent, I was not aware of it.)
My atheism is not about having anyone else believe what I believe; rather, it is about what I perceive to be the truth. How can I follow any religion that says my gender is inferior? How can I believe in this all-knowing, all-seeing deity when other adherents to that belief system were exceptionally cruel to me? No thank you.
If there is a Hell, I'll see you there.
