I have often wondered how atheists and secular people go
through life without god. I have asked myself what hope you have for the future
without a supernatural being in your corner looking out for you. And I have
wondered even more what morals mean to someone who is godless (god free?).
The first decade of my life was quite turbulent as my family
consisting at least four children at a time and my mother never really stayed
in one place for more than a year or two. In this way, I do not remember that
we settled and subscribed to any church as a result.
I really got exposed to the life of church much later in the
decade and only then was I smart enough to ask myself some questions. If memory
serves me correctly, I think I was nine and suffering the pain of my first (of
many) wisdom tooth. I asked myself, who is god?
From what I had seen at the time I concluded that god was
there to keep human beings in order and to try to keep them from killing each
other. Satisfied with my answer I reasoned that since I was a good person at
the time that I did not need god and that I did not need religion.
As time went by and listened to priests from all manner of
church, I started to realise that all that stuff they were saying from that
black book made a lot of sense. In fact, I thought that all the good things the
book said such as "do not steal", "do not kill another human
being", e.t.c. were so obvious that I thought it a bit redundant to
attend.
But attend I continued as by virtue of my mother, I did not
have much choice in the matter. As time passed and I slept under the benches at
"cross-night" overnight church services I noticed that every time the
preacher man said these things, he promised the grownups and the other kids
that we would go to heaven if we did these good things as god demanded.
This confused me quite a bit (existentialism can get very
interesting for an adolescent). I mean, is it not obvious that we should do
unto others as we would like to be done to us? Why the promise of bliss to add
to it? And why perpetuate the promise of being branded a child of Satan if I am
naughty?
I have always kept a cynical view of religion for these
reasons. Anyway, when I first learned of atheism, I had this idea that they
were devil-worshiping
freaks despite my own skepticism about god and religion.
How can you seriously be a good person without having god guide you?
Through pop culture that I had witnessed from my more-than-fair
share of television, I saw good deeds from people who did not acknowledge god
in any of their works and trying this out myself I realised how much more pure
it was to do good without the promise of heaven or prosperity.
Now, do not get me wrong, I am not goodie-two-shoes (this phrase
always confused me), I have just been lucky enough to not get in a lot of
trouble (relatively speaking) but I think I have a good grasp of what makes a
good person good.
So, how do you live without god? How do you dissuade your
children from evil without sending them to Sunday school? I think that you can
be a good person by loving those close to you (and everyone else) and
remembering to do to others what you wish to be done to you.
I don't think you need the bible for that.
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