Life without God is more meaningful

Bart Ehrman once was a devout evangelical Christian. Now he's an agnostic scholar who debunks religious myths. Today on my car radio I heard a snippet of an NPR interview with him.

Ehrman was asked how his life had changed now that he doesn't believe in heaven, hell, and life after death any more. He answered that it had become much more meaningful. Ehrman no longer expects to enjoy (or fear) another life after this one.

This is it. One chance. Enjoy it while you can. Make the most of every moment.

That's how I've come to feel also. But for a while, like Ehrman, I was worried about what would take the place of religiosity. He told the interviewer that as he was losing his faith in Christianity, he wondered if he'd become an amoral anything goes libertine (or words to that effect).

Such didn't happen, Ehrman went on to say. Apparently what changed the most was the meaning life had for him, not what he felt drawn to do. 

My experience also.

I was into an Eastern guru-based faith, not Jesus, but for many years I had a similar expectation that my current earthly existence was just a way station leading to an afterlife.

Either a rebirth as another sentient being, or release from the supposed confines of being a soul conjoined with a physical body. Whichever happened after death, I'd have another chance to get things right. Or, wrong.

Like Ehrman I believed that I'd live on after I died. This was undeniably comforting. However, I now realize that I was trading quality for quantity. 

Meaning, I was living with reduced intensity, passion, and awareness of the present moment (quality) because in both the back and front of my mind there was an expectation that this life was just a stepping stone to another one.

And eventually, if paradoxically: eternity (quantity).

I used to read a lot of science fiction, including Philip Jose Farmer's marvelous "Riverworld" series. The main character is trying to reach the source of a mysterious river. After some trial and error, he learns that when he dies he'll be instantly reborn -- sometimes farther up the river.

Cool. Death becomes a means to an end, not the end. So the guy becomes cavalier toward dying. Bring it on, dude. Shoot me. Stab me. Drown me.

I've known religious believers who claimed to have a similar attitude. They'd talk about how they were looking forward to death, because then they'd meet the divinity that wasn't with them now.

Well, that's doubtful. Highly doubtful.

Yet I could see these people sort of sleepwalking through their current (and likely only) life, not taking it all that seriously, anticipating a much better life to come that would make this one seem like shit on a stick compared to ever-so-tasty cotton candy.

Problem is, this life is real. Any afterlife is imaginary, no matter how appealing some concept of it might be. In "Confession of a Buddhist Atheist," Stephen Bachelor says: 

What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted? I suppose some of it has to do with fear of death, the terror that you and your loved ones will disappear and become nothing.

But I suspect that for such people, the world as presented to their senses and reason appears intrinsically inadequate, incapable of fulfilling their deepest longings for meaning, truth, justice, or goodness.

Sad, if true. Nothing prevents us from finding tremendous meaning in this life, this moment, this action, this awareness.

In fact, I don't see how genuine meaning could be found otherwise. Putting real living off for another life, where is the meaning in that?

If our central purpose in life is to pursue a religiosity that supposedly will lead to another really real life, distinct from the half-baked living we're doing now, aren't we forgetting the wisdom of the adage "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"? 

Especially since we've never seen the bush, much less the birds in them. In his book Bachelor says about the Buddha:

He then compared a passionate believer in God to a man who declares that he is in love with the most beautiful girl in the land, but on being asked what she looks like is forced to admit that he has never once set eyes on her.

Here we are. Living on Earth. As a body (not in a body; immateriality of mind or soul is a belief, not reality).

If there is an afterlife, we don't know about it, since we're alive -- not dead. The meaning of our existence is founded on our actual life after birth, not our imagined life after death. 

Look around. This is it.

This. Is. It.

Drink in that reality. More: get drunk on it. It's intoxicating. What's happening never will happen to you again. Not ever. Never.

Miss it, and it's missed forever. Fail to pay attention to it, and that awareness is gone forever. Neglect to fully appreciate any priceless unrepeatable moment, and we have lost that meaning-richness.

Forever.

Comments

[ben]

i was like that i missed alot of my 20's because of my religion, when i finally let go, i felt as if i can't do more that life is it, that' there's no rest stops, no second chance, one it's gone..i can go on this rant forever but, i just want to leave with this one statement, i agree with you brian. i'm now 30 and finally enjoying life.

[Suzanne]

This is it. Here it is! Relish it, even the unpleasant parts.

[Willie R.]

I dunno Brian - the more I read your blog here, the more it seems as though you are trying to convince yourself that you are "right" about this whole "God" business. Even the title of your blog is suggestive of an unwillingness (or an inability) to effect a complete relinquishment of belief - in anything.

Believers are quite certain that God exists. They cannot be convinced otherwise. They are absolutely set apart from those who do not or cannot believe, and from those who do not believe but want to (for whatever reason). Life is cut-and-dried, either-or, black or white with no shades of gray. Believers tend to be condescending and arrogant, self-assured and content with their circumstances. They will be quick to tell you that it's all because of God.

So here you are, Brian - in your 60's, with the bulk of your life behind you, a lot of it being squandered in attention to some dipshit guru, and you lucky enough to have escaped that particular trap. Free at last!

Life is intrinsically meaningless. If this was not the case, then the believers in God have trumped the teeming masses. But don't go about assuming that non-belief confers any sort of meaning or advantage. There is no reason whatsoever why one should believe or not believe.

[What Was Done]

Here is a kind of life after death you can be sure of...
http://www.whatwasdone.com/Age.php?&Age=-1

[Blogger Brian]

Willie R, I don't understand what you're saying. Or maybe I do, and don't agree with it. You say "there is no reason whatsoever why one should believe or not believe."

Well, clearly believers and non-believers consider that they have reasons for their belief or non-belief. I sure do. Reality is preferable to imagination. I'd rather found my life on what I actually experience rather on what I imagine I might experience one day -- in this life, or an afterlife.

Yes, life doesn't carry with it an intrinsic meaning. But each of us creates our own meaning. We also create our own reasons for valuing that meaning. I guess I'm enough of a believer in objective reality to feel that some reasons are better than other reasons.

If not, what's the purpose of conversation, discussion, education, and all the other ways we share ideas with other people? I've found that non-belief does confer some advantages in living life more fully, meaningfully, and honestly.

Sharing my experience with others seems entirely justified -- though naturally other people might not agree with my personal understanding.

[Willie R.]

I thought for sure that my response would be deleted post-haste, Brian. With the fabled power of 20/20 hindsight, I notice that I am far too quick to pass judgment on the opinions of others - thus making a mockery of my own stated positions.

There is something going on. Life. I have found no one's conclusions satisfactory so far. But it does seem reasonable that our encounter with Reality is inevitable on an individual basis.

[Jen]

The mind is constantly moving from attraction (desire) to aversion. It could be belief and attachment to some religion or guru based philosophy, which is then discarded, and then it seeks something else to attach to, cling to, anything to delay the death of the small mind or ego.

Maybe this tactic stops us from being more in tune with a higher consciousness, especially if this small mind, this ego mind, is insistent that there is nothing more than This, the enjoyment of this physical world with all its sensual pleasures.

[Rizal Affif]

As always, provocative but true, Brian :)

I really suggest you to read Dr. Michael Newton's book: Journeys of The Soul.

While I do not fully embrace your perspective here, I totally in line with you that it is life, it is this very moment, we have to live fully. It is too bad that religion has changed from a tool to raise awareness, into a myth that clouds people from real joy of life.

Keep posting, Brian :)

[tAo]

no, religion was never a "tool to raise awareness". religion has always been about controlling and suppressing awareness.

religion has always been about the business of making an idol of the original founder of the religion, creating dogma and rituals and temples and churches, proseltizing to gain more believers, amassing material wealth, and oppressing and even murdering those who don't submit to the dictates of the religion.

religion does not raise awareness, it stifles awareness. the purpose of religion is to brainwash and control people.

if you wish to truly raise your awareness, then avoid religion. religious people are generally the most narrow-minded people on earth.

[Rizal Affif]

@ tAo: today, yes. As religion has been misunderstood by its followers, since almost all followers stuck with outer forms and cannot grasp the essence.

I found that all religions share the same message, even with atheistic mysticism--provided it's understood correctly. I think those who sided either with religion or with anti-religion is just the same; both trapped with an extreme perspective and missed another :D

[tAo]

"religion has been misunderstood by its followers, since almost all followers stuck with outer forms and cannot grasp the essence."

-- grasp what essence? what is that essence?

"all religions share the same message"

-- not true. where did you get that idea? the "message" of each religion is different in many ways. and merely saying that the message is the same, does not make it so.

"even with atheistic mysticism--provided it's understood correctly."

-- "atheistic mysticism"?? no such creature exists. there is no mysticism possible in atheism. i think you have your terms mixed up. and what is there to understand "correctly"?? mysticism is based upon the notion of the supernatural. there is no supernatural in atheism.

"those who sided either with religion or with anti-religion is just the same"

-- that is not true at all. those are not the same at all. being religious is extremely different from being non-religious.

"both trapped with an extreme perspective and missed another"

-- the non-religious are not "trapped" in anything. nor are tghe missing anything. it is the religious believers who are trapped. so i think you are very mixed-up and confused about all this. and i think you are really just trying to defend religion, although you have utterly failed to do that.

[corporatewear]

If there is an afterlife, we don't know about it, since we're alive -- not dead. The meaning of our existence is founded on our actual life after birth, not our imagined life after death.