Life, the universe, and atheism

I met my friend J. for a pint last night, and at one point he asked me how central to my identity atheism is. It's a good question, and one I didn't have a ready answer for. I was raised Catholic, and stopped practicing more than 10 years ago, but didn't really think of myself as an atheist until the past few years. J. was raised more or less without religion, so I did say that, basically, having been raised with religion, atheism is a bigger deal to me than it is to him. He agreed with this, and the conversation then moved on to other things. But the question has been on my mind, so I thought it might be worth blog post to look at how central being an atheist is to my identity.

I became an atheist over time - there was no eureka moment of sudden clarity. It had been years since I stopped believing in God or going to church (except with family on holidays) when I started considering myself an atheist. Looking back, I'd say there were a few things that converged in a relatively brief period of time, like starting to read science books, the appearance of the New Atheists, the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and, not long after, the build up to and birth of my own daughter. These are all things that combined to force me to think about what it is I really believe and know, and why.

Reading more science books filled in enormous gaps in my knowledge of nature and the universe, and that really didn't leave much for God to do in the universe, as far as I can see. But it was the birth of my daughter that really focused my thinking about religion. My wife is Jewish, and with overall a positive experience of being raised Catholic (though not practicing for several years), I tried to find ways to keep Catholicism as a part of my cultural identity. Being Jewish is an advantage here in that Jews can be atheists and still be Jewish. As Paul Giamatti said, "there are no better atheists in the world than the Jews".

Before conceiving, and during the pregnancy, we had several conversations about how to raise our child, and while trying to decide whether or not to baptize her (before I knew it was a her) I came to the conclusion that there is absolutely no way to have a cultural baptism that is not also an expression of religious belief. I realized that I want to be honest with my daughter about the world, I want to be able to justify my decisions regarding both her life and my own, and it is easier to justify to myself and to her not having her baptized than making her a member of an organization with whose raison d'être I fundamentally disagree. So, in that way, in the sense that atheism colours and informs real life decisions that I make, I do have to say that atheism is a big part of my life and, probably, a big part of my sense of identity.

Of course, being an atheist is just a starting point - recognizing that God does not exist is essentially a matter of overcoming an inhereted cultural belief, but it's no more a statement about the universe itself than (to bring Richard Dawkins into it) recognizing that goblins and fairies don't exist. So while atheism, and my opinions on religion and science and all that, are a big part of my life, they don't exactly come up in conversation everyday. I think that's one important distinction to explain - calling yourself an atheist only tells people what you don't believe, and it says very little about what you actually do believe, or like, or enjoy doing in your free time.

To sum up, because being an atheist is something I'd say I've accomplished, through reading, thinking, and looking at the world, and being convinced of a godless universe after a religious upbringing (I'd say I'm symapthetic to Douglas Adams' "radical atheist" position) it's a small, personal intellectual accomplishment that I can even say I'm proud of.

Hitchens

"When he was admitted to the hospital for the last time, we thought it would be for a brief stay. He thought — we all thought — he’d have the chance to write the longer book that was forming in his mind. His intellectual curiosity was sparked by genomics and the cutting-edge proton radiation treatments he underwent, and he was encouraged by the prospect that his case could contribute to future medical breakthroughs. He told an editor friend waiting for an article, “Sorry for the delay, I’ll be back home soon.” He told me he couldn’t wait to catch up on all the movies he had missed and to see the King Tut exhibition in Houston, our temporary residence.

The end was unexpected"

These words are from Carol Blue, Christopher Hitchens' wife, which she wrote in the afterword to his final book, Mortality. The paragraph amazes me because it shows a desire to continue living in the face of an inevitable death. Not a desire as in the wish to deny death, or a tearful grasping on in the hopes death will suddenly change its mind and leave you alone, but a desire to squeeze the most out of the last few days of life knowing that the end is soon. 

It's difficult for me to read this without relating it to my own life. Unlike Christopher Hitchens I don't have the knowledge (advantage?) of knowing when I'll die, even approximately. So what prevents me from living my remaining decades with as much curiosity and energy (mental if not physical) as he intended to live his last days? Is it the ambiguity of the end that holds me back? I wonder if it's similar to having a new roll of toilet paper - when you first use it, you're not afraid to use a few extra squares to wipe your ass, but as it nears the end of the roll the possibility of being caught without suddenly becomes more real, and you start conserving, even preparing a new roll before it runs out. 

So, to sum up, maybe life is just one big roll of toilet paper. 

I could use Carol Blue's words about her husband's vitality in the face of death as a call to arms to carpe my own diem and all that, but it's too clichéd and ridiculous and besides, it's not going to happen. But hopefully thinking about the death of someone like Hitchens will do me some good by at least reminding me that death is inevitable, if not tomorrow, and that, as Hitchens also once wrote, "the grave will supply plenty of time for silence."