WHAT KIND OF THEISM?

A friend of mine recently declared to me that he had gone from being an atheist to an anti-theist. He has transcended merely not believing, and has progressed to being intolerant of religion and all who embrace it. Any religion- he is an equal opportunity cynic.

I’m on his side.

If I weren’t before, then surely the claim by that nationally famous nincompoop from Alaska has pushed me over the edge. Imagine – this woman – who made it to state governor actually believes she has a shot at the Republican presidential nomination for 2012. Only, that is, if her Maker opens a door for her, a door of opportunity, which she will cheerfully and obediently (after all – her Lord proclaimed it) walk through it.

But it is all too easy to sever whatever flimsy link there was to the Divine has been broken by a nitwit.

I cringe every time I see people praying for something – a candlelight vigil – as if somehow there is a Diving Being who will grant them their wish, The wishes are often about finding a lost loved one, who usually turns up dead in some forest, or a terminal cancer patient who drifts inevitably toward death in spite of fervent praying by the family, plus every total stranger who hears about the dying person, and grief junkies to the end, fall on their knees in supplication for her to live.
She dies. But their faith is undimmed.

Recently, one of my dearest friends died. She was too beautiful to die. She was too smiling and lovely to die. She was too talented to die. I commented to someone, who I knew was a “believer” that it makes you wonder how the Divine could let it happen. He responded: “But we do not know what’s on the other side.”

I guess that’s at the heart of it. The notion that, in our own preposterously self-denying way, we can’t believe that we will actually die, turn to dust, and just plain disappear. The only trace of our presence will be what we have left behind – children, a great book, a musical composition.

When I listen to a Mozart symphony I don’t think it is foolish Wolfgang speaking to me from beyond the grave. All I know is that he wrote it down and we still have it. It is what he left for us. It is not divine or spectrally scary – it is dots on a page.

I went to see Bill Maher’s Religulous, hoping for a defining moment for all atheists. What I got was a man who couldn’t decide between being profound and being funny, A man, who obviously has abandoned his Catholic beliefs, but who still atavistically, clings to the possibility that there is something out there. His fallback was always “I don’t know.”

Well I know. There does not have to be a God for me to sit here and write. There does not have to be a God for me to want to play the piano. There does not have to be a God who I can blame for the stock market crash.

One of Toronto’s most listened-to broadcaster/writers, Gordon Sinclair, almost daily reminded us of his scorn for religion and any notion of an all-caring, all-seeing God. His public laughed and thought of him as a “character.” I found that when I said the same things I was branded a dangerous fool.

For me, there does not have to be God. The stuff about “no atheists in foxholes” is pure rubbish. Even if it were true, someone with death staring them in the face is not likely to be mentally competent.

I say: get up off your knees and start making your life what you can make it. But we will not. Like the poor devils in Alcoholics Anonymous, who have given themselves over to a higher power, they have abdicated personal responsi8bility for who they are and what they are.

And we think suicide bombers are demented!