JUST ANOTHER CRANKY OLD FART

One of the prerogatives, no - make that imperatives - connected to aging is the obligation to write letters to the editor. A friend once told me that if I kept having my letters published (The Star, Globe and Mail, New York Times) no one would buy a piece from me when they can get it free.

Heedless of that argument, I continue to vent.

I am however, trapped by geography. I write this from my daughter's home in Austin, Texas, and the paper would have to call me long distance to confirm that I and not some name-dropping imposter, had written the letter.

The moderator of the United Church, responding to a question about the furor over transit ads for atheism, commented that atheists instead of being "against", should tell us what they are "for."

I had no alternative. I was compelled to respond. I said that just a few days ago my son-in-law, a devout Catholic (married to my very Jewish daughter) asked me why I was an atheist. He cannot imagine anyone not believing, partly because of his religious background, and partly because he falls back on the timeworn notion that "there must be something out there bigger thasn we are who is responsible etc..."

I told him, reflecting perhaps on what the United Church moderator is quoted as having said, that atheism - literally "a" without - theism - belief in a deity is not enough. Perhaps we atheists should clarify that our belief is not simply that the idea of the Divine is mythic superstition, but that (at least in my case) there is more.

I explained to my son-in-law that the positive side is that I am an existentialist. I believe in my own primacy, or more correctly, the primacy of man/womankind. We alone are responsible for who we are and what we do. The choices are ours. I could have quoted Henri Bergson on Free Will and that I alone am responsible for my choices. (So what would you expect from a Jewish philosopher - Bergson, not Solway.)

Here in the most faith-based country in the developed world, I sit and ponder why they so constantly invoke the Divine. I would remind them that two of their greatest historical heros - Franklin and Jefferson - were Deists, which is another way of describing what Isaac Newton also believed, that if there is a God he created things but then (and this is the sense of the story of the Fall in Genesis)
left us on our own. No prayers. No invocations. No on-your knees.

But I digress.

My big beef is with the Church that always says the same thing about atheists. They think we are bereft of belief. Thinking that makes them feel better I suppose.