“Live each day like it’s your last,” I’m told. “Live like you’re dying.”
I don’t, because that would mean lying in the fetal position, shrieking. Tell me I’m going to live forever, though, and get out of my way. Nothing sounds finer than being stuck in the Groundhog Day loop for a century or two, learning how to love, practicing piano, and honing my taekwondo skills.
Daytime is mercifully free from thoughts of death, unless I’m writing about it. But at night — say I accidentally look up at the stars, and before I can pretend they’re twinkly diamonds in the sky, I’m reminded that their infiniteness dwarfs the human lifespan — that’s when the atheist’s nothingness comes, propagating through my neurons in a black whispering bloom, telling the story of my ending. Depending how vividly it depicts my nonexistence at death, I’m left morose or petrified.
Next to me, my Christian wife sleeps peacefully.
I’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe her peaceful slumber, and to wonder, what would that be like? Falling asleep with the promise of a heavenly everafter, should I die before I wake, night after night, without the hideous weight of nothingness pressing on my chest. I want that. But since everything comes with a price tag, especially something as precious as this, the question becomes, “What would I give for faith’s fearlessness?”
Would I trade my coveted atheism?
I used to feel so superior. I was certain that the recognition of humanity as the product of mindless physical forces automatically leads to better science and technology, life choices, success. But some of the best scientists, engineers and people I know strictly interpret the Bible — scoffing at Darwin and misdating the Earth a million times over — haven’t stopped conducting nuclear radiation experiments, fossil fuel chemical analyses, and beautiful relationships.
In general, my development into a worthy lifemate began by abandoning my spousal evangelism for all the things I know to be true. Belief in God was atop my hit list, for the standard reasons: causing wars, preventing scientific advance, and aggravating me. I was committed to saving my wife and winning a secular convert, replacing her spiritual peace with my reality, my fear.
That strikes me now as a little twisted. Back at the turning point, when I finally realized my wife had married for a partner, not a mentor, I started listening for the first time, with no other agenda than to learn about her. What I heard — the joy that poured from her soul as she talked about her belief and absolute certainty in the afterlife — made me feel wonderful for her. And terrible for myself. I became perhaps the first atheist with Christian envy.
My wife has always prayed for my soul, but she used to do it in secret, to avoid a lecture from the aggravated atheist. With my atheism transformed from point-of-pride to cross-to-bear, now she’s even committed to sneaking me into Heaven through the back door.
I am still certain God and Heaven do not exist; at the same time, I’m no longer a dummy.
Maybe the joke’s on those of us who know that natural selection explains the descent of man and essentially disproves God. Science continually expands our enlightenment, yet believers are more predominant than ever. The world thrives with atheists in the distinct, shrinking minority. If we are committed to unbiased assessment of the data like the scientists we idolize, we might be forced to conclude that belief grants a selective advantage.
Right alongside physical beauty, hunting and gathering prowess, and capitalist skills, maybe we are attracted to Faith — at a sensory level, described as the absence of fear. Fear paralyzes a portion of the brain otherwise free to plan and execute. All other mate-traits equal, my wife would have been wiser to select a man of faith, who operates nearer to full neural production. Hopefully my sweet Gumby tattoo and rare intuition of the right moment to flip the pancakes are some consolation.
Probably, her regret will only surface if our children turn out to be atheists who overcook the pancakes.
Sparing my children the awful fear of Nothingness would be a huge accomplishment. Early signs indicate belief is in their genes; taking no chances, I generally keep my trap shut on the topic. I’m the atheist who wants my kids to go to Heaven. Or at least believe they’re going to.
Allan Harris (apedroharris@yahoo.com) of Castle Rock is a finance manager and novelist.
