Atheism is for intellectuals sitting in ivory towers of relative comfort where they can Molly-coddle themselves with comfort whilst living a padded life-style where they are not forced to face the real tough questions about life that inadequate Atheism is hopeless to address.
"This is it and there's nothing more" is a lot easier to say when your "it" is a nice house with garden. Reasonably good bank balance, happy families and future prospects. When your "it" is real struggle, Atheism proves to be nothing more than idealistic trash.
What are the alternatives to Atheism? Well there is Theism - that is the idea there is some kind of God. There are three main types of theism. Polytheism (many gods), Pantheism (all is god) and Monotheism There is just one God. We'll consider here Pantheism.
Pantheism: Here in the west there is a mixed bag of Pantheisim often called New Ageism which is really a pick'n'mix of eastern religions and ancient Celtic beliefs (and a bit more besides). you might call it neo-paganism. It essentially believes God is all, and is in all. God is the trees, the sun, the stars, the air we breathe, the hills, mountains, streams etc. It is mother earth that is worshipped and exalted above all. it's difficult to nail modern Pantheism (neo-paganism) down because it is by nature 'pick'n'mix, but for our purposes we will focus on one element of it ...
Reincarnation.
Neo-pagans generally believe a type pf reincarnation, that when we die we continue to live on by becoming part of the living earth. That is, the worms eat us and as they absorbis we become a part of them, and of course they poo what they don't want of us out which fertilises and feeds the trees etc - so we become part of them too, and on we go, basically a glorified 'Green Party' ideal of recycling. We are all part of the whole and hang together, we will one day become part of the ground we walk on so should respect it, therefore we must aim to live as a harmonious 'one' with one another and the world. This is the neo-pagan view.Mother Earth
Pantheists and Neo-pagans speak a lot about Mother Earth as the giver of life, provider, the supplier of all we need. But here's another perspective on this so-called mother. Here is the bootom line ... No matter what happens in this life, no matter how good or bad we are, no matter how we are treated or treat others, we all get the same reward from Mother Earth, we all get to become worm-feed. that is ultimately what we are - worm feed. That is all we amount to, worm feed! Most of us would not waste a good cut of steak on a dog, butour beloved 'mother earth' uses us, the children of mother earth, to feed the worms! Think that through - such is our so called 'mother earth'. What a sick, sick mother that would be!
If this is true, and life is a struggle, it means life is a struggle and then you feed worms. So what is the point in the struggle? Why not just cut it out and go straight to feeding worms? Sadly, on Pantheism there is no rational answer.
We might say, "but not everything is always struggle, and even if it was there are things I value, people I love and people who love me. So for the sake of one another the struggle to live is worth it to enrich the lives of those we love."
I think that is the best answer Pantheism (neo-pagans) can give (and for that matter Atheists too).
At that level I agree with them, it is true, people we love and the relationships we enjoy are both worth living for and dying for, it is deeply saddening that 'struggle' - be it poverty, hunger, hopelessness, despair, oppression, injustice, sickness, wickedness etc blights this precious life for so, so many people.
Murder with impunity
But, though we probably all stand together in agreement on the above paragraph, the reality is, these precious relationships are all bound to destruction. The greatest tragedy of life is death, because death makes a mockery of life. It is like a terrible enemy - like a murderer that murders with impunity. Imagine a murderer breaking into your home and killing your wife and children - that is what death does! Death is going to murder me, my marriage, my wife, my children, death will murder everything that means anything to me and to you, Pantheism and Atheism has no answer to it. On Pantheism and Atheism, death has the last word.
Some saye the fact of death just makes life even more precious. I can see this reasoning. If death has the final answer we should value one another while we can. None of us know when this murderer of life will show. Death is very active, devastating lives and taking people out all the time all over the place. It may come for us and our loved ones at any moment. It has countless ways of achieving its end.
A Helter Skelter
In some ways, life is like a Helter-skelter ride ... to destruction - so the best thing we can do is stick our fingers in our ears and close our eyes, enjoy the thrill of the ride until the final moment we are plunged into the brick wall at the end and splat! The end! To open your eyes and see what's really happening is too scary and will just ruin the ride.
Pantheism has no answers except the same as Atheists. The Murderer of life is coming for everyone of us, we may fight it off with medicine, technology etc, but it will have its way and Pantheism, neo-paganism cannot do a thing to help - but that doesn't matter because Pantheism is not true. There is a real answer to death which we will come to. In the next blog we will look at Polytheism - the belief there are many Gods, and we'll see what this says to the struggler.
For now, Atheism and Pantheism have got nothing.
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