Letter to a Theist

Dear Readers,

Today as I was reading The Common Atheist’s post on 2.4 Billion and 1.6 Billion and no Bliss, I came across this posting on Three Paradoxes of Atheism by Neil Shenvi, or NAShenvi, as he calls himself.. He is a Chemical Theorist, and quite obviously, a theist. I was intrigued. You know I HAD to read that post. Not only did I have to read it, within just a few lines I HAD to reply to it. Only, there was no place for commentary. So I went to his attached website, and still had to search for awhile to find a way to contact him. You know, of course, I am not computer literate. Even moreso, I am NOT WordPress literate. But eventually I came across his email address, and following is, almost word-for-word (I corrected a few small errors I missed while proofreading):

His full quotes are in red, his broken into pieces quotes are in magenta:

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Dear Neil,
May I kindly enquire why it is you have a website and a blog on Word Press, yet you choose to make claims that cannot be publicly addressed since you do not leave a space for comments. You have an idea of “atheists” in your mind, obviously, yet you seem to know little about who atheists are. I am one. I have my own idea of a cosmology that does not include a superbeing of any kind, but does include a very strong spirituality that connects all living beings together. Yet, as I say, I am an atheist. How can this be?
It is mainly because we are not a group, nor a club, and especially not an anti-religion. NO TWO ATHEISTS think the same. Yes, there are those who try to stand up and speak for all atheists, but they can only represent themselves. NO ONE ELSE! Does that surprise you? It should, because like most people who are not atheists, you are likely so bound and boxed into having strength in numbers, you have probably misplaced the knowledge that the strongest number in the world is 1. No two atheists think alike, or even pretend to think alike. Atheism is a belief in one’s own cosmology, and no one else’s, therefore you are misled from the get-go. You cannot truly fight atheism as long as you believe atheism is a quantitative philosophy. IT IS NOT!
Yet you say we believe… Please allow me to correct that statement, because WE do not believe anything. The best that can be said is “I believe!”, or “in my opinion (IMO)…” Had you looked at who you are really dealing with, you would have known this. But it seems you have taken the easy way out. As a chemical theorist I would have expected more of you, but maybe you are too busy with chemicals to understand what words mean, and who people are.

But please, let me answer the charges you have levelled against atheists, such as “it is very hard for atheists to explain why seeking the truth is intrinsically good or why we are obligated to seek it.” My first thought is, why would I try to tell anyone “seeking … is intrinsically good,” when “seeking” is not something everyone does, so it is not “intrinsic” to anything. Millions upon billions of people on this earth seek, or rather desire (which is the correct verb in this instance), to be left alone, to live their lives as they see fit. No one, as far as your argument is concerned, has proven seeking to be intrinsic to anything. It is but an unproven assumption, intrinsic to nothing. But allow me to expand your statement one step, “the truth is intrinsically good.” Goodness has its root in the word “god,” so to a believer such as yourself, the truth is intrinsically god-like. Don’t  you think that is a rather fatuous statement? You are applying your belief system where there is no call to do so. God has not been proven yet, though nor has he been misproven. The point is moot. For now we will have to agree to disagree, because we are getting into an area that has absolutely no meaning in my vocabulary, so again, IMO, I cannot argue for either side. So, let us expand your statement once more, “seeking the truth is intrinsically good.” This, I presume, is part of your argument, though it is stated as an “a priori” truth,  or “truth is truth.” But is it? My truth is not your truth, and your truth is not my truth. So, either truth is relative to the beholder of the truth, or it is non-existant. There can be no “truth” when two people hold the same “truth” to be different. Truth either lies in between the two positions, or it lies nowhere at all. You can expound your belief all you want, that is your privilege. I won’t bother expounding anything because, as I said previously, the words are meaningless to me. They are beyond argument.

Ah, at last, we come to the crux of your statement, which is “it is very hard for atheists to explain why.” I could rejoin your argument with its counter, “it is very hard for a theist to explain why,” but why bother. Ring around the rosy, a pocketfull of posy, husha, husha, we all fall down! Not I fall down, not you fall down, but WE fall down. We fail to make headway from either side to the other side. We both end up looking like (biblical) asses. Yet you seem to think you have scored some points… And you may have, if like Trump you believe all you have to do is state an assumption is true and it will become truth. But that is not how the real world works. You must either prove your side, or disprove mine. You can do neither. For my part I just ignore the entire claim as meaningless, though I feel it is my duty as a living being to point out your so-called “facts” are fantasy. You really ought to check them before you try to make them true.

And finally, “or why are we obligated to seek it.” You may be obligated to seek out truth, I am not. If I choose to seek out truth, relative as it may be, I do so for my own edification. And when I find my version of truth (I much prefer understanding to truth, it is so much more meaningful to me), I may tell it to some others, but I do not offer it willy-nilly to everyone, but to only those who are looking for it. And, I ask deliberately that no one believe anything I say unless it is meaningful to them in some way. I will never again say, “Here is truth, believe me when I tell you. I KNOW WHAT TRUTH IS!” I do know what “my” truth is, I have no idea what your truth is.
So why do you feel obligated to find out “why?” Why is such a spurious question. Any two year-old understands that. At first s/he really means it, but soon the child learns it irritates the adult, and so continuously asks “why?” There needs to be no why. Because it is there. Because I made up the question. Because I want to learn. Because I want to understand. Take your choice. But that is what why is, a choice to know or not know, to understand or not understand. You ask, Why? I answer, Why not? I could tell you why if I wanted. I doubt you could tell me why not.

“The paradox of atheism is that the atheist, while usually committed to living a life consistent with reality, cannot bear reality as he believes it actually is.” Say what? To transliterate from theist to atheist language: the self-contradictory absurdism of atheism is that I who am living a life consistent with reality (as I find it), cannot bear reality as I believe it to be.
Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, My! I must shorten that statement to make it even pretend to be understandable: I CANNOT BEAR TO FACE WHAT I BELIEVE IS REALITY? Please, give a person some intelligence, even if only that of a two year-old child. Since “what I believe to be reality” is something that I choose it to be, why would I construct a reality that I would not want to be in? The insanity of that thought is incredible! My reality allows me to be joyous, to smile, to laugh, to cry, to scream “I am alive! And I love it!” My reality does not require that I suffer, that I be in constant pain. My reality allows me to be in control of life as I know it, not to exist at the whim of some other being. Truthfully, Neil, you think an atheist cannot bear to live? I am appalled. I am human. Why would I want life to be anything but what it is? I, for one, do not want any other life. Thank you for asking.

“I am not asking whether atheists can do good. Rather, I am focusing only on the impact that atheism has on our moral motivation.” Dear sir, it is no wonder you do not understand atheists, in particular, this atheist. What have I to do with “moral motivation?” Morality is for theists. I am an atheist. I have no need to be moral. I have no need for motivation. What I am is responsible to all living beings. What I am is self-obligated not to intentionally hurt anyone, not to take life needlessly or frivolously. To help they whom I see need help. To soothe those I see are in pain. To succor those who are destitute, and I can give help to.
And I do this not through motivation, or through any sense of morality. I do it because I care. I do it because I can. I do it with compassion. And I do it because “I CHOOSE” to do so, not because I am told to do so.
What you call morality I want no part of. No one but me can tell me what is right or what is wrong, because there is no right or wrong. There is only life! And life is what I share with every living being, including you.
But I don’t believe you will care about me, because you have no duty to care. You might care about my soul, but believe me, you would be wasting your time. I have no soul. All I have is me, my life, my spirit, and Life itself. And that, sir, is why I am writing you today, because I care that you are working with fallacious facts, unbelievable understandings, and a need to be correct in whatever you write. Be honest with your readers, Neil, they deserve nothing less.
Thank you for your time.

—
rawgod

LIVE YOUR LIFE EACH DAY TO CREATE MEMORIES YOU WILL NEVER FORGET, OR REGRET

A Philosophy for All Living Beings (The NEW Part 1)

From the time the term came into my mind, “A PHILOSOPHY FOR ALL LIVING BEINGS,” upon which I posted 3 entries on my blog during February of 2018, I was completely dissatisfied with my writings, they were not a dissertation on my philosophy, but turned out to be more of a “How To…” discussion on to to become a self-aware, self-actuated or self-powered, spiritual being, providing you were human, and able to read English. These posts were so bad (as they did not relate to my philosophy hardly at all, though they were decent renditions of what they really turned out to be) that I developed a writer’s block that lasted many months. Where did I go so wrong? I might not be a talkative person, although that is in the process of changing, but when I pick up a pen, or sit at a keyboard, I usually have so much to say I cannot keep focus on what I am trying to write about, even as in this very minute. I love to explain, and even more I love to digress. And digression led me away from my original purpose in Part 1 of my earlier attempt. So now, if I may be so rude as to repeat myself, I am going to quote a few of the paragraphs I wrote in Part 1 while I was still trying to stay on focus, then go on from there. My sincerest apologies…

“Sanity is a condition of life that LOCKS us inside a universal (or should I say, at this time, planet-wide?) shared concept of what reality is. Insanity, in its turn, appears to mean something like unable to live in that shared reality that sane people exist in. But unsanity, as I use it, means able to go beyond the shared planet-wide concept of reality without losing that concept of reality. “I feel like I am unsane because I can see through the veil of reality while still being able to live in that shared reality without making other people think I am insane, or unable to cope with that reality in some way. As I see myself, and the reality around me, I am not locked into that reality, but able to transcend it whenever I see or feel the need. Therefore I am more than sane, I am unsane.” To wit, I am unsane enough to believe I can write a philosophy for all living beings….

“…I did not start out to discover a philosophy for all living beings, because to even have had that concept before I stumbled onto it would have been insane, even to me. All I was looking for was something I could live with, a thought or idea or maybe even a purpose about my life, or for my life. You might say I was adrift in a sea of concepts, all handed down to me from the people whom I thought understood the world into which I had been born. Yes, I believed what I was told, for maybe the first 10 years of my life.” But then I started to grow up…

And lastly, “Reality on Earth is many things, but is not always the same for all people as one would think it would have to be if there was nothing beyond reality.” — rawgod (Feb. 2018)

But there is something beyond our shared concept of reality, at least in my opinion. In fact, I have experienced things, drug-induced, to be truthful, under the influence of LSD, that turned out to be very similar to Near Death Experiences (NDEs), only my experiences were not induced by life threatening accidents, or even intential suicide attempts, or Out-Of-Body (OBE) events, they were induced by taking LSD caused by my hope to discover if there was anything beyond our shared concept of reality–beyond sanity.

If you care to stop reading right here, that is your choice, I will not hate you for it, but I am going to keep on writing, even if nobody but me reads my words. Please remember, however, everything I am about to say is “in my opinion,” or “from my personal experience,” or arrived at through long consideration by my mind or by my spiritual self. To go on…

There is life beyond the reality we see around us every day. Mostly, no one gets to see this other Reality-Beyond-Our-Reality (RBOR), or (“arbour,” also “arbor” like a group of leafy trees designed to create a shelter), or (a place to rest unseen due to blocking of penetrating vision–rawgod) except those who have died in this perceived shared reality we call life on Earth. “Death is the ultimate trip,” hippies were wont to say back in the 1960s, but even we did not see how close we were to RBOR. Close, but yet so far, because for most living beings in the after-death, a return to life is barely an infinite blink away. But, what can occur during that infinite blink!

The body dies, and the mind detaches from it. A door opens inside the mind, and as mind dies the spirit flies through the the door. A tunnel leads the way to a shining welcome. There are no eyes and yet the sense of music of the spheres. There are no ears, yet notes and chords are brought to notice with more colours than are in the rainbow. There is no nose, and yet the communication of telepathy . There is no mouth but yet the warmth of sharing. There is no skin but yet the beauty of being. There is no me, but yet there now is us. A movie reel (real?) starts and runs from birth to death, yet no judgment hammers the view. Then all is all there is, yet is becomes, and life is formed and sent to start anew. A womb or egg or seed or spore or splitting by mitosis is chosen, spirit is set in life, and reality closes the door, and us is back to me…

Poetic, don’t you think, in every sense of the word. But this is death in my experience, or as close as I could come without dying, and bringing back with me things I did not know were attached. It has taken me 50 years and more to move from delight to insanity to fear to confusion to maybe to possibility to finally a sense of undertanding. But understanding is not yet complete, and may never be, unless I live another 50 years or more. There is so much beyond the capacity of even spirit to hold while on this realm, this plane of mainly physical being. Social workers, of which I once was one, now retired, have a word for life on earth, biophysicalpsychlogicalsocialspiritualbeing. Not all social workers ascribe to this or similar views of life, but that depends on many factors, including the willingness or unwillingness to understand life as a spiritual experience. Like social workers, people from all backgrounds, all races, all nationalities, all physiologies, all psychological types, all social communities, and all spiuritual communities, or lack of any acceptance of all or any above states and biologies of being, may choose for themselves what they want to believe, or even not choose to make a choice. All reactions are welcome, and all choices are acceptable. There is no right or wrong. There only is.