Take Me To Post Comment Form Religious believers like to claim that their god and ancient texts provide them with an "inside track" to defining what is morally justifiable and acceptable. But certainly there is far more to morality than simply "sucking up to God," in fear of some eternal persecution or damnation. One's true sense of right and wrong has nothing to do with religion. Instead there is a kindness, a charity, and a generosity in our human nature, one that which can clearly be explained through Darwinian evolution. Throughout much of our prehistory, humans lived under conditions that favored altruistic genes. Gene survival depended on nurturing our family, and on doing deals with our peers. To simplify things, one could think of this as the classic "Quid pro quo" or "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" principle. In truth, we don't need religion to explain morality, in fact if anything it just gets in the way.

It is important to realize that morality is much older than religion. Humans do have an innate range of moral senses that you could think of as sophisticated versions of the kind of instincts you see in chimps and other social species. For example, we find that chimpanzees live in family groups, with mothers looking after their young. Additionally, chimps work in teams, and in fact chimps are particularly good at competing for status through what we humans would consider as "public service." In other words, they compete for status not just through brute force, but by being good leaders and by intervening to settle disputes. Is it not widely agreed upon that working together often produces more mutual outcomes, rather than simply working for one's self benefit?

Perhaps, then, it is our genetic inheritance that explains why those of us with no allegiance to some holy book, or pope, or ayatollah to tell us what is morally acceptable still manage to ground ourselves in a consensus which is surprisingly widely agreed upon. As social animals, we've worked out that we wouldn't want to live in a society where it was acceptable to rape, murder, or steal. We have a moral conscience and a mutual empathy that is constantly evolving. Religious or not, we as a society have changed in unison, and continue still to change in our attitude toward what is right and what is wrong. Fifty years ago, nearly everyone in America was somewhat racist, now only few remain. Just twenty years ago, it was impossible for two homosexual people to walk along the street hand in hand, now there's less of a stigma about these things. Some of us lag behind the advancing wave of moral standards and some of us are ahead. But all of us in the 21st century are certainly ahead of our counterparts from the time of Abraham, Mohammad, or St Paul. And to an atheist, it is this very gift of empathy that is the building block of our moral system, not the dictation of some super-natural creator.

And what if I am “wrong” in this style of life, you ask? This, to me, suggests such a level of thick-headedness and absurdity that I usually try to steer clear of rather than get wrapped into. If it indeed turns out that I have been wrong all this time, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, hair-splitting impressed him, then I want no affiliation with him at-all—lest "give him a place in my heart". I would not, however, have spent my "life “looking like a fool," but on the contrary would have lived an enlightening pursuit of beauty, truth, and knowledge. Religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago. We shall have no more prophets or sages from the ancient quarter, which is why the devotions of today are only the echoing repetitions of yesterday, sometimes ratcheted up to a screaming point so as to ward off the terrible emptiness.

However, just look around you; nature is anything but empty. Rather it demands our attention. It begs us to explore and to question. To an atheist, the beauty of our world is not apparent in Islam or Christianity or any of the other orthodoxy for that matter, as religion can provide only facile and ultimately unsatisfying answers. Science however, in its constant search for real explanations, reveals the true majesty of our world in all of its complexity. There is no omniscient and all loving god to keep us free from harm, and in fact the idea of a divine creator actually belittles the elegant reality of the universe.

Atheism on the other hand is not a recipe for despair. In fact, I think the opposite. By disclaiming the idea of an afterlife, we can take more excitement in our "pre-after life;" our one and only life. The here and now is not simply some waiting room before some eternal heaven or hell. The here and now is all we have, and that more than anything is an inspiration to make the most of it. Atheism then becomes life affirming in a way religion can never be. People often say: "There must be more than just this world; than just this life." But how much more do you want? We are going to die and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they're never going to be born. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be mutated, you and I are grotesquely lucky to be here. The number of events that had to happen in order for you and I to exist makes our presence here simply astonishing. We are truly privileged to be alive, and therefore should make the most of our little time in this world.