So does it matter?

If I don’t believe in the concept of a caring god, what does that mean for my life? Does that mean I live out my days in despair? Does it mean I feel free to commit horrible crimes against humanity? No and no. Of course not.

Funny thing about agnostics: They tend to be pretty peaceful people. They don’t generally invade various holy lands or try to exterminate entire races. Hitler was a Lutheran. (To see what got him going, check out Martin Luther’s treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies.) The Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo – whose genocidal handiwork I had the unfortunate opportunity to witness first hand – are Eastern Orthodox. And we know all too well what fundamentalist Islam has brought the world, though it still pales in comparison to the crusades and inquisition perpetrated by the Roman Catholic church. Atheists don’t murder abortion doctors or savagely beat gay college students. Protestants do that. They’re also the greatest proponents of racism and capital punishment in the United States. Meanwhile, deliberate agnostics like Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin spend their lives in peaceful study, doing their best to make the world a better place.

To me, the reason for this is obvious. Agnostics (and atheists) do not treat life as a dress rehearsal. This is the real thing. Right here, right now. It takes an awful lot of guts to hold yourself accountable for everything you do, and recognize that the actions you take actually matter. If you screwed up, you screwed up. There’s no god to wipe the slate clean, no pastor to tell you that you’ll be forgiven. The thoughtful agnostic understands that.

At this point, I think I should clarify that I’m not talking about people who just can’t be bothered going to church. We’re all agnostic by default; the practice of religion has to be ingrained in us or we revert to our natural godless state. It’s no accomplishment to lapse out of religious practice because you’d rather watch football or sleep in on Sunday. Dogs and rabbits and hummingbirds are atheists, but ignorance or laziness isn’t the same as leading a purposeful, well-examined life without a god. I know the difference between right and wrong, and I do my best to make good choices without the threat of punishment or the hope of reward in the afterlife. I do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do. It’s what’s best for humanity in general, and what’s best for my life (and the lives of those important to me) specifically. You need moral courage to make the right decisions even when nobody – and I mean nobody – is watching, and that goes double when you know you don't get any second chances.

Contrary to popular belief, the concepts of right and wrong are not intrinsically linked to religion. They’re linked to civilization. Secular civilization. Civilization’s need to distinguish between them is what created religion, not the other way around. The oldest civilizations predate the oldest religions by millennia. And, as is always – always – the case with organized religion, the message got caught up in its own self-importance and veered off course.

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." – Thomas Paine, 1794