Magic, Kindness and Hope

Sometimes, when people find out I'm an atheist and that I do not believe in the supernatural, they will smugly say,

Well, I wouldn't want to live in a world without magic!

Sometimes, I don't respond. But sometimes, I just can't help myself, and I ask, "What do you mean by magic?"

And here's how the conversation goes:

Them: A world without things that are wonderous!

Me: I still live in a world where are wonderous. 

Them: A world where not everything can be explained!

Me: I still live in a world where not everything can be explained.

Them: A world where I see something and I feel awe, where I feel reverence!

Me: I still live in a world where I feel awe and reverence. 

I live in a world where there is no magic, where there is nothing outside physical laws, but where plenty around me feels magical. Knowing what creates a rainbow, or the Grand Canyon, or a "shooting star" doesn't make it any less than magical and wonderous for me.

It's similar when someone finds out I'm an atheist and smugly says,

Well, I wouldn't want to live in a world without hope!

I don't live in a world without hope. It's when I was trying to believe in God in my younger days that I was so hopeless - because I was told that the crap I was experiencing was "God's will." Now, I live in a UNIVERSE that's so much bigger, with so many, many more possibilities, than the world as described to me via Christianity.

I love get my hope renewed when I see someone be kind to someone else, not because they have to, not because they fear that some magical invisible man is in the sky and he will punish them if they aren't kind, but rather because that person feels a desire to help his or her fellow human, a desire that is inherent in humanity as a whole, regardless of religion or lack thereof. The March for Women in January 2017, the March for Science later that year, the outpouring of support for immigrants when Donald Trump tried to launch his first Muslim travel ban, the response of people wanting to volunteer after a disaster, someone helping a stranger on the bus, at the grocery store, on the street - it all gives me hope.

Looking at the periodical table fills me with awe - and I can't explain chemistry. I sometimes cry watching Nature or Nova because the world, the universe, is amazing! And there is so much that is unexplained. You see God in the unexplained; I see possibilities for ENDLESS scientific discovery.

And without God, hope is boundless, it is endless. All things are possible.

Lovely things that feel magical in the natural world

Hope

Love

Joy 

Wonder

Delight

Contentment

Resilience

Fulfillment

Aspirations

Optimism

Promise

Goodness

None of those things are supernatural. None are magic, though they can feel like something magical. They are all natural, all real, a part of our world, and, therefore, all are possible to experience. That means you can experience them without a belief in a god or gods. And atheists do, just as often, maybe even more often, than people that believe in the supernatural. 

I love experiencing all of these wonderful things. I don’t experience them every second of every day, but I experience these wonderful things far, far more often, and in greater abundance, since I stopped trying to believe in a magical, invisible super friend. 

Believers love to say you can't be happy without a god or gods. I wonder how they explain me?

Happy New Year!

Also see:    

• The power & the glory of hope, WITHOUT a god
• Love is logical. Love makes sense.
• The Atheist Response to Tragedy

North Carolina votes for... what?

Yesterday, North Carolina voted to ban not only gay marriage, but all legal civil unions, including those of straight couples.

This does not strengthen marriage in North Carolina. No straight, religious, married couple in North Carolina is now going to be married longer, and have a more fulfilling, happy marriage, because of this vote. That's absolutely irrefutable.

Here's what this amendment does do:

• If a gay person is admitted to a hospital and the hospital decides only family can visit that person, his or her same-sex partner cannot visit. It doesn't matter if that couple (yes, they can still be called a couple) has spent thousands of dollars and oh-so-many hours to have legal paperwork that says they will have this right if such a scenario presents itself. That paperwork is null and void in North Carolina.
• If a gay person dies, the parents, siblings or children of that person - who that person may not have talked to in years - will have all rights regarding the funeral and burial. Regardless of any relationship that person may have with someone of the same sex, even a 20-year-old partnership, that partner can legally be excluded, entirely, from the planning - even from attending. It doesn't matter if that couple has spent thousands of dollars and oh-so-many hours to have legal paperwork that says they will have this right if such a scenario presents itself. That paperwork is null and void in North Carolina.
• If a gay person gets a job that gives health insurance coverage to a spouse, his or her same-sex partner cannot get that coverage, under any circumstances. 

How does any of that make straight marriage stronger? It doesn't! In fact, straight Christians will continue to sometimes (often?) have relationship and sexual problems, will continue to sometimes (often?) have adulterous affairs, and often get divorced. This amendment does NADA to address those things.

By contrast, without this amendment - if you, North Carolina, allowed gay marriage - here's what would never, ever change:

• If your church does not recognized gay marriage, it would still not recognize gay marriage. Just as a Baptist church is under no obligation to allow Muslim weddings, just as a Catholic church could refuse to marry to non-Catholics, your church would get to continue to refuse to recognize gay marriage. You can refuse to perform such ceremonies, you can ask such people to leave your grounds. That doesn't change no matter how marriage is defined.
• You get to continue to be disgusted by gay marriage, just as I'm disgusted by child marriage, a marriage where there is more than a 30 year age difference between the partners, or religious marriages that require women to stay in abusive relationships. You get to continue to speak out about how you think it's awful, stand up and leave the room in a huff when someone says they support it, ignore people engaged in it, etc.
• You get to continue to refuse to attend any wedding among any two people you don't think should get married, gay or straight.
• Straight people like Kim Kardashian and Brittney Spears will get married for just a few hours/days.
• Gay people would continue to live together, love each other, even hold hands in public.  

So what good did this amendment do you, straight married religious couples of North Carolina?

None. Zilch. Nada.

Consider this, voters of North Carolina: most of you are Christians. But you aren't the same kinds of Christians. In fact, some of you would say that some others of you are NOT Christians. I've heard Church of Christ people say no one else is Christian but them, I've heard Catholics say no one else is a Christian but them, I've heard Baptists say that neither Catholics nor Mormons are Christians, and on and on and on. You people loooove to debate who is and isn't a Christian. You would have gotten to do the same thing regarding gay people had you NOT passed this amendment: you would have gotten to continue to say, "I believe marriage is between one man and one woman and, therefore, those guys over there aren't really married." You would get to continue to believe that, with all your heart. But if you are an intensive care unit nurse, you would have had to keep that belief to yourself when a man came to your unit to see his husband - would that REALLY have been so hard? Are you going to feel better telling that man, "No! You cannot see him! Ha ha!" Is that really what Jesus would do?

Why should your religion - which I do not believe in, by the way - get to determine which loving, adult, consenting couples get to get married? You say marriage is something that is sanctified by God and was created for the purpose of having children - yet here I am, an Atheist who is not having babies, and I was allowed to marry. Are you going to try to take away my marriage now?

This was a vote that was driven entirely - ENTIRELY - by religious people, particularly and especially Christians. And it represents so much of why we Atheists find you just as reprehensible as you find The Gays.