What now?
That is the compelling question I asked myself repeatedly after I left the religion of my upbringing and pursued an alternative path that lead me to declaring myself an atheist. Perhaps the reason many people cling to religion, even in the face of so much evidence of its inherent personal and global detriment, is that it provides a structure, a blueprint for living, a road map for the journey from infancy to the sobering reality of death.
People need meaning in their lives, and religion is one way to provide that meaning. While I consider the price it extracts in return much too high, many people cannot fathom any viable alternative. Instead, they live with a set of arbitrary rules and regulations, an imaginary, built-in mitigation of consequences for personal choices, all based on ancient text that, while understandable at the time it was written, bears no relevance to the realities of life on this earth today.
In The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods, Eric Maisel, an author who has written extensively about creativity, discusses the alternative to utilizing irrelevant and damaging religious dogma to instill our lives with meaning. While it is a monumental shift in consciousness to discover that god is no more real than Santa Claus, it is necessary for most of us to answer the question, "What now?"
Creating our own meaning is the answer.
In his latest book, Maisel intentionally skipped the arguments for the non-existence of gods, which have been presented many times in a variety of ways. Instead, he digs into the alternative, detailing the steps to creating a meaningful life without the confines of religion in all its plentiful forms.
In the introduction of the book, Maisel points out that we start with evolution, not a supernatural power, explaining our origins, but we are not limited by the dictates of our biology. "Because you are built exactly as you are built, with an instinct for ethics alongside an instinct for self-interest," he explains, "with a complicated sense of self from which flow your decisions about what self-interest means and what you value, and with all the other diverse and fascinating aspects of your humanity, you can plot a course that feels righteous and worthy to you."
Plotting our own course creates freedom. The encumbrance of outdated, simplistic, and ridiculous dogma falls away, liberating us to analyze what's important in our day-to-day lives and pursue our own personalized missions to be happy, live well, and leave a legacy of our choosing.
Maisel writes, "You are free to sit in the sun for an hour without feeling guilty. You are free to cut off contact with toxic people and to eliminate toxic beliefs from your system. You are free to create stresses and strains in service to a task that you value, whether that task is writing a novel, starting a nonprofit, politicking for a candidate or intervening in your child's life. You are free to step out of the cultural trance, to step off a cliff and hang glide, or to step to one side and let someone else win. You are as free as you can be—that is, free as nature allows."
Natural law and our own preferences provide the infrastructure and freedom to build a meaningful life that suits us. With freedom comes responsibility, and self-responsibility creates personal power. Living without the imaginary safety net of a fictional savior who removes the consequences of our choices teaches us how to do what's right for ourselves on an individual basis. We get to decide, but we have to live with the results of those decisions, and that understanding matures us, keeps us learning and growing throughout our lifetime.
The path that Maisel describes in his book, the path of making our own meaning, is not an easy one, which is probably another reason many still hold onto their religious beliefs so fiercely. Living without gods requires us to be the hero of our own story, think for ourselves, and cut our own path through the disillusionment and drudgery and confusion we all sometimes face in our daily lives, as well as the tragedies and crises that befall us and make us wonder in our darkest moments whether this life is worth living in the first place.
Being the arbiter of meaning in our own lives, as Maisel suggests, having the courage to live authentically, makes life worth living, and I believe it is the only thing that can.
Thanks to Eric Maisel for the opportunity to review The Atheist's Way for this blog and for the generous wisdom contained within it.
Buy The Atheist's Way here. Visit Eric Maisel's website or The Atheist's Way blog. To comment on this blog post, please email me at melissalafavers@yahoo.com.
Copyright 2009 Melissa LaFavers