Wednesday, January 28, 2009

"If you're living like there is no God, you'd better be right!"

A couple of months ago, I remember seeing a T-shirt design on the internet that said, "If you're living like there is no God, you'd better be right!"
I got the message, but sometimes I wonder to myself what we would be like if we all knew that God didn't exist. Humor me, if you will, but what if tomorrow you woke up and without a shadow of a doubt knew that this life was the only one we're getting, and once you die, that's it? I know a lot of you are probably thinking "But that can't be! I can't possibly imagine life without God!" Like I said, I'm not asking you to believe it, I'm just asking you to play with the idea a little. You might think it's dangerous, but I think it might do some good.
I've heard a lot of people say things indicating that the world would go to hell in a hand basket if everyone just stopped believing in a higher power. For now, we'll just consider an individual's behavior on the micro scale and leave the macro scale alone. So, how about it? You've woken up and there is no God. Everything you ever knew about religion is gone. The Buddha and Jesus were only great men, not deities, the prophet Mohammad and the prophet Joseph Smith were only common men, and the gods of the ancients are merely legends, nothing more. Now, what do you do? Are you still a law-abiding citizen, or do you take the law into your own hands? What guides you now? You become aware of your actions now.There are no demons tempting you to do works of evil, and there are no angels to protect you from wickedness. It is you and only you making your own decisions and marking your own path. You interact with the earth just like you used to - the sun still feels warm on your skin, the cold winds from the north still bite the tips of your ears in the winter, cool green moss underneath your feet still feels inexplicably amazing, and a hot spring bath feels just as relaxing as it did when you sang the songs of your old gods.
In the back of your mind, you realize that this is all you're getting. As you're sitting out on the banks of a lake nestled in the mountains, you marvel at the beauty of it all, but you can't escape that feeling of knowing that in a set number of years from now, even if you do everything perfectly, you will still grow old and eventually, you will die. You might hope for something else after this life, but you have to remember our agreement - in this fantasy, there is no God. How do you feel with this realization? Which path do you choose? Do you choose one of fear and outrage, or do you accept this fate and make the best of it.
I understand what that T-shirt was trying to say, but sometimes I wonder how humanity would turn out if we all pretended that there wasn't a God...

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