We atheists, too, are awestruck by this universe. So what?

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I caught a wonderful break that the weather gave us and headed to the coast.  It was a sunny 60-degree-plus with nothing more than a light, caressing wind.  Looking at the vast ocean while at the foot of the old lighthouse, I--an atheist--and she--a believer, of sorts--were both equally awestruck by it all.  The trees were also awesome, and so were the hills.  I imagined that it will be one awesome paradise when the rhododendrons are in bloom.

Yes, it is with design that I used "awe" that many times in the previous sentences.  For one, it is true that I am simply awed by everything around me.  I don't even have to venture far away from home for such a feeling.  The river that is close by and I see everyday. The young lambs that have been only recently birthed, and the older sheep too. Blue sky with puffy white clouds. A toddler's laughter. A dog's wagging tail. And more.

I am awestruck all the time.

But, I don't have to see god's hand or face in any of these.

We atheists, too, are blown away by all these.  Just because we don't see any creator behind all these, and just because we theorize that these resulted from the randomness that the universe is, doesn't mean that we are not awestruck.  I would, in fact, think that we go about exploring and understanding only because we are so much awestruck.

I have blogged before about Richard Feynman's wonderfully profound observations on "the pleasure of finding things out."  As he noted, "the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts."

In the latest issue of the Scientific American, Michael Shermer has more to say on "the soft bigotry of those who cannot conceive of how someone can be in awe without believing in supernatural sources of wonder."  I like how he brings that word "bigotry" into it, because it is such a strongly prejudiced view of atheists that makes people imagine the craziest things about us.

Shermer writes that in the context of a research that showed that feeling the emotion of awe "elicits uncertainty and a subsequent desire to resolve that feeling by explaining events in terms of purpose-driven causal agents."  That awe, therefore, leads the believers to believe that there was a causal agent, or more, behind those. "[In] the moment of awe, some of the fear and trembling can be mitigated by perceiving an author's hand in the experience."

And that is where we atheists take on a different interpretation to all those "awe" moments. As Shermer writes:

Instead of fear and trembling, we feel wonder and gratitude in discovering that the author's hand is nature's laws and nothing more, but also nothing less.

Aaaaaawww! That is one heck of a well-crafted thought and sentence.