Finding meaning in meaninglessness

tRump is a RINO.  No, not that one.  But, this: He is religious in name only.

The "Two Corinthians" man is far from being a true Christian, as much as he is far from being a patriot when he makes out with the American flag.  Not for a moment does any sane person ever imagine tRump getting high on religion, like some of the uber-religious do.  In a marvelous autobiographical essay, the author writes: "I have confused religion with drugs, drugs with music, music with religion. I can’t tell whether my inclination toward ecstasy is a sign that I still believe in God, or if it was only because of that ecstatic tendency that I ever believed at all."  Maybe if tRump had tasted alcohol, his life--and ours--would have been different.  But then we also had a disastrous Republican President who had not only binged on alcohol but had even done cocaine, but found god after all that!

Anyway, the demagogue knows that bringing Jesus into political rhetoric is important in this country that was founded by fanatics who fled England: "the impulse to purify the group through separation from mainstream society, now regarded as the signature of a cult, could not be more fundamental to the nation’s history.”

And here I am, an atheist, who has never been anywhere near even pot, and I have no idea how the more potent drugs are.  Alcohol is rarer in my life than animal protein is.  I don't need religion or drugs to be ecstatic about life!

God and religion are not going to die anytime soon.  At a dinner a month ago at a meeting, an older man engaged me in a conversation about yoga and more.  The more included woo-woo talk. And then he made the mistake of asking me for my opinions.  I told him, in a matter of fact tone, that all our angst seems to be because we humans can't seem to figure out how to deal with two definitive aspects: We are here because our parents had sex, and we are going to die.  I suppose now he knows better to avoid me the next time he sees me ;)

With time, I have come to understand that life is what it is.  And life ends. Dogs die. Trees die. We humans also die.  Perhaps we are the only living beings who are fully aware that death awaits us, and I am thankful for that:  "we need death, as a blessing; eternity is at best incoherent or meaningless, and at worst terrifying; and we should trust in ourselves rather than put our faith in some kind of transcendent rescue from the joy and pain of life."

In my transition from a believer, I thought I had to beat up on religion, on faith.  I wanted to argue that there is no god.  But, I care not anymore.  Have not cared about those for a long while.  My atheism does not depend on beating up on god or religion.  Like the review essay notes, such a framework also "releases atheism from its ancient curse: its sticky intimacy with theism."

Instead, religious practice could be seen as valuable and even cherishable, once it is understood to be a natural human quest for meaning. Everything flows from the double assumption that only finitude makes for ultimate meaning and that most religious values are unconsciously secular. We are meaning-haunted creatures.

We are meaning-haunted creatures.  What a lovely phrasing!

Some day in the future, I hope, we will have a political system in which politicians do not have to fake their ways with religion and god.

We still haven’t seen that system, and it’s hard to imagine it, but someone went up the mountain and looked out, and saw the promised land. And that land is in this life, not in another one.