An Open Letter to Atheists by my friend Giordano

taken with permission from Giordano's blog "K-mart's Basement"

School's about to start up again and as I was mentally preparing this week, I became sick as a DOG. Got this horrible fever and could feel my body just overheating and shutting down. So for the past two days I've been laying in bed or on the couch in a state of half-stupor kind of floating in and out of consciousness. As I was hallucinating I pondered on the same questions I like to think about all the time, namely, "Why do they have to keep advertising the switch to digital broadcasting February of 2009? In the past fifteen minutes I've seen ten freakin' commercials for this crap! All effing year I've had to watch these commercials! WE GET IT, OK!?! WE GET IT!!! I ALREADY HAVE A DTV ANTENNA!!!! COULDN'T YOU GUYS HAVE JUST ADVERTISED ABOUT THIS IN JANUARY?! HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO PURCHASE A STUPID ANTENNA FOR TEN BUCKS AT WAL-MART?!?"

Also, "Where did God come from?"

While switching between the human zoo that is Jerry Springer, the millionaire preachers asking home viewers for money on the Bible channel, and reruns of Will and Grace, I really understood the appeal of atheism.

I've always been fascinated by atheism because there's a lot about it that I don't fully understand. I've been wanting to write an open letter like this for a long time, and I finally decided to sit down and do it.

As you probably know, I'm Mormon, or member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). As a Mormon, I try my best to follow my church's eleventh Article of Faith which states, "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may." So please understand when I write this that I'm not trying to change anyone's mind or convert them to Christianity or anything like that. I'm just trying to understand.

I should also make clear what I mean when I say "atheist" because I've heard many different definitions from different people. The American Heritage Dictionary definition is, "One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods." I'd like to add that atheists (in my mind) also deny the existence of any sort of "higher power." So God, gods, higher powers, divine intelligence, etc. Anything in the supernatural/metaphysical realm, basically.

Now almost everything I'm going to write about is going to be based on my assumptions of atheists. I do not claim to know what all atheists believe; I am just going to make some assumptions based on the fact that if you are atheist, you do not believe in God, gods, or any kind of "higher power." If I make a wrong assumption, please let me know and I can fix it or open it up to discussion.

Maybe one of the problems I have had with understanding atheism is that by its nature, atheism doesn't necessarily fall under a cohesive big tent of shared ideas like an organized religion. When I typed "atheism" into Google I found many web sites, but no one official organization. I did find www.atheists.org, but this was just the home page for American Atheists, Inc. I don't know if this organization can necessarily speak for all atheists, but even if they did, I found many of their beliefs centered mostly around deconstructing religion and not on any moral code (they actually had two sections devoted to the Mormon church alone!). I believe this was because they believe organized religion is and always has been the cause for mankind’s greatest failures, and if religion could be eliminated then people would finally live in peace.

Although I do not agree with that aspect of it, I can understand being frustrated with some aspects of organized religion. Mormons have a long history of being persecuted and killed by fellow Christians in the U.S.

As I mentioned above, I did not notice a unifying moral set of rules or code that atheists follow. My question is, then, do atheists believe in “morality” or “right” and “wrong”? I don’t mean what a culture or government declares is right or wrong, I mean certain things that are right or wrong no matter what anyone says. Like murdering an old woman on the street, or kicking puppies for no good reason.

I’ve heard it said by some that religion does not have a monopoly on morality. If you think this, that’s fine with me, because if you want to live a moral life but not have anything to do with religion, then good for you. It’s not my business. But what intrigues me is the whole concept of morality to an atheist. Of course I can’t speak for all Christians, but as a Mormon, I believe that mankind makes distinctions of “right” and “wrong” because we are the spiritual offspring of God, and He wants us to become like He is. Our souls will continue to exist even when our bodies die, and the choices we make in life will affect our outcome in the afterlife. For us to grow, we must overcome certain obstacles in life. Some things draw us closer to becoming like God, while other things drive us away from Him. That’s how we differentiate between good and evil in the universe.

The reason humans know that right and wrong even exist is because every human is imbued with some kind conscience. It’s natural for us to distinguish right from wrong, and maybe this is why many things are universally considered wrong in so many different cultures. By the same token, many “good” attributes like kindness, generosity, empathy, mercy, temperance, a forgiving nature, etc. are viewed positively throughout many cultures even though they go directly against logical evolutionary mindsets. I also believe God has educated people on the topic of right and wrong whether through divine guidance, angels, answer to prayer, or speaking to them face to face.

I asked above if atheists believe in universal right or wrong. If you are an atheist and you DO believe in the concept of morality, my question would then be: where did morality come from? How is morality useful to you personally? If the universe exists with no creator or higher power, then who cares if what you do is right or wrong as long as you are making yourself happy? I'm not trying to be facetious when I ask these questions; I sincerely would like to know what an atheist thinks.

Now if you’re an atheist who says “no, I do not believe in such thing as morality” then that makes the most sense to me. If you do not believe in any kind of higher power, then it would follow that you believe humans and life as we know it evolved by chance, and all concepts of good and evil were formed by primitive peoples to help them cope with the seeming randomness of life itself. Some might argue that the concepts of right and wrong are simply parts of the evolutionary process. If this is true, then why follow them? If we know they’re just an evolutionary fluke, then why give any heed to them?

If you are an atheist who does not believe that morality is a real concept, then why not live life completely as you want to live it? I ask this because the atheists I’ve personally known are very nice people, and they pretty much follow most rules of society. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just do whatever you wanted at all times? If you are angry with someone, you hurt them. If you want something, you steal it. If you want to sell drugs to make millions, you do. If you see a desirable woman, you take her. If you want to steal from your employer, you steal. If you want to accuse somebody else of a crime you committed, you do it. It could be argued that if you acted this way you’d end up in jail and nobody wants that. Fine, so let’s talk about things that aren’t illegal. If you want to have sex with someone, you do it. Don’t feel like ever talking to them afterwards? Then don’t. If you want to cheat on your spouse, you cheat. If you want to lie to your loved ones, you lie. If you don’t want to help people, you don’t… Wait a second… This is sounding more and more like contemporary American society! In fact, I'm going out on a limb here, but I bet that unless they have some kind of organized religion in their life, most people will not follow any rules of morality unless there is a specific governmental law/punishment against doing that thing.

Ok, so maybe you’re an atheist who says, “I don’t believe in God, and I don’t believe our actions carry any eternal consequences, but morality is a good idea because it keeps society in order.” However, from a purely evolutionary standpoint, don’t some things that fall under the umbrella of morality actually “hurt” mankind? Like why aren’t mentally disabled babies euthanized? It takes a lot of society’s time and money to take care of these people, yet they contribute very little. Why aren’t criminals all put to death? It also takes a lot of time and money to jail them and most of them become repeat offenders anyway. Why should we forgive other people? If they hurt us once, it makes little sense to be kind to them because it will probably result in future pain. Why don’t we sterilize people who are too dumb? Our society doesn’t need any more stupid people, and the stupid ones make more work for the rest of us. Why shouldn’t people be allowed to look at child porn? As long as the parents are consenting and the kid isn’t being hurt, what does it matter? It could be a lucrative business for the people involved, and it would give people with an attraction to children an outlet for their lust, thus resulting in fewer child molestation cases. Animals don’t believe in morality, and they are doing just fine. If one of their own is injured, they will leave it to die. They do this for the good of their species. If we are just very intelligent animals, why do we have to have these rules to have a functioning society?

Really, wouldn’t it actually make much more sense for atheists to encourage belief in God to flourish amongst the stupid masses so they could take advantage of everyone and reap the benefits? The web sites on atheism that I visited constantly “bashed” religion for causing negative things like wars, violence, and hatred towards others. But who says that war and violence and hatred are “wrong”? If you are atheist, then wouldn’t it follow that the human animal is prone to fighting, just like any other animal, and there is no wrong or right about it? So what if people suffer? Caring about anyone other than yourself and maybe your close family doesn’t make much sense from an evolutionary perspective, does it? How is caring even possible without morality? Do you think animals are caring about the continuation of their species when they mate, or are they merely giving in to an irresistible instinct they have? In the end, from the oldest histories of the human race we see that there have been those who are religious and those who are atheists. Atheism is not a “new” concept. If you are atheist, do you believe other people would be happier if they were atheist? Do you think it would benefit mankind as a whole if everyone were atheist?

Moving beyond the concepts of morality, right, and wrong is the real big question, “Who cares?” I'm assuming that atheists do not believe in an afterlife. This is what I’ve gathered from speaking with atheists and from some atheist web sites, and it makes the most sense. If you believe humans exist by chance and there is no God or higher power, then it would not make sense for an afterlife to exist. Thus atheists believe that when you die, your consciousness is extinguished forever, everything goes black and you no longer exist. Done. No heaven or hell or degrees of glory, no reincarnation, nothing. Just done. So my question for atheists is, if you believe this, then how in the world do you manage to get up in the morning and do anything?

Who cares what you do in life? You might as well get as much physical pleasure as you can out of life because in the end you will die and you won’t remember anything or any of it. Have sex with as many women as you can, get high, get drunk, party as much as you want because in the end none of it will matter. In fact, even physical pleasure, what does it amount to in the end? Absolutely nothing. When you are dead, none of it will matter. Nothing you do in life will matter. You might think you’ll make this world a better place for your children, but what does it matter? When you’re dead, you won’t care about them or see them or know them. And they will die too, someday. In fact, you will be forgotten to the earth in a very short amount of time. This is what I don’t understand about atheists who want to abolish religion. Who cares if it’s fake and people kill themselves over it? Let people do what they want; we all live very short lives and die in the end. All is meaningless. What do you care about the plight of others? It makes no difference if you live to be ninety or if you kill yourself right now; there is an eternity of nothingness waiting for you and when you arrive you will never, ever leave. So what is the point? You wake up, you go to work, come home, go to sleep. The days fall into years. You maybe meet someone and fall in love, have sex with them, maybe you decide to stick with them and have a family? Why sacrifice your extremely valuable time and energy to do this? You’ve got eighty years, with luck. If you’re reading this you’re probably in your twenties. Your life is one-fourth over, maybe one-third. The remainder of it will zip by you faster and faster every year. It’ll be done soon, and none of it will have mattered when you are gone. So atheists, how do you do it? As I said earlier, I promise I'm not trying to convert you to Mormonism or anything, I just want to comprehend how your minds work. How do you cope with the cold, cold universe?

P.S.
Please don’t go out and kill yourself after reading this. For the record, I strongly believe in the teachings of my church, but that doesn’t mean I want Christians to start high-fiving each other and posting “Hell yeah!” or something. I sincerely want to learn what other people believe, so please share.