Question everything. Including yourself. Especially yourself.

Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment.
- John Bradshaw

Lego Art by WildBanana

I recently saw an old friend who greeted me with “Hi, atheist!”

That’s how I found out that he had been following my facebook posts and debates. I happened to have posted a lot of materials coming from skeptic and atheist websites to elicit questions and make my point. I didn’t consider myself an atheist though, but that greeting got me to thinking — was I slowly morphing into one?

Granted, I do enjoy the down-to-earth reasoning, thinking and questioning employed by atheists, and I can certainly relate to the issues as I have encountered the same in my own life journey. I also enjoy the company of atheist friends of both varieties – physical and FOOF (friends only on facebook). I just find it refreshing to converse openly and ask hard questions without tiptoeing around issues as I used to do with fellow believers and pastors, lest they think that I was already seriously considering heretic teachings and have turned to the dark side.

But if atheism is defined as “ the rejection of belief in the existence of deities“, I don’t think I’m quite there yet. So far, the atheism that I have seen is first and foremost, a rejection of the Christian deity (or the Christian definition of god as portrayed in the Bible). So far also, most of the atheists that I know who are actively espousing their non-belief come from some sort of Christian background. I do not know of any prominent atheist who started out as a muslim, a jew, a hindu, or a druid.

Because of this, most atheists speak out on issues that involve rejecting the Christian god and Christianity. Once that is done, this disbelief in god is expanded in a less hostile fashion to other religions (Islam is probably next in line in terms of getting atheist flak).

However, just because an atheist has written off the existence of the Christian god does not automatically mean that there is no god of any sort. What is “god” after all, but just a word people use to represent and define some unknown higher power? People have tried to define this god by using words such as creator, source, omniscient and omnipotent. They have tried to characterize this god by attributes such as loving, kind, just, merciful, and so on. But these are just words, and I believe in the possibility of a being that exists beyond these words.

There is a lovely zen saying that goes, “When the sage points to the moon, the idiot looks at the finger.” The words and concepts we have for god are just parts of the finger pointing to something possibly out there, possibly greater than ourselves. I cannot explain it other than saying that there is a feeling, an inner sense of something more profound than words can express.

When Christians and atheists fight over doctrines and belief systems, it is like watching them fight over the pointing finger. It is briefly amusing and I won’t deny deriving a bit of satisfaction seeing my former belief questioned. However, this can’t go on forever. If we keep fighting over the finger, we will never get to see the moon.

So I would like both sides to step back and reflect a little. For the theists (of whatever stripe), ask yourselves if the god you believe in could ever be accurately described in ancient texts — and open your mind to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you have put your god inside a box too small to contain him, or her, or it.

For the atheists, ask yourselves whether it is possible to have a being higher than yourself. This being does not necessarily have to love you, nor listen to your prayers, nor conform to ANY concept of god that we currently have. If you think about the universe and what we yet don’t know about it, you’d have to at least consider the possibility of such a being, else you would be as close-minded as the fundamentalist you so despise.

I believe in a middle ground, a place of mutual respect, where acceptance triumphs over bigotry, and where love triumphs over fear. After all, if we humans don’t get our act together, who will do it for us?

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This article also appears in filipinofreethinkers.org

Do not seek to follow the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.  -Matsuo Basho

Jump and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.
-Ray Bradbury

When a major opportunity comes along, typically one with high gain but high risk, we do a lot of thinking. We fret, worry and fear the worst outcome. Sometimes, we over-analyze and over-think, what motivational speakers like to call ‘paralysis by analysis’. And the opportunity blows by while we are still busy analyzing.

Sometimes, we just have to get into the flow of the moment before the moment is gone. There should still be some thinking and risk-assessment but it should be followed by swift, decisive action. And the effort has to be sustained with commitment and dedication.

The call to jump is not a license for recklessness. Rather, it is a testament of deep courage and trust for oneself and for life. It is not for the faint-hearted, but for those with inner fortitude and desire to be the best they can be at whoever they are and whatever they do.

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections

Drizzt by Gaderel Guitarist

An Excerpt from The Orc King by R.A. Salvatore:

That is the line we all straddle, between comfort and adventure. There are those who find satisfaction, even fulfillment, in the former, and there are those who are forever seeking. It is my guess, and can only be my guess, that the fears of the former are rooted in fear of the greatest mystery of all, death.

It is no accident that those who construct the thickest walls are most often rooted firmly, immovably, in their faith. The here and now is as it is, and the better way will be found in the afterlife. That proposition is central to the core beliefs that guide the faithful, with, for many, the added caveat that the afterlife will only fulfill its promise if the here and now remains in strict accord with the guiding principles of the chosen deity.

I count myself among the other group, the seekers…It is not just boredom that propels my steps along paths unknown, but a firm belief that the guiding principle of life must be a search not for what is, but for what could be.

To look at injustice or oppression, at poverty or slavery, and shrug helplessly, or worse to twist a god’s “word” to justify such states, is anathema to the ideal, and to me, the ideal is achieved only when the ideal is sought…So we dare to seek. So we dare to change…

For it is in the seeking, in that continual desire to improve ourselves and to improve the world around us, that we walk the road of enlightenment…that we tried to lift ourselves and our world…to the image of the ideal.

- Drizzt Do’Urden

Photo by JvL

Once, there was a devout man who saw a filthy, unkempt beggar just outside his house. He had pity on this beggar and invited him inside for a meal.

Before the meal, the man bowed his head to say a prayer of thanks. He had hardly gotten a few words out when the beggar suddenly started cursing God. He told the man, “If you want to feed me, just feed me, but I don’t want to hear you talking about God. God can go to hell for all I care.”

The host was visibly surprised and furious, “Don’t you know that if not for the love of God, I would not have invited you into my home? How dare you insult my God! Get out of my house at once.” And he shooed the beggar away.

God came to the devout man in a dream later that night and said, “That beggar has been cursing my name and spreading vicious lies about me for 18 years. Yet, all through this time, I have put up with him, fed him, kept him alive, and loved him. Could you not put up with him for a single meal?”

When we burn with righteous anger at other people seemingly offending God, is it really God who is offended? Or us?

The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear. – zen proverb

The obstacle is the path. –zen proverb