Atheism is more than simply rejecting the myths and lies that have been perpetuated and institutionalized to limit and control us.
It is more than the realization that belief in imaginary powers has weakened our resistance to political lies and deception, making us vulnerable to the impairment of our power to govern ourselves democratically.
Many see atheists in relation to what we say “No” to. Indeed, it is extremely important to say “No” to to lies of any kind, from any source, but the negative is only half the story. There is enormous value in saying “Yes” to proven facts, logical truth, observable reality.
More than being useful, truth is where beauty is.
The beauty of truth, and of undeceived pondering and expressing it, is not a new thing. A woman who died over a century ago, who might never have been known or read today if her words had not been so meaningful, knew it intensely, and lived and loved accordingly.
Extraordinary Letters on Love, Life, Death, Courage, and Moral Purpose Without Religion
A German-Jewish Englishwoman by the name of Olga Jacoby (August 15, 1874–May 5, 1913) — the young mother of four adopted children — took up the subject of living and dying without religion, with moral courage, with kindness, with radiant receptivity to beauty, in stunning letters to her pious physician, who had just given her a terminal diagnosis. These are more than letters — they are symphonies of thought, miniature manifestos for reason and humanism, poetic odes to the glory of living and the dignity of dying in full assent to reality.
Words in Pain: Letters on Life and Death
“My Dear Doctor,
Like you I believe in a higher power, but, unlike yours, mine is not a kind fatherly one. It is Nature, who with all its forces, beauties and necessary evils, rules our destinies according to its own irrevocable laws. I can love that power for the beauty it has brought into the world, and admire it for the strength that makes us understand how futile and useless it would be to appeal to it in prayer.
Love, like strength and courage, is a strange thing; the more we give the more we find we have to give. Once given out love is set rolling for ever to amass more, resembling an avalanche by the irresistible force with which it sweeps aside all obstacles, but utterly unlike in its effect, for it brings happiness wherever it passes and lands destruction nowhere.
Why start an infant’s life with ideas of fear and sin? Let love be their only religion — a love they can understand and handle. With so many people hungering for love, why give so great a part up to Deity? Acknowledge, Doctor, if you had not had your good share of human love, a mother’s, a wife’s, and your children’s, you would not so well understand the other. A child, I think, is taught untruthfulness when you make him say that he loves God.
As to children’s inquiries, they are often wrongly answered, and the higher the subject, the more you think yourself justified in lying to them. From these same children you expect in return truly felt love, good acts, truthfulness and a desire to learn… You absolutely cripple a child by not allowing him to think clearly on all subjects — and no dogmatic religion will stand thinking.
We always fear the unknown. I am not a coward and do not fear death, which to me means nothing more than sleep, but I cannot become resigned to leave this beautiful world with all the treasures it holds for me and for everyone who knows how to understand and appreciate them… To leave a good example to those I love [is] my only understanding of immortality.”
(There is more, and there is art, in the article.)
Can we take credit for doing right, for kindness, fairness, or sympathy for others, if it is done in expectation of a “reward” in the end?
To see the needs of our fellow humans and to know that they, like our own needs, should be fulfilled, and to do our best to assure that happens, this is how we know inside that we lived well, that we saw and felt the beauty, and knew love.