Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveMatrix
So if you love your family, help others in need, give of yourself, and basically try to do the right thing, you may believe in God and just not know it.
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I love my family, help others in need, give of myself, and try to do the right thing because I don't believe in God. For a bit of background on my personal philosophy, look at my avatar and title; they're a very bland, simple, unstylized version of a tattoo I plan to get. The all-seeing eye ("Eye of God") has been a mark symbolizing the idea that nothing happens that cannot be seen by God. Non Serviam, Latin for "I will not serve," in conjunction with the all-seeing eye, represents that I answer to no authority or higher power. I am just me; when I die, I cease to be me.
I feel no need to explain my love for my family. In the simplest terms it's a bunch of chemical reactions in my brain releasing certain chemicals in response to certain stimuli, but those associations were made over a long period of time because those people did a lot of good for me, not because a supreme being made me think that way. I help others in need because there is no higher power to help them, and if I don't, there is no assurance that others will do the same. I give to others because many are in situations where the dollar I probably would have otherwise spent on beer could be paying for their only meal that day, because there sure as hell isn't going to be manna from heaven on the sidewalk tomorrow morning. I try to do the right thing because the "evils" of men can only be countered by the good deeds of good men, and if we do nothing, people in trouble are going to suffer or die because even if there is an invisible man in the sky, he isn't doing jack shit to help them.
If you consider my actions proof of belief in God, then you're talking about a concept of divinity wildly different from the one that was pounded into my head as a child. In the same way that I wanted to do good to serve God when I did believe in his existence, I feel that my lack of belief compels me to do good as strongly as my desire to get into heaven used to. As ironic as it is that I would agree with a philosopher who wrote of the necessity of God's existence, I believe that Kant said it best, "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."