And The Child Shall Lead Us

Well, now that we've taken “God” out of the equation... He, he, he... No promises though that It will stay out.

I have two “Happiness Economy” posts waiting to be edited. People have been requesting them and please know that they will be posted very shortly. However, some might find the following to be an interesting and semi-related tangent to the ideas I have been expressing in that other thread.

I want to return to another human component to my journey.

I have another wonderful friend who keeps a practical sense of forward momentum and I want to comment a little about this very helpful attitude of hers. It will be my intention to attempt an illustration of just how important her spirit of “Sleep well...OK, it's time to get up and resume the suffering—because we ARE getting there,” is.

She has been where I was this summer, but suffered much more than I. She is the mother of a very bright and intelligent young son, who I had the pleasure of meeting a couple weeks ago and really developed a fondness for. Would it be a surprise to say that I saw a bit of myself in him?

Their interaction with each other was like a couple of friends—a team, until the kid in him came out to ask for this and that, as we walked around a certain store. Happily, with a natural air of forthrightness, she would just say, “No, you don't need that,” or “yes, I'll think about it and we'll talk about a time when we can come back.” He was SO good at accepting her judgment of the situation, that it seemed to me at the time, that they functioned as a kind of business partnership. No doubt, they must have their disagreements and uncomfortable times. Still, the impression I came away with was one of a mother with great confidence in herself and a son who felt this aspect of her, instinctively letting it replace his own unsure desires.

When she was abandoned and penniless, he was just a baby. Bear in mind that her fall had nothing to do with substance abuse or any irresponsibility on her part.  Rather, it was her faith in a husband whom she assumed would be there for her and their new family.  But, after supporting him for seven years -and putting him through school - getting pregnant after five years of fertility treatment, four miscarriages and two surgeries, her husband asked her to leave her job (knowing full well he was going to leave her), cold-heartedly reasoning that he would have had to pay more in child support.  She was seven months pregnant when he forwarded the mail and stopped paying the bills, then he took off with his girlfriend.

Things got so bad that her inability to find enough food for herself, meant that breast feeding was just not in the cards. No male on this planet could possibly understand the psychological torment of loving a hungry baby you can't even feed from your own body. In my mind – because I was not in touch with her back then – I have the image of my frequently-visited bench at Mill Creek Park, occupied by a mother and her little baby.

In this image I see her unable to give him what he is crying for—the life-giving sustenance he needs and she needs for him. I see her peer down into his bright eyes and him look back at her through his tears. Knowing what I now know about them, I see (perhaps only in symbol—for no child can help himself from feeling sad in his hunger), him stop crying and smile as their selves blend in the open air the same way they had when he was attached to her in the womb. Could it be that the younger we are, the more of the future we sense? And his would turn out to be a future of needs fulfilled...and then some.

Growing up in school (in Yarmouth, Maine—a preppy little coastal town), she and I were friends but on different paths at the time. Still I recall her as friendly, immaculately dressed, highly intelligent and very well-spoken.

There is a kind of “economic relativity” whose formula might describe how psychologically hard one hits the “bottom” when falling from a stand point of some degree of comfort and security into the depths of hunger and destitution. It is similar to the effects of physical gravity. In physics this is called the “impact force.”

[And for those who are are even more turned off by math, than by religion, feel free to skip over the following, until you see, “In other words”...]

In the more wishy-washy, non-scientific, sense that I am proposing, it is between the “psychological mass” of the falling object (the “object” being a person's cultural expectations about an acceptable standard of living for themselves—from past experience), the height of the fall (arbitrarily assigned by whatever amount of material loss is “felt”), and the mass-area that the object it falls against (the “bottom,” loosely referring to the psychological “limit” that one can fall to; being something as infinitesimally close to non-existence (i.e. death = 0) as possible, without ever reaching this limit.

This is only a playful and figurative (not to mention probably inaccurate) concept, since the more one examines the intervening variables, the more error one finds in the concept itself. In other words, please take this with a ¼ teaspoon of salt. Still, it might describe—though weakly, for those of us who have fallen in such a way, how we feel about “hitting bottom,” relative to where we might have started from, socioeconomically. And it goes something like this...

For simplicity-sake I will use very basic assumptions. We might recall the physical formula for impact force as illustrated at livephysics.com...

As an object falls from rest, its gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. Consider a mass m which is falling vertically under the influence of gravity.


Object is falling from rest, therefore initial kinetic energy is zero. Once the object hit on the ground, height is zero, therefore no potential energy at ground level.


Initial PE = Final KE



Impact velocity just before the impact is


From work-energy principle, change in the kinetic energy of an object is equal to the net work done on the object.



For a straight-line collision, the total work done is equal to the average force of impact times the distance traveled during the impact.

Average impact force x Distance traveled = Change in kinetic energy


Total work done = Kinetic energy just before object hit the ground


Impact force

Well to save myself from a dozen complaints about “irrelevance and unnecessary complexity,” I will consider only the bolded statement above, restated and dumbed-down, for my purposes as...

Average psychological impact force (Favg) = Change in state of mind (ΔMstate), divided by the Distance fallen from a resting state of satisfaction (d) , or, ...

Favg = ΔMstate/d

In other words, when one starts from higher level of personal expectation, one suffers a greater degree of personal disappointment and psychological defeatism.

In all likelihood, the typical Yarmouth, Maine-raised child who is raised in relative socioeconomic comfort, and then falls into poverty and depression as an adult, will have a harder time, psychologically, than the typical Bangladeshi-raised child who starts out and tends to remain in that low or lower socioeconomic state. Even when the Bangladeshi falls, the distance is not as great and the impact upon that person is not as potentially defeating as the Yarmoutheshi. That little impact crater seen in the diagram above is not as deep and is easier to climb out of.

Now, I fully understand that there are many logical problems with the assertion I have just related. And I do not in ANY way want to give the impression that the habitually dirt-poor person is actually better off than the originally-richer one who finds themselves dirt-poor, after existing in a much higher standard of living. BOTH are suffering. Both deserve a basic dignity that humanity is not consciously (through a cessation of greed, violence, selfishness, national pride and ignorance, etc.) yet able to afford to everyone on this planet. But I do want to make the point that it seems that ANY AND ALL average (discounting any genetic predispositions for making their own lives harder than they need to be) humans would be equally impacted by starting with plenty and then falling into abject poverty.  And this is true, independent of race, ethnicity or gender.

I think this is a very important point. What it shows me is that when we, in the so-called, “First World,” promote the spread of the high philosophical ideal, that we call, “Democracy,” we are deceiving ourselves and standing on an illusion. And we are just primitive enough still to think that this ideal – which, by the way, we don't even practice correctly here in “the lands of opportunity” (there has NEVER been a truly democratic society) – can be forced upon whom we deem "less-democratic" cultures.

We have equated things that should not be equated: Representative Government = Democracy (RULE by the people), Democracy = Free Market, Free Market = Capitalism, Capitalism = Opportunity, and Opportunity = General Prosperity. These five red herrings are terrible and terribly misleading, and misunderstood assumptions.

Why are they “terrible”? Because, they only benefit the groups and individuals who use them as a justification, and thus a means, to do things like spill blood and replace it with petroleum, lower expectations for originality of thought as a way of perpetuating conformity—ostensibly and euphemistically, renamed “social stability,” and accept the suffering of some—that some others might prosper, locking up, persecuting and even killing anyone who speaks up against this equating.

We often sit back and armchair-philosophize about our First World benevolence toward less-fortunate peoples in distant lands - people who have significantly (unfairly?) less - by patting ourselves on the back about our “Democratic” ideals. It is quickly forgotten that it was our particular, historical Western (American?) happenstance (as I discussed in the “Happiness Economy” thread) that allowed for the unprecedented technological, military, industrial—and thus, economic, growth, that we enjoyed during the last century that gave us our leg up. It was NOT the supposed superiority of our modern philosophies.

And, even as we watch the crumbling of loosely-built, worldwide markets all around us – while we keep running to Walmart for more duct tape to tighten them up – we treat the inevitable ever-NEW, yet consciously-unforeseen, changing social and economic needs of our developing global culture as fads, anomalies, and flashes in the historical pan. If we can just tweak this cog or that gear, it will all come right back to the (impossible, post WWII) American Dream, as a World Dream: three car garages, ½ acres of green lawns for everyone, reasonable mortgages, steady employment, opportunity for entrepreneurial success, access to emergency services, well-equipped police protection, store isles filled with fresh produce, plenty of alcohol, cigarettes, red meat, coffee and candy, office supplies and salad shooters... We know what we expect! And now we want the world to expect it too.

Unfortunately, though, the natural resources needed to make sure that every McDonald's meal comes with paper bags, cardboard burger boxes, plastic cups with straws, and a hand-full of napkins—all of which is THROWN AWAY in the same visit; the fossil fuels needed to manufacture and transport that packaging to the restaurant and then from there to the landfill, to power the appliances that store and cook the food, heat and cool the restaurant, keep the engines of drive-through customers running while they slowly move through the service window; the arsenic, silicon, lead, copper, gold and plastic of every digital device used to keep orders flowing and numbers computing, are not infinite.  

The products DO degrade and depreciate over time, necessitating their own continual replacement. Therefore, any “increased efficiency” in the process ACTUALLY speeds the waste and exploitative potential of that same process. We are fools to think that “innovation” under the umbrella of such static and inflexible energy and economic models is “growth.”  Ripping open the ground and sucking up what we find there, so Americans, Europeans and the Japanese can make fast food packaging and cellphones that become obsolete in six months is imeasurably selfish and irresponsible.  It just makes us feel really good...temporarily.  It is our heroin.  Terence McKenna called it a "junky-mentality."  And (paraphrasing McKenna) we are willing to pay for our junk.  But if the countries we exploit don't want to sell it to us, we must be willing to break into their house and take it from them.  Because, no matter what, it is going into our good right arm.  That's the plan.

My friend has seen the rotten other side of the pretty, wooden boardwalk that suspends our delicate feet above an uncertain landscape of shifting shapes, swimming in the darkness below us. I have seen a bit of it myself. It really seems to take a “fall” to reverse the pride that came before it—if that can even be done.  Well, in my friend's case and possibly mine too, it CAN be done.  And maybe it should be a requirement(?).

When her son mentioned to me that he likes to read books, draw comics, work at setting up a “study” in his bedroom, likes sports but doesn't feel confident about his ability to become a sports star, uses his imagination freely, and really listens to what his mother tells him, I had to smile inwardly as I smiled outwardly. When he – of his own volition – called himself a “geek,” I saw my own adult interests and was suddenly not ashamed. When he mentioned projects that he wanted to do and the people he wanted to reach with these projects, I glimpsed into future of all humanity.


But, when, upon our first meeting, as we stood in front of each other and introduced ourselves, he thought nothing of wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his head against me...I knew that our children are here to save us, and not just replace us. I foresaw that the love, brilliance and promise there; that waiting in his little heart, being supported, encouraged and inspired by his stalwart, well-experienced and realistic mother (the same one who once sat with him upon the figurative park bench of his infancy, as they shared a common hunger and despair), is a Power beyond the greatest and largest machines of industry; beyond the power imprisoned by the nuclear forces of the atom.  I beheld, at that moment – even the generations before us set up a system that had the potential of destroying the world we now live in—with little concern about looting the future of their grandchildren, in order to supply the comfort of their present – the profoundly positive force contained this young boy, along with his young associates and friends, is as unstoppable as the sunrise tomorrow. It IS THE answer.


And I counted myself among the most privileged of all men, to hold that non-material treasure in my own arms, and I gave it a place in my own heart; a heart that was broken and sick—but, through the leadings of a child was able to be made whole again.  Our children are FAR more precious than we have ever dared to think.

God - Within and Without - Part 2

It is not at all surprising that people have been turned off by religion. The word, "religion" itself is loaded to overflowing with cultural assumptions, founded on the debased and inhuman activities that organized and institutionalized religion has prosecuted in the past.

People complain about Islam and the violent acts perpetrate in the name of Allah. And everyone knows how badly Christianity has violated its own tenets through crusades and "holy" inquisitions. It is a FACT that more people died in the name of Christianity (some 809 million in the last few hundred years), than by the Fascism of WWII (62 million) and Communism (209 million) combined--times two! Islam and Christianity have certainly been busy putting each other's believers in the ground for the last 1400 years. Christianity has probably killed the most people in history, though admittedly it had a 600 year head start. And religion in general has been the source of the most preventable human deaths since the execution of Jesus around 39 CE.

Who can blame people for not wanting to be associated with the "people of the Books [the Torah, Bible and Koran]" and their wrathful, vengeful and unfair male deity--"God"? Because of these bloody religious tyrannies, it is widely (if erroneously?) presumed that religion (being the relationship of the supernatural and humanity) = organized religion.

But that is not what *I* mean when I use the word. Both my friend and I agreed that it is organized religion that turns many thinking people away from the pursuit of a divine Creator. And for a woman like my friend who grew up without any church experience or Biblical training (I was raised a Congregationalist, until I found a better way), the antiquated and illogical actions of religious GROUPS have ruined any chance for her to be attracted in any way to any aspect of their traditions. This is SO true, that she seemed not to have ever even entertained the idea that the relationship of humanity to God could occur in a non-organized way. I wanted to tell her that even further away is the possibility that God ever even WANTED churches, mosques and temples to be constructed for a kind forced (through guilt) worship, or or holy books to be composed by old men and thence shoved down people's throats by well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning religionists since the times of Moses.

Is it so hard for today's religionists (and I mean, in this context, the promoters of organized religion) to accept that the minds of so many otherwise intelligent and good-hearted people would naturally reject all aspects and attributes of the "Old Man in the sky"?

When I asked my friend if she believed in survival after death, she seemed a bit less certain. Both she and her husband lost their parents in different ways. It seems the temptation to believe that somehow their "energy" WOULD go on even after mortal life, is one that is difficult to escape. My impression was that she wanted to believe in some form of non-material existence, where any kind of god not necessary. But it also seemed too much of a stretch for her to believe that their identities (personalities or souls?) could remain intact after life in the flesh.

For me, this kind of non-material energy without personality seems foreign and unlikely. But I come from a post-Christian belief system now (as a student of the Urantia Book). The complex and unique perspective that I have gained in my search for the better way (the non-organized, personal religious way) has long ago satisfied me with the answers I craved in this regard. I was fortunate to have started out in a relatively liberal environment (Protestant Congregationalism) conducive to a concept of the loving Parenthood (Fatherhood and Motherhood) of God, along with just enough dissatisfaction stemming from the required dogma and seemingly meaningless rituals of traditional Christian theology, to want to find this "better way" that I speak of.

Unfortunately, the road to my current belief system cannot be canonized, summed up, written down or described in brief. It is SO different from the norms and memes of historic religious experience that I sometime despair at my inability to at least present an intellectual alternative to the honest inquiries of atheists and agnostics--in the rare instances when they have become interested enough in my views on this subject to inquire at all. To either religionists or atheists/agnostics, my belief system (more like a "Knowing," actually, than a "faith") is not immediately obvious as a rational option for either of them in their own search for truth--be it religious or philosophical. So when she rightly, pointedly and simply asked,

"What do YOU believe?" I was only able to stammer out an inadequate and half-measured reply.

It is fascinating, upon reflection of this dilemma, to relate that a series of learned and automatic thoughts came into my mind and then dissipated between the time I heard her question and the moment I began weakly to answer it.

The first one of these was from my Congregationalist childhood: "Here is your opportunity to 'save the non-believer.'" (Ironic since, in a way, it was this non-believer who saved me--in a sense.)  I was quick to bury that one, as I had so many years previously, when I finally realized (in my teens) that the God who was growing inside me was not a Congregationalist God, but instead, merciful enough to "save" EVERYONE who sincerely wanted to live in the "next world."  And I know from my own journey that we will all be given the opportunity to make that decision in this life or if not by its end, then in the subsequent and transitional state of material "death," no matter how many times we might have rejected the idea, while not having the complete amount of information necessary to choose before that death. But how could I explain this to her on her lunch break?

The next impression that passed into my consciousness was, "If she is happy and satisfied with her life as it is, without the need to believe in a First Source and Center, leave her the hell alone!" This was a more reasonable and humane option. I have learned - by the example of mentors in my own training who discouraged the Christian (and Muslim) idea of proselytizing and religious influencing (and by "influencing" I really mean, "manipulating/deceiving") in an ends-justify-the-means kind of way. And to "let it be" is often the wisest course of action. It is well-understood by Urantia Book enthusiasts who read this blog - accounting for perhaps 75% of its readership - that the book's "cosmic philosophy" is anti-cult, non-organizational and not to be "pushed" onto others.  How many other spiritual books can say that?  Still, though, I was unsatisfied with not saying anything in answer to her query about what I believe.  Thus, came my incomplete answer, previously mentioned.

If any person is able to comprehend the LOVE (rather than the un-real "wrath" of historic religion), the MERCY (rather than the threat of "condemnation to hell"), the SPIRITUAL REALITY (rather than the man-made falsehoods, perpetuated by priests, ministers, and imams), the INTIMATE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP (rather than the mass-minded need of human beings to want to belong to a group/church of similarly-minded people, willing to go to war, torture, bash in the head of or burn alive anyone who dares to "believe" differently than they do), of the God I call, my "Father"--it is this friend. If there is anyone who could receive the tools of divine guidance from within her own mind more efficiently, it is her. If there is anyone who could USE those tools in partnership with her divine Inner Spark, to bring others to their own inner sanctuaries, she could succeed beyond her own wildest dreams...

Nevertheless, I simply love her too much to have wanted her to change anything about herself. She is already living the life that God would want for her anyway. She is already loving the people in her life the way that God would guide her toward. She is already at peace within herself the way that God can bring "the peace that passeth all understanding." She is already socially, ecologically, culturally AND spiritually benefiting the world around her the way that God wills for all of us. She is the exception to what I always thought was the Rule.  Yes, she would certainly drink up quite a bit of the newish information of sources like the Urantia Book, but even the organizations around that are churchifying, and she would never accept such a thing--which, by the way I DON'T either.  A Urantia Church is the WRONG direction for this very reason.

In the crisp, cool, late summer air of my walk home, I considered these things with great care. And a strange, but reassuring, Answer arose that settled the matter for me. Perhaps, it IS the will of God, that the instinctual Goodness of the non-believer should be held in equal measure and with equal respect - even in the cosmic sense - among her human associates, compared with the learned goodness of the believer. My spiritual intuition suddenly and clearly showed me that she is ALREADY choosing the will of a misunderstood, but loving, God, whom she has no need at all to call by name. And in this way, perhaps she possess a purity of spirit and an advanced state of soul-growth that is completely acceptable to the God of the Universe that I believe in, and the essence of the God within her own mind that she

chooses not to believe in.

No one can say with any authority at all whether either she or I walk along the "right" or "wrong" path, simply because we espouse different sources of motivation for our common direction. Thankfully, it also seems in every way to be the SAME path. In a world so tenuously balancing upon the fulcrum of progress and destruction, two friends who love each other, want to see light penetrate the darkness of their world, with the joyful sharing of a mutual lifetime that they have been Consciously OR randomly given - as a team, as a human FORCE - CAN NOT FAIL to ultimate bring more Truth, Beauty and Goodness into this world than it ever would have had without them.

THIS CONCEPT is the thing that could unify humanity in the short-term. It is something above organized religion AND humanist materialism. It IS the EVEN better way. Maybe in this post I won't “lose” her like I have in the past, when discussing these things.  But even if I do, I suspect the impact upon the believers who read it might be more constructive anyway.

On that beautiful September day a non-believer taught a believer a new and valuable lesson. And neither of them had to change themselves one bit in the process.

God - Within and Without - Part 1

I was taken out for lunch by a dear childhood friend this week. Thai food--my favorite! It was so nice to see her again. She is the type of person - and we have been so close in the past - that throughout the years, every time I see her it is like we just seem to start from where we left off.

We had a very thought-provoking discussion. And we went right into it immediately. I found her so easy to talk to still and her interest in deeper subjects was just as refreshing as it had always been. I'm not much for small talk. It bores me. I can do it, but it usually doesn't take long for me to get a little impatient and begin steering the conversation toward more substantial areas of interest.  Thankfully there was none of that with this friend.

She had been a strong supporter of mine during my Odyssey. In fact, in the last few days of that strange adventure, I had become pretty depressed and, with no prompting on my part, she seemed to pick up on it.

There was one very dark moment... I stood at the edge of a literal and figurative bridge. I looked down. Then I looked out into the horizon... Ships were heading out of Portland Harbor, people were down on the beach drinking and laughing and the sky was so beautiful--there at the end...of the day.

My heart seemed to long for the waves, the empty solution, the ease of the fall. And I wept, openly and without embarrassment. It had to come out. The pressure valves I usually rely on were not functioning--so tears did the job instead. I asked, in my mind, "What am I doing all this for? I'm simply a drag on the world. Things would be easier for everyone if I was not here.  What right do I have to bring attention to my foolish plight, when so many other - better - people than myself suffer immeasurably more than I?" For a moment I sat and listened to the white noise within myself. Straining to hear even the smallest whisper there. Then I said, "Father, I'm not a sign seeker, but I could really use one right now." I turned away. I had not come this far just to fall...apart. I wiped my face and walked on and over to the other side of evening.

I hadn't checked my email for about six hours, so I stopped at McDonald's for its WiFi access, spending the rest of my bottle money on a soda and cracked open the laptop. There in my Gmail Inbox were three messages from this friend. I hadn't heard from her for a little while and thought it odd that she would send so many messages, especially on that night. She asked where I was and offered to come pick me up.  Why would she write that?  I wrote back that I was OK, but just had walked through a pretty rough spot... But how the hell did she "know"? Perhaps in desperation, or perhaps because I was actually discerning the answer to my request for a sign... I accepted her intuition and communication as one. She said later that she just had a "feeling."

This is where the interesting part begins.

At our lunch a couple weeks later, after I had accepted the offer of renting a room from another good friend, moved in, and was reunited with my cat, our talk came to a concern of hers that she was generous enough to express. It wasn't about the time on the bridge, but about some of the subject matter of this blog.

She gave a lot praise for most of my posting, but then hesitated for a moment. "The only thing," she intimated, "...is that when you start talking about God and religion, you lose me."

When I asked why, she said, "Because I don't believe in god." This REALLY surprised me. And you may see why in a moment. I had tried, except for a couple of very clear examples, not to post about my spiritual beliefs and views here in Iwallk-Land. The few that did slip through were of a mostly personal nature. They related to my inner life, and because the blog really is just a glorified journal, I thought it appropriate to apply what was happening in my soul as well as my outer life.

This may have been an error on my part, since many folks were probably turned off by my commentary on such intimate spiritual details. I had very intentionally not "gone there" for that very reason. My intentions for keeping this personal narrative free of "religion" (whatever that means) was a major priority. The blog is really meant to document my hopeful transition from a life of sheltered comfort, to the street of opposites, and then my transition into a new life. It was meant to also be a philosophical commentary on society and why I wanted out of the status quo. I did find, however, that at certain times, and maybe for future historical interest, I felt the strong need to express my higher beliefs. It was cathartic at the time, and allowed me to share just how much comfort and guidance I receive from "the still small Voice" inside my soul. Yet, I'm sure that it also alienated some of my readers.

This comment from my friend confirmed that concern as being valid. And the reason why it struck me so powerfully when she mentioned her discomfiture with the subject is that, in my ignorance, I had always assumed that she must have a strong "faith," herself. How else she could she have been such an obviously caring, loving and supportive friend to me, brilliant wife to her husband, nurturing mother to her girls and socially outstanding member of society in general? Without believing in God?

It just didn't make sense to me, as a person who never even questioned the existence of a Prime Mover. My frequent period of lost faith have always been a deficit of my belief in myself. I've never blamed God for my own shortcomings, my own many failures, the presence of evil in the world, nor the hardships and suffering of so many people whom I've loved so dearly.

I've always known that the universe was one of opportunity; that to have made the spheres of time and space each a Paradise of bliss and perfection would have defeated the divine Purpose. The Plan was for creatures TO struggle and claw their way through their lives--gaining experience (something an already eternally perfect being craves); perfecting themselves through their own efforts and painful trials. It was to offer a CHOICE. Free will would be an illusion without the choice and power of the lowly human races to reject their Creators, even if it was their misjudgment about His purposes. I assumed that any being who could not perceive the many BLESSINGS bestowed to assist us, despite our dark and sometimes-terrible plights, must be a failure of that being on every moral level. But such is NOT the case.

On my long walk back home from this lunch I contemplated the apparent paradox. Maybe God isn't really needed as an acknowledged force in our world? Maybe the people who are so morally successful and just in their lives, without a need for recognizing the Creator of those lives, are just as valuable and necessary in God's universe (at least at this stage in history) as any holy man or woman? This was a new realization for me. If someone like my friend could do as much if not MORE good in the world and in her own life, without the need for a Reason than many of the self-described "believers" and openly pious women and men out there, what is the harm?

In a recent study, atheists/agnostics were shown to be the best educated about the religions of other people than any of the participants in those religions know about the others...

Most of science is a humanist/materialist endeavor. And look at how much of material reality it now is able to describe and predict. Stephen Hawking has recently asserted that he no longer believes that God would be necessary as a force in the creation and maintenance of the universe...

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to set the Universe going."

The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking, Bantam Books, 2010

Social activism also is often based on non-religious concerns and atheist (sometimes called, "nontheists") are some of the most strident leaders in groups like Amnesty International. And in my study of the biographies of historically influential people, it often seems to be the atheists who have the easiest time dealing with the mortality of those around them, as well as their own inevitable and personal demise.  They tend to be better-educated and more socially involved with global issues than do their religious counterparts.

[Please see Part 2]