The Crack in Atheism

!Disclaimer: This article contains content and language that some readers may find disturbing.

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“One day a living girl came out of the gas chambers. About 12 years old. Her words still ring in my ears: “Yachtse du mamoshy.” What do these words mean? They mean “I want my mommy.” Then they took her to the pit and shot her.”

– Short story from some of the 20th century horrific events of genocides and gas chambers.

Evil exists, we are undoubtfully cruel and shameful by our very nature. One that at first, we defy, then we alter and finally head toward the path following the mirage of our dreams. Following hope, guided by the same instinct that fills your empathy when you think of the little girl. It’s hard sometimes to feel a situation, but you can do it if you put yourself in the shoes of the man who stood there, waiting his turn to the gas chambers, looking at the little girl coming out asking for her mother.

Life is cruel. We are cruel. But we resist that. We alter it, and we shed light on the crack in our species (the animal instinct, as evolutionists call it). We thrive and can go past that towards a specified path in the face of all toxic atheists’ claims of infinite possibilities for life to have happened to reduce its significance. Why then did life choose to happen in this specific way that made us feel empathy despite our beliefs? Or are we merely humans yearning to survive?

1

Irony

When we take a look at the 20th century up until now actually, historians say we might be looking at the cruelest and most evil era of human history. The short story about the 12 year old girl is a true one, and so are a million others in different spots around the globe done for various reasons and beliefs.

Yet, we thrive to survive, it seems like all we as living organisms are meant to thrive to is survival. We do not have much say in that.

The question then suddenly becomes, “Why? To what end?”

What is truly wondrous is how two completely opposite ideologies struggled courageously in their pursuit to plot their own path and dismantle the other. Yet, they end up against the exact same wall, the question atheists hold no answers for, and the believers have their faith justifying their doubts: Why do we instinctually need to survive?

To survive is at the core of our existence, our limited lives depend solely on us finding some sort of a path of virtue to survive through. It’s at the center of our thinking, like gravity pulling you despite your consent. We were not meant to look at the trees and sing with the Hemmingway bird and meditate our way away. Nor were we supposed to simply conform to the conformities of our societies. Our Greatness and intrinsic Being calls on for something much more, to survive our way up to self actualisation and Mastery. The Outlier is in each and every one of us. Those who defy the odds and change rules and lead to the Total Good. Not to drink or sniff our lives away no matter the lust. How dare any of us believe in insignificance, randomness, and chaos. When all of us collectively down to every cell thrive to eliminate such Evil by our intrinsic thrive.

When Atheists argue this point and emboss their beliefs of Natural Selection, Chaos, and Infinite Possibilities. Why feel empathy toward your daughter or son then? It’s ironic that one can have disbelief in everything and yet fail to see that they are still guided to act and live a certain way.

To what purpose? God knows. All we know is that this path has been chosen for all of us, and we have no say in changing it.

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Chosen

When hit with an Evil act like what’s been done to the little girl, or the possibility of you going through pain and agony for witnessing similar acts in your life or the life around you – whether you believe or not, you are going to feel empathy, depressed, or even lose yourself for a few years in drugs, alcohol and antidepressants. We all react differently to such type of stories. Our reaction to Evil is programmed in our DNA, as I said, it has been chosen for us out of all the infinite billions and trillions of other options that evolution could have opted for us instead. And it’s guided somehow by instinct. Not the animal instinct, but the more conscious adaptive to change and heading towards its destined purpose. The Outliers knows that very well while all atheists try to do is dismantle and reduce things and everything to insignificance. Yet they all freeze at the question of where does instinct originate from, why is it that it has chosen a certain path out of all the infinite other possibilities?

The likes of Sam Harris, Daniel Dennets, or Kraus, ever answered or dared touch base on the question. Where does instinct come from? Why is it guiding us toward a very specific direction? And that is a question all believers and atheists of all types, the toxic and the lovely ones could not argue against that what moves us toward anywhere, is the instinct to survive.

Forget faith, beliefs and whatever deity you want to bequeath your righteous soul to. The most basic knowledge we can uphold to and actually believe in is the fact that all species and living life strive to survive. In some way or another, people from all edges of beliefs and non-believers come to good terms in agreeing to this one simple truth – You fight for survival in every sense of the word, and the fight is in every living thing, in every cell of our Being. The Darwinians call it “Survival of the fittest”. More like “Survival is of the one who is most adaptive to change”. And change is the hardest endeavor of humanity. We humans killed millions of people in the 20th century alone, and yet, we survived toward a predetermined direction molded in our Being and engraved in the very essence of our existence. It guides us blindly. To a single direction chosen out of all the infinite universal possibilities as Atheists claim. And yet, it guides us by instinct to a single direction. To survive. And to allow others to.

Isn’t that miraculous? I’m just asking.

3

Judgment

I used to feel some judgment on some of the atheists, up until around five years ago when I realized that maybe my fear of accepting atheism and its’ complete abyss of disbelief and meaninglessness is actually what I’m afraid to be drawn to. Worried I would one day simply surrender to the twisted beauty and high taste of indulging needs and wants. If anything, life’s responsibility sometimes forces you to surrender to a calmer less responsible “so called spiritual” state.

With time, I found myself in a much smoother relationship with the lust disbelief brings to one’s life. The more I delved into atheism, the more I saw its cracks. Not just their complete ignorance of Instinct and Survival as a predetermined selection, but I also realized that even the strongest disbeliever out there, still believes in their idea of disbelief so righteously. And that idea becomes their belief. And; thus, believing in something is also imprinted in our DNA. It is also a chosen path out of all the infinite other possibilities that the atheists themselves fight against.

Instinct, survival, and belief.

They hold their ideologies and opinions in such high regard. Respect to that, I have not seen believers believing in their virtue of nothingness as strongly as atheists do. This shows that even when you get rid of and burn all cultural, religious, and societal attachments, and thrive in your own life to higher ends, you still, without anyone’s consent, find yourself indulging your destined purpose to pursue a Meaning to survive for. And that meaning could be a spiritually religious path for some, or the insignificance of atheists.

The two stem from the same tree. The instinctual core that cries to live in the face of the captivating look of your dying father, or broken daughter. In the face of all the sorrows, one can’t help but find themselves raging to survive against their own self-inflicted addictions and the many justified reasons not to continue.

We rage, by Instinct, to Survive, to believe in a Meaning.

But why?

The material below is not related to the article, but the dearest human to me other than my girlfriend sent me this quote today by Rumi “Even when tied in a thousand knots, the string is still but one.” So I decided to connect the knots myself as one (just like our friendship), and connect the piece above about atheism and belief, and the piece below about my version of the last supper with my Father, the writer, the “everything” to me, may he Rest In Peace.

The Last Supper

To my father, Faisal AlQanai 1950 – 2020.

امّا بعد

My last supper with my Father in his room on his bed. I remember the day very well. We joked and laughed with no barriers as we spoke about everything. Mostly stuff from the teenage days.

I was worried about him so I told him “your kidney is bad the doctor said, and I’m worried about you”. I wish for him to take more care of himself, as it always has been my wish. He replied “But I am all tired, not just my kidney.” We both looked down but not in shame or weakness, we actually laughed right after he said it.

I never knew how it would be like to lose a parent, but I do now. And it’s tough. We all say we get over it and we stand strong, and we do, we miraculously do because we were built to persevere and not kneel, to act with audacity and not with vulnerability. So we eventually do adapt.

What got me that day as it was our last supper, the resemblance for a day two decades ago in the Louvre museum in Paris, as we walked by the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci and the Winged Victory of Samothrace (what a beauty). He told me the story of The Last Supper Painting* of Jesus Christ with his Apostles and the impending betrayal.

He accepted his last 5 years of struggle between hospitals to treat the aftereffects of his brain stroke, kidney failure problems, and many chronic issues. But he accepted his last 5 years courageously. He was not afraid to die, never. Death was kept out of the room for as long as he wished for it to be.

I can say that one of the things I have learned from him or saw through him, is how not to fear death. As Denzel Washington puts it in his amazing performance in the Broadway theatre and then the movie Fences, when speaking to death…

“You ain’t gonna sneak up on me no more, when you’re ready for me, when the top of your list says my name, then you come on up and knock on the front door. Ain’t nobody got to do with this, it’s between you and me, man to man” – Denzel Washington, movie: Fences.

*The last supper painting is not located at the Louvre. It is actually located at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. My Father shared the story as he got remembered when the time he went there and saw the painting himself. I was just a listener of the story.

I must end this article with Nietzsche…kindly read the below with some meditation.

“But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests. Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself! And your way goes past yourself, and past your seven devils! You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new if you had not first become ashes?”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

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