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Losing my faith was very gradual. I was confirmed, and I absolutely 100% believed in the Christian God. And then, after a while, it started to change. I started losing my faith when I started trying to figure out what God was: ‘He can’t really look like us! This whole thing about “Man created God in his own image”…’
When it came to working out what I really believed in, I realised that, if there is a God, he doesn’t have a personality. He certainly doesn’t have a set of morals—certainly not human morals, which we impose. And then I started thinking, ‘Well, what if it’s just people trying to personify life? To personify the fact that there is matter, and that there is a universe? If there is a God, that’s it. God doesn’t have a brain, God doesn’t think, God is just existence.’
And when you get to that point, you realise, if that’s what God is, then there’s no such thing.
For me, the hardest thing about losing my faith was facing the possibility that this life is all there is. One of the foundation stones of all religion is people’s fear of death and non-existence. People will do anything and believe anything if they can think, ‘You don’t really die. There’s somebody up there who says you carry on and you go to heaven.’
The Buddhists believe in reincarnation, but I tend to think it’s rather unlikely that we’re going to come back. However, I think there’s strength in agnosticism, because you accept that there are things that you cannot know—I cannot know if I’ve ever existed before this life, and I cannot know if I’m going to exist again. The idea of faith is almost as though, ‘If I believe it enough, it’ll be true.’ It’s a romantic ideal that just doesn’t wash with me—I’m too logical.
It’s a hard truth, because our instinct is to survive and to continue existing, but I’ve come to accept that this is it. I’m not scared of not existing. Socrates said that death is unconsciousness, there’s nothing to fear.
I don’t want to die, and I’m scared of things which can kill me, so there is a dread of not being around, of not experiencing things, of not seeing the sun rise in the morning, of not knowing what goes on in the world, of not being part of it. But that’s normal. There’s nothing I can do about it: it’s the one great truth, that we all die—you just have to accept it. And I hope that, when I do die, it’ll be at a point when I’m completely ready for it.
* * *
I quite like the Atheist Bus Campaign slogan, ‘There’s probably no God’. I didn’t like it at first—I thought it was too nice. I thought you should have been harder, and wanted you to say, ‘There’s no God, so forget it! You’re living in a dream world!’ But then it made sense to me, because probability is one of the things I really believe in, in a scientific sense. It’s quite healthy to have an open mind.
Religion helps people cope with many things. It helps them deal with death. And I believe in marriage—I doubt the institution of marriage would have existed without religion. To some extent, religion has upheld essential morals and modes of behaviour. There are some really important values in all religions.
However, I think human beings go through different stages. As a child, you have someone looking after you. And then you start to break away from that, and eventually you achieve a degree of independence from your parents. Maybe humanity needed a parent and that was the part religion played. Maybe we’re at a stage now where we are growing up and ready to achieve a greater degree of independence.
Although it’s very tempting to defer responsibility to ‘God’, I would like to see humanity taking responsibility for its own actions. There’s a certain bravery in standing up and saying, ‘We are alone, there’s no one looking after us.’ It’s a kind of liberation.
Despite having lost my faith, I still celebrate Christmas and I love church music. I go to church to listen to the music. But there’s a definite school of thought which says, ‘If you don’t believe it, you can’t celebrate it! If you don’t believe in God, you can’t have Christmas. Sorry—you’re excluded!’
To me, it’s important that people can believe whatever they like. I’m a liberal, I’m just not religious. If someone else wants to believe in God, they have every right to. I always felt I had the right to believe when I was a Christian.
Most atheists and agnostics feel the same way—we say, ‘Okay, if you want to believe that, that’s fine.’ It’s essential that everyone discovers and develops their own beliefs.
Part of me would like there to be a God, because part of me wants there to be a parent looking after me. To say, ‘Hey, it’s okay, it’s all under control. No matter how much you mess up, I’m here to save you.’ That’s a very natural feeling, very normal. But on the other hand, I don’t think it’s enough. I’ve found I’m more responsible, freer and more liberated living a life without God. And I love my freedom. I think we all overestimate our freedom, but in reality, the freedom to think, to feel and to experiment is one of the few freedoms we have left.
Hark the Herald Villagers Sing (#ulink_3a2a1fbd-a3d6-5be2-89be-5a14fbe6e8c1)
ZOE MARGOLIS
My first encounter with religion was when I was six years old. At school one day, my teacher told me that I couldn’t be in the Christmas nativity play because I wasn’t the ‘right religion’. I remember returning home, crying, devastated that all my friends were going to be having fun in rehearsals, and I would be left alone without their company at break time. And, more importantly—to a six-year-old wannabe actress—I would miss out on the fame and stardom from acting in the play, which was to be performed in front of the entire school. Not to mention not receiving the free sweets used as bribes by the staff for good behaviour; I would do anything for a strawberry cream, me.
Brought up in an atheist household, I didn’t understand what my teacher meant by ‘religion’: for some reason I thought it suggested I had the lurgy or that something was wrong with me. If I was the ‘wrong’ religion, then surely I could try to become the ‘right’ one and then be part of the school play?
That night, my parents patiently tried to explain the concept of ‘God’ to me. I must admit, being the snotty-nosed brat that I was, who absorbed books like oxygen, I was slightly impressed by their bringing out a copy of the Bible to show me, whilst they attempted to condense a few thousand years of religious doctrine into a six-year-old-child-friendly atheist version. But even then I was cynical: I’d learned early on that the Tooth Fairy was pretend; I’d recently discovered that Santa Claus was purely fictional (and was pretty devastated by that); so why should I believe in this God bloke? It’s not like I’d ever seen any evidence of him—and he’d certainly never left me any coins under my pillow or filled the stocking at the end of my bed with presents. What had God ever done for me—besides prevent me from getting a starring role in the Christmas play? Even then, I knew I didn’t like him. And that whole burning bush thing scared me a bit, if I’m honest.
The following day, my mum grabbed me by the arm, stormed into the school, and had a huge argument with my teacher; I remember lots of heated words being exchanged. Back then, I just thought my mum was sticking up for her wannabe actress, prima donna, daughter; it was only as an adult that I learned she had accused the teacher of discrimination. I now understand and appreciate the importance of my mum sticking up for her atheist beliefs, and the rights of her child not to be subject to prejudice because of them.
The teacher finally caved in to my mum’s persuasiveness, and agreed to let me have a part in the play. I was joyous with happiness: now I would have fame! Glory! Attention! Me, as Mary! (Whoever she was: I didn’t care—she had the lead role and I wanted it.) Or as an angel! (Again, not sure what/who they were, but if they got to flutter around in a white tutu, I was more than game.) I was so excited: I could almost see my name in lights. Almost.
I bounced around the rest of the day and, like the precocious diva I was, looked forward to my costume fitting. And, when it came, I lined up with all my friends and waited for my name to be called as the roles were divvied up in alphabetical order. (NB. This has been the bane of my life, given my name begins with a Z. Last in line for everything.)
‘Ashling!’ my teacher called, and my friend was given the role of Mary.
Damn. Lost the lead role. Oh well, I will still be a pretty angel!
‘Cathy!’ the teacher said, and proceeded to make my best friend an angel.
I grew ever more excited though: I couldn’t wait to try on the tutu!
‘Fiona!’ the teacher barked, and my friend went off to get her tutu fitted.
It would be me soon! Tutu, here I come!
‘Helena!’ shouted the teacher, and yet another friend was sent to the angel queue.
This went on for a while, until there were a dozen angels, as well as a few wise men, and only a couple of us left standing in the queue.
I think I knew, at that point, that my hopes of having a starring role were about to be severely dashed. But—ever the (noneternal, reincarnation-cynical) optimist—I thought that perhaps I would be made a Special Angel: a lead angel who was in charge of all the other angels and who got to boss them around and stuff. Maybe I could wear a black tutu instead, like in Swan Lake?
My name was finally called: I was back of the line; there were few costumes left; I was the last pupil to be given a role.
‘You’re going to be a villager in the choir,’ my teacher informed me.
I stared at her, gobsmacked.
‘Tell your mum that you will need to bring a scarf, gloves and hat with you to wear to all the rehearsals.’
Oh great, I don’t even get a costume. My dreams of stardom vanished in a second.
‘And,’ my teacher continued, ‘you get to hold this lantern: isn’t it nice?!’
I think, even back then, I knew she was being sarcastic.
My teacher handed me a long wooden stick, with a pretend lantern dangling on one end.
And it was at this point that I had a stroke of genius: a way for me to decline this minor, irrelevant role, and be promoted into a proper acting part.
‘I can’t hold that,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘I’m allergic to wood.’
I don’t know if she was more surprised by the absurdity of what I had said, or the fact that it had been said by a smart-alec, upstart six-year-old, but whichever it was, she wasn’t pleased: she wrote me a huffy note, which I gave to my mother later, that said I had been offered a role but was now making up lies to get out of it.
My mum sat me down that night and asked me what I wanted to do (whilst sniggering about my wood-allergy comment, I should add). My only options, it seemed, were either not be in the school play at all, or accept the role of an ‘extra’ and perform in the choir. With all my friends already practising their lines, and not wanting to be left out, I chose the latter.
Photographs taken of the play, when it was performed some weeks later, just before Christmas time, show a very cheery Mary and Joseph; some happy wise men; many elegant, joyous angels; and, standing in the back of the villagers’ choir, one extremely pissed off, scowling six-year-old, holding her lantern fully askew. Let’s just say I was not at all happy.
Years later, when I look back on that event, it seems clear to me that that was the defining moment when I realised I could not believe in God. Sure, as an adult, surrounded by science and reason, it’s obvious to me that God doesn’t exist. But, as a starry-eyed six-year-old, my disbelief in religion came down to three simple facts:
1. I never got to eat a strawberry cream, because being last in line all the time meant everyone else had already nabbed them. (God can’t be that cruel, surely?)
2. I did not achieve international stardom from my role as a ‘villager’. (God can’t be that mean, surely?)
3. Anyone that would allow a child to be forced to sing ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!’ is a sadist, not a deity. (I am assuming God is not into S&M.)
Although, I suppose it could be argued that God might exist, for the world at large was prevented from being exposed to my performing at a professional level. Given my singing voice, that really is something to rejoice and say ‘Hallelujah!’ over.
A Christmas Miracle (#ulink_0ba609c3-bc7c-55d5-9bdc-ecca2de2eb1f)
RICHARD HERRING
Even as an atheist, it’s cool to celebrate Christmas. I like Jesus and think that there’s a lot of sense in the stuff that he might have said or that has at least been ascribed to him. For my money his philosophy and his sacrifice mean very little if he was actually a god. Who cares about him being crucified then?
He knew he was all powerful and that he’d rise again and get his revenge on those pesky Romans or Jews (delete depending on your own prejudices). But if he was a man, then the stuff he said and the fact that he actually properly died for it (not just for thirty-six hours—that’s a hangover, not a death) is much more impressive.
Anyway, I’m not having a go. I’m a Christite. Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged. Bang on!
One particular Christmas, I was staying at my sister’s house in Cheddar. It is a house packed with people: my sister, her husband, their three practically totally grown-up children, with various boyfriends or girlfriends in tow. But there’s also a menagerie of cats and dogs and who knows what other pets hidden round every corner.
They woke me up early for Christmas breakfast, which wasn’t totally appreciated, as I’d had a late Christmas Eve in the pub with my old school friends and was feeling a little delicate. But I managed to rouse myself for another day of drinking and gorging and then drinking and gorging some more—it’s what Jesus would have wanted.
That night I was pretty glad to excuse myself from my parents’ house and head round the corner to my sister’s for an early night. The rest of the family stayed where they were to eat and drink some more.
I went into the bathroom to rid myself of waste and was surprised to see one of the family cats sitting in the bath tub. I couldn’t be bothered to chase it out into the house. If it wanted to watch me have a poo then that was up to it. Neither of us, I am sure, was remotely turned on by the idea of a cat watching a man defecate. And anyone who says that I am turned on by a cat watching me defecate is lying.
The cat seemed to be trying to drink some water out of the tap and was licking at it hopefully, but there was hardly any moisture there at all. So in an act of generosity which I am sure would have made Jesus happy if he was watching, I leant over from my seat and gently turned the cold tap in the hope of making more of a dribble of water come out to quench the thirst of this destitute Christmas cat. I could already see the children’s book being written about this act of charity. It was a beautiful scene and for me summed up the whole festival.
But the tap moved quite a bit without any more water coming out and I was concerned that if I turned the dial too far, too fast then a deluge would occur, soaking the cat below, sending it into a tornado of wet cat rage, which would ruin the story. How would kids respond to the sight of a fat naked man on a toilet being bitten in the face by a drenched moggy? Badly. Book sales would plummet.
The taps gurgled and a small stream of water started coming out. The cat licked away at the tap with all its might, sucking on the tap for what seemed like ages. It got its fur slightly wet, but it didn’t seem to care. It must have been really thirsty. I am not saying that my sister is not looking after her animals and is failing to give them drink. You must draw your own conclusions on this and only phone the RSPCA if you are sure she is guilty.
I have to say that from where I was sitting this was one of the funniest sights I have seen all year. To appreciate the humour, you might have to find a thirsty cat and put it in a bath and then get it under a drizzle of water, but I laughed as much at this as I have at anything in ages. It seemed to me the cat was laughing too. But then I suppose he had quite a funny view as well.
But surely Jesus got the best view, getting the hilarity of both the drinking cat and the fat defecating man, which I am pleased about because it’s nice that he should have something to make him laugh on his birthday. Especially when he’s the only person who doesn’t get loads of presents today, which seems a bit rich, but we all have our cross to bear.
SCIENCE (#ulink_0332b95e-86b7-5e81-85ae-973466e860b1)
I do not believe in a personal God and have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If there is something within me that can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
EINSTEIN
The Sound of Christmas (#ulink_3e0bbbc5-13d5-51a5-a7b7-5f0ce1fd12d4)
SIMON SINGH
While Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, atheists may wonder if there is another birth which they might be able to commemorate. One possibility is to give thanks for the arrival of Isaac Newton, who was born on Christmas Day 1642 according to the Julian calendar that was still in use in England at the time. Another possibility, and probably my preference, is to use Christmas Day as an excuse to celebrate the biggest birth of all, namely the creation of the entire universe.
For tens of thousands of years, humans have stared up into the heavens and wondered about the origin of the universe. Up until now every culture, society and religion has had nothing else to turn to except its creation myths, fables or religious scriptures. Today, by contrast, we have the extraordinary privilege of being the first generation of our species to have access to a scientific theory of the universe that explains its origin and evolution. The Big Bang model is elegant, magnificent, rational and (most importantly of all) verifiable. It explains how roughly 13.7 billion years ago matter exploded into being and was blown out into an expanding universe. Over time this matter gradually coalesced and evolved into the galaxies, stars and planets we see today.
Before explaining how you might celebrate the birth of the universe, let me quickly explain why we are convinced that there was a Big Bang. First of all, telescope observations made back in the 1920s seemed to show that all the distant galaxies in the universe were redder than they should have been. Red light has a longer wavelength than all the other colours, so it was as if the light from the galaxies was being stretched. One way to explain this stretching of galactic light (otherwise known as the ‘red shift’) was to assume that space itself was expanding. Expanding space is a bizarre concept, but it is exactly how we would expect space to behave in the aftermath of a Big Bang explosion.
However, this single piece of evidence was not enough to convince the scientific establishment that the Big Bang had really happened, particularly as the observations were open to interpretation. For example, the Bulgarian-born astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky pointed out the redness of the galaxies was merely an illusion caused by the scattering of light by dust and gas as it passed through the cosmos.
By the way, as well as being a critic of the Big Bang and the data that seemed to support it, Zwicky was also responsible for inventing a beautiful insult. If a colleague annoyed him, Zwicky would scream out ‘spherical bastard’. Just as a sphere looks the same from every direction, a spherical bastard was someone who was a bastard whatever way you looked at them.
A second pillar was needed to support the Big Bang model and this time the crucial evidence relied on measuring the ingredients of the universe, most importantly hydrogen and helium. These are smallest atoms in the Periodic Table and the most common in the universe, accounting for 74% and 24% of all the atoms. Crucially, the only way to create such large amounts of hydrogen and helium is in the wake of the Big Bang. In particular, the pressure, density and temperature of the early universe would have cooked exactly the right amount of hydrogen and fused it into exactly the right amount of helium. In other words, the Big Bang is the best (and probably the only) way to explain the abundances of these light elements.
Nearly all the other elements were made later in collapsing stars. These stars provided the perfect environment for the nuclear reactions that give rise to the heavier elements that are essential for life. Marcus Chown, author of The Magic Furnace, highlighted the startling significance of stellar alchemy: ‘In order that we might live, stars in their billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions even, have died. The iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the oxygen that fills our lungs each time we take a breath—all were cooked in the furnaces of the stars which expired long before the Earth was born.’
Because we are made from the debris of nuclear reactions that took place in exploding stars, the romantics among you might like to think of yourselves as being composed of stardust. On the other hand, cynics might prefer to think of yourselves as nuclear waste.
The third, and even sturdier, pillar to support the Big Bang model is the afterglow that should have followed a creation event, which can still be seen today. The theory behind the Big Bang suggests that intense short-wave radiation was released just a few hundred thousand years after the initial expansion. This radiation would have been stretched as the universe expanded, meaning that it would exist today in the form of microwave radiation. These microwaves from the Big Bang should still exist in all parts of the universe at all times and are therefore an excellent ‘make-or-break’ test for whether or not the universe did start 13.7 billion years ago.
Although the Big Bang microwaves were predicted in 1948, they were soon forgotten because astronomers did not have any technology that was sensitive enough to detect microwaves from outer space. However, in 1964 two American radio astronomers discovered them in an episode of pure serendipity. (Serendipity is the art of making fortunate discoveries by accident, or as one anonymous male scientist put it: ‘Serendipity means looking for a needle in a haystack and finding the farmer’s daughter.’)
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were using something called a radio telescope to study galaxies. A radio telescope is like an ordinary telescope, except it is a large dish or cone and it detects radio waves instead of visible light waves. Annoyingly, the astronomers noticed that they were picking up unexpected radio waves coming all the time from all directions. Initially, they thought the signal might be an error caused by a component within the telescope, so they began to check every single element of the equipment. They searched for dodgy contacts, sloppy wiring, faulty electronics, misalignments in the cone and so on.
When they climbed inside the cone they discovered a pair of nesting pigeons that had deposited a ‘white dielectric material’. Thinking that this pigeon poo was somehow causing the spurious signal, they trapped the birds, placed them in a delivery van and had them released thirty miles away. The astronomers then scrubbed and polished the cone, but the pigeons obeyed their homing instinct, flew back to the telescope and started depositing white dielectric material all over again. When I met Arno Penzias in 2003, he described to me what happened when he recaptured the pigeons: ‘There was a pigeon fancier who was willing to strangle them for us, but I figured the most humane thing was just to open the cage and shoot them.’
Of course, even without the pigeons and their pigeon poo, the microwaves still kept coming and after several weeks Penzias and Wilson eventually realised that they had discovered the leftover radiation from the Big Bang. This was one of the most sensationally serendipitous discoveries in the history of science, and a decade later the lucky duo were rewarded with the Nobel Prize for essentially proving that the Big Bang had really happened.
Some people sneer at the accidental nature of this discovery and question whether it deserved the Nobel Prize. Such folk would do well to remember the words of Winston Churchill: ‘Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.’ Indeed, it seems likely that other astronomers probably detected the microwave radiation from the Big Bang before 1964, but it was so faint that they ignored it and carried on regardless.
In fact, you have probably witnessed this Big Bang radiation yourself without realising it, because most old radios are capable of picking up microwaves. And because a radio can act as a very, very, very primitive radio telescope I suggest that you use one as the focus for your Christmas celebration of the birth of the universe. Here’s what you need to do:
At some point over the Christmas period switch on an analogue radio and retune it so that you are not on any station. Instead of ‘Jingle Bells’ or ‘Away in a Manger’, all you should be able to hear is white noise. This gentle, calming hiss is the audible output caused by all sorts of random electromagnetic waves being picked up by your radio aerial. You cannot single them out, but can rest assured that about 1% or 2% of these waves are due to microwaves from the Big Bang. In other words, your humble radio is capable of detecting energy waves that were created over 13 billion years ago.
While everyone else is pulling crackers or arguing over the last chocolate orange segment, you can simply close your eyes and listen to the sound of the universe. You are experiencing the echo of the Big Bang, a relic of creation, the most ancient fossil in the universe.
The Great Bus Mystery (#ulink_35348565-b457-548b-89d6-f6f9b63151a3)
RICHARD DAWKINS
I was hoofing it down Regent Street, admiring the Christmas decorations, when I saw the bus. One of those bendy buses that mayors keep threatening with the old heave-ho. As it drove by, I looked up and got the message square in the monocle. You could have knocked me down with the proverbial. Another of the blighters nearly did knock me down as I set a course for the Dregs Club, where it was my purpose to inhale a festive snifter, and I saw the same thing on the side. There are some pretty deep thinkers to be found at the Dregs, as my regular readers know, but none of them could make a dent on the vexed question of the buses when I bowled it their way. Not even Swotty Postlethwaite, the club’s tame intellectual. So I decided to put my trust in a higher power.
‘Jarvis,’ I sang out, as I latchkeyed self into the old headquarters, shedding hat and stick on my way through the hall to consult the oracle. ‘I say, Jarvis, what about these buses?’
‘Sir?’
‘You know, Jarvis, the buses, the “What is this that roareth thus?” brigade, the bendy buses, the conveyances with the kink amidships. What’s going on, Jarvis? What price the bendy bus campaign?’
‘Well, sir, I understand that, while flexibility is often considered a virtue, these particular omnibuses have not given uniform satisfaction. Mayor Johnson…’
‘Never mind Mayor Johnson, Jarvis. Consign Boris to the back burner and bend the bean to the buses. I’m not referring to their bendiness per se, if that is the right expression.’ ‘Perfectly correct, sir. The Latin phrase might be literally construed…’
‘That’ll do for the Latin phrase Jarvis. Never mind their bendiness. Fix the attention on the slogan on the side. The orange-and-pink apparition that flashes by before you have a chance to read it properly. Something like “There’s no bally God, so put a sock in it and have a gargle with the lads.” That was the gist of it, anyway, although I may have foozled the fine print.’
‘Oh yes, sir, I am familiar with the admonition: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”’
‘That’s the baby, Jarvis. Probably no God. What’s it all about? Isn’t there a God, Jarvis?’
