Stoking the Embers of the Soul

Nuevo Munroe No. 4

Galileo famously decried the notion one could only find answers about the universe in the Bible. This isn’t to say the Bible does not have answers. It has quite a lot to say about many things. A lot of it quite useful and good. On astronomy and specifically the motion of the worlds it suffers a pointed deficit.

Accused of heresy by some, Galileo flipped the table and pointed the accusation back at them. Who are we to abandon reason - given by the same God of the Bible - in learning more about His creation?

David Scott of Apollo 15 dramatically demonstrated the wisdom of our progenitor by demonstrating one of his theories. Objects, while in a vacuum, will move toward a center of gravity at the same rate. Picture a man, in a space suit on Luna, dropping a feather and hammer. They float down to the surface at the same rate, as Galileo predicted.

About 400 years and 238,900 miles apart an Italian scientist and American astronaut share a moment of joy stirred by reason and the ambition of Man.

Space-time is flexible. Why not us?

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For those that believe - Christian, Muslim, Jew, whatever - atheism is not recommended. At its worst, it is the purview of humorless cranks and murderous dictators. At it’s best a map for the lost. If one doesn’t like the forest, why would you go there to begin with? Believers, stay where you are. Faith has its own difficulties enough. This advice is not for you, though you are welcome to it. Perhaps you can make use of it for the benefit of others.

For those of us living in the wreckage of the 20th century ideologies atheism is perhaps the best new beginning available. Not as a religious belief, replacement ideology, or framework for utopia. This would simply be committing the mistakes of the recent past.

I’m talking about a tool for the anarch. The monarch wishes to rule all. The anarch wishes to rule only himself. Mankind killed the monarchs, replaced them with ideas, and those have exhausted themselves in turn - fascism, communism, and liberalism (for whom now the Reaper knocks).

For the anarch, atheism is negation. Nothing more than this: I find the claims of the faithful wanting and so I withhold judgement, remaining on guard.

Pause now. Reread the brief paragraph just above and only then continue reading.

We are all men of our time and place. The gods I rejected were not the ones of Abraham, Moses, and Mohammed. I did not reject Christ. I’ve rejected the modern bastardization of them - fascism, communism, and liberalism - for which the reaper comes calling in their turn. Go to the churches - with their coffeehouses, bookshops, and rock bands - and you’ll see that of which I speak.

Without that first negation provided by atheism, how do you begin finding your way back? I propose you cannot whatsoever. You only risk the same mistakes but in different forms forever.

And so I wait for the turning. For the disaster. For the Reaper’s stroke that renews all in time.

I don’t know what comes after. I can’t.

But I have the same reason of the Italian scientist and American astronaut. That will be enough to guide me.

Because it has to be.