…Without God Secular Vision for a Changing World (Responses to Exercise #2)
In last week’s Exercise #2 we asked where, as a nonbeliever, you find purpose and a sense of morality and about what moves you. The response was immense. Here we present a dozen reader responses.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
I actually took it to heart when my parents asked: If your friends all wanted to jump off a cliff would you join them? I am my own person.
What inspires or moves you?
Helping animals and the people who love them. Learning new things. Traveling to new places. Growing healthy food.
What do you find beautiful?
Brilliant green landscapes under bright blue skies. A lake with its surface smooth as glass. Ripe vegetables in my garden.
How would you describe your purpose?
To live a life of meaning—helping others within the context of enjoying myself and my family as much as possible.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
My parents gave me a strong sense of right and wrong without instilling religion. Star Trek helped enforce this. I consider the consequences of any action I want to take.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
I don’t know who my father is. My mother made sure I wouldn’t miss him, and her love for me was without bounds. I aspire to her level of optimism.
What inspires or moves you?
The enormity of the universe puts life in perspective. My animals insist on living one moment to the next, and insist I do, too, when I’m with them.
What do you find beautiful?
The very nature of the universe and every part in it – the way light behaves, the saga of the stars, the growth of living organisms, and my chicken’s feathers.
How would you describe your purpose?
I don’t have a purpose. I am merely alive.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
A sense of morality is inherent in all humans and in most other animals. The species cannot go on without morality and the protection of self and others it demands.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
I grew up in a loveless family. I know how important love and caring are to happiness and well-being.
What inspires or moves you?
Nature is my inspiration. Seeing ordinary people do loving and caring acts with no expectation of reward moves me.
What do you find beautiful?
Nature is beautiful. So are old people who still hold hands.
How would you describe your purpose?
My purpose here is to be the best person I can be and if I can make someone’s day a bit better, I am content.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
As an empath, I can feel other’s pain. I just know that the right thing to do is not cause pain. And to care for the planet.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
My family were Kentucky’s Appalachians. Honesty. Privacy. Independence.Ten Commandments. Mind your business. Being clean. Poor but hardworking. Never give up. Save money. Get your high school education. Family first. Values from history.
What inspires or moves you?
[Unanswered.]
What do you find beautiful?
The natural world of woods, beaches, streams, waterfalls, as well as the good-hearted, kind, courageous individuals.
How would you describe your purpose?
My purpose has been to help others via the medical/vocational social work jobs I have had the honor of doing. My skills helped create a specialty business too.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
My family and college staff, professors, and fellow students shared and developed values of equality, sustainability, learning, and caring deeply for fellow man and natural world.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness and was disfellowshipped at nineteen. My mother always encouraged me to think for myself—thought that would make me a better Witness.
What inspires or moves you?
Nature, astronomy, history, biology, the Large Hadron Collider, Cassini’s final dive, the rings of Jupiter crashing into the planet.
What do you find beautiful?
The universe, nature, the human form.
How would you describe your purpose?
Why must we have a purpose? Why must we feel so special as individuals? Why do we let religion and politics divide us?
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
From a desire to seek the common good; certainly not from the Bible or religion.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
I am a child of Western civilization and of the scientific revolution. I identify as a member of Homo sapiens.
What inspires or moves you?
The quest for greater knowledge of the real cosmos through rational scientific inquiry to improve the human condition and to understand and preserve our fragile planetary environment.
What do you find beautiful?
Human art, music, dance, literature, mathematics, and science, set in the context of the awesome beauty of nature on the planetary and galactic scales.
How would you describe your purpose?
Each person has the potential to define for himself his own path in life. We do not come into life with a purpose. We decide our purpose as we live.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
Ethics is a purely human concerns, developed by rational discussion and debate. An individual must make moral choices based on his or her own evaluation of what is right.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
I was fourteen when grandpa died. Overheard aunts discussing he would never set foot into church (funeral). Later in life I discovered he came to the US to escape Franco.
What inspires or moves you?
My children. My art. A thankful patient. Beauty in nature. Calm before the storm. And a strong sense of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.
What do you find beautiful?
Silent fall mornings, the lake where the steam from the changing weather comes off the water. Newborn wild animals with their parents. The way the trees sound in the wind.
How would you describe your purpose?
Raise well adjusted, socially involved children. Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Leave my place better than I found it. Give encouragement.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
Somewhere deep inside myself I feel doing the right thing is somehow the right direction. Not because of fear of doing wrong. Because I gain joy in helping and improving.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
My family is diverse and has its origins in many cultures. Its history has tragedy and triumph, as does my personal history. These components made me as I am.
What inspires or moves you?
The love of my family, the touch of another’s hand, the laugh of a child, and the common courage of the human race made uncommon by unselfish acts of love.
What do you find beautiful?
Voices raised in joyful harmony, the awesome grandeur of our universe, a baby’s smile, sunrise, sunset, and all the time in between. A parent’s love and devotion to their children.
How would you describe your purpose?
My sole purpose is to leave the world a better place than when I arrived by making those around me happy and feeling loved.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
My morality derives from my sense of empathy and knowing how I would like to be treated and treating others in that same fashion.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
The unconditional love of my extended family informs my interactions with others. My Cuban revolutionary grandfather is an example of standing up and fighting for what I believe in.
What inspires or moves you?
The vastness and understandability of the universe, the beauty of the world around me, the awesome diversity and creativity of the human experience, the tension between understanding and mystery.
What do you find beautiful?
Expressions of human individuality and creativity, making connections with other living beings, finding order and patterns in the world around me, the sheer improbability of our current existence and experience.
How would you describe your purpose?
To learn about the different ways we can be as humans, to add to the happiness of those around me, to work toward a better future for generations to come.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
A synthesis of two maxims: do unto others as you would have done to you (unless otherwise specified) and act as though the rules dictating your actions could be generalized.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
I was raised to be a thumper in rural Ohio. However, I’m gay. That’s not acceptable and I was reminded of it every day until I had to reject it.
What inspires or moves you?
Teaching high school both moved/inspired me. My parent’s generation is lost. This new generation has so much potential.
What do you find beautiful?
I find hummingbirds flitting around my flowers beautiful. A song I haven’t heard for a long time. My kids when they contact me. My family.
How would you describe your purpose?
I can’t answer that right now. I’m four years into involuntary disability. I’ve come to terms with it, but still don’t like it. It’s a day to day process.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
I have no sense of morality. I see morality as evil. I rejected it when I rejected the church/Christianity. I have a system of ethics and principles.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
Jewish background observed my parents falling away from religion, sticking with social aspects because of anti-Semitism. Many Christian friends, horror stories about priests and nuns at parochial schools.
What inspires or moves you?
Nature. Great movies, books, plays, music, dance, art. Talent of any kind. Thought-provoking, well written literature. Humor. Baby anythings. Kindness and compassion.
What do you find beautiful?
Same as above.
How would you describe your purpose?
Try to make the world better and not worse. Try to enjoy life every day while planning for future in case there is one. Good that rubs off on others.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
Golden rule. Reason and science.
What about your family and history has informed who you are?
I was born at the right time to be a young woman when the women’s movement got going. A lot of who I am today followed from that.
What inspires or moves you?
Kindness and generosity.
What do you find beautiful?
People making music together.
How would you describe your purpose?
I’m retired, and I am pretty content not to have a purpose. But I do have a goal of being content without becoming complacent.
Where do you derive your sense of morality?
I don’t think it has one source, except recognizing commonality with other inhabitants of the planet.