It’s an interesting story. On the one hand, it was heartening that someone had discovered happiness to come from something other than the superficial banalities of one’s life. On the other hand, it was sad that there are many people, perhaps most, who must actually learn this lesson.

A belief in fulfillment

And so I am not shocked that, like me, god believers are saddened by the hollowness of so many lives lived in emptiness, fulfilled by nothing and driven by the most amoral of motivations. I am not surprised at the satisfaction believers have in their lives, filled as they are with a pursuit that, no matter what unrecognizable form it may ultimately take, at the very least seeks meaning for themselves and everyone. I am not surprised by the confidence of their beliefs, by the resistance their faith has to that which disputes it.

Of course, I know they are terribly misguided for that faith, and the details of their belief are their ultimate undoing, and no reconciliation is possible between dogmatic positions and a truly happy existence. But I say that out of a need to clarify. It doesn’t really matter, this time.

It indicates that a life of true fulfillment comes from everything that seems not to define the majority of us. In the West, most have forgotten so simple a truth utterly. It may be cliché to bring up the fact that material pursuits have replaced our sense of satisfaction with ourselves and each other, but often truth is to be discovered anew in aphorisms like that.

It’s one reason for the divide and the ultimate conflict between those with faith and the secular world they inhabit. On a larger scale, it hints at more troubling issues: the conflict between Islam and the West, as an example, and the failure of either to find areas of common values and goals.

A flow of lives

But I must recede once again to the microcosm of a single life. Unlike James Randi, who is nearing the end of his journey, I can’t look back at a remarkable life to reminisce on scores of remarkable experiences. I’m far too ordinary.

There are issues to deal with, and things that seem like setbacks, but its very simplicity makes my life deeply fulfilling. Alex and I have a circadian beat to our lives that offers happiness I could scarcely imagine when I was in my twenties, clambouring for money and sex and superficial relationships and fun, and other trivialities. There is the expanse of Bronte Creek Park near my home, small though it might seem to some, that holds a portion of my consciousness in its fields and woods and paths. There are the hundreds of books in my library, holding hundreds of thousands of pages, that fill up the corners of my barely satiable curiosity. And there is the incidental interaction with people, acquaintances and strangers, offering the opportunity to imagine the details of another life, and, if I can, if only in the smallest of ways to make that other path slightly more navigable.

I like my work and I’m considered fairly successful, but it’s simply a lucky tool that allows me to live a life away from it. There are so many better things, more important things. The breathtaking breadth of human history in front of me at this very moment, for example, or living inside the cream-coloured pages of my library. I’m staggered when I think about the billions of lives that have shaped what humanity is right now; or the trillions upon trillions of beings that have directed the course of life on the planet.

Something in me goes very quiet when the sun sets beneath the purple clouds over the peaks of houses behind us. I feel as though I’m sharing the lives of the finches that wake me up each morning as they build a nest beneath the trough under my bedroom window, which they and their ancestors have done for as long as I’ve lived here. We’ve been here many years, but we’re still apart from virtually all the neighbours. Sometimes when we come home in the car, one of their kids waves at us, though we are silent strangers to them and their parents, and it makes me smile. Alex has a swimming friend that he picks up every Sunday morning. She usually bakes him cake on Saturday night, and he comes home full. Despite our shyness, and what must seem like stand-offishness, the neighbours directly beside us invite us for an hour or two of drink and conversation every Christmas and every summer, and have always been immeasurably kind to us.

There’s so much loveliness, so much fulfillment in life that I’m surprised when I hear stories of lessons learned, like Ms. Fitzpatrick’s. What deep pleasure there is to be found in the world’s accessible corners. What meaning there is in the most straightforward of relationships. How gorgeous things are. How important we all, each of us, are, to one another, to the flow of lives beginning in the incomprehensibly distant past and that builds our story for the sake of our existence alone. How completely beautiful, unknowable, and livable it all is.

The fact is, there is no way to politely point out that another’s views are absurd, irrational, and dangerous, and there is no way to sample the irrationality of religious belief without exposing it. The “new” aspect of atheism represented by this group seems a rather time-tested idea: argue well, with all reason, and refuse to accept illogical absurdities. Through their discourse, they are admonishing us not to retreat into niceties when it comes to certain taboo subjects, but to represent our arguments in the coolest, most reasonable way possible.

The response to this way of dealing with theism is predictable, and could be ramping up. In addition to claims of tactless injuriousness in the arguments of atheists, apologists for theism and religion are adding the element of alarm into the mix. New atheists are dangerous. Beware their ideas.

As usual, this comes when the realm of reasoned discourse has failed, and the only option left is the peddling of fear.

In Faith Attack, Clifford Goldstein, the rabidly fundamentalist Seventh-Day Adventist and former editor of Liberty Magazine, describes new atheism as an unprovoked assault on belief.

In usual style, he diminishes his own arguments with thinly disguised ad hominems; for example, he chooses to quote the word “intellectuals” when describing Dawkins-Dennett, Harris-Hitchens. But in his description of these men as harbingers of a kind of chilling philosophical fascist state, where he imagines the most provocative of their arguments having come to life as draconian law, he has chosen not to address the arguments themselves, but to assume their worthlessness by extrapolating an absurd scenario while making sure to add a healthy dose of fear-mongering along the way.

This is not a challenge to the arguments at hand, but merely a kind of red herring. Attractive though this vision might be to apocalyptic doomsayers and science fiction aficionados, it is a silly counter to very real concerns. One is happy to find that, ultimately, Goldstein does not even take himself seriously.

Fortunately, their views aren’t likely to become public policy anytime soon, and certainly not in the United States (after all, look how well they worked in the Soviet Union).

Here, and elsewhere, he can’t help but draw comparisons between an atheist argument and the Soviet Union. This tiresome trick is described by Alonzo Fyfe as The Hitler and Stalin cliché. It is just as unconvincing when issued by Mr. Goldstein as it is when trundled out by any other apologist lacking a cohesive argument.

Reflecting Dawkins’ assertion that teaching children about hell is a species of child abuse, Goldstein says the same about teaching children evolution, and telling them about the finality of death. This is particularly egregious, not just for the strident insult to the science of evolution, but to the twisted reversal of values that places more importance on selling an arbitrary fantasy to impressionable people, than familiarizing them with the reality of life in the universe.

Expressing dewey-eyed remorse that children might not be taught about their “origins” or “destiny”, and emoting over the fact that kids might be told they’ll never again see Grandma and Grandpa after they’re gone, Goldstein cannot bring himself to imagine that children are stronger than this. What has he to say about Dale McGowan’s daughters, who discovered both their fear of death and their victory over this fear at the same moment? About their ability, at ages six and ten, to understand and reject the argument of First Cause as a logical absurdity? Clearly Goldstein attributes no quality of intellect or reason to children.

By the end of the article, Goldstein ironically recognizes the counter-attack that will soon issue forth from the hard religious right.

[New atheists'] most damaging impact might be…the fertile fodder they provide the Christian Right, long trying to convince the flock that their religion is under attack by secular elites…[T]he extremism of the new atheists will only feed the extremism of the Christian Right, each side pushing the other further in a direction that neither needs to go.

Though there may be some truth to this, he seems to have missed the point that he himself is a carrier of exactly the same kind of fear-mongering these flock leaders would be guilty of. At least in the case of religious extremists, such a reaction is understandable. In Mr. Goldstein’s case, we can only guess that, for want of a cohesive and rational argument of rebuttal, alarmist calls about the falling sky is the only response left.

While waiting in the drive-through, we realized that neither of us felt up for the long trip out to a place quite close to Kleinburg. Alex found a brochure in the pocket of his door for conservation areas along the Bruce Trail, in the Dundas Valley and Spencer Gorge areas of Hamilton. We returned home to drop off the bikes, then picked the largest waterfall we could find — Tews Falls — and headed out.

It was quite an impressive sight. I had no idea a waterfall this large was anywhere near where we lived. I tried out my new point-and-shoot camera, and got a few good pictures of the falls from a viewing platform.

Alex was quiet, had been all day. Sometimes it’s difficult to read him. But like me, I think that for him, things just seem somehow out of sync once in a while, or perhaps nothing is particularly appealing. We’d had some trouble deciding what to do when the day began, and, having decided the night before that we were certainly going to do something — but what? — it was a disappointing struggle to come up with a day trip we’d both like.

But, here we were at Tews Falls, and something called “Dundas Peak” awaited at the end of an adjacent trail, so we left the viewing platform and made our way to a point high on the escarpment that overlooked the city of Hamilton.

It was a nice view (but it was Hamilton). We took a few more pictures and enjoyed the scenery a bit, then headed back down the path. We talked about going to Denninger’s for schnitzel and other good stuff. I don’t know what I was saying when I suddenly realized Alex was no longer walking beside me. I looked back, and he was standing and staring at something.

We’d just started to cross a small foot bridge, and he was crouching down and shaking his head. His mood wasn’t improving at the site of a bible verse, God this-ing and God that-ing, scratched onto the wooden rail of the bridge with a pen (beside a big black flourishing graffiti tag).

And God said to Moses, “I AM.” And you shall say to the children of Israel, “‘I AM’ sent me to you. I will bring you out of bondage to a land flowing in abundance!”

The author of this bit of divinely inspired graffito completely misrepresented the quote, as no translation fails to omit God first saying to Moses, “I am who I am”. In any event, Alex was quite animated. It seemed his level of tolerance for anything appearing to be prosyletization had been reached. What with the absurd display of this year’s Olympian track and field athletes, most of them African, blessing themselves until they must have been fairly bruised about the forehead and navel, the dangling rosaries on rear-view mirrors in cars next to us on the highway, the proliferation of cheerful floating Jesus-fish on the rear end of gas-guzzling minivans and SUVs, and the spectacle of some Conservative nobody reasoning that God must support their party because it had stopped raining just before Mr. Harper’s Big Speech, I think Alex was at some kind of breaking point. He wasn’t incandescent, he wasn’t livid, but he was certainly animated. He had certainly had enough.

It’s true, this bit of vandalizing was misplaced and stupid. I couldn’t work out why this quote seemed apropos to this particular god-believer. The scenery around it was certainly pretty, and the wooden railing would surely have been the only workable surface his black ball-point pen could tolerate for many kilometres around, but why that quote? Oh well, believers are not necessarily known for connecting their sentiments to their faith in a way that makes sense to the rest of us.

Dumb though it was, I wasn’t as put off, and downright offended, as Alex was. I did mention that I was thinking of running to the car for a pen so I could add a few words to make the thing profane, but I wasn’t serious. And of course, smuttifying bible verses isn’t just the ultimate expression of one’s emotional immaturity, it’s also deeply offensive to many, many people. One’s cause in life isn’t to offend.

As we started to pass over the bridge, a group of Mennonites were coming toward us, perhaps five men with their wives. “Oops,” I whispered to Alex, snickering, “maybe these are our vandals.” We passed them, the men looking at us and smiling, one or two saying “Hi,” the women looking only at the path.

“It wasn’t them,” Alex said. And of course it wasn’t. These are people so committed to non-violence and cohabitation with humanity that they take great pains to make their very churches blend into the surroundings, should they have to locate the buildings within the greater community. Causing offense to those of a differing faith, or making a show of their own faith, would be a shocking transgression for them. If I am made to have respect for the beliefs of others merely because they have beliefs, and not because of the substance of those beliefs, Mennonites are the only group of Christians I could tolerate it for.

Eventually, we made our way to Denningers and got schnitzels and a whole lot of other good things, and had a dinner of pork and poppyseed cake and salami.

I suppose I’m amused that just the other day, I was saddened by the notion of some believer not seeing the forest for the trees, heaping empty praise on nothingness while the real beauty of his surroundings escapes him.

If you want true wonderment, you should wonder at the improbability of the universe, of our planet, and, most improbable of all, of our individual consciousnesses experiencing it all. The enslavement to the worship of nothing is deeply sad. In the end, it excludes all possible human happiness, great or small. It’s bondage that humanity truly, truly needs liberation from.

We decided to refuel at the chicken place, and on the way out, we wondered what we should do. Going home immediately didn’t seem like such a great idea. We hadn’t been to Bronte Creek together in some time, so we decided on the park.

Bronte Creek on a weekday evening in late August is a pleasure to be in. There were virtually no other people there. We started at Spruce Lane farm, and walked to the end of the dirt road by the pond, and turned back. The light was beautiful and golden. I wished for my camera. “Sometimes it’s better to be without it,” Alex said. He was right. Enjoying the park and his company was better than worrying about pictures.

We went back to the farm, then started a long walk around the big empty fields, copses, and farmhouses. We looked up and guessed at the structure of the clouds high above, lit from below by the setting sun. It was gold and orange and blue. They were whispy and light and beautiful. “Are those cirrus? What are cirrus clouds, anyway,” I asked. We talked about the edge of the atmosphere and the clouds that were there, and the crisp late summer night. “Look!” There were pinstripe clouds, even and regular and picture-perfect, high above our heads. “Can you spot the mares’ tails,” I asked him. He couldn’t. “There, and there.”

“We’re so lucky to be here,” he said.

Looking up into the endless blue above us, and at the golden and orange light, I couldn’t have agreed more. Then I thought how wonderful all of this was, how beautiful the admiration of it, without having to infuse this natural wonderfulness with gods.

As we walked, I imagined how a believer might be compelled to talk about the creative genius of God, and how all this beauty relates to his little life, all the while exactly missing the breathtaking example of loveliness all around him. The universe is so breathtakingly beautiful and light, that being encumbered by gods diminishes the experience of it for people, erodes its tangibility, like a river eroding the limestone banks surrounding it. It’s a sorrowful thing to remember the lens of fantasy that most people are forced to view the world through.

We passed another farm. There were three cows in a field on their way back to the barn on their own. One was quite young, and kicked at the air with its back legs, scampered around the two adults, nuzzled their faces. It was a sweet sight.

I suddenly realized this was the same calf, now much bigger, that I had seen six or eight months earlier, alone in the barn nearby in the cold of winter. I’d been at the park taking pictures by myself, and went to this barn to find some goats. A lonely calf was the only animal there. It was lying in a dark corner, and I didn’t see it until it stood up slowly, and made its way toward me. I pet it a bit, feeling sorry for it, and fed it some hay. It was obviously very lonely (and probably cold).

But here it was on a beautiful late summer night, full of life. It was a lucky sight, for me.

Eventually we found ourselves at the huge abandoned parking lot, choked with weeds, that leads to Spruce Lane farm. There were bats flitting everywhere overhead. “Watch what they do,” I said to Alex, and tossed a rock at one. It immediately swooped toward it, circled it quickly as it arced to the ground, then sped off when it realized it wouldn’t be very tasty.

We got to the car in almost total darkness. The sky where the sun had almost completely set was dark blue and red. The whispy clouds streaked from horizon to horizon. Jupiter stood out like a shining rock toward the south.

I opened the window as we drove slowly on the tiny road that led toward the park exit, letting in the evening air. It had been a perfect day, a beautiful evening. It would be a gorgeous night.

We are so, so lucky to be here.