Living the Secular Life_New Answers to Old Questions

by Phil Zuckerman

  Sure, we can hear the reverberating echoes of the Big Bang. Yet that cosmic vibration tells us nothing about what was before the Big Bang, or what was before that, or how or why there was even a bang to be binged at all. This mostly wet ball full of ptarmigans, ponytails, and poverty is floating in space among a billion other balls, and there are galaxies swirling and there is a universe expanding, which itself may actually just be an undulating freckle on the cusp of something we can’t even conceive of, amid an endless soup of ever more unfathomables. And I find such a situation to be utterly, manifestly, psychedelically amazing—and far more spine-tinglingly awe-inspiring than any story I’ve ever read in the Bible, the Quran, the Vedas, the Upanishads, Dianetics, the Doctrine and Covenants, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

  So smell that satchel of tangerines and nimbly hammer a dulcimer or pluck a chicken and listen to your conscience or master a new algorithm or walk to work or hitch a ride. Because we’re here. And we will never, ever know why or exactly how this all comes about. That’s the situation. Deal with it. Accept it. Let the mystery be.

  —

  IN THE BACKYARD of my grandparents’ house there were bright swaths of yellow flowers that used to grow at certain times of the year. They were so stunning, sweet, beautiful, vivid, and friendly. When I was little, it just felt so good to look at them. I was told, at some point, that they were merely a common weed: Oxalis compressa. But to me, they were, and still are, the most wonderful flowers in the world. Grapes also grew in my grandparents’ backyard; they covered the wooden lattice near the back brick patio, hanging down, drooping in abundance. Their skins were thick and deep blue and their insides felt like eyeballs in your mouth. I spent a lot of time playing in that backyard with the bright yellow flowers and the deep blue grapes, and I used to take a lot of naps at my grandparents’ house as well, and I remember waking up one afternoon and watching all these tiny particles of dust floating listlessly in the sunlight that was pouring in through the window. It was really quiet. And then at some point my grandmother came in and gave me a snack: slices of crisp, green apples and flagrantly orange cheddar cheese.

  One morning, alone, I drove from Whitefish, Montana, down past Big Fork, and then onward to Polson. It was early August. The road was mostly empty and the valley was vast and the massive mountains in the distance were stoic and serene and the fields were lonely and the air was still and smelled like dry pine as I drove alongside Flathead Lake. And when “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” by Led Zeppelin came on the radio, I felt my veins expand a bit, and when “He” by Moby Grape came on, I felt myself growing younger and older at the same time.

  Like on a June night, years earlier, when I was in graduate school in Oregon in the 1990s, and my housemates and I threw a party. I danced a lot that night, wearing my faded jeans and my Fitzpatricks T-shirt. Stacy was wearing a chartreuse dress and clogs, and she even danced a little too, and then at around three in the morning we left the party and walked through our Eugene neighborhood, over to her place, the corner apartment with the giant redwood in front, and it felt like we were floating and then floating some more.

  And there’s that steady-sloped hill by the psychiatric hospital on the east coast of Jutland in Denmark, the one with the long and perfect downgrade. It was frozen over one January night so that its surface wasn’t snowy anymore but purely icy and glassy and no one else was there, even with a half-moon glowing, and we all went down there with sleds in arms—Stacy, Flora, Ruby, August, and our friends Nancy, Louis, Lars, and Julie. But we didn’t need the sleds because the icy hill was so glassy-slick that you could just fly down on your own, and we did, as a laughing snake, or in hand-holding pairs, or by ourselves, feet first on our backs or on our bellies with arms flying in front, with nothing below but soft snow and some hay bales farther on at the bottom, and we frolicked there for hours on that cold night, sliding, holding hands, breathing, sweating. Like the school night that I and my fourteen-year-old best friend, Hank, and our older brothers, David and Josh, played mud football in the rain up at the park, under the floodlights, in the fall.

  Just the other day, Flora and I went to the beach near Santa Monica. The two of us got right into the water and the waves were lively and consistent and I clutched her left hand with my right and as each wave came closer, we made a split-second decision to jump up and over it, or dive down under it, or just stay put and let it smash us. Over and over again: the salt water, the oncoming waves, the splashing, the laughing, the sunshine, and Flora’s face. Like my son August’s face, similarly smiling in the misty hose water when it was a hot afternoon and we rigged up the hose to the top of the netting surrounding the trampoline in the backyard and we set it on “mist” and it gently sprayed all over us as we jumped and jumped.

  And Ruby, now fourteen, recently described to me her desire to study space. She’s always loved literature and music, but she recently took a one-week cosmology class at a nearby university, and she said that while much of the math was over her head, when the professor lectured about how we are made out of the same material as stars—that we are stardust made self-conscious—she got tears in her eyes, and tingles, and then a few weeks later she was camping with her friend Eloise and they were lying under the stars and there was a meteor shower above, and as she lay there taking it all in, she realized that she could imagine no music accompanying such a sight; she always likes to have music playing in the background—when she is in her room, or when we are driving, or when she is hanging out with friends—and she often finds herself in situations where she imagines certain music that would be good for accompanying certain moments, and she thinks that such-and-such a song would be perfect in the background, but when she was lying there camping, looking up at the stars, she realized that there was no song, no music, that could, would, or should make the moment any better or more deeply felt. The deep quietness of the space above her was amazing enough, utterly and needfully unaccompanied.

  To Own the Awe

  Occasionally I get asked “what I am.” Most people I meet can tell that I’m a Jew by ethnicity, but if the conversation ever gets into the realm of faith, or specific religious beliefs and doctrines, or when people hear that I developed a Secular Studies program at Pitzer College, or when I am interviewing someone for my research and they can’t quite tell where I am coming from, they will eventually ask me what I am, or how I identify myself. And I’ve always found the most common options lacking.

  Take the label “atheist.” Am I an atheist? Sure. Of course. I definitely do not believe that God—or any of the gods that have ever been created, concocted, or imagined by humans—actually exists. It’s simply a matter of a lack of evidence. Do I know what created the universe? No. But that doesn’t then translate into a belief in a God. It just means that I can acknowledge that there are some serious mysteries out there—awesome mysteries—that may not have any answers, ever. But again, the acknowledgment and recognition of such mystery does not then warrant belief in any sort of creator deity.

  So, yeah, I’m lacking in theism. I’m an atheist. But the term doesn’t quite do me right, and I am hesitant to use the label “atheist” when people ask me what I am because, well, it is essentially a term of negation. It declares what I don’t believe in, what I don’t think is true, what I don’t accept. And that feels like a real loss to me, because when people ask me “what I am” I would prefer to offer a positive designation, an affirming description, not merely one that negates or denies what others believe in. To use an analogy, describing oneself as an atheist is a bit like describing oneself as “nonwhite” when in fact one is of Korean ancestry, or African American, or Choctaw.

  Beyond that matter, I also don’t like the label “atheist” because it doesn’t adequately capture the joy of living I am fortunate enough to often experience, the general sense of amazement and deep appreciation that I regularly feel sweetly, wistfully, mournfully churning through my marrow when I frolic in the sea with Flora, or play football with b
est friends, or talk about stars with Ruby, or walk through the snowy woods with Stacy on a crystalline December night, or witness my children’s births, or go with Harvs, Jelly, and Daniel P. up to the High Street café, or when I look at those yellow flowers, the same ones that used to grow in my grandparents’ backyard.

  Because I harbor a real love of life—not to mention a deep feeling for the profound mystery that is existence and the beauty that is being and the sublimity that is creation—the self-designation of “atheist” simply falls short, falls flat.

  “Agnostic” is a bit better. I do like the term. I use it now and then. And yet it also has its shortcomings. First, in its most common usage, being agnostic means that you neither believe nor disbelieve in the existence of God. In the words of Julian Baggini, an agnostic “claims we cannot know whether God exists and so the only rational option is to reserve judgment.” Maybe there is a God, and maybe there isn’t—one just can’t say. This is a fine position to take, I suppose. But on closer inspection, one must ask: is it even really a position? No. It is actually more like the absence of a position, for it is essentially nothing more than an admitted indecisiveness or embraced fence-sitting. For if a person cannot decide whether there is a God or not, or feels that it is impossible to say one way or the other, he isn’t really anything at all, other than undecided, unsure. But when it comes to the question of God’s existence, I’m not on such a fence. So that’s one reason that I don’t like to call myself agnostic.

  But there’s more on the agnostic front. There is actually a second, deeper, more philosophically nuanced meaning that is embedded in the term “agnostic.” It is one that is much more in line with the literal Greek meaning of the term: to be “without knowledge.” At this level, being agnostic means that one holds to the position that there are certain things, matters, subjects, or aspects of existence that simply cannot ever be known or understood; the human mind is inevitably limited, or the scientific method has its humble boundaries, and some aspects of reality may simply always transcend our understanding and comprehension. This form of agnosticism professes that, in the succinct words of Robert Ingersoll, “Nobody knows how it is. The human mind is not big enough to answer the questions of origin and destiny.” Or in the words of philosopher Eric Maisel, an agnostic is one who believes that “no one has any special knowledge about the purpose or lack of purpose of the universe, that there is only scientific knowledge, with its limitations; the speculations of consciousness, with its limitations; and some amount of mystery, shared by us all and quite likely to remain unexplained until the end of time.”

  But even if some team of brilliant cosmologists can one day work out the answers to the perplexing questions of time and space and existence, there is still the unavoidable biggie, posed acutely by the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: why is there something instead of nothing? For as Ludwig Wittgenstein put forth, the mystical mystery is not how the world is, but that it is.

  That is the part of being agnostic that resonates deeply for me: I do believe that there are probably just some eternal unknowns out there, which suggests, to paraphrase Shakespeare, that “there are more things in heaven and earth” than can be dreamt of in any philosophy.

  However, while considering myself agnostic in this vein, I prefer not to use that label too often simply because I find it to be so damn intellectual. It is too narrowly cognitive, too heady, too dustily philosophical. “Agnostic” implies an almost strictly contemplative position regarding life and its vexing questions and mysteries. But when I ponder the existence of certain existential questions and cosmic mysteries, I often have an emotional reaction beyond that of mere dry puzzlement or cold contemplation. I feel something. In fact, I would go so far as to say that sometimes I experience or feel existential questions and mysteries—concerning life, death, being, and the universe—much more than I merely ponder or contemplate them. And the label “agnostic” doesn’t adequately capture or satisfactorily convey that experiential, emotional, or feeling dimension.

  Okay, well, then what about the term “secular humanist”? I do like this label a lot—and I’ve tried to trumpet its worthiness throughout the pages of this book. Unlike “atheist,” the label of secular humanist declares what I am for, and unlike “agnostic,” it doesn’t imply fence-sitting or abstract philosophical contemplation of existential unknowables. To declare oneself a secular humanist signals an optimistic belief in the potential of humans to solve problems and make the world a better, safer, and more just place. A secular humanist is someone who believes in reason, science, and rational inquiry, who is committed to democracy, tolerance, open debate, human rights, and so forth. So I do find the label “secular humanist” useful and appropriate now and then. On occasion. Like when I am invited to be part of a panel discussion on religion and politics. Or when I am debating a conservative Christian. Or when a secular parent asks me what she should call her religionless kids.

  But I don’t always like to use it as a self-designating label; it just doesn’t always quite do the trick. To begin with, I find that secular humanism is more accurately a position or agenda that I support. Secular humanism entails a set of values, ideas, and practices that I advocate, such as the separation of church and state, the right to birth control, empowering the disabled, nourishing compassion, celebrating the arts. There is a decidedly political dimension to secular humanism—with its emphasis on tolerance, democracy, minority rights, environmentalism, women’s rights, sexual rights, and so on—that I wholeheartedly embrace.

  However, when describing what I am, I want to capture something else, something more personal than the values, ideas, and practices that I support and advocate. I want to describe what I feel and experience. After all, when I heard that Arthur Lee had just been released from prison and that he was going to be performing at the Knitting Factory that very night and I drove down there and even though it was sold out I somehow got in and I was right there in front of the stage and he played “Your Mind and We Belong Together,” I didn’t feel like a “secular humanist.” What I felt was tearful joy and swelling wonder and utter rapture. When Robin Heckle, dressed up as a witch, donning black lipstick at the junior high Halloween party in the gymnasium, grabbed me and took me behind that curtain and kissed me, I didn’t feel like a “secular humanist.” I felt deeply tingly, aroused, elated. When Stacy and the kids and I had been hiking for too long on that hot, dry road up in the high mountains of Norway and we stumbled upon that ice-cold, azure-blue swimming hole, being fed by a waterfall that was in turn being fed by the glacial snow above, and we stripped off our clothes and dove in and drank the pure water as we swam in it, I didn’t feel like a “secular humanist.” I felt incredibly happy, sustained, embraced, loved, alive.

  In sum, when I think of the most important, memorable, and meaningful moments of my life—moments when I feel simultaneously ephemeral and eternal, moments that define who I am and give me my deepest sense of self—I find that the title of “secular humanist” leaves a bit to be desired. Yes, I support and advocate the sane and noble goals of secular humanism. Yes, I am an atheist. Yes, I am an agnostic—at least the kind who suspects that there may be limits to the boundaries of human knowledge. But I am something more. I am often full of a profound, overflowing feeling. And the word that comes closest to describing that feeling is awe.

  So at root, I’m an “aweist.”

  Granted, I’m obviously not always walking around in a constant, ever-flowing state of awe. I don’t perpetually saunter about with my mouth wide open, my eyes glazed over, and my spine a-tingling. But I do experience a feeling of awe quite often enough. Sometimes it is fleeting and wispy. Sometimes it is deep and haunting. It can come from being in nature. It can come from interacting with people. Sometimes this feeling of awe can be kindled by reading Walt Whitman or listening to “Children of Darkness” by Richard and Mimi Fariña, or picking up my kids from school or taking them to a march downtown, with thousands of
others, protesting against yet another unnecessary war. And of course, sometimes it comes from contemplating existential mysteries: time, space, beginnings, ends, and their—at least to me—unfathomability. Both the mundane things in life, as well as the profound can, at random times, stimulate a feeling of awe in me. But whatever the source, this awe is a feeling that constitutes an integral, visceral, and beloved part of my life experience.

  Aweism encapsulates the notion that existence is ultimately a beautiful mystery, that being alive is a wellspring of wonder, and that the deepest questions of existence, creation, time, and space are so powerful as to inspire deep feelings of joy, poignancy, and sublime awe. Aweism humbly, happily rests on a belief that no one will ever really know why we are here or how the universe came into being, or why, and this insight renders us weak in the knees while simultaneously spurring us on to dance. An aweist is someone who admits that living is wonderfully mysterious and that life is a profound experience. An aweist agrees with the sentiments of historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, who, drawing from the insights of Gabriel Marcel and Alan Watts, suggests that while certain problems exist to be solved, deep mysteries exist to be enjoyed and unsolved—and we are happier when we accept that the universe and existence are just such mysteries. An aweist harkens to the words of Albert Einstein (a self-described agnostic), who suggested that “the most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.”