Start facing reality

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Jon Ward

Church has always been a place of sanctuary, but never has it been called upon to soothe us from so many sharp realizations.

If we dare to look into the near future with open eyes, what we see is a grisly mixture of inevitable calamities: a world where morality threatens to become a matter of survival rather than conscience.

Populations and their rates of consumption escalate. Pollution increases. Resources like water and land become more scarce. Forests are razed to make more goods, more farmland and subsequently more people. Nations struggle to assert themselves in a shrinking world, seeking more nuclear capabilities. The technology of warfare and terrorism increases its deadly efficiency faster than defenses can be developed. Cultural and political tensions mount as competition tightens.

Our intrepid gaze into tomorrow reveals a ghastly vision of violence, starvation, war and uncertainty, where our primordial instincts of self-preservation may rip through the veil of conventional morality.

So, many of us rally behind the banner of religion. We seek comfort, safety, reassurance. We seek protection from ourselves. We seek the solace of believing God will protect us. But we have other reasons - other needs - as well.

The new God we have erected has systematically destroyed the old one many of us now appeal to. We can no longer deny Science.

It has shaped our world for good and bad. It has brought us the truth about ourselves, from Darwin and our status as evolving animals, to the random chaos of the Big Bang, which our life-supporting solar system has evolved out of. Science has delivered us from the blissful ignorance of our youth, when we could still think ourselves special and destined for immortality.

Many of us cling to the old beliefs, desperately attempting to reconcile the comforts of religion with the self-perpetuating fruition of science. But the advance of science is steady and undeniable, mercilessly reducing our grand spiritual paradigms to infantile delusions, or forcing us, if we dare to oppose it, to occupy radically tenuous positions.

So in the face of dying like an animal, vanishing into nonexistence, with all our thoughts and deeds persisting only in the memories of the living, we withdraw into the welcoming arms of religious faith, a creed that needs no rational justification and demands only the submission we are so relieved to exchange for the comforts it offers.

Religion smoothes the sharp texture of reality. It allows us to believe our dead loved ones are watching over us and that we will be reunited with them when we leave this world. It promises a better place, unlike our glimpse into the future of earthly life.

Safe in the belief that we have an omnipotent being on our side, we can face the horrors of modern civilization. Our lives are infused with meaning and promises.

But the euphoria does not exist for everyone. Children starve. Babies slowly die of horrifyingly real diseases. People murder each other. Wars break out, and fathers, brothers and sons die trying to kill other men. Thousands more babies crowd the planet every minute with no guarantee of being fed.

Can we afford to excuse these horrors as allowed by God simply because his divine ways are unintelligible to us? Can we accept that it constitutes a test, or some part of an incomprehensible plan of our creator?

If he lets children starve to death, what makes us think he will save us? Can we afford to hide in churches, trying to save our souls before Armageddon brings judgment, while the world outside deteriorates?

Rather than giving in to what we wish were true, we should face the realities we have uncovered. People have invented many religions to explain things and to comfort themselves. These entail many positives, such as moral codes, for instance.

But we have reached the point where we should not need the fictional aspects of religion to provide self-deceitful comfort. And we have little time to waste in clinging to obsolete mythologies.

We are clever and creative animals who live briefly, then die. We have been smart enough to figure that out, but now many of us don't want to face it. Our dead loved ones do not exist except in our memories. We will soon join them in nonexistence, depressing as it may seem to some, returning to the ecological cycle that gave rise to us.

I do not find this depressing. It is nature, and it does not strip my life of meaning. It compels me to enjoy and appreciate life all the more while I have it. But down the path we are traveling lies a future where appreciating our short lives will be harder and harder to do. We have gotten ourselves into this situation, and only we can get ourselves out.

If we sit around waiting to be saved, waiting for the end to come, we have no chance. Now, as a species, we are speeding ourselves toward extinction. To deny this is fatal. To hide from it is impossible.

Jon Ward is an astronomy and creative writing junior. His column, Who's the Bull Goose Looney? appears every Thursday and he can be reached via e-mail at Jon.Ward@wildcat.arizona.edu.