At TPM Online, Ronald Aronson acknowledges how important gratitude is to the religious practice of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, but his essay is targeted to atheists and agnostics who he says can also experience the sense of belonging and understanding of the meaning and purpose of life, in part through gratitude. Appreciating man's dependence on natural forces beyond our control, and on our human ancestors recent and distant and their histories and struggles, can give meaning to the person who believes that all these things derive from "worldly sources."
But reading this paragraph, I couldn't help feeling that the author was trying to convince himself:
For historical, social, or personal reasons we may find ourselves unwilling or unable to experience these belongings – to nature, history, and other humans. But to pretend that these links do not exist or to minimise them is in a deep sense to be alienated from our very selves. And if we fully live our belonging? It is just possible that we will sense the world as alive, brimming over, and demanding of us - the opposite of empty and mute. It is just possible that we will often feel connected in these various ways, and often grateful. Feelings of dependence and of belonging are appropriate attitudes of response by the secular person. So are feelings of reverence and awe. None of these need be vague or fuzzy – if their worldly sources are not ignored and they are not projected beyond our universe, they become specific modes of living and experiencing our actual situation.
The atheist's feelings of reverence and awe then, are not "vague or fuzzy", presumably unlike those of us who project beyond our universe. So they've got that going for them. Which is nice. Something to be grateful for.
I don't want to be completely flip here. The whole article is worth reading for its perspective and its positive approach.
Posted by dan at August 28, 2006 12:23 AM