Being a person of non- faith is not particularily challenging. Non- believing is just the act of not buying into a particular belief. Not believing in a god in effekt makes you an atheist. That is what the word means: a theos, without god. But being without god is not a true standpoint, is more of a non- position. It even doesn't say that a person is without faith. And while being without faith is an exreme, an unlikely position, there is a standpoint which has not been talked about enough, and has for a time lacked a name. That is that of the Bright.
Bright is a noun taken up by the Brights network to mean, one of a naturalistic world view. That is; one believes that there are no supernatural elements to the world. This is actually not a belief, but an axiomatically true statement. Which is; Everything is natural, if it is unnatural it must also be inexistent.
Being a bright, does not in fact mean that one cannot believe that there is a God, but the idea puts preassure on the person to define the limits of what is possible in a natural world, and as there is no set dogma for what is natural, it falls to science to teach us about the natural world.
There is an implicit reductionism in this view. And reductionism is often frowned upon, even by scientists. It is the why, why, why chain of reality - the question of; well, if there is an explanation for everything, then what is the explanation for this? But it does not fall to the single person to describe the whole of reality to relinquish the chains of the non- goddism and embrace the idea that everything has an explanation. Instead, the many examples of reducibility in nature should encourage eveyone to embrace the notion that evey phenomenon has a connection to something in the past. That there is causality. And when one turns ones head towards that of thism, it will quickly become obvious, with this kind of thought, that there exhists no why, why, why chain within monotheistic religions. We can only get three steps before we are out of questions. Why is there a reality? (Because god made it), why is god here? And NO; God has always been there is not an answer.
Interestingly. The universe has always been there seems to be an answer. No - no - no; the universe is only a mere 12.8 billion years, but TIME didn't start for us before the universe began. So always really has a meaning in this sense. A lot more interesting than the explanation of christianity isn't it?
Being a Bright as opposed to being an atheist, means not looking back at what one has left behind, but looking forward into what one has embraced. A reality far more interesting than the non- exhistent theism.
So why did I write that it is hard not to have a belief? Well, before one knows one has to believe. And with a near infnite width of what knowledge one is able to seek, and with a near infinite depth in which one can seek it, there will always be room for a little belief before there is knowledge. That is the way it will be with lay- people AND with scientists.
