Outside my window there are gorgeous white clouds strewn about like cotton balls, slowly (at least from my perspective) moving across the sky with the current of the wind. The sun casts shadows of these clouds on the trees below, leaving large swaths of a darker forest green across the city. Cars race by on the street below, a major thoroughfare that passes a Boston Pizza. I can make out people sitting on the patio, though I cannot tell if they are happily engaged in conversation or suffering the debilitating pains of food poisoning from this height. The sky is a light blue, the sort of shade that teenage girls use for eye shadow before they learn how stupid it looks on them.

All of this impresses me. The diversity of living things outside my window amazes me, knowing that we all come from the same origins. I am left with nothing but sheer wonder and joy at the world outside of my window. I have at least a working knowledge of the intricate process that has led us to this point, but that hardly dulls my sense of awe at how this all works out. Everything is in motion. The atmosphere roils in it’s currents, shaking the trees. A crow leaves his perch in search of food, probably mostly consisting of scraps pilfered from the restaurant below. The cars at the intersection move in a throbbing, arterial sort of fashion. The people go about their business, and within them, the countless microorganisms we never even consider go about their business. Even when we rest, an unknown number of incredible processes are at work within us. No one on earth will ever fathom all of these things, from the currents in the sky to the processes at work inside us. The best any one of us can hope for is a glimpse of understanding at the interconnectedness of life on this planet.

I find it frustrating that it is assumed I cannot find wonder and mystery in all of this. Yes, I am an atheist, and I do not have the blanket of God’s Plan to wrap it all up in. But I am far more moved now as I learn more and more about the workings of the world around me by the beauty, simplicity, and complexity of life than I ever was as a believer who chalked it all up to God.

God doesn’t involve mystery, God is a simple explanation. When God is the answer, there is no need to understand. Why does the cloud move in the sky? Because God wants it that way. Why does each cell within our body contain DNA? Because God wants it that way. There is no need to dig further. A mystery is a puzzle to be solved. It may never be solved, or it may be beyond my ability to solve, but that hardly means it can’t be looked at in further detail. The original Meddling Kids were the gang from Scooby Doo. When they saw a mystery, there was almost always an accepted blanket answer for the root cause, usually pirate ghosts or something similar. But when they saw a mystery, they dug deeper, and they found that it was old Mr. Jenkins, the groundskeeper at the amusement park who had been behind everything. The lack of any real pirate ghosts didn’t make the mystery any less enjoyable to solve.

I often wonder if those who claim that atheists are unable to enjoy the mystery of the world or incapable of having morality or any of the other ridiculous generalizations have ever actually spoken with an atheist. Oh, I’m sure they’ve talked to them, but speaking with and talking to are two very different things.

Let me say now for the record that I, as an atheist, think the world is an incredibly beautiful and mysterious place, and I am thankful for my place in it. I am not thankful to a Creator, and I am not thankful to the laws of physics or the theory of evolution. I am thankful to my parents for having me, raising me well, and teaching me all I would need to know to make it in the world.

Jim