Harold Malamud was a generous, kind, thoughtful and unselfish man who lived a successful and not long but happy life, all the while while proclaiming to be an atheist. He was my father-in-law and Jennifer adored him, so we never discussed this. Also, he was pretty stubborn in his opinions. But his life proves one can live a full and rewarding life, be happy, have love and experience everything without ever making the choice to believe in something. So why bother?
I had to come to believe. For forty-five years I have been able to avoid drinking and drug use by calling on the “power greater than ourselves” suggested in AA’s second step. I had a necessary, practical reason to believe in a universal, life-sustaining power present in everything, a force that Gandhi defined as the “living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves, and re-creates.” Some addicts and alcoholics do recover without professing any faith, but I think they believe in the life force in their hearts and not in their minds. Most atheists are rejecting the mythology and superstition, the dogmatism and preposterous failures of religious institutions that they think represent God. They’re justified in this. In the last five centuries the religion of science has won the contest of explaining life. Yet I believe Harold was missing something beautiful and meaningful that would have added to his happiness and his enjoyment of life itself.
Believing is simply a matter of making a decision; of coming to the conclusion that the universe, its very existence, and ours in it, is a sacred gift. It is not necessary to understand in order to believe; it is necessary to believe in order to begin to understand. It is a decision to be grateful and open-minded. Belief, or faith, is a fundamental desire to say Thanks. To spend some time in contemplation of the universal presence of the Giver rather than to arrive at any conclusions.
The unknowable is just that, and to be sure is to stop thinking. We are not supposed to do anything but to ask the sacred question: to seek to find the Name of the Giver and to invoke that name in our daily lives from moment to moment.
Nick Hilton - Reflections 