A Kiss Goodnight at the End of Forever

Chapter 4 Pt 1 - Holy Nutrition

"And you are?" James asked.

"Kind of. Please, you two, eat before the oil wilts the basil. I promise I'll explain. Just eat."

Martha and James looked at one another again, then took their daughter's suggestion.

"I guess you could say..." Serafina paused to finish chewing and swallowing their food. "I believe in religion but not God."

"Oh, okay," James said. "Nothing unusual or confusing about that."

"Ha, ha, Dad," Serafina said, then took a drink of water. "I mean, it's always possible that there's a God hiding behind all of the evidence. All powerful beings can do whatever they want. Maybe they intentionally set it up to look like they don't exist. Or maybe their intentions are beyond our ability to comprehend. But all the evidence, step by step, discovery by discovery, sure points to the lack of one in any traditional sense. And I severely doubt that, if one existed, they would be so insecure as to obsess over whether or not we praise them, condemning us to an eternity of suffering if we don't worship them perfectly. Sounds more like a petulant influencer blocking all the haters than a benevolent, supreme being." They paused to eat a piece of chicken. "It makes much more sense – to me, at least – that man created God, not the other way around. And that begs the question..." They scooped a mouthful of mozzarella into their mouth and waited for their parents.

"Which... question?" James asked after a moment.

Then clarity struck Martha. "Why," she stated.

Serafina smiled and nodded to their mother and Martha saw a twinkle of pride in their eyes. "You got it, Mom. Why did man create God?"

"I could venture a couple of theories," James said, inching forward to the edge of his seat. "But I would much rather hear yours."

"Okay," they said, setting their silverware down on their plate. "First – it gave us answers to the mysteries of the natural world. But since then, science has solved most of them, so we don't miss that. We don't need a God to explain why a volcano erupts or to grace us with rain for our crops.

"Second – it gave us moral dogma. Religions collect and agree upon a set of ambitious moral principles – something greater than our animal nature – and it's been instrumental in developing a civilization mostly free of brutality. This is where religion's retreat begins to cause trouble. Secular morality exists in abundance, but it's scattered, interspersed with hedonism and often overpowered by ever expanding, amoral capitalism.

"And third – it gave us the warm comfort of contrived meaning. Life is too much of a struggle to withstand if we're nothing but walking corpses without purpose. And this is atheism's greatest failure. It hasn't provided much of any replacement for this loss. It's like atheism broke the masses out of a prison only to leave them penniless and alone to starve and freeze at the side of the road."

"Jeez, don't hold back," James said.

"Oh, you'll be alright, Mr Atheist," Martha teased, delicately patting him on the back.

"Poor Daddy got his feelings hurt," Serafina added.

"Oh... this?" James said, pointing back and forth between the smirking mother and daughter. "This is troubling."

"Anyway," Serafina said. "I could cite statistics correlating a rise in depression and crime with decreasing religious participation, lingering variables be damned, but it's more than that. It's part of who we are." They took another bite of chicken, then continued. "Think about it. The earliest evidence of religion dates back to the Paleolithic era – some 50,000 years ago. Atheism reached the mainstream in the mid-20th century." They lifted and lowered their hands like a balancing scale. "50 years... 50,000 years... Not really a contest. So whether we like it or not, religion is wired into our psychology."