Let’s talk about “the man upstairs.”
But first, some background information. I rarely have more than a few qualms about saying I’m an atheist. True, I occasionally worry that a fervent evangelist will punch me in the nose or, worse, shoot me in the head to punish me, in God’s name of course, for my atheism. Nevertheless, surprisingly, I don’t harbour those fears particularly often.
I say “surprisingly” because, being one who is forever fervently full of fret, I spend considerably more time agonizing about much more meaningless matters. The thought that a maniac might break into my place and steal my unmatched socks frequently flings me into a frenzy of fear. In contrast, the dread that a deranged devotee of one god or another will kill me for my atheist views typically worries no more than three or four times a week. Eight, tops.
(Let’s pause for a moment to appreciate the instances of alliteration in the preceding paragraph.)
Unlike most of my other forebodings, when you look at what’s going on in the world, angst over a radically religious person brutalizing me, killing me, or brutalizing me and then killing me as punishment for my atheist views would be a very rational concern. Why I’m not more anxious about the berserk evangelist scenario is a pleasant mystery to me. I don’t want to consider it too deeply lest I start worrying about it more. I’ve got enough angst on my plate as it is, thank you very much.
“The man upstairs.” Up? Which stairs?
All of that has only trifling relevance to what I want to discuss here. True, I’m an atheist. But I live in a society composed predominantly of alleged theists and people who are members of cultural groups that were founded, at least in part, on a theistic base even if some of the individuals’ faiths faltered. (It would be fair to include me in the latter of those categories.) Consequently, I occasionally hear references to God, Satan, heaven and hell, as well as synonyms and euphemisms thereof.
They are a regular, yet hollow part of everyday conversations. And that’s true even for people, such as me, who think that the underlying meaning is nonsense. I idly use expressions like “oh my god” and “thank God.” After all, why the hell not?
(Fortunately, capitalization isn’t apparent in speech. Otherwise, I’d probably have to spend way too much time listening to believers chastise me for not capitalizing “god.” Just to be pedantic, in the preceding paragraph I capitalized “god” in “thank God” because it referred to a specific god even though I don’t believe in him, her or it. I didn’t capitalize “god” in “oh my god” because, since it’s my god and I don’t believe in a god, it’s a generic term.)
When people refer to “the man upstairs” or say things like “with a little help from above” they often look or point skyward. With less frequency, but non-zero frequency, when they talk about hell, the devil or “down there” they look or point downward.
The other day I was thinking (a shock in itself), “I’m Canadian. We have a reputation for politeness. If I’m talking to someone visiting from, say, Australia …”
Down under.
You probably see where I’m taking this.
I would want to demonstrate that I recognize and appreciate my guest’s geographic differences. Thus, if I use an inane expression like “the man upstairs,” shouldn’t I look or point roughly downward? That would, after all, be toward her heaven above the Australian sky.
It gets more confusing if I refer to hell because the spot that she would point to when she is back home, namely the center of the earth, is still down from where I’m standing. But, to differentiate between heaven and hell, shouldn’t I look or point vaguely upward when I mention hell in her presence?
Using these modified gestures will be exceptionally difficult. No matter who I might be with, it is very unlikely that their home is at the exact endpoint of an imaginary line that runs from me, through the precise center of the earth, and out to the other side of the globe. So, in fact, to be polite to my guest, I shouldn’t look or point directly up or down, but somewhat off to the side.
When I’m with someone from, for example, Los Angeles, my viewing or pointing would be considerably more askew than if I were with someone from, say, Mississauga, which is a municipality adjacent to my hometown, Toronto. But, unlike was the case for that hypothetical visiting Australian, I wouldn’t have to shift my normal generally up and down convention 180 degrees.
Man Upstairs app
Doing all of the necessary research and analysis to get the relevant longitudes and latitudes and then calculating the appropriate angles would test my patience, not to mention my geography and trigonometry skills. And it gets even more complex. I often go for walks (well, maybe not so much in the winter) and, when we’re not in the midst of a pandemic, occasionally travel outside Toronto. That changes the appropriate angles. And when I’m in motion the angles change continuously. Maybe someone can write an app for my iPhone the will help me with that.
All of this just goes to show that, even in a very simplistic way, not to mention on much higher planes, atheism can greatly simplify your life. It also goes to show that I often have absurdly inane thoughts.
