On November 6th, 1997, 14 years назад today, my long journey and struggle with life and death began. I was 23 years old at the time and had a beautiful girlfriend who I adored and loved very much. It was a great день as we took her young son to the zoo and came back to her place for the evening. As we settled in at her 3 bedroom apartment, I ventured into her brother's room where I sat at the end of his постель, кровати and began looking at some фото that he had taken recently. .
At this moment in my life, I had yet made a conclusion about the greatest answer that eluded me since I was a kid; does god exist? I do admit that up to that point I was always skeptical, but never ruled it out. My biggest skepticism was based on the fact that I could not understand how so many people believed so many different things on the matters of god. Secondly, I could not square any creationist story about man with evolution. Lastly, why do so many people suffer in the world?
So 14 years назад today, that was my mindset on god. As I sat on the bed, looking at pictures, my girlfriend came in to the room and told me she wanted to Показать me something. I said, “All right”, and continued to look at the pictures. After around 30 секунды или so, my head looking down at pictures, I could sense her standing right in front of me. For a трещина, сплит second, as I sensed her doing something in front of me, I looked up. As soon as I looked up, I saw her playing with a gun. Before I could do anything, a gunshot went off and threw me back on the bed.
“What just happened?” I thought, as I laid on the постель, кровати with both arms standing straight up and my long legs from my 6’2 body were over the edge of the постель, кровати and planted on the carpet. I heard my girlfriend screaming as I sat there trying to assess my situation. I was in shock and my body was numb. I began to see blood spurting from my neck area. “This can’t be good”, I thought. I realized at that moment, I had been shot in the neck area.
Shot in the neck, blood coming out, I knew at that moment death was close. Death was going to happen, no doubt. My short brief time on earth, 23 years, will be coming to an end. As I began to accept my fate, in the face of death, several things happened. The first was, I thought of the grief of my immediate family. Thinking of my grieving parents at their 23 год old son’s funeral, along with my older brother and sister and my young niece, was worse than actually death itself. In my own acceptance of my death, this is a thought that made me sad beyond imagination. The секунда thought was, “what will happen when I’m dead? Will the lights go out? Will there be an afterlife and I will be transformed to another place?" In the face of death, I had no last conversion, no last apologies for my mistakes in life. I made no requests или asked no forgiveness from any god. At that very moment, I simply accepted that I lived a good life and made some mistakes. If there was a god, he would understand. A calm came over me as I accepted my fate and just closed my eyes to tune out the chaos around me so I could die. It was, in retrospect, the single most important moment in my life. I was experiencing death, the submission to it and acceptance of it.
After 20 секунды with my eyes closed, I realized, I was still alive. I opened them up and began my quest to live. I was losing blood, but my breathing was fine. My girlfriend, who accidentally shot me, was calling 911 while screaming and crying and began to apply pressure with a rag to stop my bleeding. As all of this was going on, my thoughts switched from death to life. I began to think about life in paralysis. Being shot in the neck no doubt would most likely paralyze me. I could not Переместить my arms, but I could Переместить my legs. I began to Переместить them and remember thinking that was a great sign; I will be able to walk.
As the paramedics arrived, I began to think that that I will live. I was airlifted to the hospital where they put me under anesthesia and I woke up the Далее день to the wonderful site of my beautiful mother. I was alive. An accidental shooting almost took my life. The bullet entered into my right cheek, traveled through my throat and in doing so, severed my right vocal cord and carotid artery. It found its resting place in my back, but not before chipping my 4&5 vertebrae, causing both motor and sensory nerve damage to my right arm.
So my quest for Ответы had begun. I was spared death because I was born with a bilateral blood supply to my brain. My Поиск for Ответы did not begin by saying, “I survived, and god did it.” It began by saying “Let me take a shot at investigating this thing called life”. That’s was 14 years ago, in 1997. It wasn’t until 2005, 8 long years later, that I became an atheist. It was 8 years of self-education and observations that drove me to the conclusion that god doesn’t exist. That’s another blog, another day. So today, on the 14th anniversary of the beginning of my own journey, I appreciate that I am alive. I Любовь my family and friends, and I hope to live a long happy life, as an atheist.
At this moment in my life, I had yet made a conclusion about the greatest answer that eluded me since I was a kid; does god exist? I do admit that up to that point I was always skeptical, but never ruled it out. My biggest skepticism was based on the fact that I could not understand how so many people believed so many different things on the matters of god. Secondly, I could not square any creationist story about man with evolution. Lastly, why do so many people suffer in the world?
So 14 years назад today, that was my mindset on god. As I sat on the bed, looking at pictures, my girlfriend came in to the room and told me she wanted to Показать me something. I said, “All right”, and continued to look at the pictures. After around 30 секунды или so, my head looking down at pictures, I could sense her standing right in front of me. For a трещина, сплит second, as I sensed her doing something in front of me, I looked up. As soon as I looked up, I saw her playing with a gun. Before I could do anything, a gunshot went off and threw me back on the bed.
“What just happened?” I thought, as I laid on the постель, кровати with both arms standing straight up and my long legs from my 6’2 body were over the edge of the постель, кровати and planted on the carpet. I heard my girlfriend screaming as I sat there trying to assess my situation. I was in shock and my body was numb. I began to see blood spurting from my neck area. “This can’t be good”, I thought. I realized at that moment, I had been shot in the neck area.
Shot in the neck, blood coming out, I knew at that moment death was close. Death was going to happen, no doubt. My short brief time on earth, 23 years, will be coming to an end. As I began to accept my fate, in the face of death, several things happened. The first was, I thought of the grief of my immediate family. Thinking of my grieving parents at their 23 год old son’s funeral, along with my older brother and sister and my young niece, was worse than actually death itself. In my own acceptance of my death, this is a thought that made me sad beyond imagination. The секунда thought was, “what will happen when I’m dead? Will the lights go out? Will there be an afterlife and I will be transformed to another place?" In the face of death, I had no last conversion, no last apologies for my mistakes in life. I made no requests или asked no forgiveness from any god. At that very moment, I simply accepted that I lived a good life and made some mistakes. If there was a god, he would understand. A calm came over me as I accepted my fate and just closed my eyes to tune out the chaos around me so I could die. It was, in retrospect, the single most important moment in my life. I was experiencing death, the submission to it and acceptance of it.
After 20 секунды with my eyes closed, I realized, I was still alive. I opened them up and began my quest to live. I was losing blood, but my breathing was fine. My girlfriend, who accidentally shot me, was calling 911 while screaming and crying and began to apply pressure with a rag to stop my bleeding. As all of this was going on, my thoughts switched from death to life. I began to think about life in paralysis. Being shot in the neck no doubt would most likely paralyze me. I could not Переместить my arms, but I could Переместить my legs. I began to Переместить them and remember thinking that was a great sign; I will be able to walk.
As the paramedics arrived, I began to think that that I will live. I was airlifted to the hospital where they put me under anesthesia and I woke up the Далее день to the wonderful site of my beautiful mother. I was alive. An accidental shooting almost took my life. The bullet entered into my right cheek, traveled through my throat and in doing so, severed my right vocal cord and carotid artery. It found its resting place in my back, but not before chipping my 4&5 vertebrae, causing both motor and sensory nerve damage to my right arm.
So my quest for Ответы had begun. I was spared death because I was born with a bilateral blood supply to my brain. My Поиск for Ответы did not begin by saying, “I survived, and god did it.” It began by saying “Let me take a shot at investigating this thing called life”. That’s was 14 years ago, in 1997. It wasn’t until 2005, 8 long years later, that I became an atheist. It was 8 years of self-education and observations that drove me to the conclusion that god doesn’t exist. That’s another blog, another day. So today, on the 14th anniversary of the beginning of my own journey, I appreciate that I am alive. I Любовь my family and friends, and I hope to live a long happy life, as an atheist.
An Atheist's 10 Commandments
(1) Do not do to others what Ты would not want them to do to you.
(2) In all things, strive to cause no harm.
(3) Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.
(4) Do not overlook evil или shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.
(5) Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.
(6) Always seek to be learning something new.
(7) Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.
(8) Never seek to censor или cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.
(9) Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.
(10) Вопрос everything.