A Wider Choice

Other than the dogma of religion or the dogma of materialism

“We intend to have a wider choice than humiliation or all-out nuclear action.”

President John F. Kennedy, on the Berlin Crisis, July 25, 1961

Written By

Ron Patterson

Copyright 2024

By considering alternative perspectives, you can liberate yourself from the absurdity of religion or the absurdity of atheistic materialism. You have the choice to follow the evidence wherever it may lead.

Table of Contents

Preface. 5

Chapter One Is There A Purpose To Life. 9

Chapter Two My Ax to Grind. 11

Chapter Three The Problem With Religion. 15

Chapter Four The Common-Sense Assumption. 30

Chapter Five Something From Nothing. 32

Chapter Six Materialism and the Double Slit Experiment 34

Chapter Seven The Big Bang and A Universe from Nothing  40

Chapter Eight The Multiverse. 45

Chapter Nine The Other Atheist Argument 51

Chapter Ten A Universe Generating Mechanism.. 55

Chapter Eleven The Skeptics. 60

Chapter Twelve The Evidence for ESP. 68

Chapter Thirteen The Evidence for Survival 71

Chapter Fourteen What Does Evidence Mean?. 79

Chapter Fifteen Liars’ Logic. 81

Conclusion. 83

Epilogue. 86

Preface

“Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.”

Thomas Henry Huxley

I have written two books before this one. To put it mildly, sales could have been more spectacular. Because of that, I have taken the liberty of repeating some things I first reported in those books. In the unlikely event that you did read one of my other books, I beg your indulgence.

I have called myself an atheist all my adult life. Even as a teenager, I had my doubts. That was highly unusual because I grew up on a dirt farm in North Alabama, in the heart of the Bible Belt. I never knew an avid atheist until I was in my twenties. I became an atheist before I ever knew another one. But my doubts were not just prior opinions. There is an explanation for my atheism.

Born in 1938, my teenage years ran right through the 50s. We had no television; no one did. Going to church was more of a social event than a form of worship. My dad was a deacon in the Baptist Church. He allowed, even encouraged me, to go to whatever church I desired. In the summer months, every church had a weeklong “Revival.” A visiting hellfire and brimstone preacher would be hired to preach every night and try to “save souls.” After the revival, we would gather at the local baptizing hole in a local creek, and everyone who got saved during the week would get baptized. I would attend several revivals every summer. It was a great place to flirt with the girls. But I never got saved.

The revivals were the origin of my first doubts. The preachers would preach that everyone, except members of that denomination, was bound for hellfire and damnation when they died. That bothered me greatly because I had friends and many relatives in those other, bound for Hell. I knew them all as good, hard-working, dirt-farming people not deserving to be tortured in Hell for eternity. Why this did not bother everyone was somewhat of a mystery. But when I inquired to others, they seemed to have a pat answer. Their favorite was, “They will go before a just God.” That kept them from having to admit what they thought, “a just God will damn them to Hell for believing the wrong religion.”

Also, what bothered me, other than Hell, was the flood story. I could not imagine how all those animals got on one big boat and were fed for one year and what they ate after they left the ship. There would be no grass for the horses or cows to graze on. And the lions and tigers would make quick work of the two antelopes, two cows, two pigs, or whatever. So, one day, I decided to ask my dad about all that. I was sure he would know the answer. I was about seventeen when I asked Dad, “Dad, how did the kangaroos get from Australia to where Noah’s Ark was, and how did they get back?” Dad jumped up from his easy chair, stuck his finger right in my face, and yelled at me, “Son, that is the word of God, and that is not for you to question!” I never asked Dad another question about the Bible.

But there is a caveat to my atheism. It only applies to theism; I am an anti-theist. I don’t believe in any religion. Religion implies the worship of some deity. The desire to be worshipped is the vainest of all human emotions, highly unbecoming of a deity. But worst of all, all religions demand belief. They preach, or you will be punished or rewarded for what you believe or disbelieve in the afterlife. Belief is a fickle thing, totally determined by your heredity and environment, two things one has no control over.

However, I have always felt there was something else. But before I get into that, some of my background is in order here. That is why I, an ordinary man without a degree in anything other than a couple of years of technical school on electronics and computers, would be so audacious as to believe I am qualified to write a book on what life is all about. I’ll let you know why.

I have tremendous respect for academia. If I could put the letters Ph.D. after my name, my feet would not touch the floor when I walked. But I cannot. The only letters I can put after my name are HSG high school graduates. Nevertheless, I consider myself an educated man. I am almost 86 years old. During the last 65 or so, of those years, I have read hundreds of books. Only a dozen or so of them were fiction. Of course, I read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as a teenager and Shakespeare’s Macbeth in high school. The only piece of fiction I read in my later years was a play, Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” That’s a two-act play where nothing happens, twice. Some people said there was a hidden meaning in that story. If so, I wanted to know what it was. I think Beckett was just trying to say that, in the end, nothing happens. No need to wait for Godot because he isn’t coming.

I would love to say that I have read every science essay Issac Asimov has written. I cannot, but I have read most of them. The reason I loved Asimov so much was that he was an explainer. One does not need a degree in any of the sciences to understand great explainers like Isaac Asimov, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Matt Ridley, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and many other great science writers. I read many social sciences, such as anthropology, psychology, and sociology. I wouldn’t say I liked economics; I had never read much of that.

So, back to how a non-degreed guy can be so presumptuous as to think he was qualified to write a book asking what life is all about. Or does the universe have a purpose? I feel qualified to write about these subjects because I have studied these questions for over half a century. And most rewarding, in the last 20 years or so, in my retirement, I have watched hundreds, nay thousands, of YouTube videos, debates, and arguments on these subjects.

I have been mightily rewarded for my search. Most people have no idea how entertaining science can be. I have watched Myron Cook’s videos on geology for hours at a time, and the videos on the formation of Washington’s Channeled Scablands just blew me away.

Why did YouTube have to come so late in my life? That pisses me off. But I will enjoy it as much as possible while I still have a little time left.