“The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” Proverbs 21:1 KJV

When the worst happens, what do we do without god to guide us? Really only two choices come to mind, emotional response or common sense. If I accepted god into my heart, I could add gods will to this list, I would know that I had to follow gods path and with that, even if I took emotion over common sense it would be justified, I’d just say god guided me and if I turned out to be wrong, well… I just misinterpreted his message.

I have recently been faced with one of the most damning situations of my 29yrs. I wont be getting into it here but I will say it has brought up a stir of emotions so strong that I can barely breathe. Deep down I know the common sense answer is the one I should take, but it isn’t the one I want. I want to cling to my emotions and hope that what I feel is what matters… when really the facts are in front of my face, black and white.

As atheists we accept an extra level of responsibility… we promise to follow the golden rule, make choices based on the greater good rather than selfish emotional needs. We don’t always succeed- because at the end of the day we are just fallible humans like everyone else… but there’s the rub. Before I could finish typing “like everyone else” I knew it wrong- because when we fail as humans, there is no scapegoat. All Atheists are left with is their own conscious mind, the consequence of their actions, and (god willing) a support system of friends or family who can try to help. But when they help, since they are speaking to a non-believer, it is “why did you do this” or “how are you going to fix this”… because it has to be an issue of personal responsibility. If we all believed in God you would never have to ask… you could say this will work itself out as God intends and move forward… sometimes I feel jealous of that luxury.

Now, I want this to be clear- I am not trying to paint Atheists out to be better, as I said above, we are just as fallible as anyone else. The point of this is just to look at the differences between how we have to handle crisis… and how sometimes it feels like the believers have the upper hand. I would love to know the answer to everything, and if I was willing to accept God, I could do just that… but I can’t. I am a person who needs to reason things out, needs to understand what actions led up to the situation and what can be done to ensure, at the very least, I never contribute to it again.

So instead of sitting here praying to God, I sit here and work it out in my mind…sometimes I really don’t know which one is worse.