To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

by Joshua Ferris

And I told her what I believed: that genuine self-improvement, actual fundamental change, was exceedingly rare—was, in fact, more like a myth in line with that of a divine Creator.

I’d fall back on my old cynical view of human nature: they don’t brush, they don’t floss, they don’t care. A fox is a fox is a fox. But when they did brush and floss and still lost a tooth, I had to blame something else, and just as predictably, I’d point the finger at cruel nature or an indifferent God.

Our moral foundation is built on the fundamental law that God (if there is a God, which there is not) would not wish to be worshipped in the perverted and misconceived ways of human beings, with their righteous violence and prejudices and hypocrisies. Doubt, or cease being moral.

You wanted everyone to come around to your way of thinking. You had really strong opinions, and you never gave an inch.

He was seeking, he said, always seeking, seeking so strenuously as to guarantee he’d never find.

By logic, persuasion, and force of character, he made her question her belief in God. With argument, appeals to common sense, and intellectual bullying, he showed her how brittle her faith was. With evidence drawn from history, he revealed her faith’s foolishness. Let us go atrocity by atrocity, he said to her. A critical mass of God’s absence accumulated. Bit by bit, he reversed almost twenty years of received wisdom.

I guess I needed to make myself vulnerable. I was sick of the facts, the bare facts, the hard, scientific facts. I was saying: Look at me, seeking among the dubious. Doing something stupid, something stark raving mad. Look at me, risking being wrong.