Why being humanist means being a lover

Faith has served a purpose in my life. It provided resilience in the face of some of the gravest difficulties I'll ever face. It taught me to question, debate, and defend my ideas and dreams. It taught me the value of believing I am here for a purpose, that there was a metaphysical something that could see my potential in all my flawed humanity.

Because of the physical reality to which human knowledge is constrained at this point in history, it is hard for me to comprehend that something can come from nothing. All matter comes from other matter - there is nothing spontaneous about the development of our observable universe. Where did we come from? Were we created, either in a fully functional state as posited by the legends of the Bible, or as embryonic chemicals stored for eons in the stars and released by an explosion that transformed primordial soup into an evolving universe with an ever-changing genetic and phenotype landscape of mesmerizing, if possibly impermanent, beauty? Is it possible to live agnostic, accepting ambiguity, the I don't know answers to our deepest questions?

Perhaps what I conceived of as divine is actually human: I have a unique potential that serves me well as a professor - to see the hidden beauty and potential in the living, breathing miracles who cross the threshold of my office. I see the purpose concealed there, too. Perhaps this is love. To believe in people, to trust their journey and process, to have confidence in our ability to shape a future world in which respect defines us more than differences do.

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