The mystery of life is truly amazing. Every person around us including ourselves is formed from two special cells that join together and begin growing and multiplying in unity until they form a tiny copy of a person who eventually becomes a baby, a new living creature with its own life and personality. Life is such a magical experience. In fact for me, the mystery of life is one of the ultimate universal feats of magic.

There are two schools of thought about how life begins and its true source. One school of thought is that we have a universal Creator who is called different things based on beliefs. Names include God, Allah, Brahman, Jehovah, Yahweh and so on. No matter what the religion, there is a belief in most that life is a gift from a higher being and that it is to be cherished and nurtured until our time is past and we leave this mortal coil.The other school of thought is that life is nothing more than a combination of electrical impulses and the human experience is the result of random evolution and survival of the fittest. There is no God to give the credit for the privilege of our lives here on Earth, and once we die, we are finished. There is no great beyond. Miracles are random occurrences and just mathematics at work. Nothing more and nothing less than random happenstance governs our lives and decides upon our deaths.I've read several viewpoints over the years from self-confessed free thinkers, intellectuals and atheists who insist with certainty there is nothing beyond this coil. My perspectives on their expressions of their beliefs and the way they treat those who do believe in a higher being are as follows. They are patronizing to believers and in many cases outright condescending to them. They view the moral codes of religious believers as quaint but naive. They hold religion in contempt and blame it for everything wrong with the world. In many ways, I believe they find themselves to be superior to those who believe in a Creator. In fact, I think they look at believers as foolish people.It's a free country, and I don't have a problem with how they think until it is used as a bully pulpit to keep religious believers from being able to publicly express their beliefs. There is no corner on the market by atheists in public expression.In fact, if we are to believe them, they are one of the most easily offended groups of people on the planet, which is laughable. It would not be so bad if it was a two-way street, but in this particular dichotomy, believers are told to be tolerant by the very people who themselves are being intolerant, which in my opinion is ridiculous.Everyone should be able to freely state their opinions as long as they are not inciting violence or criminal behavior. That's the point of the greatness of our nation. When we need to guard our words or that magic that makes America unique is gone.Many atheists have no qualms about belittling and deriding the beliefs of the religious, especially in their opinion of the foolishness of believing in the concept of an invisible, almighty God who does not seem to exist beyond the fairy tales in their histories. But I have to ask the question, who is more foolish? Let us look at this from a different perspective.Believers believe in an afterlife and a God who will judge their lives and reward or punish them accordingly. That's the whole basis of religion and what drives believers to live a good life that would reward them after passing from the physical plane.Nonbelievers say there is no God. All that exists is what we see, and when we die, there is nothing no afterlife, no reward or punishment. It is over. This whole debate boils down to those two succinct perspectives.Now here is my question. Who is really more foolish? In the first case, those who believe and find out after they strived to live a good life they were wrong. Based on the assumptions in the previous paragraph, they would never know, because if atheists are correct, they lived a good life, they died and it's over. Or is it those who felt superior and came to the conclusion there is no God, no afterlife, no judgment and no eternity, only to die and find out they were mistaken. Exactly how would that rebellious denial conclude in the presence of a Creator or Universal Life force? That might be the moment of clarity where they hope for grace, because that is their only chance to not be punished forever.People can believe what they want, but I would rather be judged as silly and naive by nonbelievers here than act like I know everything about the universe only to find out I was wrong. In my opinion, atheists may feel above those of us who believe and deny the magic of our lives and this magnificent universe, but it is not us silly believers in an afterlife who are foolish.We may be mistaken, but if we are not, then the truly foolish are those who deny the magic of our universe. Just some food for thought.Till next time …