There was within me a quiet comfort in the belief that some all knowing force guided the hands of man in the daily doings of human kind, a relief and respite in the faith that it was not truly up to *us* to guide the resolutions of issues of strife and hunger and cruelty. That comfort has long since been replaced with an awkward kind of horror, a livid rage, an abject revulsion of the species to which we claim heritage. That there is no god, gods or God should surprise no one; but that we should, as a species, continue to perpetuate a pattern of self destruction is immensely saddening. In the former context, I had no reason to fear, for I was in no way responsible. This invisible and unapproachable god controlled all the myriad forces in the world, and I had no power to prevail over his will. Of course, this god doesn’t exist in the latter; and all of my own decisions and the decisions of the public contribute to our own damnation–strictly speaking of this finite existence. It is (perhaps) all moot. I hope that we will as a species progress and save ourselves. It is my great fear that we will not.this present opaqueness