It is always a joy when a new baby is born within our circle
of family and friends. It is a joy, but
Rosemary and I are also briefly saddened by the fact that these new parents are
experiencing a joy that we will, in all likelihood, never experience. Just last week, Rosemary’s closest friend
from the Philippines
gave birth to her third baby boy. As we
celebrated the birth with the new parents in the maternity ward, the pious
mother continually peppered her conversation with gratitude to the beneficent
deity that she believed had blessed her.
Like most women from Philippines ,
her devotion to the Catholic Church is a strong part of her identity. She is one of the very few people who was our
friend when I was a Christian, and remained a friend after I lost my
Faith. Rosemary and I did not blame her
for thanking the god she had faith in for the blessing of three children.
I do not believe that her children are the result of a
special blessing from a deity who pours favor on her. I also no not believe that Rosemary’s
miscarriages are due to special curses from a deity who pours scorn on us. Both of these attributions are equally
groundless and superstitious nonsense.
And I am certain that our friend, in thanking her god for her blessings,
was not intending to imply that her god was cursing us. We were there to celebrate, and such selfish
and overly sensitive implications never entered our minds. But I do know that one of the things that
religions do so well is provide an outlet for the expression of overwhelming
emotion. During one of those rare times
of pure joy and beauty in life, during one of those brief occasions when
fleeting ecstasy lingers long enough to savor, people often feel the need to express
themselves with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. They feel the need to thank somebody,
even if the source of good fortune is not readily apparent. It is a shame that the actual people who were
involved are often forgotten, but a supremely beneficent deity is always there;
ready to accept any and all credit and gratitude. I profess that it is irrational superstition. But we human beings are inherently irrational
animals. Critical thought is a skill
that does not come naturally; rather it must be learned, developed and actively
practiced to be of any value. Even
people who apply a developed skill of critical thought do not use it in a
consistent or constant manner. Humans
are irrational and emotional thinkers, because we are humans. This is just part of who we are. I do not blame my friend one bit for the
gratitude she expressed to her deity.
She is a new mother in the maternity ward, and we were there with her to
celebrate mere hours after she gave birth.
I accept her in her belief because she accepts me in my non-belief.
This celebration with a new mother happened in a hospital
room only one week ago. This long story
of my Conversions and De-conversions into and out of several types of religious
beliefs is finished. When I began writing
this long series, I knew that the story of my leaving Faith is essentially the
story of my life. Christianity left such
a profound imprint on my life as a believer, that I may never be able to
completely remove the detritus of religious faith from my personality. Even as a non-believer, religious belief and
expression is something that I have experienced, and those experiences will
likely stay with me the rest of my life.
I confess that I am left with no choice but to be respectful of the
religious experience of the believer.
Our inherent irrationality implies our inherent religiosity.
I must be respectful of the religious experience. But I despise bogus Christian
apologetics. I hate the
misrepresentation of science among many religious believers. I am a physicist, so when I hear Christians
that I know repeat some bit of pseudo-science that they read from some
Christian propaganda pamphlet, I will do my best to gently and respectfully
correct them. When a workmate tells me
that I must believe in a Case for a Creator because of some Lee Strobel
video that they saw, I will watch it, and I will point out to that workmate
every disgusting lie and scientific misrepresentation in that video.
I will defend science and attempt to educate the value of critical
thinking. But I never argue against the
religious experiences or beliefs of others.
I was never argued out of religious belief. As this long Conversions and De-Conversions
series demonstrates, my rejection of religious faith was due to a long, long
process of understanding basic critical thinking skills, then gaining the
courage to apply those skills to the underlying assumptions behind my own core religious
beliefs. Nobody could tell me to leave
religion. I had to leave on my own, with
my own thoughts and my own rationale.
When my Faith finally began to dissolve in 2007, it corresponded to a
publishing phenomenon subsequently called New Atheism. It was about this time that major best
sellers appeared from Dawkins, Harris, et al., which attempted to argue
believers out of their religion. As I
was leaving Christianity, I went through a reading frenzy to personally
investigate my religious beliefs, but I intentionally avoided anything by these
New Atheists who wanted to argue for my rational soul. I have nothing against any of these
authors. In fact, I have read two of
Dawkins’ more scientific books, and loved them.
But upon leaving Christianity, I needed to explore my beliefs on my own
terms. If I was going to leave
Christianity, I did not want to get swept up in yet another movement, even a
movement of self-purported rationality and evidence-based reasoning. I still have no desire to follow a movement
based on organized non-belief.
In the very first entry in this long Conversions and De-conversions
series, I expressed disappointment that so many of the de-conversions stories
that I have read seem to follow the same pattern. The person will describe what a devout
believer they were in some detail, then describe what led them out of religion
in even greater detail. At the moment
they stopped believing, their story ends with little development on how their
non-belief further affected their lives after belief. Over 18 months after I wrote that first
entry, I see that I have unavoidably followed the same lamentable pattern. I have written over 35 chapters that describe
a lifetime of religious escapades, only to end it around the year 2009 with my
final realization that there is certainly no god looking out for us. I end my story there, with only a short
anecdote from last week tacked on the end.
I realize now that that there is no spiritual journey to describe
without Faith, so there is nothing really left to this story. I will not describe how much happier or
fuller my life is without religion. I
will not explain how my eyes have been opened, and I can now see the physical
world as it is with the gift of Rationality.
This may be true of others who have left the Faith, but for me, as
mundane as it may sound, life simply continues pretty much as it always has. There was no epiphany. There was no moment of rationality where I
joyously threw off the shackles of religion and proclaimed that there was no
god. My journey out of religious belief
lasted for decades, and although my thoughts and opinions have changed
drastically since I left Faith, at the core I think I am still the same person
I ever was. I had a wonderful marriage
as a Christian and again as an apostate.
I did things I was proud of before and after belief. I said stupid things to people and hurt many
feelings before and after belief. I have
been courageous, bold, cowardly, obnoxious, loving, resentful, silly, serious,
selfish, generous – in fact, I continue to experience the vast range of human
emotion whether I have Faith or not.
Nothing much has changed. But I
have always maintained that I stuck with religious belief because I desperately
wanted to be happy, content, and be the best person that I could be. I finally left religion for exactly the same
reasons. Personal honesty compelled
it. My atheism, if I must call it that,
was not a conscious decision that I decided to follow. It is simply the logical road to follow if I
was to maintain any personal integrity.
If anything has changed, it is only this: the overwhelming, suffocating guilt that
religious belief smothered me with is finally gone. All through my years as a Christian believer,
I was convinced that the death of Jesus represented the virtuous action of a righteous
Judge who still loved His children enough to die for them. It was only long after I had left religious
belief, and had removed myself enough from the beliefs to gain some outside
perspective, that I could see how barbarous that particular ‘virtue’ really
is. There is nothing that can make human
sacrifice to be a virtue, and there is no justice in placing sins on the back
of a human scapegoat. In fact, it was
only after I had gained significant distance from the Christian religion that I
discovered what a truly horrific monster this god, this Jehovah, and by
extension, this Jesus, really was. I
missed my Christian beliefs in the first few years after I lost my Faith. But only after I read the Bible and
objectively studied the doctrines of the Christian religion without actually
believing in them, did I discover that these were all products of more
barbarous times, and that sacrifice to appease a wrathful deity made no sense
anymore. I missed my Christian faith for
a while, but today I am glad to discover that the universe is not run by a
monster who has hoodwinked His creation into thinking that His atrocities are
the result of His moral perfection. This
deity is no better than the Butcher of Baghdad, and His worshippers are dazzled
by His cult of personality. Now that I
am a non-believer, I am glad to be rid of Him.
These days, I rarely ever think of the god I once believed
in, His holy books or doctrines of belief.
Rosemary and I have made new friends who accept us for who we are, and
we have filled our lives with interests and activities that fulfill us. Life goes on without Him, with the same joys
and sorrows, tragedies and triumphs that I have always felt. Although the label fits, I rarely, if ever,
call myself an atheist. I am not
offended by the term; in fact this is how many people I know will describe my
beliefs. That is fine by me, but I find
that the term atheist is just not useful in describing anything. If I am asked to label myself in a religious
context, I prefer non-believer or even apostate. But in the end, I do not really care and I
try not to get too hung up on how a person wishes to describe me. What is more important to me is that people
understand why I no longer believe.
This why question is the greatest hurdle for believers to come to
grips with. Many of our religious
friends know that I do not share their beliefs.
Not a single one of them, not one, has ever asked me why. Most Christians who knew me when my Faith
collapsed felt free to condemn, but not a single one of them asked me why. How I wish just one of them would have asked
me why I lost my Faith, instead of making assumptions about my secret desire to
sin and avoiding ultimate accountability to a deity. Why is not typically in the religious
person’s vocabulary. Belief is a virtue,
methodology is a hinderance. Just two
weekends ago a missionary for the Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door. I usually tell them I am not interested, but
on this morning I patiently listened as she flipped through her Watchtower
magazine and told me that God has great things planned for my life.
“I do not believe that.”
“You don’t? That is
so sad.”
“Why should I believe it?
Tell me. Why?”
She and her assistant replied with stone cold silence. I wished them a good day. I was once condemned by a Catholic friend,
who has long since abandoned us, of demanding proof for the existence of her
god, as if asking for proof were a bad thing.
“You want proof! How
dare you demand proof from God!”
“I do not demand proof.
I would simply like some evidence.”
“Evidence? Look around
you! Look at the world you live in! What more evidence do you need?”
The Christians that I know do not know how to deal with the
question why. Unfortunately, in
pondering questions about the nature of reality, I believe that methodology is
far more important than answers.
I do not know what the future may hold. Perhaps some day I will be shown to be wrong
about my non-belief. In fact, I welcome
that day to come. One thing that I have
learned after leaving religious belief is to not be offended when I am shown to
be wrong – wrong about anything. When
that day comes, I will write another entry in this series. But as of today, 15 July 2013 , I do not see any reason to believe
in supernatural deities, spirits, demons, angels or any other creatures of supra-normal
reality. If I have no reason to believe,
I do not believe. Do these creatures
actually exist? Does God, Jehovah,
Jesus, whatever one wishes to call this Deity, really exist? I highly doubt it, but even if He did, I have
no idea what, if anything, this Deity could possibly want from me. So I do not worry about it. Non-belief is effortless. I do not struggle to have enough Faith to be
an Atheist. When I was a Christian, I
constantly prayed to God to ease my doubts, to strengthen my Faith, and
maintain my desire to believe. It was
often an uphill battle, and if the vast number of sermons I have heard on the
topic is any indication, I believe this struggle to believe is true of most
Christians. But non-belief is truly
effortless. I do not believe in Jehovah,
Jesus or any other invisible deity for the exact, same, identical reason that I
do not believe in ghosts, mermaids, Sasquatch, or Aswang, I do not believe in the power of prayer, for
the exact, same, identical reason that I do not believe in the power of Reiki,
Horoscopes, Palmistry or Spirit Channeling.
Of course I do not know everything. There may be a creature out there who
possesses the qualities that we humans would typically ascribe to a deity. This material universe may be a mere shadowy
projection of a vaster supernatural reality.
Maybe. These things may be fun to
speculate on, but I still confidently assert that there is no such thing as a
supernatural god. Believers sometimes complain
that I am not justified in my positive assertion that there is no god. But I look at the intersection between belief
and knowledge in much the same way that I positively assert that I will drive
to work safely tomorrow morning. I know
that I will arrive safely to work tomorrow morning and I know that I
will drive through all the congested morning traffic without incident. And while I know this to be true, I do not
hesitate for a moment to contemplate the real and significant possibility that
I could be injured or killed while driving to work. For all practical purposes, I believe and I
know that I will drive without incident to work tomorrow morning, even while
acknowledging that there is always a risk involved. This is exactly how I negotiate my life
without a god. For all practical purposes,
I believe and I know that there is no god to worry about – but if there is
significant risk to be had, somebody had better demonstrate it before I will
believe it. It is really no more
complicated than that.
That is where I am today, 15 July 2013 . I
have no desire to indulge myself in my former beliefs. But at the same time, I am surrounded by
people who continue to hold to these same beliefs. These are people I love, including my wife,
who have no desire or reason to abandon their beliefs. I have to remember how these believers still
experience their religious beliefs, and what these beliefs mean to them. Like it or not, I am still the product of a
Christian culture and heritage. I
understand that religion has done much harm in the world, but I have to
remember but that for the vast bulk of Christians that I know it has given them
a profound sense of identity, culture, community, morality and yes, purpose. I am convinced that the vast majority of
people who continue with their religious Faith, do so because they are trying
to be good, decent, moral people. True,
I think that all these benefits can be gained without religion, but try telling
that to the religious believer. That
would be as effective as telling me to stop eating tamales and menudo because I
can gain all the calories I need without eating unhealthy Mexican food. Forget it!
That is just never going to happen.
We all live with irrationality and emotion in some part of our lives.
I have one more short story to tell before I end this long
Conversions and De-conversions series.
Let me go back to last week, celebrating with our friends in the
maternity ward. I must follow that story
of birth with a story of death. Thanks
to Rosemary’s Facebook connections, we had two bits of news that morning that
we had to deal with. The first was the
birth of a child, and we went to the maternity ward to celebrate. The second was news that a friend from my old
Baptist Church
Slow,
quiet, exhausted, the first words he said to me were, “Joe, I have not seen you
in a long time.” I ignored it. I just hugged him.
We
learned that there would be a prayer vigil later that day in the hospital
courtyard. Rosemary insisted that we
should attend, and I agreed to go. I was
not looking forward to meeting so many people who knew me as an apostate and
unbeliever, but I had to put awkwardness aside for the sake of friendship and
support.
That
afternoon, about thirty believers from La Puerta del Cielo Baptist Church
met in the hospital courtyard. I did
recognize most, but I did my best to keep as low a profile as possible. I did not want to be the white elephant in
the room. They were not there for me,
and I did not want to interrupt. At the
same time I did not want to participate in their vigil. Christians claim that that there is nothing
much worse than somebody who hypocritically pretends to believe. I never indulge them.
Everybody
stood in a large circle and shared stories and laughs about the woman who was
dying just three floors above them. One
of her adopted children was there, and even though he had long since left the
house as an adult, he expressed his love and gratitude for the family who had
adopted him as a child. Rosemary shared
that D---- was one of the first friends she made when she came to live in the United States
Eventually
the stories ended, and the inevitable appeal to their deity began. Everybody stood in a circle and held hands
while I listened from one of the courtyard benches. A few comforting Scriptures were read, mostly
from the Psalms. Then one by one, those
who felt led took their turn in prayer.
The prayers were identical to those that I had heard countless times in
my years as a believer.
“Lord,
we remember all the wonderful things that D---- means to us…”
“Lord,
You are the great physician…”
“Lord,
we just come before Your throne of grace and we ask You to touch D---- and heal
her of her affliction…”
“Lord,
we selfishly ask that You guide the hands of the surgeons and physicians that You
placed over her care….”
Every
one of these people loved D----, and asked their almighty benefactor for a full
recovery. Even Rosemary gave her own
tearful prayer in her native Tagalog language.
As faithful and believing as each of these people were, each prayer
contained the psychologically conditioned admission of defeat, “…but not my
will but Yours be done…” These believers
do not know it, but such pleas for the Deity to perform His own will is just a
way of bracing themselves for the inevitable unanswered prayer and subsequent
death of the woman they are all praying for.
Asking the Almighty to do something so trivial as to only perform His
will is a diversion from accepting the fact that the Almighty is thoroughly
incompetent and powerless, if He even exists at all.
D----
lasted two more days in a coma before she died.
I was secretly relieved that she died.
I was afraid that if she did recover from her swollen brain, she would
suffer from brain damage for the rest of her life. I wept with Pastor Alvarez after the death of
his wife, but I also pitied him. He was
the one who would have to believe that the Almighty took her life for some
unseen purpose and higher plan. I do not
believe in such superstitions. Like the loss of
our children through miscarriages, sometimes things just happen.
But despite all the superstition and irrationality that I
find in religion, I have to remember why these people continue to believe. We faced polar extremes of emotion that day
in the hospital, from the birth of a child to the death of a friend. And just like with the birth of a child, one
of the things that religions do so well is provide an outlet for the expression
of overwhelming emotion. During those
all too frequent times of loss and suffering in life, during one of those
occasions of prolonged grief, people often feel the need to express themselves
with an overwhelming sense of sorrow and regret. They feel the need to appeal to somebody
for help because they know that they are actually powerless to do anything. It is a shame that the actual people who were
involved are often forgotten, but a supremely beneficent deity is there; ready
to accept any and all appeals for help that can be made available. I profess that it is irrational superstition. But we human beings are inherently irrational
animals.
Humans are irrational and emotional, because we are
humans. This is just part of who we
are. I do not blame my friends one bit for
appealing to a deity during a time of sadness.
The real purpose of our visit in the prayer vigil was to remember D----
for the short time left that she would be alive, to share stories about her
life and our experiences with her, and to offer each other support during our
time of grief. I accept them in their
belief even if they do not accept me in my non-belief. I accept them because I have been where they
are in belief. I completely understand
them. And I never want to forget.
