My Story (pt. 4) Reflections

I believe that atheism frees a person to think independently without any sort of religious crutch to rely on. It can be a bit intimidating at first but is far more rewarding than trying to make heads or tails of the Bible and its ambiguity. As a budding atheist, I occasionally wanted to return to the delusional comfort of god, but the red pill had already been swallowed. I saw things without the religious filter and couldn’t go back. I was also scared because there was no life after death to provide solace when things were uncomfortable here on earth. There’s also the sense of losing a part of who you are as you no longer have the social network of the church to connect with.

Essentially, everyone in my immediate family and some extended family knows that I’m an atheist at this point. I don’t talk about it much to them; I’d prefer to do my talking on this blog and facebook. My mom didn’t berate me when she found out but was very disappointed. She still catches herself talking to me about the miracles of god and how I shouldn’t speak negativity into my life because words have power of their own. My wife refuses to read or listen to anything that would surely make her question her faith and give her a better understanding as to why I lack faith anymore; this is a pretty frustrating situation at times.

I know that my writing has made an impact on some. I don’t want to name names but there are those that were questioning their faith and have made the trip to the other side with some assistance from my blog and others. The advent of the internet has allowed sort of a chain reaction in the de-conversion process. I was de-converted primarily as the result of discussions I had with Mike D. which led me to creating this blog and ultimately others were aided in de-conversion from reading this blog. The wide dissemination of ideas, some quite anti-religious, which the internet provides have put a chink in religion’s armor. It’s imperative that more and more voices speak out so that others can free themselves of religious ideology.

Religion affects our government’s legislation; just days ago, our local senate passed the personhood bill that prevents mothers from seeking abortion even in the case of rape. It also prohibits certain forms of contraception. I have no doubt that this bill was profoundly influenced by the Christian faith that is ubiquitous here in Oklahoma. We must continue to fight for reason and what’s true and discard supersttions of the past.

It took some time, but I‘m now proud to be an atheist. I don’t go around advertising it, but we shouldn’t be ashamed despite the fact that many consider atheists about as trustworthy as rapists. I think it’s a misunderstanding that many have which can only be remedied by speaking out via writing or other forms of communication. We all have a story to tell regardless if we never were affiliated with a religious faith.

My Story (pt. 3) The Baby Atheist

To summarize and perhaps clarify previous installments, I was raised in an ultra-charismatic household.  Supernatural events and ideals seemed to define my early experiences as a Christian.  My mother was a key component to my understanding of Christianity and world view.  I was somewhat lackadaisical while growing up in my Christianity but later embraced it passionately as I tried to find answers to my suffering with OCD.  I even bought the audio version of the Bible, so I was always trying to immerse myself in scripture.   I was consistent with church attendance and reading up on some of the latest apologetic works of people like Norm Geisler.  I understood that I was saved by grace, so this wasn't some attempt to earn salvation.  I simply wanted to be a well-versed and knowledgable Christian.  I wanted to also find some healing for my mental issues.

The A-Unicornist, who I became reacquainted with on Facebook, was initially someone I was trying to convert as Christ called the church to make disciples.  My best arguments were no match for his well-reasoned counter-apologetics and science.  I ended up de-converting in the process, and my journey as a baby atheist soon began.

I think it's very common for many baby atheists to immerse themselves in what science and other well-recognized atheists have to say.  It's like getting a new toy.  You just can't get enough of it, and I was no different.   For someone who really didn't like to read, I sure was checking out a lot of library books and purchasing some must-haves.  I may have read over 25 books that first year which probably doesn't seem like a lot to some of you bookworms, but it was quite a drastic change for me.  This didn't include the time I devoted to my own blog that I started at the encouragement of the A-Unicornist nor did it include the time I spent reading other blogs, listening to atheist podcasts or checking out the latest YouTube clip by one of my favorite outspoken atheists. 

 As a bit of a digression, this learning process obviously continues to this day.  I'm still watching videos, listening to lectures and tuning in to the weekly podcast, The Atheist Experience.  I'm just pacing myself s bit more and recognize that I don't have to know everything now.  As a baby atheist, most of us are so excited and exhilarated that we don't take the time to reflect.  My next installment will cover the period of reflecting and reexamining my worldview.  Atheism isn't a worldview in itself.  End of digression

The four-horsemen became familiar to me for the first time.  Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens were all voicing many of the same things I had come to believe, especially Harris.   I was becoming more knowledgeable in the subject of evolution and even began reading up on Stephen Hawking.  I must confess that I'm still quite the novice and intimidated by cosmology and astrophysics.  It's not something that I was formerly educated on or previously interested in.  It was also something that I left to God to worry about since he designed everything anyway.  

During this time, I was attempting to keep my blog a secret from family  which was no small task since I was enjoying it so much.  I didn't necessarily want anybody to know about my atheism.  What would my father-in-law believe or my wife?  As you may recall, my father-in-law  is a baptist preacher and then there was my mom to worry about.  It seemed like I was going to have to be a loner for the time which wasn't all that bad.  I never was the most sociable person to begin with.  In another sense, I was so convinced that the God of the O.T. was a moral monster that I really didn't care if people eventually found out anyway.  I figured that they were the ones with the problem of defending this nefarious brute.  

It's amazing how I never saw what was right before my eyes.  As a Christian, I never even considered that God might not be real or that the god depicted in the Bible was evil.  I always started with the presupposition that he was real and omnibenevolent and any evidence to the contrary was simply a misunderstanding of his nature on my part.  But after having my eyes opened, it became clear that he probably wasn't real.  I never took the stance that he certainly wasn't real as a strong atheist would say but probably not real.  We aren't dealing with certainty here.  I'm not certain that Bigfoot doesn't exist, but I think that he/she probably doesn't.  

Initially, I just told my wife that I was playing the devils advocate.  She would see a comment of mine on Facebook that was not very christlike shall we say, and I'd just play it off by saying that I just wanted to see what others thought.  Or, I would be listening to an atheist podcast and make the excuse that I was just wanting to know  more about my enemy so I would be better equipped to handle them.  I wonder how many baby atheists do this as an attempt to mask their true identity from Christian family members while still immersing themselves in their newfound identity?  I suspect that there are quite a few.

I hope that you come back for my final installment as I discuss the reaction of some of my family when they found out that I was indeed a follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and how atheism has changed me as a person.  In many ways, I believe that I'm a more well-grounded and stable person now.  This theme needs to be expanded upon in my next installment.

My story (pt. 2) If You Can't Beat Em', Join Em'

It was about this time when I tried my hand in the stock market for the second time in my life.  I had been unjustly fired from my previous employer and had already been studying the market before getting the boot.  I spent the next year taking online course work in the stock market and losing my ass in online trading.  I continued to seek God's wisdom and favor as I made trading decisions.  My mother had told me about a woman who prayed before each stock trade and made a ton of money doing it.  As usual, there seemed to be no divine intervention from the Lord.  Yet, I never became bitter toward God for not helping; I just continued to try to be the best Christian I could be.

 It was also about this time that my long held beliefs were really put to the test.  I was searching Facebook for long lost pals and came across Mike Doolittle's profile.  It was unmistakably the same fair skinned, blonde haired guy that I met some 19 years earlier.  I asked for his hand in Facebook friendship, and he soon obliged.  But there was something wrong with this Mike Doolittle.  He kept making post after post and comment after comment of anti-Christian rhetoric or had the audacity to display scientific related materials discussing evidence that contradicted some of my most cherished beliefs. Just about anytime I put something up regarding my belief in Christ, he would challenge me in some way. For a time, I actually blocked this guy from my facebook. I can't remember exactly why I eventually unblocked him, but I think it was because I wanted to confront him. It wasn't long before I decided to go toe to toe with this non-conformist in a showdown at the virtual O.K. Corral.  Armed with materials from my favorite apologists and theologians and wanting to be the best Christian possible, I vehemently argued my case against such topics as evolution and God's morality.

Speaking of evolution, as a bit of an aside, I never believed in it nor was I properly educated on the subject.  Even in college, the subject just never came up.  I never thought about it enough to even know what I thought about it.  In short, I just believed whatever Hank Hannegraff or Norm Geisler said on the subject.  It was just a lie and full of misinformation.

Needless to say, I soon realized that Mike was telling the honest to god's truth.  There was a wealth of evidence confirming evolution as a fact.  Scientists almost unanimously agree that evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of species and the progress of our own.  It's awfully hard to continue to side with the fundamental Christianity I was used to when they are at odds with the scientific literature.  Not being raised as a moderate or liberal Christian, I didn't have the convenience of accepting evolution while discarding the story of Genesis as a metaphor.  

Mike pointed me to books and online articles discussing the latest research in evolution from--this is a shocker--real scientists. We also discussed some of the theories on astrophysics and origins of the universe. I quickly defined myself as a young earth creationist (YEC) as it aligned with the literal interpretation of Genesis. I honestly had never heard of the term before, but Mike laid it out for me. This was all well beyond me, but I sure just wanted to say that God took care of it all and leave it at that. Mike wouldn't let me get off that easy. Being far more advanced in the topic than I, he explained scientific theory and plausible hypotheses regarding the universe which don't necessitate a creator. We went over big bang theory, string theory, multiverse theory and many others. As the A-Unicornist often quips, the only thing worse than a god that doesn't exist is a god that might as well not exist.  

But Mike really put the nail in the coffin when we started talking about God's moral behaviors.  The O.T. had bothered me before but nothing that Lee Strobel couldn't fix.  After all, God was doing neighboring nations a favor when he demanded the death of children.  They got the automatic ticket to the greatest show on earth, heaven.  We can't all be so lucky.  As for the doctrine of hell, it was our own fault for going, and we chose hell over heaven by rejecting our savior.  We were going exactly where we wanted and asked to go.

Needless to say, Mike opened my eyes to the brutality involved in all of that.  We have a god, full of omnisicience, that still creates beings he knows with foresight will be eternally separated and punished for lacking belief and living apart from this taskmaster's own desires.

As far as the OT goes, Mike helped me realize that a secular morality was superior to God's.  I vividly remember watching The Stoning of Soraya M. and that was the final straw.  I could no longer worship a god with such a capricious and cruel nature.  Even if he was real, I wanted little to do with such a beast.   As the saying goes, if you can't beat em', join em'.   I raised the white flag and surrendered to an insurmountable amount of evidence in favor of evolution, against YEC and impressive moral arguments confirming secular morality's superiority.  

I humbly ask that you stay tuned for the next installment as I discuss what being a baby atheist is like.  I say baby because it's quite similar.  I found myself soaking up information like a sponge and voraciously reading everything I could get my hands on.


 

My story (pt.1) Knee Deep in Supernaturalism

The wonderful Advocatus Atheist himself, Tristan Vick, has inspired me to tell the personal story of my own evolution into a rootin’ tootin’ atheist. I may have delved into portions of my story in the past so please bear with me if some of it sounds familiar. I was raised in a very fundamentalist household from day one. My mother is the main source of my religious upbringing. Although initially raised as Baptist, she later met a friend who would forever change her perspective as she began attending services that had a more charismatic leaning. These were the kind of services that you didn’t feel like you got your money’s worth unless you got spit on by the preacher in the process. People frequently spoke in tongues and flailed around aimlessly. Attracted by the supernaturalism, my mother continued to seek out churches such as these from that point onward.

I remember the dread of waking up on Sunday mornings and waiting for the bedroom door to open. I always crossed my fingers in hopes that my mom would let us stay home from church. This was seldom the case early in my life. As time went by, our church attendance seemed less consistent. Nevertheless, my mother continued to amass an impressive amount of books regarding the word of faith movement. You know, the whole just ask for whatever you want and you should get it unless you don’t have enough faith theology.

My mother suffered from a series of rashes when I was around the age of 7 or 8. Being wealthy at the time, my mom had flown around the world in search for a viable cure. She had seen many of the most famous dermatologists around but none could seem to fix her ailment. One night, she asked for my father, brother and me to pray for her. We got in a prayer circle and laid hands on her. Miraculously, by the next day or so, the rash had subsided substantially. I don’t think she’s had another outbreak since. It was moments like this where I first realized the apparent power of prayer.

My mother experienced bizarre, demonic visions of hell and torment as well. She told me that she had actually been dragged down the stairs by some force which just continued to utter the words, “If you don’t, if you don’t.” She said that there were demons all over the place, and even our cat seemed to have a devilish smile upon its face. The next day, she told me that her forearm was sore from where this spirit dragged her body. Stories like this were very common place in my family, and her childhood friend had even more creepy stories that kept me up in the wee hours of the night. On one night, I thought that I saw a demon myself. He had a monkey face and was standing beside my bed. I pulled the covers over my face frantically and waited it out. We lived over what was thought to be an old Indian burial ground. There were many reports of ghosts walking around at night and disturbing residents. It seemed like I was knee deep in supernatural occurrences. I think that these experiences certainly shaped my world view.

By 10th grade, I was attending a private Christian school and not particularly enjoying it. Like most Christians, I said that I was a Christian but lived outside of the teachings. Out of our graduating class, I could probably count one person who seemed genuine about their Christianity. It wasn’t until meeting my wife that I really began to establish a strong relationship with God.

Certain stressors began negatively impacting my life which seemed to coincide with my urge to get closer to God. I don’t fare well with change unless my back is against the wall and married life certainly seemed very different. My Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) became front and center in my life, and I was looking for answers. I really began to study the Word under the influence of my father-in-law, who happens to be a Baptist preacher. I was reading apologetic materials by the likes of Norman Geisler. I was regularly tuning in to the Bible Answer Man broadcast with Hank Hannegraff. I even tried my hand at being a youth teacher but that was fairly short-lived. Attending several services and study hours became common for me. In short, I wanted to be the best I could be at walking the Christian life. I wanted to conquer my OCD using God’s power, but there seemed to be a nagging problem. There was some cognitive dissonance brewing in my head regarding prayer. I couldn’t understand why God would heal me if he allows children to die. I felt like I was inevitably stuck with OCD because there was no reason to believe that God cared about mental illnesses when he didn’t care about starving, emaciated children. It wasn’t too long after this issue came to a climax when I became reacquainted with a long lost friend that was very instrumental in turning my life around. His name is Mike Doolittle AKA A-Unicornist. I encourage you to tune in to the next installment as I delve into the debates I had with Mike as he methodically destroyed my arguments and opened my eyes for the first time.

Atheism is not dangerous

The beliefs in supernatural phenomenon, an afterlife and the infallibility of religious doctrine are dangerous.  There are many reasons that they are dangerous.  For one, books like the Bible are open to millions of interpretations because there's no objective standard to assess its content.  Also, you end up having to believe that highly immoral actions are moral simply because the god of your religion has been defined as the source of objective morality by the scriptures themselves.  Therefore, actions like genocide, infanticide, abusive slavery, sexism, racism, animal cruelty, stoning and many more wonderful ideologies and practices are moral when this imaginary being says so in his fictitious book.

Atheism has no dogma or creed.  It doesn't make unsubstantiated claims.  There's nothing taken on faith. It doesn't even mean that you automatically believe in evolution.  

Arguably, the most destructive force against humanity has been the belief in religious doctrine.  The 911 attacks, crusades, Spanish Inquisition, and Holocaust can be directly linked to religious doctrine.  When has not believing in something merely on faith caused mass genocide or terrorist attacks?  People become slaves to beliefs that have no evidence and find the motivation to kill others  because of their interpretations of scripture.  God's will supersedes humanities, and it makes killing more palatable.

In the case of the holocaust, we can thank Christianity for antisemitism and the killing of millions.  The Jews are responsible for killing Jesus of the Bible, and Hitler took this ideology, inspired by Martin Luther, and enforced it systematically.  The scriptures offered no foresight into the events of the Holocaust or stern warning against killing the "children of the devil."  Perhaps Jesus was only addressing a certain group of Jews.  Nevertheless, scriptures like these fueled hatred for Jews, and god, with all his wonderful foresight, did nothing to prevent the deaths and persecution of Jews.

There is no greater meaning

Most atheists recognize the fact that there just is no greater meaning, intrinsic value or purpose to our existence nor is there some ultimate goal or justice for that matter. Theists use this observation as some kind of argument for god. It goes something like this: “It’s really depressing to think that there is no meaning to this life, and we just die. Therefore, God exists because that sounds better, and it makes me happier.” They may not say it just like that but that’s generally what they are implying.

Truthfully, humans ascribe whatever meaning they want to this life. The fun thing about being an atheist is that we can tweak it and change the meaning we ascribe to it as we mature and life circumstances change. We aren’t stuck with the idea that we are solely meant to pronounce the love of god to the world and try to get to heaven, with all the cognitive dissonance to go along with it. Life is more sophisticated than that and far more adventurous.

Some of us find meaning in chasing the almighty dollar despite the ill-affects it has on health and relationships. Apparently, Steve Jobs took this route and ignored his children entirely, only explaining his intentions postmortem. Some of us find meaning in traveling the world and learning from different cultures. Some of us find meaning in providing for our family but spending quality time with them as well. It doesn’t mean that a person can’t change what is meaningful as life goes on. In the end, they may recognize that they put their career in front of their children and change what’s meaningful toward their relationship with their children. I personally find more meaning and fulfillment in relationships, enjoyable hobbies, writing, reading and playing than I do in working 80 hours a week but that’s just me. I've never had a materialistic obsession. I say you should do what makes you happy as long as you aren’t hurting others or yourself.

The point is that it’s your life to live. You don’t need or want a book to tell you how to live it, or what should be important to you. You can decide what matters the most, what makes you happiest and what you wish to avoid. I find that far more appealing then living under a dictator who threatens you with fire and brimstone if you fail to live as he commands. You're robbing yourself from what life has to offer when you allow someone else, fictitious or not, to tell you how to live it.

The moral lessons we can learn from a spider

If you’re like me, your skin is sure to start crawling whenever you see one of these creepy crawlers. Most of us are very quick to curb stomp one of these little bastards when they dare cross our path. It generally doesn’t matter what size they are either. We are gonna’ take them down, and we pray (to Dawkins?) that we don’t find one in our room before going to bed because it will be most difficult to fall asleep until they are eliminated. But, what happens if we see them from a different perspective? What happens when we ascribe value to them?

I happen to have a black and yellow garden spider making a nice home for herself in the backyard. I noticed the magnificent craftsmanship of her web and immediately changed my perspective. Had I seen her creeping around on the patio, I would probably run for some spider spray or just stomp her out. Instead, I recognized the value that she had and the reciprocal altruistic nature of our relationship. I provide living space and shade, and she provides a death trap for flying insects that like to sting or eat away plants. She’s not poisonous and will not likely bite unless provoked. This is what happens when we stop objectifying others, regardless of species. Problems emerge when we stop seeing any value in another sentient creature; the Holocaust immediately comes to mind. The anti-Semitism derived from the Bible and Martin Luther’s distain for the Jew’s created an atmosphere of hatred and objectification. Hitler latched on to this ideology and made it a main area of primary concern in his reign. He refused to see the value in the Jewish people, blinded by hatred and religious vitriol.

It’s imperative that we learn to see the value in others. I believe that living morally requires the often conscious effort to find value in those around you despite their apparent flaws. There is no one that doesn’t have something to offer. Even the most decrepit can often teach us lessons about ourselves. Indeed, even a spider can illustrate the mental transition we can make when we see them as more than adversaries or pests. Anyway, I thought I would provide a little food for thought.