What’s an atheist to do?
I’ve been an atheist for over twenty years now. Raised in a traditional semi-dysfunctional Christian family, it has been quite a journey to overcome the sheer inertia of the superstition in my head. My mother was always as right wing as one could get without becoming a card carrying fascist. She was also quite religious for most of her adult life, but it wasn’t until I was about 13 years old that she took the plunge into an all out evangelical conversion. All it took was a sudden move into a new place, a near bankruptcy, and about 1500 hours of watching Tammy Fay Baker on the PTL channel ( that’s People That Love) or Pat Robertson and the 700 Club ( I still don’t know what that means) and she saw the “light”. She would call it an epiphany. I would now term it a traumatic brain injury.
There was no going back. The brakes were off . The hill was long and steep. Dad converted soon after. Now my father is a good person, decent and loving, but he seldom has an opinion that my mother didn’t put there. I have often thought that that was why they married, he had an opinion deficit and she had a opinion surplus, thus she had storage for the extras, and I think he kind of liked that full feeling. As a marriage, it works, but it isn’t what I would I would choose. Both us kids succumbed shortly after, and we made a cute little “born again” family. Having nowhere else to go we plunged ever deeper into an ocean of religion/superstition with my mother’s hand firmly on the tiller.
Mayhap, you think that I am being a tad unfair. That my parents truly loved me and were only doing what they thought best, that they needed something to fill the emptiness. All this is true, I freely admit. I seldom felt unloved as a child; dominated and misunderstood, oh yes, but loved. As to what they thought best, what would you think if these same parents converted to Buddhism or Hinduism or hard core Islam and drug their families along. Would it be unfair to criticize then? And then there is the emptiness, that inner need to feel like you belong somewhere, someplace – anywhere, anyplace. We all get it from time to time. But to counter the emptiness by backing up to whatever manure pile is being advertised on TV for a small donation and filling up the trunk to overflowing seems less than wise. But then to demand that everyone else must fill from the same pile of shit, to dismiss those who fill from different piles as unsaved and those who refuse to fill at all or actively spend their life shoveling the accumulated shit out of their respective trunks as evil, this is unkind.
You may think I exaggerate, judge for yourself. We attended every revival meeting in western Montana for years. I saw people speaking in tongues, people rolling on the floor screaming, demons cast out (mostly from the same people, apparently they have poor firewall). I heard preachers preach fire and brimstone. I saw “healings” (same people, same ailments, every time). And I believed!! I begged for God to speak to me. And what did I hear? Nothing. Ever! It was a nothing that echoed off the lustful thoughts in my head. It was a nothing made me feel unloved. It was a nothing that filled me with sadness and self loathing. It was nothing. It was only later that I realized that the reason I heard nothing was that there was simply nothing to hear. Nothing. At all!
After graduation from high school, my parents wanted me to attend a good Christian College. So I attended the University of Mary in Bismarck North Dakota and became an atheist. This was not quite as fast or painless as I make it sound. It was a long hard journey. Nor was it quite what my mother intended and the manure has hit the fan on and off ever since. You see, if you’re not for my mother, you’re against her. If you don’t believe the exact dogmatic superstition that she does then you don’t love her. You ungrateful child! Sigh.
Needless to say, my atheism as been a bone of contention ever since.
In arguing with my mother over my not submitting to the ONE TRUE GOD (copyright 4004 BCE) her unfailing final response was “read your Bible.” This never actually made sense to me. If you don’t believe in God, the Bible assumes no more spiritual importance than Homer, or the Epic of Gilgamesh, or, for that matter, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy . But after years I have started to change a bit. Oh, not that way. The Bible is still just a work of literature. But perhaps, there would be a value in reading it, but reading from my perspective and mine alone. Maybe a daily dose of contradiction and death, murder and mayhem, rape, incest and adultery would truly change me. I jest, but a careful reading would firm up my own lack of faith. It would force me to put down my thoughts and thereby making me think. And though rare, true thought is seldom a bad thing.
So I start my atheist bible study. pull up a chair, dust your bibles off and for nary a god’s sake get a glass of wine. This shit’s dry. Let’s see what this God is all about. Let’s dig him out, look in his closets and see what he has swept under the rug. Let’s dig through that lump in his backyard and see where the bodies are buried. We are going to be the paparazzi of religion. We will leave no cruel or senseless act unturned. We will find God and drag him kicking and screaming into the light for all to see. We are off on an adventure. We are taking a journey through time to a formless void, back some 6000 years (and change) Genesis, chapter one. In the beginning…
It’s great to read that you’re going to take this journey! I have to admit I smiled a bit at the “read your Bible” response from your mother. My family was (and is) the exact same way. My response? “Why don’t YOU read the Bible?”
I am absolutely convinced that if people sat down and read the entire Bible, most would walk way in utter disbelief. As a 30 year old, I remember my childhood and teenage years dominated by scripture verses of comfort and warning. Yet, we never covered other parts of the Bible that made absolutely no sense at all. People refer to verse that make them feel good or support an argument and that’s the extent of their Biblical knowledge. There’s no thought assigned to how a man lives in a whale, talking snakes, or walking around a city wall seven times and shouting to bring the walls down.
I applaud you for what you’re doing because it is returning to a place of critical thought and reason. It’s convenient for the church to have people baptized as babies and confirmed as teenagers. It certainly increases the retention rate.
I can’t say that I’ve had to overcome as much. My dad was always an apathetic atheist (scientist by profession) and has no interest or use for gods in his life.
My mother is Roman Catholic. Sort of. She’s one of those itinerant liberal Christians that almost never goes to church.
I went through a similar conversion period, although I was never driven to religion as hard. Instead, as a kid who often did incredibly rash and stupid things my youth was a mixture of having fun and then feeling guilty about it. So I sought to use the Christian faith as a guide to relieve me of this guilt, aided by my mother. Of course this did nothing of the sort as you have experienced. Even from a Christian perspective the bible rings crazy, full of its random nonsense and parables and contradictions. Eventually I walked through the stages that a rational person usually takes; universalism to agnosticism to atheism in around 3 years. For the moral person who is willing to ignore a great deal of the bible, religion can be justified in a myriad of ways, be they guidance, charity or ethical standards. Someone who chooses rationality over justification, however, must eventually accept that the Christian faith has a historical basis in the world; it was created by humans, rewritten by humans, and holds all of humanities flaws. It is its own worst enemy, and I applaud your stated goal in starting this blog.
Well, it is likely that they will be invteid to Sunday School or Church Groups with friends at some point, and I would let them go. When they are old enough to understand abstract concepts such as religion, then I would encourage them to tune in and pay attention to different programs about religion on television.You could also pay them to write reports on religous topics. Have them read summaries on Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity and have them write five things that are similar, and five things that are different, pay them $1 for each solid common or differing trait.The constructivist theory of education, which is preferred whenever and wherever possible, holds that children learn more through their own research and learning than through our teaching. If you faciliate the means and the motivation to study religion, they will at the right time. When and if they feel they need religion in their life, they will have the right tools at their disposal to make the best decision for them.They will also learn great cultural and critical thinking skills in the process of these simple research projects you assign.References : teacher
Sounds remarkably like my upbringing. Alrighty then, I still have a dust-covered leather-bound bible around here somewhere, let’s brush it off and give a once-over, for old times sake. I haven’t given it much thought since I freed myself from the stifling weight of the dogma inflicted on me since birth. It’ll be nice to have some ammo to throw back at them the next time they tell me to read my bible and pray for forgiveness.
about why we need a Religion-Free Bible. I posted about the 25 Reasons and foleowld it up with a few more. Then yesterday I posted, Why We Need a Religion-Free Bible – # 4: The Oppression of Women In The
This is a great idea. Wish I had thought of it first. There is a book or two in this somewhere I bet.
How dare you equate The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to the bible? You’ll be having a go at Monty Python next!
One of my grandfathers is a southern baptist preacher. The other is a pentecostal lay preacher. I was expected to follow in their footsteps. I wanted to follow in their footsteps.
At twelve I started reading the bible from cover to cover. When I finished at 13 I was an athiest leaning agnostic. The bible itself is almost like a remedy for it’s own disease. Rape, murder, genocide, near pornography (but don’t masturbate, for gods sake)….It was clearly little more than a mish mash of tribal history and desert sun inspired conflicting religous ideas. It broke my heart and my faith in two to see everything I had been taught laid bare as what it was.
Thank you for your website. It will be fun and informative to re-examine the bible step by step without the slant I had as a youth.
I’m fifty-six years old and was a philosophy major in college. I was an atheist at nineteen. Actually, I started having doubts as early as thirteen or fourteen, but a significant believer spike in my Christianity happened in the interim. So, I embraced the faith for a handful of more years Then, Bertrand Russel’s ‘Why I am Not a Christian’ got recommended to me by a friend. I read the book and poof! I was an atheist. I still had to force the fear out of me that religion had instilled in me, but I did that and have only become more convinced that I’m right about God and religion over the years. But, despite all that, a part of me regrets leaving that comfort of faith behind. I sometimes wish I had it back. But, it’s just not possible. I’m not an atheist because its sexy or because it feels good. It does not feel good. My modest intelligence simply and rationally concluded that it was intellectually dishonest and immoral to believe in such a thing. Oh, one interesting thing, at least I think it’s interesting…I’m not only an atheist, but I’m also a card carrying conservative and that I feel very good about.
Welcome Mark. I’m glad you’re happy with who you are. It has taken some of us quite some time to be perfectly comfortable with who we have become. It’s a good thing you journey has taken you beyond that point. I do understand About the comfort that faith can bring, but for me, that comfort was always overbalanced by the feelings of guilt and shame and fear it brought up. Overall I am happier leaving it all behind.
Most atheists tend to be of a more liberal persuasion. I find your conservatism fascinating. Myself, I would rank myself as more fiscally conservative and socially liberal. The main turn off for the Republican and libertarian parties is the concentrations of ultra religious fundamentalists pushing their socially conservative agendas. How do you reconcile your atheism with the worst elements of theism within the more conservative groups? What are your stands on abortion, gay marriage and the like? I’d be fascinated to start a discussion here about it.
“The main turn off for the Republican and libertarian parties is the concentrations of ultra religious fundamentalists pushing their socially conservative agendas.”
I wonder if the reason the ultra religious are republicans is because the corporations’ PR departments have tied religion into politics so that people will vote for a more corporate-friendly political party.
I, too, grew up in a very religious family. We were at church whenever the doors were open – Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday bible studies and Wednesday night fellowship suppers with more worshiping! I can remember questioning my pastor at 13 about the Holy Trinity and how I just didn’t think that was possible. How does one become God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as one, but each remain separate? I still was dunked under water because it was “the thing to do”. I traveled around the country as a teenager spreading the word of God because I thought I was doing what was right and required of me. When I started college a whole new world opened up to me. Different books abounded with science and reason and that started my doubt process. I’m now 42 and although it’s taken quite some time, I now know that most of my life, regarding what I thought to be true, was false. It took about 3 years to fully come through that process, but I don’t regret it one bit! I feel so enlightened! I also feel an even stronger connection to mankind and all of life in general. I live in a mostly conservative, very ignorant part of the country, though, so it makes it harder for me to be open and honest with even my closest of friends, not to mention my family. They know how I feel, but they think one day I’ll just “snap out of it”. It’s funny, though. Once you’ve seen the light, there’s no going back to that mind warping sense of complete denial and ignorance. I would love to live long enough to see what our world would be like with no religion – I can only dream! Nice article!
Cam. That was perfect. I feel every step you took. If you ever need to talk drop me a line. What part of the country do you live in may I ask? I too live in Ignorancity, 58501. That be Bismarck. You’re ever through call.
Awesome dude!
Reading the Bible was exactly what got me to be OK with being an atheist. I not only found the stories silly, but they were interlaced with shear horror that I never suspected was there.
I suspect that reading the Bible is the last thing that a Christian ought to want a skeptic to do. But then, so few Christians have read it that they don’t have a clue what is actually there.
Thank you for this post. I’ve had a similar experiences with my mother growing up. We went to a church that is much like the one you described. I’ve seen my mother speak in tongues and be “touched” by the spirit through a wooden cane that my preacher said was holy. I’ve seen her rolling on the floor screaming while in church and at home. It was quite traumatic for me. It’s just nice to know that someone knows how it feels.
I feel you pain, brother. I feel your pain. These episodes scar.
I don’t understand you people. If you are so happy and convinced that your belief in nothing is right, then why do you even care what others believe? I don’t have the faith to believe that I came from nothing and I will return to nothing. I have felt the presence of God and I am blessed in my belief. I don’t care what you believe or don’t believe. I no longer participate in organized religion. But I do have a strong faith and I have a relationship with God that brings me intense joy in my life. I have had answered prayers. I have been blessed. I have also seen people who stopped believing and saw thier lives destroyed by selfishness, greed, narcissism… some even committed suicide…. God created this planet and you, whether you believe it or not. But if you don’t then, be happy and go do your own thing and leave “religious” people and their beliefs alone…
I don’t care if you believe in the Abrahamic god or a flying teapot. Just keep it out of my life, pass, promote or support no laws that discriminate against my lack of belief, and you and I will get along just fine.
The last time we left you guys go totally unchallenged we got the Dark Ages. We’d just like to avoid a repeat.
And we don’t think any of that Scooter. I don’t think nothing is even possible. But hey, isn’t nothing what God supposedly made it out of? Since you don’t have that kind of faith, welcome to atheism.
As you, a church hiostrian, know full well, Bob, the earliest Christians were called “atheists” because they rejected the gods of the Roman empire. I reject the gods of modern empire. I do not believe in either Osama bin Laden’s version of Allah or Bush’s twisted understanding of Jesus Christ. I don’t believe in the god of capitalist greed, nor in the god of “communist” totalitarianism. I don’t believe in tribal gods of nation, race, social status, gender superiority, etc.The Barmen Declaration had to say NO to the Nazi’s “German Christian” movement (similar to the “God Bless America” churches) as well as YES to the God of the gospel.
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