I was always an introspective person.When I was a kid, was just a smaller introspective person. Maybe it's because I was an only child and spent most of my time outdoors. Maybe it's because my dad taught me to read at least a year before I entered kindergarten, at which point I fell in love with books. But there was no doubt about it that I always felt safe by myself, with only the company of the outdoors, sometimes a book, and my latest stray cat.
Early Childhood: Finding Out
We had a large yard on all sides on my home, surrounded by the Fayette County portion of Forbes State Forest, a Pennsylvania state forest, that in total spans between 50-60,000 acres. I grew up in the small town of Farmington and it was not unusual for me to play in the woods all day by myself. I climbed through creeks and into shallow caves, sat on large rocks and hiked dense trails. By the time I was out of diapers, I could always find my way home, no matter how far I ventured. I made up stories in my mind about the expeditions I was on. Once I entered school I would invite my neighbor friends to my "secret hideouts" where they would join in on my imaginary scenes. I don't ever once recall being frightened of any forest sounds, though occasionally my friends would be. I felt especially safe when my cats followed me through the forest. I felt pretty important, like the whole world was mine to discover. I knew then that was the master of my own destiny.Sometime around 3-5 years old is when I have not only my first memories of being outdoors, but also my first memories of Sunday School. My maternal grandmother is a devout Christian and never misses a Sunday in church, and encourages all of her grandchildren to attend as well. I don't remember how I felt in the early years but I imagine I loved dressing in my Sunday best; in addition to seeing my cousins, grandparents, and other familiar faces each week. In Sunday School we made a lot of crafts and I can conjure images of cotton and Popsicle stick lambs. I still know all the words to "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands" and "This Little Light of Mine", complete with hand motions.
Lets be honest here, how much can a small child be skeptical of something they are being told? We look to our parents and "grownups" to tell us what is and what isn't. Adults are shaping us and we are but lumps of clay. But as a kid who spent hours with herself, thinking and imagining, and looking at the world around her, I think I may have been a skeptic especially early. I didn't have siblings to mimic or look up to. I had myself, the forest, and my inquiring mind.
In Sunday School I learned about Adam and Eve; Noah's Ark; Cain & Abel; David & Goliath; Jesus & the Disciples; Heaven and Hell. These were great stories. At home when I was indoors, I enjoyed the typical 80s kids TV shows like Care Bears, Pee Wee's Playhouse, Sesame Street, and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. These too, were great stories. I didn't really see how they were different from one another. I don't remember the age I was or the exact moment when I started being skeptical, but the series of questioning in my mind went like this:
"Wait ... these grownups want me to think these things actually happened? They think these things actually happened?"
"But how did they know that?"
"Why is it different than any other book or fantasy on a TV show?"
"If Jesus can make the lame walk, the blind see, and walk across water, how come I have never seen anyone do this?"
"Why would things possible 'back then' be so impossible to witness now?"
"How come God doesn't talk to me?"
"How can he really hear everyone's prayers? What if we are praying for opposite things? Why do bad things sometimes happen anyway?"
But I kept my mouth shut. My grandmother loved seeing me in Sunday School. When I didn't attend, everyone always asked about me. Everyone seemed so passionate and so sure that the Bible was true through and through. There must be something wrong with me, I decided. I need to listen harder, and maybe read into the Bible a bit more at home. I asked for a kids Bible, thinking it would be easier to understand. I must have been missing something.
Still, my church attendance started to dwindle, and oftentimes I would beg my mom to sleep in. "Do I have to go this week?" I would ask. But I did attempt to read my Bible at home, in private, where I could really think. This reading and thinking only led to more questions.
At this time, I was also reading a great series of books that my parents ordered for me, called Lets Read and Find Out books. I learned that Ducks Don't Get Wet, What Makes Day and Night, about the Skeleton Inside of [Us], Toads, and Glaciers. I also got an entire Encyclopedia set. These things seemed true. You could see some of these things firsthand. Nothing seemed particularly magical, though like my adventures in the forest, they were awe-inspiring. If I had a question about something in the natural world, my dad would encourage me to "Look it up". So I often did.
But I desperately wanted to fit in with my family who thought church was very important. My uncle, afterall, was a very successful preacher and moved around a lot, taking on better and better opportunities as a minister. And he was a very nice person, kind to everyone, well-educated. He must know something I don't, I decided. Near the end of elementary school, there were some after school programs available for religious education. I guess because Church and State are constitutionally separate, they wanted to give religious parents the opportunity for more Christian learning. I signed up in hopes of understanding more now that I was a bit older. I grew to hate that afterschool program. I was bored, and confused more than ever.
When I was 11, everyone at Church wanted me to get baptized. The kids in my Sunday School class took a series of special classes to learn what it was to accept Jesus into your heart. Finally, I thought! I will get it now, I will get it now! I will give my heart and all my worries to him and I will be Saved!! I took the baptismal dunk in the large, cold tank at my Church, surrounded by family and friends. Everyone was so happy and proud, especially my kind, sweet Grandma.
But if anything, it was the biggest let down of all. I didn't feel any different. I still put my feet one foot in front of the other on my own accord. I still made my own decisions, as much as an 11-year old can on her own. I was still a nice person, but regardless, bad things still happened to me and to other people. I still said my prayers each night but great grandparents still died and sometimes I would still get a bad grade on a test at school. Often I would get great grades in school too, but that's because I paid attention and did my homework. Since God is invisible, it's really as if I'm just doing everything on my own anyway, right? If I feel sad or have a problem, I talk to my mom and my friends, and they make me feel better. When I'm around my family, I feel included and a part of something. That seems like pretty significant love right there. Who needs God?
Then when I was 14 years old, my parents and I moved to North Carolina. Without the pressure of Grandma or an established Church, I didn't have to think about God anymore. Really, he just stressed me out. I did so much better just to treat others how I want to be treated, and be done with it. I had so many fulfilling things to do, I wasn't missing God anyway. It was business as usual. I read, wrote in my Diary, listened to music, and doodled letters to my friends.
Though to say I didn't have to think about God wasn't entirely true, because as I soon learned, we had moved straight into the Bible Belt. My first few days of high school went like this from every person I met: "Where are you from? Do you have a church yet? You should come to my church." Much like it was in my old town, everyone assumed if you looked vaguely normal, you were a Christian. I finally relented, as I knew no one and didn't know what to label my religious beliefs as anyway. So here we go again.
I soon joined a youth group with a girl at my school who was relentless about me coming to her church. We went on a local missionary trips collecting food and clothing for the less fortunate, and took a week-long Christian Retreat to the beach where we went to this big hullabaloo about teens and God. Sometimes Youth Group was actually pretty fun. Other times when it got really "preachy", I felt like an alien. Or maybe I felt like I was the normal one, surrounded by crazy people. But mostly I felt like the imposter. No amount of anything was going to make me believe that not accepting this nonsense meant I was going to burn in hell. I was a really nice person. I was kind to animals, behaved in school, listened to my parents, and had a steady job at 16 years old. I was a good kid. And what's more, these Christian kids didn't even seem to be as nice and accepting of other people as I was. The popular kids in my youth group still didn't talk to me at school, and the guys especially were still kind of jerks to everyone. The girl that invited me to become a part of the Youth Group in the first place was really clingy and creepy, and to be honest, really slutty with the boys at school. I soon drew as quickly away from the youth group crowd as I had jumped in.
I started being attracted to the people at school who looked less than normal at school. Now as I write this, it makes perfect sense, but at the time I chalked it up to the fact that I had always appreciated those who were different. They were more interesting and more "real". My mom had always encouraged me in elementary school to embrace the outcasts and less popular. She explained they had feelings just like me and should be treated just as fairly as anyone else. When I grew older, these early lessons took on new meaning for me. As mom had so wisely explained to me years ago, sometimes the prettiest and most popular people are not always the nicest. I think we can all agree, that's a very accurate assertion. And so by the time I was a sophomore, I started to hang around the freaks and geeks, and it got me through the rest of my high school years.
In 11th grade, I started to learn that there is an "other" option when it comes to religion, and that not everyone believes in God, or in organized religion. I met a boy that I would later marry, who called himself an atheist. He was a nice person, but very angry about God and all the people who worshiped "nonsense". This was shocking to me and I didn't know if I agreed or not, but I sure liked it better than the alternative of having to pretend I believed in "nonsense". Still, I really loved my grandmother, and uncle, and a handful of religious influences on my life. So I wasn't ready to denounce them all yet. But I liked what this guy had to say. I liked that he thought outside of the box. No one in my life had ever offered that as an option before. With my high school sweetheart also came some of his friends with alternate beliefs. One in particular, Tim, was Wiccan. And he was one of the nicest, kindest people I had the pleasure of knowing. He was really into nature and was a very affectionate person with his friends. He would be friends with anyone, and wasn't concerned about his "image". There were girls too that also seemed to be of alternative beliefs, and they were some of the smartest kids in our grade. They seemed to be so educated and knew so much about other cultures, literature, and poetry. I didn't always understand what it was they were talking about, but they sure sounded like they knew about many things I hadn't yet been exposed to.
So you could not believe in God, and be a really intelligent person? It wasn't until later, I would learn, that some of the most intelligent people in all of history were also atheists. In general, the more intellectual you are, the less you may believe in God. This is not to say there aren't idiot atheists and brilliant Christians -- there are clearly both. But when you take the time to think for yourself instead of accepting what someone tells you on faith, you can't ever constrain your mind back to it's original proportions. You start to understand what is rational, possible, and realistic; and what might be ancient myths that were created long before modern scientific discoveries and current social progress. But I will get more to that later.
Humanism Finally Equals Happiness
Early in my first marriage, I was still pretty uneducated about atheism, and the word itself was scary to me. I may have researched it a few times, and decided that I was more of an agnostic, meaning that for me, the jury was still out on if there was in fact a higher being, because no one can ever truly know. Though my marriage didn't last, my skepticism lingered, and eventually I ran onto something called Humanism. I had seen something about Susan Sarandon being one of "these". I soon could not get enough of reading about Humanism, because the values of this philosophy so clearly matched my own. Wikipedia defines Humanism as "... a movement of philosophy and ethics that emphasizes the value ... of human beings ... and generally prefers individual thought and evidence (rationalism) over established doctrine or faith." But the simplest way to describe it is as my favorite Humanist activist, Jennifer Hancock, does, when she discusses the Humanist approach to happiness: "Be a good person. Strive to be ethical, compassionate, and responsible in all that you do. Take responsibility for your life and for the consequences of your actions. Choose to act in ways that will increase your happiness and the happiness of others."
It was eye-opening to me that there were people all over the world that thought like me, that felt that being good could happen without a supernatural God. People who understood that sometimes bad things just happen, and its not necessarily for a reason or punishment, that it's just the natural order of life. That rather than prayer, if we want to make positive changes in our own lives in the world, we have to take action. We must use our best judgement based on the information at hand, choosing what helps the most and hurts the least.
Empathy decides morality - "'How would you feel if it were you?" - and not an ancient book that promotes slavery, homophobia, and constantly contradicts its own rules.
Even still, after learning about Humanism, I was quiet in my beliefs. My thoughtful and introverted current boyfriend seemed to have a lot of traditional values, and I didn't want to hurt him or challenge his own convictions. Together for almost 4 years, we ran a dog rescue together. There was one piece of religion I was still clinging to at this point - the comforting idea of heaven. Working in animal rescue, a lot of dogs pass away due to euthanasia because of lack of space or behavior issues, or die of old age and disease. It was nice to think that when these animals leave us that they run over a magical rainbow bridge and they wait for us, until we too, pass on. Even so, I became so busy with our rescue and my responsibilities to all of these animals that I didn't think much about my spirituality at this point.
Eventually, the emotional demands of the rescue and the cruel nature of the people involved with it lead me into a deep depression.My romantic relationship had fallen apart, and I was very lost in my own life, not sure where to go next. My best friend had moved to Florida a few years prior, a man I had come to know back during my first marriage. Another possibility for my future started to take shape as I opened up myself to the only person I felt comfortable talking to. Because I already knew my best friend so well, it wasn't much of a stretch to cross from friendship into something more. I was ready for a change, and several rescue dogs in tow, I relocated to Florida too, to begin my new adventure. I was taking action to improve my life, something that hoping and praying had failed to do the past couple of years as things had started to go downhill for me. Praying didn't make people's criticism fail to hurt me, it didn't heal my boyfriends physical and emotional troubles, nor our financial struggles. I was in a bad situation, so at the first sign of a solution, I got out. The best trip of my life was the 11 hour drive I made to my new home in Florida. I had no idea the self-discovery I was truly about to make.
The first few days and weeks and Florida involved lots of reacquainting ourselves with each other, and establishing where we wanted our relationship to go. Living with Michael's religious mother made me more than a little uncomfortable at times, and early on I admitted that I didn't "really" believe in God. I was relieved when Michael said that he already knew that, and he had been prepared for that before I came to stay. He told me that he too had questions, and that he wanted to be myself and believe what I wanted to believe. It was the person that I am that he loved, and he didn't want me to be anything that I wasn't. It was the most honest conversation I had ever had face-to-face with someone about my beliefs, and furthermore, the only one in which someone referred to my atheism as being "okay".
It occurred to me suddenly that I now had the freedom to educate myself, to question, to be skeptical, to learn everything I had ever wanted to learn about this God-free lifestyle. I still had a lot of rational questions about God & the bible, and frankly, about evolution. I soon started visiting Amazon and bookstores to find the information I needed. The first 4 books I got my hands on were
These were maybe the best pieces of non-fiction I had ever read, and the best ones I could have chosen for my purposes. In Godless, Dan Barker examined everything I had ever considered skeptically in the Bible, while sharing his own experiences of self-discovery as he crossed over from an evangelical preacher to eventually become the Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
In The Humanist Approach to Happiness, Jennifer Hancock taught me more about what it meant to be a Humanist; living ethically, compassionately, and responsibly.
And then Richard Dawkins explained to me, in his brilliant and comprehensible way, how evolution works.
The best part of all of theses books is that everything was possible, realistic, observable, verifiable, provable, and rational.
I was finally out-of-the-closet. I was an atheist, and had been for quite some time.
Arrogance and Anger
Now, atheists get a bad rap for being arrogant and angry. But it's not until you are one that it suddenly becomes clear why. Because, the truth is, you do feel arrogant. You have suddenly learned all these facts and asked obvious questions that the believers of the world have failed to take the time to learn and consider. You feel educated and empowered, and with this, comes some arrogance. We can't help it. And although not the most attractive feature, it is a human response. And with no fear of hell or what God will think of this, we experience emotion, often without apology. The results are not always pretty. I hope that most atheists, like me, try to reserve their arrogant thoughts and feelings for the privacy of like-minded atheist groups and websites. Afterall, most of us are good people, compassionate people. If we have any hope of gaining acceptance into the mainstream, we have to show the best parts of us so people understand that we too, are human. The philosophy of Humanism can help with controlling these unattractive behaviors and channel them in doing and being good. One of the reasons I love Humanism is for the very reason that it is so very positive and compassionate of others.
Then there is the anger we experience when we suddenly see clearly. Angry at our education that our teachers are forced to tiptoe around the reality of evolution so as not to "offend" religious parents. Angry that our own families never encouraged us to learn about all beliefs, not just theirs. I personally was encouraged to seek answers about the things that interested me, EXCEPT when it came to God. I was told there was one way and that it was the right way. What kind of mixed message is that sending to youth? Education and innovation are what is necessary for societal progress, but believers discourage thinking critically about religion and belief. How are we supposed to accept that our parent's religion is the best one for us, when we have been shielded from learning about the others? Don't people in other areas of the world think that their religion or God is the one true one? How can you be so ignorant to assume just because your authority figure told you "this is what is true", that it is, when there are so many unanswered questions and unexplored religions you have yet to learn about? I am angry I spent so many years being conflicted because of fear and imposed ignorance. And I'm very frustrated that these logical questions, and the answers that are quite easy to find, were never posed by my elders. I'm not any more intelligent than the average person, and my skepticism always came quite naturally. Perhaps the only thing remarkable about me, is bravery.
"Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you from asking the questions." - Frater Ravus
The Wondrous World of Science and Reality
My mother once told me, shortly after my arrival in Florida, that lack of belief was "sad". The truth was, I never felt happier than when I figured out what was right for me. What made me "sad" was hearing my mother say this. How can anyone say that? How fair is it to say that after all the time, thought, and consideration I put into what I believe? I didn't arrive at my convictions because someone told me I shouldn't believe in God - it was quite the opposite. I had struggled my entire life because of what other people thought I should believe, and I had been miserable. The world is still beautiful no matter what God you do or don't believe in. When you understand science and evolution, everything is all the more fascinating, because you realize how incredibly connected we all are to each other, and how many billions of years it has taken for us to arrive at the amazing creatures we are today. You see science in action, and there are always more you can learn about to understand everything you are perceiving. I don't have to believe in invisible Gods, spirits, or magic. Reality is so much more fulfilling.
Books:
Godless by Dan Barker
The Humanist Approach to Happiness by Jennifer Hancock
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins
50 Reasons People Give For Believing in a God by Guy P.Harrison
The End of Faith by Sam Harris
The Good Atheist by Dan Barker
Websites:
The American Humanist Association
The Thinking Atheist
Jennifer Hancock, Humanist Educator & Activist
Truth Saves
Freedom From Religion Foundation
My relevant Pinterest boards:
http://www.pinterest.com/pitbullpassion/i-am-a-freethinker/
http://www.pinterest.com/pitbullpassion/famous-freethinkers-scientists-non-theists-liberal/
http://www.pinterest.com/pitbullpassion/bill-nye/
The Next Generation
More than anything, what makes me angry is to see Christians saying things like, "If we don't teach our children to follow Christ, then the world will teach them not to." This is incredibly offensive and terrifying to me. We should not be "teaching" our children to follow anything but their own path. We should encourage them to study science, history, mythology, theology, and all religions of the world. If you constrain a mind to one way of thinking, you are doing them a great disservice and limiting their potential. The great innovators of our time asked questions and challenged conventional wisdom, and today their accomplishments are admirable. People like Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, and Hellen Keller (to name very few) were all atheists, and refused to believe and accept what they were told. They discovered, innovated, and inspired a great many people. I want that for my child.Furthermore, Christianity becomes no better that the religions of the Eastern world that we balk at as our violent enemy. Imagine switching out the word "Christ" for "Allah" -- "If we don't teach our children to follow Allah, then the world will teach them not to." It is this very brainwashing that creates suicide bombers and attacks on our country. It is merely a belief that is being handed down, generation after generation, that a greater life awaits them in sacrificial death. Imagine if these children instead were encouraged to learn about the other cultures of the world, and were modeled empathy and compassion by their parents, that all life is sacred?
If all of religion were erased today and we started a clean slate tomorrow, no biblical tale would be told the same way again. Stories would develop based on half-truths and propaganda, and be passed on for centuries until the current stories were so embellished and changed that they would be virtually unrecognizable from the original tales. Christian mythology has taken the same path as Greek mythology, yet the Greek tales have since came and went as their empires collapsed, and is now recognized as fiction. But Christians of the world continue to pass on these outdated myths and so they survive. If we stopped this cycle, the human race would survive, and would perhaps embrace each other more fully. Because compassion, empathy, and love are human traits, not religious ones. The survival of our species depends on them. The survival of a great many others does too. They have studied empathy and compassion in other species, like monkeys and rats, and found that it exists within their animal cultures as well. When given a choice, they chose the path least likely to hurt their peers. Is this because they have accepted Christ into their hearts? Of course not. It's because compassion and empathy is innate.
Ethically, Christianity, or any other supernatural belief, just isn't for me. Ironically, it is the very values that my Christian parents modeled to me that has brought me to this conclusion. My father taught me to read and to ask questions. My mother taught me to treat others with empathy. Christianity does not offer these values.
The biblical God consistently punishes those who ask questions and question his authority, with pain, suffering, and death; often for trivial things that today we would consider immoral. He begins his punishment in Genesis when Eve eats from the Tree of Knowledge, and continues in Exodus when he destroys nearly every living thing in the world for simply being exactly as he created them. I find these tales horrifying for children. The message is to believe what you are told without question, and that God will destroy all those who cross him, but sometimes even the innocent are not safe. God lacks empathy. If God can do anything, is all knowing, and all-powerful, he could have chosen a non-violent way to alleviate the problems he saw. He could have not allowed the problems to happen in the first place. There are a great many options. He chose death and destruction. That is no way to solve conflict. In fact, that's the exact type of conflict resolution that we judge and are disgusted by in the Islam faith.
Christianity wants me to disassociate myself from those of other religions, and destroy those of other beliefs. I WILL NOT. We are all but of one race as far as I'm concerned: humanity.
Christianity wants me to own other human beings as property. I WILL NOT, and our country outlawed this inhumane practice nearly 150 years ago.
Christianity wants me to judge homosexuals. I REFUSE. And limiting their rights is unconstitutional. Some of the best people I know are gay. They are kind, well-educated, thoughtful, and unapologetically positive people. They understand that being who you are is the only way to live this life fully. They are brave, braver than me, who took years to admit who I really was. I honestly wish more people of faith possessed the values of my homosexual friends.
Christianity wants me to submit to my husbands every demand, whim, and desire. NO. I finally found a partner in life who accepted me as I was, and that is one reason our marriage will last years beyond when marriages under God have failed.
The idea that God could only forgive our sins by having his only son tortured to death is completely irrational. If he wanted to forgive our sins, why didn't he just forgive them? Why have Jesus tortured as a scapegoat? (Thank you, Dawkins).
But I need not worry, because rationally, the biblical God is not even there. I know, in my heart of hearts, that everything that happens in this life is the result of choices and consequences. If something happens to you or a loved one beyond their control, it was due to someone or something else's choice or consequences. It's cause and effect, a concept we learn early, in elementary school. Are you seeing angels or things you can't explain? It's because your brain has tricked you into seeing things you already believe in, or you just don't have enough information to understand what that "something" might be. Its precisely how "magic" works. Distortion of perception and reality.
I can never ever be a believer. Not today, tomorrow, or when I'm 95, close to death's door. I have read too much of the Bible to believe such impossible and terrible mythology. I have met far too many hateful, cruel Christians, simply following what the Bible tells them to think and how to behave. I have found too much happiness in embracing empathy and knowledge. I will never raise my daughter to hide her passion for truth, or a healthy skepticism for ancient beliefs. I will raise her to appreciate science and humanism, but to respect others enough to politely bow her head if they wish to say grace. I will raise her to fight against any religion imposed upon her, and to defend those that are bullied and mistreated by others, regardless of their beliefs and personal truths.
If someone can't understand the importance of that, then I only feel sorry for the relationship we could have had. Something is terribly wrong when your beliefs cause a rift between you and the family that you love. It will be their loss. Because I am an intelligent, comical, compassionate, and passionate human being. And as maddening as I find your belief to be, I will love you just the same.
I've read every word.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds just like me
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing.
ReplyDelete