Adam
large church and is a gifted songwriter.
Adam was one of the original five pastors in the Dennett/LaScola study on Clergy who’ve lost their faith. (http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/EP08122150.pdf) Adam has also been a pivotal part of the design and launch of The Clergy Project support site for agnostic/atheist clergy. His work with TCP has affected many pastors, like myself, offering a safe place for us to share with others walking the same path.
Telling God Goodbye
It has been nearly three years since I admitted to myself and a few select friends that I no longer believed in a god or the supernatural. This was not a trivial realization for a fundamental, conservative, evangelical member of the clergy. It was the day after our Easter service in 2009 that I also realized that I desperately needed to leave the ministry. What a painstaking and at the same time exciting journey it has been as I have prepared to step from the sheltered sanctuary into the real world. Now I sit in my office and reflect as this Sunday will be my last as a pastor after 25 years or service. While I have not a shred of belief left in the existence of god, I find myself seeking closure on this long chapter of my life. After all, God and I were best friends.
I remember crying when I first heard Julia Sweeney describe when she finally said goodbye to God in her fabulous monologue ‘Letting God of God’. No longer did she see God as the all powerful figure of grandeur and mystery that she once pictured in her mind, instead he had taken the stature of a feeble old man, sitting on her front porch atop a suitcase. She apologized to him out of respect saying, “It’s not you God, it’s me. It’s because I take you so seriously that I can’t bring myself to believe in you. So sit for a while if you want to… you can stay a little while if you need to. There’s no hurry.” She then says that over the course of a few weeks he had just disappeared. Like Julia, I did take my faith very seriously. In fact I dare to say that my commitment to him in full-time service demonstrated my deep abiding faith and complete trust in the one whom I believed had called me. I lived in wholehearted obedience to what I thought was his will for my life.
To change one’s beliefs can be traumatic for anyone, but how much more so for clergy. You see, I am not leaving god because the church treated me poorly, or because of abuse or scandal. In fact the church has been a wonderful source of encouragement, inspiration and support and a great model of a caring, loving community through the years. While these benefits of communal life are unmistakably real, I came to realize that the god who inspires them is not.
What happened? After twenty years in ministry, never wavering in my faith or beliefs, I simply ventured to step outside my safe box of dogma and doctrine. I decided to seek truth no matter what the cost never thinking that it would lead me from the god I loved so dearly. When I examined life honestly and openly, I could not reconcile faith and reality any longer. At this point I fully discovered and finally accepted so many things that never really made sense; the numerous contradictions and discrepancies found in the bible, the incongruous character of god as revealed in scripture, the degradation of women, the support of slavery, the fallacy of answered prayer, the problem of suffering, the denial of self, the dismissal of scientific evidence and in general the harmful teachings of religions. Rather than try to gloss over my findings and disguise my doubts, I accepted the reality of my erroneous thinking.
As this chapter of my life comes to an end I am happy to report that I have found closure. Despite the randomness of this world we live in I have such peace of mind and sense of purpose. Life itself has become more precious and meaningful.
So how can I tell my old friend goodbye? For me it was easiest to write a song as I reflected on my journey. I wish I had the freedom to let everyone hear it but I cannot. Perhaps someday in the near future I can, but for now consider it a poem.
Life After You
I was searching for the truth, I thought I knew it, I thought it was you.
You were my best friend; I never thought this would come to an end.
O, O no, never end.
You were my source of strength, my solid rock, my hiding place.
If everyone deserted me, you’d stand beside me, you’d never leave.
O, O no, never leave.
But now I’m here all alone, so empty now that you’re gone.
So I’m crying while I’m trying to pick up the pieces that you left behind.
Now I’m wondering and I’m waiting, to see what becomes of my new life…
Life after you.
I learned some good things from you, to love everybody, to stand for what’s true.
To lend a helping hand to man, to be good and kind whenever I can.
O, O when I can.
Looking back on all went through; I guess I thought too highly of you.
Now I know you could never be something you’re not and that has set me free.
O, O set me free.
Still I’m here all alone; I’ve got to move on now that you’re gone.
So I’ crying while I’m trying to pick up the pieces that you left behind.
Now I’m wondering and I’m waiting to see what becomes of my new life.
Now I’m yearning and I’m learning to think for myself and live what I believe.
‘Cause I’m searching and I’m finding that knowing the truth has really set me free.
O set me free, O set me free.
I was searching for the truth, I thought I knew it, I thought it was you.
Adam ©2011
God, it is precisely because I took you so seriously that I cannot continue to believe in you. So sit and rest a little while if you need to. There’s no hurry. I wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
Adam
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As a former part time preacher, it was a struggle with myself too to give the “Dear John” letter to god. 2009 was the year I gave god the boot. But in the struggle to find my voice and place in society, I found liberation by read Richard Dawkins book the God Delusion. I finally found that peace and piece of myself that had been missing. I always argued with other ministers about the mistakes in the bible, and all the reasons that Adam wrote about. It is difficult thing to let go of your religious dogma. I was raised in the shtick since I was 6 weeks old and I struggled with religion all my life. I should have used my brain years ago but being so indoctrinated in the lies and garbage, you stay in your comfort zones. Today, I am proud to say I am an atheist and damn proud of it. Thank Adam for your story.
Best wishes for this next phase of your life, Adam.
Thank you so much for sharing.
It is certainly painful to leave a comfortable place but there are plenty of rewards waiting for you!
My best wishes for the future!
Thank you very much for posting this. The more we hear from people who have had the scales drop from their eyes, the better we know what to say to help others.
This is beautiful. I couldn’t help but to cry while reading this. The feelings are ao familiar but it was not a perspective I had really embraced until reading this. Being young I am at a point where I am just deciding what I want my life to be. Once I was able to let go of god I completly let go. It was easier for me to beat up god and attack him for a while. Comedy has been very therapeutic for my deconversion process. It is very refreshing to take things to such a tender level. Such a genuine expression might really hit home for some believers on the fence. I love your story and admire that you were able to be honest with yourself even though it would have been easier not to. We need more members of the church to come out as nonbelievers to get rid of the atheist stigma. When I first called myself an atheist, I felt like I was calling myself something derogatory. Kind people like you have changed my view on that.
Im getting pretty old now. Was a Benedictine monk/priest in my young years, age eighteen to thirty. My loss of belief was a long process but am totally happy without it in my elderly years. Good luck to you as you begin your journey.
Adam, as you move on in your your new found reality, find comfort in the fact that nothing outside of you has changed. Reality has not changed. It is the same reality that existed even when you thought God was your reality. Nothing punished or protected you before except your own actions. That can only improve. So, It is the same world; how you look at it has changed. Indeed, you have removed your indoctrinated blinds which will allow you now to move around obstacles and pitfalls instead of falling right in as before. You will now use YOUR OWN Reason, Logic and heart as your new guide, instead of 3000 year old superstition, lack of reason, logic, and compassion; HUGE advantage. And find comfort also in another fact, Reason and Logic improves as you exercise it (Faith on the other hand, dumbed it down quite a lot). So, It gets better
Adam,
Thank you for your willingness to share the raw reality of how it feels to have such at deep and profound change. Leaving behind everything you were and/or thought you knew is very hard, but well worth all of the struggle!
I knew there was no god on the day I discovered there was no Santa. Even at the naive age of six, I felt only anger for having been lied too by those you trusted. Over the years I eventually realized how limiting and destructive religion really is. Religion has become the source of all evil on earth and a real detriment to the survival of mankind because of it’s lure of personal immortality.
I’m glad that you realized the truth at such an early age. For me, it took many many more years and I’ve just recently discovered that my faith is no longer a part of my life. Now, leaving the ministry is my number one priority.
Religion has blinded mankind of it’s true goal, survival of the species. The only possible immortality for humanity lies in science and the discovery of natures secrets. How else do we expect to evolve, leave this solar system and vie for continued survival in the universe.
We need to spread our seed throughout the universe and insure humanity’s immortality. We can base a world economy on science and space exploration instead of weapons and global pollution that serves to defeat natures goal, the survival of a species.
As sentient beings, it is our duty to continue recording our experiences of natures evolution and avoid extinction at all costs. What a selfless and intelligent goal this will
be for mankind to work toward together as a co-operative species.
I believed in Santa for years later than I believed in God. In fact I never believed in ‘God’, except to the extent that I never realised that people lie. As soon as I discovered that some people didn’t believe, I sussed it was an elaborate con. The Sting. Well done Adam. Humanity is amazing without ‘God’.
Thanks for sharing your story and poem. I have to point out that it was you all along, not God, who learned to love your neighbor, comforted yourself, gave yourself strength. Own these; they’re yours.
I lost faith in 2007. Evangelical for 25 years. Doctor in a small town. People still come to me because they think I am still a Christian doctor. Wish there was a local church like group for former Christians. I believe in community, not god.
Paul, One of the ‘graduates’ from The Clergy Project is involved with a group similar to what your talking about. Look up Recovering from Religion. You can also look for a Meet Up group in your area for former Christins.
Atheism is freedom. Scary, but very empowering, as you discover you’re free to make your own way, free to fail and learn, and free to accept responsibility. Free also of needing to have a “reason” for everything.
Do not lose “reason” or purpose. Shift it from the service of lies to the service of mankind. It is very important in the evolution of mankind to maintain purpose.
I, Too, am at peace and rest since God passed from my life. May Adam go from strength to strength
Hi Adam, thanks for sharing the story. I think your’s is a similar story to many who reach a point in life where the tougher questions and issues arising around their faith are not getting satisfactory answers,
Different people handle it in different ways. Some stick their fingers in their ears and hum louder when the skeptical voice tries to get them to listen to the question and they just carry on regardless in a insulated and hollow faithfulness. Others swing like a pendulum quickly to opposition assuming there cannot be an answer. Others do ask the questions and follow where it leads.
In my case I was a year or two out of bible college when I got honest enough with myself to admit that my faith wasn’t really mine at all but a synthesis of those who had taught me, befriended me and walked the journey with me. I’ve always been a lover of science, reason and logic but for the most part my faith was just a regurgitation of what my spiritual cohorts and teachers had input into me. It was then time to get honest with God. If his character is really what is portrayed (values honesty and integrity, knowledge and understanding, is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving) then he could handle – even smile – at someone genuinely seeking the truth, attempting to apply a critical mind to what is proposed. And so I came to him, wiped the slate as clean as I could and said “OK, I need to know the truth, I need to know what’s real, and it has to be based on something better than ‘it true because I said so’”.
So started the 2nd part of my lifes journey and it seems God did smile at my honesty and searching and honoured it, shouldn’t be too surprising really, he did say “ask, seek, knock”. 20 years on I’m still a christian and still regulary have to put beliefs and doctrines under the microscope or run it through a “baloney test”. Some are rejected, some I own now for myself and some I only hold loosely, happy to change or let go of in light of new evidence or understanding. I found there was no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Tough questions are usually answerable, but sometimes finding the answers takes us into places we don’t like to go – it always takes courage to stand up for honesty and intregity when there are others who have different agendas.
I commend your courage to stand and defend your beliefs. Christianity, as part of your belief, has adopted and adapted its observations of the psyche and moral behaviors of humanity over it’s evolution as a species. It is not godly edict.
You cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater if the baby never existed.
Christianity is the culmination of two 4th century myths; Judaism and Sun worship.
Emperor Constantine fabricated Christ (Son of God or Sun God) from the religion of his commoner wife, a Hebrew, and his own leanings toward sun worship.
You lift the baby out first. Who would ever try to empty a bath with the baby still in it?
Ah, but Yahweh is not solely a deity of love, compassion, and mercy. As a former pastor, I had to reconcile this concept and come to terms with the simple fact that “all just” and “all merciful” are simply a contradiction in terms. A ‘square circle’ makes about as much sense.
Mercy is the ‘refusal’ of justice; the replacement of what should be with done with something else. Yahweh claims in one breath to do this, and in another to eradicate his enemies. It is essentially matter and antimatter. While both exist, the two cannot coexist. Yahweh is either all merciful, or he is not. There is no middle ground.
I commend your search for the truth. However, I would recommend that you start without a preconceived notion that Yahweh exists at all. Start with a blank slate. See where that leads you. Backing up only to the point of dismissing specific doctrines or dogma is insufficient, if reality is to be assessed as accurately as possible. You must commit to starting from scratch; from the position of knowing ‘nothing’ at all.
I’d be curious as to how this form of pursuing the answers would play out. Either way, I wish you the best.
Trent
I believe your suggestion sounds like a good idea at first blush … but is impossible to do. To breath is to have a level of bias. That bias or world view colors all we see and think. So good luck trying to empty the thoughts. Peace.
What a lovely piece. Is there a melody of this song? A recording online somewhere? Just wonderful!
Brain,
Speaking for Adam, I can affirm there is a song in the words, but to protect Adam’s identity it isn’t included in the piece. Once he’s out, we’ll post it for you!
Thanks for Sharing!
~AP
Amazing story, lovely poem. Good luck my friend.
While I admire the strength of character of Adam, I can’t help but think that whatever it was internally that could let him believe in such delusions is still there.
The urge to externalise and personalise parts of his own psyche in this song shows that he still has a way to go to live within a different model of reality.
It just seems a good place to start to help other people, to show that this externalising and personalisation is the root cause of humanities ability to believe in the supernatural.
Matt, thanks for sharing. I would agree that we all have a ways to go in this journey. But here, unlike religion, we’re all fre to think and express the details of our journey. Adam and I are both still in ministry which forces us to keep one hand in the world of faith and one hand in the world reason. We both have an exit strategy and we are both working hard to complete it. I think that once ministry and faith are in the rear view mirror, it will be easier to walk this path and help others find their way.
~AP
Welcome to the realm of truth. From Portugal with a warm hug, if i may.
Portugal! Wow! Thanks for reading and sharing!
~AP
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Very beautiful and bittersweet. It is tough to be this honest with oneself, congratulations on doing so and on finding a way to make peace with it. Think of how many have not, cannot, will not, or do not do so and spend their lives racked with guilt and shame for no real reason. What God would want that??
The evolution from Christian to atheist for a clergyman must be more harrowing, but in the end, even more liberating than for a lay person like me who came oh-so-close to becoming a priest. I have a good mind to send this link to a clergyman I know who is “on the brink”.
Quarecuss, please share Adam’s story and this website with your friend! The reason we’re speaking out is to help others as they work through their doubts.
~AP
It is quite relieving to read such atheist self-revelations. In our religion book at school there were descriptions of hell that frightened me already as a seven-year-old. As a student, I got in contact with the Opus Dei by a French course organised by the Opus Dei. If you want to know what this means, Opus Dei’s basic text, The Way, by Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, is online. For another year, I fell back into a terrible fear of hellfire. With the help of my very understanding mother I could somehow free myself of this fear before becoming a member. Later in my life I also had bad experiences with other religions. A muslim also told me I would go to hell for eternity if I didn’t embrace Islam. But now I definitely have embraced reason, I keep a safe distance to missionary people and still enjoy very much reading such relieving atheist texts. I’m very grateful for them!
Monika,
I understand the fear of ‘hell fire’! I was raised on a steady diet of graphic warnings of what would happen to those who didn’t believe in god. I’m so happy that we’ve found reason! It’s nice being able to pursue the joys of life without being manipulated by religion.
Your mom deserves an award for being so understanding and helping you as you dealt with your fear.
I like your advice, ‘keep a safe distance from the missionary people’.
Thanks for sharing!
~AP
Healing of the human psyche from a traumatic awakening can be an arduous task even for those who have not become entrenched with specific indoctrinations. In medicine it is as important as drugs, surgery and physical healing. Religion is as powerful as a drug dependency and must be treated as such when those inflicted seek help. Withdrawal and increased anxiety are common in both situations.
The purpose therefore, becomes one of understanding and consolation of the injured psyche. Conflict belies the efficacy of proposed treatments. Humans are social animals and can become vehemently opposed to any disruption in their social structure. Support groups, as those proposed in this discussion, must be made available for all those seeking truth, not just the converted clergy. The largest hurdle for those inflicted is social acceptance and personal comfort.
To replace the feeling of comfort and protection (even in death) that religions provide, one must propose a better purpose in life. One that elevates the self-preservation of the individual to a higher purpose; the support for immortality of the human species.
Life is fleeting where purpose is removed. The true purpose to life, as supported by nature, is survival. Our goal is simply to record our existence and nature’s evolution. This purpose is fraught with pointlessness when faced with the paradox of our eventual mortality. However, when presented as axiomatic proof that the human species has the ability to survive, evolve and obtain immortality; acceptance of this truth will elevate the purpose of all humanity and promote a real desire to co-operate in understand natures secrets.
Life goes on regardless of humanity’s existence. It will be a failed experiment of nature if our extinction prevails and we are banished to oblivion. Life requires purpose.
My heart goes out to all of you. I will pray that what you seek from this world you find. It will only be then that you realize what you had. Can someone point out the inconsistenences in the bible? I’ve looked and I can’t find them.
Very easy. Go onto Richarddawkins.net and click on archives. Or click at the top, a topic, for example, virgin birth, God’s wife, Adam’s first wife, etc. The Bile is full of holes. ‘The Elephant in the Room’ deals best with biblical inconsistency. It’s also very passionate and at times very funny. Trust me, you need to know about this. Decide after you know the facts.
Hi Raymond. I am sure you mean well, but I can assure you that things don’t work the way you think they do. Letting go of the god belief takes time and agony, but after it is finally acknowledged that there are just too many problems with the concept for it to be real “the god-shaped hole” starts to heal and reality starts to seep in. Life just goes on as it did before, except for the gnawing doubts and the denial of reality.
While there is a certain nostalgia for the emotional part of the experience, the lost community and fellowship with those who (supposedly) share your emotional belief system, there is the realization that the cognitive development is a one-way street: there is no possibility of return unless one loses one’s memory and/or becomes senile or insane.
I left the church after a short time. My loss of faith was a process. Being raised in a conservative church I never could ask the questions
I truly had. It took 5 years to accept my lack of faith. I feel so free and at the same time a child who needs support. Its a good ride.
Thanks Bruce! It’s nice to hear from someone ‘on the other side’. It gives me hope.
~AP
Raymond–Just for quick few: Did Noah take animals all in pairs or sets of 7 for the “clean” ones and pairs only for the “unclean”? How many days did it rain for the flood? Did Noah send out a raven first or a dove? And that’s just one story.
I am one of the lay leaders of a small Jewish congregation and what was liberating for me was rejecting anthropomorphic God and accepting that wherever there is something I find sacred: life, love, beauty—that is the deity. I won’t call the sacred “god” because there is too much baggage that goes with that name. But respecting the sacred has brought me peace and finding those teachings within the Torah that that teach respect of sacred so I can share it with my congregation brings me inspiration and guides how I live my life. If you believe anything in this world is sacred, then you may be agnostic but certainly not atheist.
Why is your deity confined to the positive? What then is darkness, chaos, and evil? Did your deity manifest these qualities of life into existence as well?
It’s all too easy to see “the deity” as warm and loving, while glossing over the contrapuntal dissonance the inverse provides. For that matter, evoking a characterless deity should encourage one to consider deism and drop any ties to the abrahamic histories altogether.
Food for thought.
I, like Raymond, have not found the inconsistencies that have been referred to in these comments. The Bible was written over a time period of 1500 years by many many individuals. A few discrepancies here and there are likely but it seems, to me and many others, amazingly tight in it’s facts. I too search for truth but have not given up on God.
The Bible is very clear on the story of Noah so I’m not sure of the confusion. Noah was asked to take “7 pairs (male and female) of every kind of clean animal, and 2 (one pair male and female) of every kind of unclean animal. Also 7 pairs (male and female) of every kind of bird.” This same configuration appears in numerous places.
Regarding the number of days it rained, we are clearly told that it was going to rain, and did rain, for 40 days and 40 nights. Again, I’m not aware of any other numbers given… anywhere.
And in response to the bird that was released from the ark… you cannot be serious that we are splitting hairs over dove versus raven. But anyway… Noah sent a raven first who flew back and forth until the water dried up. Then he sent a dove… 3 times until the dove stopped coming back to the ark. Again… written clear as the blue sky.
I’m wondering if you guys even read the Bible you so love to try to discredit? Or do you just believe what people randomly post on these sites?
It saddens me that each of you has given up. But my question for you is… What if you’re wrong?
If I’m wrong, I’ll be in no worse place than each of you. But if I’m right?
I would suggest Raymond may find more related evidence of the discrepancies within the Bible by reading the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Torah and the Koran. They are equally as important in the evolution of the human psyche and human religious beliefs as the Bible.
They are all closely related in their religious evolution and most likely share the same deity. Yet, each decry the religious relevance of the other.
The author of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian named Sin-Leqi-Unninni, is known to be humanities first recorded author. Wouldn’t you know, the story had to be concerned with immortality.
‘Noah’ is the worst place for you to go. It’s copied from the Epic of Gilgamesh (and perhaps the Epic of Atra-Hasis). It isn’t a real event – it was only conceivable to peoples who believed that there was as much water above the dome of the sky as there was in the oceans! Try to stick to reality and history – Noah is neither.
Keepinthefaith: It seems so simple when the only things you read are written by people who share your belief system. The result is a set of specious semantic twistings that seem plausible because the alternatives are either not known, distorted by the apologists so that they do not accurately represent the real objection or are not attended to or remembered by the brain’s excellent comfort-orientated filter system.
The Faith starts to unravel the minute it is subjected to standard academic techniques of truth determination and you resolve to meet the highest standards of intellectual integrity and rigorous regard for cognitive honesty, regardless of how uncomfortable the implications of what you discover might make you feel. This means that serious consideration is given to arguments against your point of view from those who are thinking from outside the comfortable confines of your religious bubble.
No judiciary decision is regarded as just, fair or accurate unless it has been made after inviting and carefully considering the views of all parties. Any court that rules without first gathering the full range of evidence, arguments and opinions can be over-turned. If your religious beliefs are based on the biased self-serving input of one party’s opinion and their arguments against their cognitively distorted renderings of “opposition” arguments then you have made your decision on the basis of ignorance and prejudice. It might seem reasonable to you, but be assured that it won’t seem reasonable to anyone who has done the work and looked at a wide range of alternative opinions. Can you seriously claim to have done that yet? Or is your decision biased and inadmissible because you have not given opposing counsel due process?
right or wrong, you live your life in fear
As a minister I use to say what you just say …And it is a pretty self absorbed statement! If any of us are “wrong” we will likely live THIS life leading people down a “wrong road! How sad that would be. Avoid that what the hell attitude about this life. Please.
Just type Noah in the search bar at richard dawkins.net and you’ll find scholars and people from all walks of life, including the religious, discussing all this and more.
Raymond, what you describe as sacred: life, love, beauty, are all part of natures gift. These emotions have been programed genetically into your human psyche as part of your survival instinct. Though religion would deny this, these emotions are most likely part of all animal life. Other animals are not as evolved as humanity and therefore less complex in nature. Life should be sacred regardless of religion.
that is a very inspiring story…myself I had grow up in religion and went into the ministry but didn’t stay long I knew it wasn’t for me. Over the years I had drifted away. I went to drinking heavy. When I got sober AA suggested I go back to my faith. I attempted for a year but it still didn’t do anything. As time went on I wonder through different faiths and within the last 5 years I have been proclaiming to be an athiest. It has been more freeing…no box to stay in…no god watching over my shoulder with every thought or action….I am responsible for my thoughts and acts no god or devil…I am Free to be Free and it is such a great feeling!
You said it! Freedom is a wonderful thing!
~AP
You are also free to behave in a morally responsible manner without your ethics being warped by the culturally and time-specific distortions of a particular religious faction. It is so much harder to behave honorably and compassionately when all moral thinking is filtered through religious lenses.
Now you can make moral decisions on the basis of what is best for all humanity, regardless of creed, breed, gender and sexual orientation.
Now you can compassionately provide other people with their real needs, instead of being blinded to many of them.
You are free to develop to the highest levels of moral reasoning (Kohlberg’s Level 5 and 6) instead of having your thoughts bound to the childish levels of uncritical acceptance of external authority.
Congratulations! You now have the potential to be a much nicer person.
Your growth to balance is an amazing challenge for everyone of us. Thank you!
In order to understand ones beliefs one must be able understand the beliefs of others. In order to insure ones rights one must insure the rights of others. This is the very fabric of an intelligent, productive society. Beyond mutual respect humanity must share a common goal.
Religions of various beliefs have driven humanity’s common goal throughout the evolution of the homo sapien. Most, if not all, gods are gods of war. This can be witnessed by following human recorded history. The glorification of waring gods and war heroes looms larger than all other recordings combined.
The feral instincts of the grizzled alpha are still rooted deeply in our human psyche and demands our attention regardless of it’s destructive tendencies. We cling tenaciously to the tenants handed down from generation to generation grasping tightly to the gold ring of immortality.
The problem with that thinking in today’s world of over 7 billion people is the inability of humanity to sustain this cellular human lifestyle. We are outgrowing our environment due to our growing mastery of manipulating it. But, our human psyche has still not evolved to the level of coping with the problems this creates.
There are two obvious solutions to this conundrum:
1. Adhere to our waring gods tenants and destroy our enemies for the personal good, survival and immortality of some of humanity.
OR,
2. Turn our attention toward a new common goal. A goal that is all inclusive for the health of global societies and sustainability of human habitat throughout the world and beyond. This for the greater good, survival and immortality of all humanity.
Personally I prefer the latter solution. We have to come to some consensus globally on solving these problems created by our advancing technology. What better way than to use that same war driven technology toward saving all of mankind. The route to human salvation remains on a path less journeyed. The path of human consensus, compassion and co-operation.
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I know it is presumptuous of me to think I can provide any meaningful support for Adam. I have no qualifications whatsoever, other than the fact that I am now 70 years old, and relate completely to your journey.
I was raised in a very conservative Catholic family and community. I swallowed every god, devil, angel, myth and ritual. The only thing I remember ever giving me pause was that I could not “open up my heart” and hear Jesus talking to me inside of my head. Of course that was because of my inadequacies, and certainly not because there was no Jesus to talk to me inside of my head.
Fortunately, I never did enter the priesthood. Not because I didn’t think that I should, but because I didn’t consider myself worthy. If I couldn’t resist masturbating, even though I knew it offended Jesus and would ultimately send me to Hell, how could I possibly, horned little devil I was, be able to take a vow of chastity for my whole life.
As a young adult, and over the years, I did have to give up some of the more irrational beliefs. It didn’t bother me to realize that Jesus was just mythological, or that there really were no such things as evil spirits hiding in every dark room. Because I still clung to the belief there was this all good supreme being, who was a judgmental SOB, and was going to send my immortal soul to Hell for all of eternity.
I can still vividly recall the day that IT happened. It was a beautiful Sunday morning. I was alone on my back deck, my wife and two teenage daughters were at Mass. I was drinking coffee, eating popcorn, and reading the Sunday paper.
I had been going through some mental gyrations on the existence of the Devil. I wondered how God, being all-good and all-powerful could allow the existence of an evil spirit. My conclusion, since I was assuming the existence of God, was that the Devil could not exist. I wish that I knew the Epicurus riddle at that time.
The night before a thunder storm brought lightning that had hit a tree in our back yard. A large branch had been torn off. Looking at the tree I could see the main trunk exposed. I suddenly realized that my thinking had been like looking at that tree. I had been thinking about the existence of the leaves and the branches, when I should have been thinking about the existence of the main trunk. I realized the fact that there is no God in reality.
The acknowledgement of this reality scared the sh*t out of me! I was so terrified that I went inside the house and turned a football game on the TV. I could not bear to think about it. It was so frightening to consider that everything I thought was real was really based on fantasy. I was afraid I would have to go back and rethink the very core of my personality.
But after my subconscious wrestled with this new cognitive dissonance for a few days, I did go back and revisit the subject. And I found it so calming. Maybe I did have to go back and rethink some of my morals, but it now was so easy. It is so easy to think of reality through the prism of reality.
Atheism has led to me being a much better person. I am more empathetic to my fellow human beings without the us vs. them of religion. I am a much more moral person with my morals derived from humanism rather than ancient mythology. And best of all, my self-image has recovered now that I do not have to fail in my life goals.
Now that I have retired and have a little more time and now with my atheism helping me to understand reality, I am writing a book. It is about the modern day risks and dangers of allowing religious people to have control over us. From a local prosecutor who said Jesus helped him solve cases and then railroaded an innocent man into prison. (And who is now under indictment for perjury.) To Ronald Reagan who believed nuclear war was inevitable because it was revealed in the Book of Revelation. To George W Bush who believed Ezekiel had revealed Gog from Magog was really from Moscow, and we had to position our military north of Jerusalem.
So the point of this meandering missive (other than to organize my own thoughts) is to point out something I’ll bet you have already figured out. There is no void without God. There is tremendous calm and understanding in reality. How could there be a void when nothing disappears?
Thank you for posting this. I’m not in a position to really understand everything you describe just at the moment, as I’m currently working through a lot of issues around my own waning faith (in fact, I started blogging for exactly that purpose), but it’s good to know that there’s life “on the other side”.
I’d be interested in hearing more about how you handled “coming out”.
Actually, I’m still working on the ‘coming out’ part and so is Adam. I don’t know that there is one right way to do it. There are so many variables to consider when you come out. But despite the difficulty, I know that being able to live an honest and open life will be worth all the difficulty.
I do know that my exit will be as quickly as possible. I just want to make sure my family will survive.
Sorry, thought I had the details in my profile, and I feel a bit uncomfortable about coming onto someone else’s blog and plugging my own. I’m at http://recoveringagnostic.wordpress.com.
I’ve got to straighten out my thinking first, and once I’ve worked out where I want to be, try to work out how to get there with the minimum of fuss. But there’s a reason why I blog anonymously.
“There is no void without God. There is tremendous calm and understanding in reality. How could there be a void when nothing disappears?”
I relate to that. It was a surprise to me, too. I had spent so long in the evangelical movement that I expected to feel some kind of “hole” where my religious beliefs had been. I didn’t.
Once I got over the initial anxiety of living with the realization that there was no comfortable hope of immortality, lIfe just went on pretty much as before. It was several years later before I could sit back and reflect on how much I had gained. It was several more years before I could wonder how my brain had managed to filter out the craziness of the whole Christian package that now seemed so blatantly obvious. Indoctrination is indeed very powerful.
I was lucky that I didn’t make it past the first year of candidacy for the ministry.
When I was in the process of going through the screening process I was approached by several ministers of the church who tried to talk me out of candidacy. I didn’t understand what they were trying to say at the time. One later confirmed that he was a trapped athiest, but could not tell me so at the time. There were oblique references to the difficulty of getting out of the ministry once a person was in and suggestions that the desire to help people could be met by training for social work of psychology.
I eventually opted for the last mentioned, the study of which nailed the religious coffin very firmly shut. Cognitive science and Christianity are incompatible unless a person can build an impregnable mental wall around the religious beliefs. Such cognitive encapsulation keeps the irrational beliefs from being “contaminated” by incompatible knowledge and prevents a person from substituting well supported methods of truth exploration for the extremely unreliable ones used by religious apologists.
amen, sista.
I’ve lost contact with both of the people I am thinking about so I don’t know whether they are still in the ministry or not. I know that another person I had long chats with during my psychology training years was a Presbyterian Minister on extended leave. He had ceased to believe in gods quite some time before we spoke. To my surprise, when he retired from running the department he went back into the ministry and ran a remote country parish (who would have been quite conservative.) I have no idea how he lived with the cognitive dissonance, but I am sure he knew exactly how to label it appropriately
The problem with world politics is the penchant for flying under the radar of religious attacks. They point out the atrocities of the human psyche but, they cower from the task of illuminating the reason behind these atrocities; Religious beliefs.
Religions that promote war in the name of their god are much too inflexible for today’s societies and refuse, or are incapable of adjusting to the huge amount of scientific knowledge being thrown at them. This creates confusion and anxiety among most of the unenlightened followers, most of humanity I’m afraid. Remove the reason for the problems (religion) and most problems will resolve themselves. Especially if encouraged by pro-humanity propaganda and education. The world requires a great leader to step forward and guide the world to a new purpose: the immortality of Humanity. This leader would fulfill most religious doctrines and prophecies by bringing a complete & final end to the world ………………………. of religion. How appropriate!
I think that formulation is too simple. According to the research, violence is multi-causal. The largest factor, which causes both war and religion, is poverty. In places like the US, where education is a commodity and not a right, is also results in poor education and ill-health, both of which feed into the consequential cycle of poor job opportunity and continued poverty.
In highly socialized states, like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, poverty is minimal, basic health care is free and the average level of educational achievement (don’t confuse with the years of education or named degrees of non-uniform level) is the highest in the world.
Take away the main fears and uncertainties in life and people prosper, feel happy – and lose belief in supernatural entities.
In other words, religion is an effect more than it is a cause.
Darn the lack of editing facility.
I meant to say that in places like the US where both education and basic health care are commodities rather than human rights people who have the misfortune to be born into poor families, inherit poor genes or contract the illnesses more prevalent among the poor, are trapped in a cycle of poverty. Religions flourish in such circumstances. This combination of factors is endemic to America’s rural south.
One requires further research into the natural behavior of an animal species concerning survival of the individual and the species. All species exhibit some form of co-operative behavior with it’s own species and whatever species provisional for it’s survival (food source eg.) There is an inherent symbiosis, a mutual respect. Without this natural connection, survival is severely compromised if not impossible.
Poverty within humanity is not created by natural factors such as lack of available food supply or resources. Conversely, human poverty can be attributed to the inequitable distribution of the worlds available food supply and resources. These inequities are created by an unhealthy psychological development of humanities natural tendency to share.
The human psyche has been conditioned to ignore these natural tendencies to share due to religious indoctrination. Sharing is no longer practiced in the name of survival but, in the name of god and country. Both ideologies (god, country) promote personal sacrifice in support of the common good of church and state, not the species. They defeat the purpose of our very survival as a species. Immortality of the individual and not the species flies directly in the face of our natural evolution.
Religious indoctrination is a social sickness that invariably promotes unnatural tendencies toward human greed and self gratification while destroying respect for nature, humanity and life itself. It provides an ideal environment for control of the masses in supporting the greed of the religious leadership. Religion is the root of all evil. Without religion evil would not exist.
Education and health care, if controlled at a personal level cannot be compromised by governments or religion. Especially since the advent of the Internet. These political institutions provide services. They do not exclude provision of good health or higher education from alternate sources.
“Religion is the root of all evil. Without religion evil would not exist.”
While it is clear that a lot of problems stem from toxic religions I believe your extreme statement is nonsense.
In countries with little religion, measures of societal health are much higher than they are in countries of high religion, like the U.S.A. The virtually godless countries are not, however, without any crime. People still murder each other for passion and sociopaths are still born. Evil is not confined to religion.
The converse is also true. In regions where there is a high level of religious belief measures of societal health are low but there are also some benefits from the beliefs and practice of religions. This may be in spite of, rather than because of religion, but it is important to acknowledge that religion does not warp the humanity from everyone completely.
It is interesting how you relate poverty, evil and crime. Your religious indoctrination still runs deep. These terms and conditions exist throughout humanity due to religious social structures and are not due to lack of food or resources available in the world. In other words poverty, evil and crime are more prevalent in religious societies because in secular societies they are viewed as social problems to be solved by consensus, compassion and co-operation, not as crime, evil or poverty. Religious societies are driven by wealth, power and greed; (religious terminologies).
Religions were created by brilliant, unstable, greedy, power hungry minds with the sole purpose of controlling the masses in a subservient role known as slavery. Poverty, evil and crime are terms used by the powerful to describe unwanted behavior of slaves and their social problems. Does Constantine ring a bell? Evil is a term coined by religion as anything ungodly. Crime is breaking society’s laws, loosely based on religion. Murder, as you pointed out, is present in most societies, less so in secular societies. No society is perfect. These behaviors are the result of human mental disorders and are usually attributed to inequalities within our societal structures. Poverty is a sick aberration of humanities tendency to share created by greed within religious beliefs attributable to the promise of immortality.
I believe our discussion on cause and effect has been reduced to the chicken and the egg scenario. We can agree to disagree but, I hope we both agree that the strangle hold religions have on the human psyche need to be politely removed by humanitarian, secular societies. Survival and the continuance of the species is natures true goal.
May your short existence in this vast universe be filled with peace, good health and natural discovery. Amen.
Not convinced.
There is a huge literature on the causes of crime, including murder. Societal inequality is a large factor and mental disorders a small factor. Although there is a positive correlation between religion and crime, social inequality and some mental disorders there is absolutely no support from well conducted studies for the notion that it is the greatest or only factor.
We’ll just have to disagree on the extent to which religions cause evils, but not on the demonstrable fact that they do exacerbate or contribute to the problems.
Thank you for your doxology
All religions promote slavery. It is the sole purpose of any religion to subordinate the “Flock” (sheep). That is the reason for prayer. It gives the “Lambs” a false sense that their faith will cure all problems. Exactly what greedy, soulless(devoid of morals) religious leaders depend on to control the masses and mindless governments. Gods never answer prayers. Religions are completely involved in wealth, power and control in order to take advantage of the vulnerable, the powerless and the “religiously” exploited. Secular governments rejects faith and prayer and actually “do” something about their social problems.
Extravaganza in sport, fashion, entertainment, industry, military, religion, etc. (monoliths in human evolution) primarily feed off human need and emotional weaknesses to amass great wealth in the name of profit and greed.
Profit is good only when it supports society (Capitalism at it’s best). Otherwise, it is singularly greedy (Capitalism we all know). If profit is to help humanity it should not be held in escrow by these selfish aforementioned organizations. Instead of being supported by governments, they should be heavily taxed by governments.
Taxation will not destroy these industries (maybe religion??) because most of the world’s population are emotionally crippled and heavily dependent on them. Otherwise, these organizations could not exist in the first place.
Legalize all human behavior, where it is consentual (murder is not one of them because it’s not consentual) then tax those who profit from it in support of humanity. It hasn’t happened as yet because religious governments are controlled by these organizations through lobby groups and palm grease. Not necessarily so in secular governments
This is so moving, yet so difficult. I was “saved”/baptised at the age of 6. The day of my baptism I felt the “call” to be a missionary. I believed that till I graduated from highschool. I bounced back and forth between faith and doubt throughout my degree. Not until my last semester have I settled into knowing that I do not believe in God.
Yet, it is still so hard to say certain things. Like the simple statement, “Goodbye, God.” I do not even believe he would be there to hear me say it. Yet, saying something like that personifies the concept in a way that almost resurrects him in my mind. It feels like seeing a ghost and honestly wrenches my heart.
I can’t say goodbye yet. But I am grateful for your post. It has given me some good thoughts to process.
Great stuff, pal. I share a similar experience.
Me as well … after 45 years of christian living. I find I am pretty pissed at a god who i now think never was there. which is another way (actually) of being being pissed at those (mother and church folk) who chose not to tell the truth of their own doubts. Certainty or false certainty is a pretty evil dilemma.
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