It was sometime in the fall of 2011 that I knew I didn't believe in God or the like anymore, but the journey started much earlier.
Growing up, it was instilled in me that I was alive because God put me on this earth and it was my duty (once I had accepted Jesus and been forgiven of all the sins I had somehow committed in my already short life) to serve God and do his will out of love and gratitude for my salvation and ticket to heaven. I was OK with that for a long time because that was all I knew. However, through my childhood and my teen years, as much as I tried to "draw close to God", he failed to draw close to me. It was always about having a relationship with God and I had no idea how to do that. I'd talk to him but I never heard back. I never felt anything. Bible verses never jumped off the page for me. When I asked people how to have a relationship with God, they told me to pray, and worship and to read my Bible. I was already doing that. But I attended church anyway, led worship, prayed for people, and even preached a sermon and bible study, all the while trying to find God. I wasn't angry that it didn't seem to be working, I just figured there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't doing something right or well enough and I just needed to keep learning and trying.
I didn't say the sinner's prayer over and over during those years to make sure I was saved as some people feel the need to - I didn't doubt my salvation, but I did repeatedly "rededicate" myself to God because I knew I wasn't always living as the best Christian (which didn't necessarily mean I was doing awful things, but more like I wasn't reading my Bible or praying enough.) I realized that it was very easy to live life without thinking about God at all, but I didn't clue into the reason for that until years later. I just admonished myself for taking God for granted and tried to do better. Especially in my teen years, I was frustrated that God didn't "touch" me so that I could feel his presence like others could, or he wouldn't help me change my bad habits that I kept praying about, etc. I was really upset about these sorts of things for a while but then accepted them, thinking that I would just move on with life and if God ever wanted to do these things, he would.
When I graduated highschool, I was just working and going to church. I was reading my Bible, leading worship, praying, tithing, going to church, etc, that all Christians should be doing but I realized that was the only reason I was doing them - because I was supposed to. I decided to stop, only because I felt that I didn't have the right motives while I was doing all these things and figured I would start again when I could appreciate them. The best example is prayer: for the longest time, I would only pray when I needed something and it was usually those quick prayers you send up when you're about to take a test or you fall and pray that no one saw your clumsiness. My plan was to pray, only if it wasn't like that.
I never ended up praying again - not because I had nothing to pray for, but because once I had something worthwhile to pray for, I understood that it wouldn't make a difference. One of my friends was sick with stage four cancer and I did not pray for her. At this point, I still believed in God but not in prayer. I knew that whether I prayed or not, God would do whatever he wanted. It wouldn't matter if the whole world prayed for her, it was still up to him whether she lived or died. As if to prove my point, she died, in spite of many, many people praying for her on a regular basis. I refuse to accept that just because I didn't pray for her, she didn't survive, as if I was the one or last person God was waiting to hear from before he healed her. And that "God always answers prayer but sometimes the answer is yes, no, or I have something better" cliche is not worth bothering about because it still then comes down to the fact that our prayers are useless because God will do what he wants anyway. This is when I started having a lot of questions about prayer and a few other things, but I put them on the back burner.
I went to college. I think what really kicked my doubts into gear was reading a book about 3 girls who grew up in a Christian cult and finally got out. When I got to the end of the book, I was impressed that these girls could walk away from everything they knew because they had realized none of it was true or healthy. I wondered if I could ever do that. And then I realized some similarities between their cult and my upbringing. Please realize that I am not saying that I grew up in a cult; I don't really think of it that way, but some of the same fear and control tactics were used. For example, in both the cult and in my upbringing, it was understood that if you left the faith, you would not be under God's protection anymore and anything could happen to you, including the Devil coming after you. It was also understood in both that doubts were from Satan and you needed to pray against them and get them out of your head. Lastly, it was definitely understood that if you left the faith, and got hit by a bus the next day, you would go to Hell. No wonder I was so impressed that these girls could be courageous enough to leave those teachings behind. I knew that what their cult believed wasn't true, but they didn't always know that and yet they somehow got out of it. Then I wondered, what if someone else is looking at me that way? That what I believe isn't true and it's obvious to them but not to me - If I realized that Christianity wasn't true, would I be able to leave it behind? I decided then and there that I wanted truth, no matter where it showed up, no matter what the consequence. Soon after this internal decision, I was talking with an open minded friend of mine from college who said to me that she thought God created us with brains and common sense so we could use them. That really gave me permission to put my Christianity to the test. I decided that if Christianity is true, it should be able to stand up to whatever inquiry I throw at it.
Late 2010, I was considering if there was a God. At this point, I was too scared to even pretend there wasn't a God because God knew my thoughts and what if I died while I was "not believing in God" for a week? This pushed me to really look into things. I started to look into the Bible, to figure out how we got it, who wrote what, how it was put together and what it really says. I watched a documentary by Bill Maher and he asked someone in it, "If you grew up with our fairy tales in the Bible and our Bible stories as fairy tales, would you still believe the Bible?" I don't remember what the person replied with and I didn't know my answer yet either but I thought it was a valid point. When I looked into it, I realized that we have no more evidence for the battle of Jericho, Jonah and the Whale, the tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, or even the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt than we do for Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella or Rumplestiltskin. Furthermore, I was beginning to see the contradictions in the Bible for myself. I had always heard of the contradictions people claimed were in the Bible but I had never read the whole Bible and I just assumed that if all these people believe in the Bible and it's inerrant nature, they must have good answers to these claims. Turns out, they don't. By early 2011, I was moving from a belief in a personal God to a God that just created the universe but then had nothing to do with us since. I got to this point because I noticed that God made no difference in our world, but I still didn't understand how we and the world came to be so God must have still existed at one time or another.
The more I looked into things and considered Christian arguments for God, the more it was becoming clear to me that it was all made up. There's no reason for Christianity to be more true than any other religion. "Not all religions can be right, but they can all be wrong" is a quote I've seen around on the internet lately and it now makes total sense to me. Earlier I said that I would try to "draw close to God" and have a personal relationship with him and that it just never happened. I wanted to feel him or hear him and I never did. I have realized since that it's because I was trying to have a relationship with an imaginary friend and my brain wouldn't fall for it. I never allowed myself to fake anything or pretend to feel something. I was sincerely trying to be open and to reach out to God but I vowed that I would never trick myself into anything - I wanted any interaction to actually be God, not in my head. So no wonder it never worked. It makes no more sense for me to believe in Zeus or Santa than for me to believe in the Christian God. It makes no sense to believe in any deity at all is what I'm really trying to say. I know that believing in God is very comforting but in the long run, wouldn't it be better to realize there's no safety net to catch you before you walk out on the tight rope rather than running out in faith and falling only to realize there is only cement?
I may have not written everything I meant to and I may edit and add more later, but I am open for questions and discussion if anyone is not clear on anything or would like to know more.
I know that for many Christians, atheist is a bad word and conjures up a lot of negative feelings. For the people that know me, I want you to think of me and try to reconcile those two pictures in your head: the person you've known for quite a while (I haven't changed that much) and the kind of person you think of as an atheist. I am an atheist, but not likely the kind of atheist you pictured. I use the word Atheist because that is what I am (simply meaning I don't believe God exists) and hopefully, it will help to establish a more positive association to the word in your mind.
I do know that I feel incredibly liberated since becoming an atheist and feel that I am in a much better position to enjoy my life and make a difference in the world, now that I am not tied down with superstition. You should know that I am an atheist only because I've realized that God does not exist. I am not angry at God, or at the Christians I grew up with. I am sad for the people I know that still believe things I now think are superstitions because I think you can get a lot more out of life when you're not scared and controlled. (Some of you might say that you don't feel afraid or controlled, and I will tell you that I didn't either until I could see my Christian life from the other side.)
I am not an atheist because I want to sin and not feel guilty and get away with it. I feel I am more moral now, than I was before - now I want to do the right thing because all of us, is all we've got and we should take care of each other and not hurt each other and support humankind to go further and be better. I think it's incredible that we are here, not because God created us and the universe for us but because we've arrived this far through evolution in a universe that was not made to fit us but that we have adapted to survive in.
I am an atheist and it is a good thing.
I am excited to be alive.
wow deep. chervonne here. That was long! lol I agree with you ay, interesting alright
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