Jeff's Lunchbreak

If you're at all familiar with the skeptical blogosphere, you've probably heard of PZ Myers' blog, Pharyngula, and you may even have heard of his 'Why I Am an Atheist' series. He put out a call for submissions for people to tell their own stories, and has been publishing those stories on a regular basis (here's an example of one of my favorites.) I sent in my own essay - we'll see if it ever gets posted on his site. It's a bit of repetition of things I've already said on this blog, but it brings them all together in one place, so I thought it would be nice to print it here.

I grew up in a religious house. We went to church every Sunday; my mother was director of the CCD program; my brothers and I were even altar boys (with none of the controversy that has come to light recently). This wasn't all just ceremony. I sincerely believed in God and Jesus, and thought I could feel His presence when I prayed.

But as I got older, I began to question my religious beliefs, and eventually realized that I'd been mistaken. There was no moment of epiphany. The gradual realization came after several years of research and intense self-reflection. I didn't become an atheist just because I didn't like going to church Sunday mornings, or because I didn't want to have to follow the rules anymore. I don't "hate God" (it's a little hard to hate an entity you don't believe in). I read the Bible. I studied science. I read up on philosophy. I became an atheist because that's the way I think the universe really is. But don't confuse atheism with Postmodernism or Nihilism. I still think there's an objective reality. I still worry about how to be a good person. I just no longer see a god as being part of that.

While there were numerous initial seeds of doubt, the process began in earnest in an attempt to reconcile the Bible with the actual history of the planet as revealed through geology and biology. It was at the time Intelligent Design was making big headlines. I'd just recently learned how many people were creationists (prior to that, I'd naively thought most people accepted evolution and the ancient age of the Earth), and it made me wonder if I was being a bad Christian for not taking the Bible at face value. So, I looked into evolution and creationism in a lot more depth than I had before. The evidence for evolution and an ancient Earth are even more overwhelming that I'd already known, and there's really no doubt over them. But still being a good Christian, I vainly thought I'd be able to write a convincing essay showing how the Bible could be interpreted figuratively and still be accepted as true. However, by the time I'd finished researching the essay, I realized that the Bible couldn't have been divinely inspired. I didn't give up Christianity all at once with that realization, but it was a big first step, and within another year or two, I'd basically become an atheist. Obviously, there was a lot more to the process than just realizing that Genesis wasn't accurate, but that could take an entire book to write. [cough, cough - $4.99 from Lulu (or free online)]

This period is also when I took on the responsibility of becoming a father. In fact, once I began having doubts about my religion, this responsibility was one of the main things that drove me to research the issue further - how could I teach my daughter things that I wasn't sure of myself? At first, as a Christian, there was no question on how to address religion with her - respect everybody's views, but Christianity was the true religion. But once I started having my own doubts, things weren't so easy. I'm pretty sure I'm right in my atheism, but I want her to think for herself, and I don't want to indoctrinate her into any particular view like I was into Christianity. So, I make sure that she understands that she's going to have to decide these things for herself.

Until very recently, my daughter went with one of her friends to her friend's church every Wednesday night - kind of like Sunday school, except, well, on Wednesdays. So in addition to me trying to teach her about various religions, she got to hear about Christianity from actual believers. The thing is, without that strong pressure from parents to accept Christianity, it's not an easy thing for kids to swallow, especially when they're being raised with a respect for science. I don't mean to say that religion and science are necessarily antithetical, but science teaches you to question everything and look for evidence. In that sense, faith just doesn't cut it.

Now that I have questioned religion, there's no going back. I didn't simply choose to be an atheist. I studied all the evidence I could find, initially in an attempt to become a better Christian, and atheism was the unavoidable conclusion. I could no more choose to go back to being a Christian than I could choose to go back to believing in Santa Claus, or choose to believe that the Earth is flat. I opened Pandora's Box, and it can't be closed again.