Mom thought that I stopped going to church because I thought that I was “too smart” for church and would give me her disapproving look when she said so. But it wasn’t hubris that led me away from my former belief(s), I really wanted the things that I believed in to be true. If only Reality was like what I thought it was as I was reading through the New Testament and learned about the First Century church and their communal lifestyle, waiting for the imminent second coming of the Messiah. I got into this because I knew that something was wrong and Jesus was the solution and that sounded good to my 15-year-old heart. 

Turns out the sincere wishes of a confused teenager are not necessarily the best way to judge things. Two years of home bible studies expanded out to undergraduate religions studies courses with Jesuit professors at Loyola Marymount university, then pivoted to a B.A. in Biblical Studies from Biola University and then a brief dabbling of graduate level theology course at Fuller Seminary. On the non-school side, my allegiances switched from non-affiliated bible thumper to Catholic Charismatic to Calvary Chapel groupie to conservative Presbyterian adult, back to non-affiliated believer to disaffected observer. From those early days of sensing that something was amiss that needed to be healed through God’s mercy to every version of faith that I attempted, it was really beginning to feel like the game was rigged. The best analogy that I could imagine was that it was a bit like going to the chiropractor after which I’d feel great but then I’d have to come back to a few weeks later because nothing was really “fixed,” even though I did feel “better.” It never dawned on me that there was even another choice besides trying to “believe better.” And I was right there thinking that Atheists had no better solutions or proofs for their belief that there is no God(s). 

Getting divorced in the middle of all of this was a definite WTF moment for me because it was certainly not an option in my mind, but here I was choosing to end a relationship that I swore to God that I would keep until I died. But it felt like whatever love that had been there was gone. How could that be? Love is supposed to be forever. It comes from God and God is forever. What am I doing wrong? Well, I knew asking that question, that would probably lead to a very long list. So, in the process of separating and eventually divorcing my wife, I decided to make a break from whatever it was that I had been trying to do with God for the previous 15-years. Let’s see if “figuring it out for myself” was going to be any better than what I had been doing as a believer. 

Honestly, it wasn’t that great, but whatever mistakes I made, I owned them and didn’t look for anyone to save me or fix me. I tried to be the best me that I could be, but in the end, whatever failings I had, that was part of me too. Oddly, 15-years into this non-believer experiment, I crossed paths with an ex-girlfriend from the Biola days and that led to a tumultuous 5-year affair that somehow made me question my unbelief and try to make that all work again. Yeah, both the affair and the return to church ended with me learning a lot about myself and choosing to never do that again. I actually really loved the people I met and worked with at the various churches I attended and volunteered at. That’s where and when I learned about the importance of community and working with others (lessons echoed with my experiences working on online degrees at Pepperdine University). 

I get that believers try to understand the actions and worldviews of others through the lens that they see the world through. Having a religious belief is an amazing organizing principle to life and seeing the universe via. From the seven-days of the week and what we’re supposed to do with all that time, to seeing history in 2,000 year chunks from us to the Messiah, to the Kingdom of David, the Exodus, the Flood, Creation. Everything seems to fit in all of their proper places. That’s where my journey began and I worked around all of the inconsistencies and vague problems for a very long time. But I eventually learned that the world is a much bigger place than I could even imagine and that it was foolish for me to explain the behavior of others except to accept their explanation if they offered one. Just because I had a religious experience that led to my belief that then I added religious proofs to in order to strengthen my beliefs doesn’t mean that others go through the same process to exist in whatever worldview that they exist in. By definition my Faith existed because of an unexplained experience that I later interpreted with a Christian worldview. Others who hold to other worldviews may have never had a personal unexplained experience (of the holy) or arrived that their worldview through entirely different paths. 

I certainly didn’t arrive at Atheism through anything remotely looking like a straight or entirely rational path. I don’t know if I would have stayed on the path of belief had a divorce not interrupted my journey. I definitely didn’t get here because I thought I was smarter than “God.” I wish I could say that I got here because of a long academic struggle with the Problem of Evil, etc. But it was a combination of things, both personal and philosophical. I get why many atheists are insulted when believers reduce their worldview to being just another “belief.” Many of us went through a hell of a lot of struggle to distance ourselves from prior superstitions and lies that we were born into or later adapted. So anything that has the stink of all that old, unexplored foolishness is not going to not sit well with non-believers. But I’m also getting to the age where I don’t really care if a believer is unable to grasp why I’ve chosen otherwise and if it’s someone I have ongoing interactions with, I’ll just appreciate their humanity and the differences between us. 

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Tags: atheism, in bad faith, meditations on, personal faith, rationality

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