I was born and raised to be an atheist. Both of my parents, despite the disagreements they had on many matters, agreed that there is no god. They were always loving toward me, they were supportive to the best of their abilities, and they made sure I grew up knowing right from wrong. They also never took me to church, as there was no Church of Atheism.
As to my moral learning, there are several incidents that I recall from my youth that helped me to learn how to act in my world. The first I can recall is when my mother took me shopping at the local grocery store, and I was told "no" when I requested a certain toy. I decided to shoplift the item, and it was ridiculously easy. Later that evening, I was discovered with the contraband. Despite the time of evening, I was marched back to the store and ordered to give back my ill-gotten goods and apologize to the store manager. While this was a traumatic experience, it was a well-learned lesson, and it wasn't one accompanied by the violence of spanking.
My social development as a child was necessarily stunted because of the fact I never went to church. I was considered the neighborhood oddball nearly all of my childhood. This may have been due to my family's stance on religion. It may have been due to other factors, such as my limited social contacts. Of course, my social awkwardness may have been due to the absence of social training in a community environment. It's a chicken-egg type of question, but the fact is that I grew up as an outsider, and most of the time, I was quite comfortable with the idea.
As for religion, however, my life wasn't completely free of it. In a sense, I categorize the common belief in Santa as a religion, and I was indoctrinated to the myth of Santa from day 1. I believed in the child's god until I was able to notice some empirical evidence - one Santa I got close to had a fake beard. Second, when I was 7, my brother received a pinball machine for Christmas (yes, our family went in for Christmas - that and Easter were two of the few times they were allowed time off from work each year). That morning, among the wrapping paper and discarded boxes I found the assembly instructions. I reached the logical conclusion that these things violated the stated powers of Santa, and I stopped believing.
While I never went to church, there was always a tension in my life, the pressure to conform to the power of religion in the lives of those I knew. There were few invitations to join my friends at church. I don't know if my parents were ever invited, but I do know that social contacts were rare, and always through my mother - dad was quite reclusive while I was growing up. When I made it into junior high school, the conflicts between my "system" of beliefs and those of others became more pronounced.
I got into many conversations with classmates over religion and politics, most of which ended up with my opponents getting together and shaking their heads over how sad a case I was. This was due to my being both atheist and communist. Not a popular combination in Greensboro, NC during the early 70's.
In 1974, I went to Europe for a life-altering six weeks. I spent most of my time in Paris, where my sister was living, doing biological research, and agitating for the downfall of the bourgeois governments of all Europe.
While my sister was making her plans for later in the summer, she took the time to show me how to get around in the city, show me a few major items, and get me signed up for the international system of hostels. We visited Notre Dame, Saint Chappell, and several other major sites. After I'd been there a week, we left for Austria (on the Orient Express!), where her political party (the Sparticist League) was holding a "convention." I won't bore the reader with the pathetic details, as I prefer to write while awake. Just leave it at the fact that after two days, I left to explore Europe.
I spent July 4 of that summer in Venice. Being a greenhorn tourist, I failed to find any help in touring Venice and learning about the city in any formal way. However, this was not a totally bad thing, since Venice is quite a small place. I managed to get myself to the hostel and settle in for the night. The next morning, I took the water taxi to the main part of the city. I found myself in the most famous landmark of Venice, the Piazza di San Marco. Not knowing anything about it (I learned the name much later), I wandered to the nearest church, which was St. Mark's basilica.
I entered the church and gawked. Nearly all churches in Europe (at least the famous ones) are open to tourists. I wandered around. In my ignorance, I had no clue what the booths standing along a wall were for. As I wandered close, I noticed several people kneeling at the side of some of the booths, and it finally dawned on me that they were confessing to their priests. I was embarrassed to have intruded on something so obviously private.
That was my first major contact with the practice of religion (other than attending a completely incomprehensible Sunday morning service at Canterbury Cathedral on my first visit to Europe some years earlier). It left a major impression on my memory.
Later, near the end of my trip, I visited the little town of Rheims. It was the town with the second largest cathedral in Europe (if I remember correctly). By this time, I had become a little more savvy about touring, and looked for (and bought!) a tour guide booklet. While I was standing in front of that enormous edifice, I learned that many of the sculptural masterpeices on the building had to be accessed for photography by long and arduous climbs, because they were placed in spots where no person could possibly see them, either from the ground, or from any window. I was impressed. Skilled artists and engineers of the day had worked that hard to place beautiful and elegant works of art in places where they believed only God could see them! They weren't working to please any man - just God. It gave me things to think about.
The autumn of 1974 was packed with events. I was behind on getting my driver license, so I had to depend on my parents for rides. I got a job bagging groceries at Bestway (now defunct), and I got a girl friend. Her name was Lucretia T., and she shared my stand in the viola section of the school orchestra. She was deeply religious, and we had lots of long talks about the subject. When I finally told her that I was atheist, she said she had figured it out, and that she felt bad about it.
At about that time, another love entered my life, one Laurie K. For some reason, she latched onto me immediately, and boy! was she stacked! With the hormones raging in me, I considered my options. I knew Laurie was also religious (like every human being I knew outside of my immediate family!), and it was likely that the religion issue would kill my chances with her.
I also considered other things. Just before school started, I had injured my ankle ice skating. In the accident, I had been blindsided while hot-dogging through the crowd. The shock of sudden, unexpected pain had caused me to yell out for God to help me. I still remember it vividly. I considered the issue alone, at this point. The emotional issues were all in favor of giving in to the pressure (and I would have a better chance with the girl!). I turned to the intellectual issues. I knew much about the scientific theories of the origin of the universe - the Big Bang, nebulous formation, evolution and so forth. In my mind, it became a question of the origin of everything - could the universe exist without a creator?
When I decided to make the leap, I announced my decision to my parents. They were extremely disappointed, if not a little hostile. I wasn't surprised at this reaction, but I was a little disheartened.
In any event, what had happened was not that I had become a Christian at that point. I had decided to believe in god, almost exactly as a deist (which I suspect most "religious" astronomers are, by the way). At this time, however, I decided I needed to learn about Christianity, because it was the most popular religion (so far as I could tell), and because the love of my life at that time was Christian.
So, while our tenuous relationship was crumbling (though I was too inexperienced at the love game to recognize it), I visited a service at her church. It was Episcopal (meaning Church of England, though I didn't know it at the time), and I was surprised at the regimentation I saw. When they prayed, they would kneel, and they prayed a lot. They had responsive readings, including the credo, which mentioned the one, Catholic church. I was alarmed at this, wondering what I had gotten into.
Luckily for me (I suppose), this was my last real "date" with Laurie K. She was getting pressure from other girls who ribbed her about going steady with a geek like me, and I was (I freely admit) a major pain to be around. So I never returned to that church. Instead, I hooked back up with Lucretia T., told her I had converted, and asked if I could visit her church. She was happy to invite me, so I made my first visit to Immanuel Baptist Church.
The church was a well-known edifice on High Point road, just near the Greensboro Coliseum. At the time (early 1975), they were in the process of searching for a new pastor, having lost a long-time and beloved pastor (named Dr. Early) to the missionary field. As the interim dragged on, they had fallen back on the practice of having a different guest preacher come in each week. It was one of these preachers that made a memorable first impression on this budding Christian. When he got up to the podium to give a prayer to end the time of meditation, his first words struck at my mind. He said, "Our Lord, we come to you today to die."
I was stunned. I was tempted to drop the Baptist deal also, if they were all going to go on about dying. However, I decided I would soldier on, and give these folks a complete hearing. After all, I had had more than enough in my life of having people listen to me only long enough to find something to argue against. I kept going to church, studying with the high school Sunday school class.
At first, I had gotten a "condensed" bible (this was well before the days of the "Reader's Digest Bible"). It had the highlights, but no chapter/verse markings. When I found out that this was inadequate, I went in for the larger expense of getting a "Living Bible," which had the chapters and verses marked out (more or less). This was a strange book, because it was a paraphrasing of the King James Version, and not an actual translation from the old manuscripts, as you would think would have been desirable.
Soon, I was hop-skip-and-jumping my way through the Bible along with the rest of the teenagers, soaking up all the wisdom our Sunday School teachers had to offer. Most of what I heard sounded good to me. God loved me (each of us, personally). God had A PLAN. We could talk with God any time. God wanted only what was best for us (it became a little Calvinistic at times - bad things happened because God wanted us to become stronger, and God would never allow anything to happen that we couldn't handle).
We also had a few social events - lock-ins, retreats and the like. It was nice and touchy-feely at times. Being a lonely outsider most of my life, I soaked it all up. Of course, I kept many of my pre-religious biases and I worked to add in and reconcile my new beliefs with them. This process was hindered by many factors.
First, there were the people who look at belief systems as a group of monolithic, unitary wholes. If you choose one monolith, you must stick with it to the exclusion of all else. I was making an attempt to build a world view that incorporated all the things I held dear - the altruism and fairness of communism, the love and service of Christianity. I rejected the cynical view of religion held by Marx, and embraced the happiness and acceptance of being a member of the Church family.
Of course, few felt it possible to support me in this attitude. If you were a communist, you had to believe everything Marx wrote. If you were going to be a Christian, you had no choice but to follow everything in the Bible. Well, I didn't buy that attitude, and I'm afraid that this sowed the seeds for future dissatisfaction with my chosen path.
After many unpleasant discussions with various people, I decided it would be the better path to only discuss with people the things I could expect to discuss with a minimum of contention. Other items I had opinions about, I kept mostly to myself. I also developed a method for expressing myself on controversial subjects that involved what I think of as "shadow words" - words and phrases that had multiple meanings. I told myself I was expressing my opinions, though none too clearly. If people misunderstood me, that was their lookout.
This talent took years to develop, and it was a means of gaining acceptance where I feared my true nature would preclude it. This habit grew through the years, and is one of the reasons impelling a change today, but I digress.
As I went through the end of high school and into college (at UNC-Greensboro), I faithfully studied what I could about the Bible and Christianity. I always took an active role in religious discussions, and I sought out friends at the Baptist Student Union. The thing I liked best about this organization (and one of the things that gave me a good feeling about the Southern Baptist Convention in general) was that it was headed by a female minister.
While there, I indeed made a few friends, one of whom was to become my wife. We all had pretty good times, though if my memory serves me well, I didn't grow much in a spiritual manner. We had Bible study, and we did service projects, but Deb and I weren't that serious about religion at that point. We got into the routine of going to Immanuel on Sunday mornings, and we were an accepted pair there.
When we got married, we went in for a big church wedding. We took our bibles with us on our honeymoon, and had a few "devotionals" during that first week.
While we were still in college, we toyed with the idea of becoming missionaries. It was a concept presented to all college students, and I liked it. I felt very strongly that God would provide our needs while we worked to spread the Gospel, and I was excited about the idea of living a life more dependent on God, and dedicated day to day to that sort of service. Deb was also willing to consider it, but she was less excited about some things. Our big difference, though, came when we discussed whether to volunteer for foreign missions (my only choice) or home missions (Deb's only choice). Since we couldn't agree on this item (I didn't pray about it at the time - I knew what I was being led to do), we ended up doing nothing.
Deb and I did try to grow spiritually. In this department, I had much growing up to do. We tried to have evening devotions using a SBC-approved devotion guide, but they were a failure - often ending up in puzzlement, once ending in an argument. After a time, these wore thin and we discarded the practice. We were both in the choir, and we volunteered to be Sunday School teachers. Since Deb was in the Early childhood education program in college, we ended up teaching third graders.
Most of the material we were given to present was basic, innocuous stuff, about how to get along with other people, the more common situations a kid is likely to see in the life of the average third grader, the basics of moral behavior. However, at one point, we had a lesson on the creation. I told Deb I didn't believe the story of Adam and Eve literally. She appeared a little unhappy with this. I told her I still accepted the theory of evolution, but I reconciled the two concepts (evolution vs. creation) by introducing the concept of "controlled evolution." I said I thought God had directed the course of evolution to end up with humans. This didn't end the conflict (I don't think it did), but it was enough to drive it underground.
When we got married, Deb and I were still in college. Our first year was rough, financially. We got a small, affordable apartment about 6 months after our wedding (moving out of my parents' home was a big relief all around!), and I took on multiple part-time jobs to pay the bills. Shortly after getting out on our own, we accepted our first credit card, using it to pay for things we needed (like books for our classes). This started us into a cycle of deficit spending that was to dominate our lives for decades.
My attitude was that Deb was going to graduate soon (May, 1979), and get her first teaching job automatically - ah the trusting dreams of a deluded college boy! However, my religious faith came into play at this point. I had faith that God would help us, and I couldn't imagine Deb not getting the job that would (at that time) nearly triple our income and pay off our debts within a few months. I was actually looking forward to proclaiming the goodness of God in church, and starting to give the tithes we hadn't been able to afford up to that point.
Unfortunately, this expected victory over the evil world never materialized. Deb turned out to have problems in the job searching process. Her Cum Laude performance in what I had heard was a top-notch Early Childhood program didn't impress the local principals. Apparently, her interview manner left much to be desired. Her first job finally arrived about six months late, and it was a minimum-wage teaching assistant job. Well, OK, I thought. She can work up to teacher from there. Her creativity and education will be impossible to ignore for long. So God's intervention had started small - it would grow to a major triumph for our God-loving family!
Despite my faith that she would shine, nothing happened, and our pit of debt deepened. My understanding of the teachings of Jesus was that if you asked for something often, eventually God would give it to you. Read Luke 11:5-9. So I spent years waiting for the miracle of Deb's blossoming into a full-pay teacher. In the meantime, I was also expecting a miracle in my own chosen field - computer programming.
From the first day, I could see the Hand of God moving in my life. I had started college in physics (which I had lapped up so very easily in high school), but it hadn't worked out. Bad advice, and a deficiency in math from the time of junior high had doomed me in that field. So I switched to math (in which I was doing reasonably well) and concentrating in computer science.
In my first class, I got a truly boring instructor from Western Electric's Guilford Center to teach us about PL/I. He made the material sound so difficult that I was having doubts as to whether I'd be able to pick up anything. I was close to looking for yet another major, when the instructor was pulled from the course (he was transferred by Western Electric, I think). In his place was one of the best, most enjoyable, inspiring teachers I have ever encountered.
Suddenly, computers were the easiest thing in the world. I aced the course, and nearly every programming course I took after that. Yes, God had surely had a hand in that, I told myself. I had been led to a course I would never have thought to study on my own, and I loved it! It was a HOT profession - I'd have no problem getting started at $20,000 a year right out of college! Deb was going to be due for that leap soon, too, so things were working out!
Well, no. I failed every interview I took after graduating in 1981. Deb started telling me she didn't want to appear pushy when looking for a job, and others elbowed their way into classes she was better-qualified for. She couldn't get a reference from any teacher she worked with, and she was starting on an odyssey through multiple schools - the only problem was that her odyssey didn't lead to any changes that I could detect. I managed to land a job operating computers at Guilford Mills. I had some dim hope of "working my way up" to programmer, but that was not to be.
Our son James was born in 1982, and that brought more challenges to us. With the help of my parents and the folks at Immanuel Church, we made a good go of it, living in a mobile home. We were supported by the love and acceptance of the Church, and Deb and I readily participated in the parent-child dedication service, along with other new parents in the church.
Because of our work schedules (I being on 3rd shift), we had to cut back on our church involvement. So we started back as Sunday school students, studying under Daphene S. She was a full-blooded Lumbee Indian, and I respected her maturity and wisdom. I found it to be a joy to take part in her classes, and she came after a while to depend on me to help flesh out the lessons. Those were happy times for me, though I don't recall Deb taking much part in the weekly discussions.
Those were halcyon days, in a way. We were close to making ends meet (though I was still looking for some way to get into programming), and I was happy to play a major role in the nurturing of our son. At church, our pastor was a young, dynamic and liberal man who appeared to like me, the few times I was able to have conversations with him alone. James was developing quite well; it was a pretty good time.
I made a tragic mistake, professionally, by jumping away from Guilford Mills, and into a very similar job at a company called CSC (also now defunct). I only lasted a month, because I had no real clue how to work on a team. Suddenly, I was out of work, with a family to provide for and bills and no income beyond Deb's monthly check. In a bad time like this, I fell back heavily on my faith in God.
My father helped me get a job as a trainee in a machine shop. I worked hard 10-hour nights four nights a week for nearly a year. That lasted until I took off a week to baby sit with James while Deb went out of town for a religious conference (she was a local director for G.As). I was fired when I came back, due to a misunderstanding with the shift foreman. I still believed that God was in control, because I had landed a job at Brendles (also also now defunct), selling electronic equipment. A good step in the right direction, and God could only have been behind it.
At about this time, the movie "Gandhi" came out. Out of curiosity, I went to see it, and I was enthralled. Here was a man of God, as respectable and wise as I could imagine - yet he WASN'T a Christian! I found and read his autobiography, and was further intrigued. I found and read the Gita (one of the Hindu holy books), a book about Buddhism, and an English translation of the Koran.
I remember a couple of events from the Brendles days that influenced my religious journey. First, I came in contact with a hard-core bible thumper named Wes M. When he noticed that I was reading these "heretical" books, he wanted to help me get back to "the right track." He asked me what I was searching for. I told him, "Nothing. I'm just curious about other religions." I proceeded to tell him about how I admired Gandhi and his love of God, and his desire to do only God's will. Wes asked if the man had become Christian, and I told him "No." Wes laughed, saying, "Boy, did he ever make a big mistake!" I took that to mean that he assumed the man was in hell.
On another occasion, I mentioned to Wes that I was having trouble with my car, and I didn't have the money to pay for repairs. He said, "Oh, no problem! I'll just pray and God will fix it!."
I said I didn't think it would happen. He then said that since I didn't believe it would happen, God wouldn't answer his prayer. I just shook my head at this. If this sort of thing happened today, I'd challenge such a statement, asking just what sort of magical thinking was going on - why should my lack of belief keep God from doing anything He decided to do? I didn't think about this at the time, though. Live and learn!
While these things were going on, many things were happening in our lives. James was a toddler, being watched by my parents. I was working hard to make ends meet, and it was mighty hard to do, with still-growing debts, small pay, and an odd-ball schedule that changed every week. We muddled through, but it was hard. I found my faith slipping - after all, we had waited for Deb's "breakthrough" for almost 7 years. Deb was to the point of not even wanting to apply for a teaching position.
In the meantime, there were changes afoot in the Southern Baptist Convention. The fundies were gaining in strength, and working to push out the voices for pluralism. My views, many of which had never been completely accepted (though I had been, for the most part), were being attacked and belittled. I felt less and less a part of the church family. Over a short span of time, we lost the services of our young, liberal pastor, and took on Rev. Henry Newton. I never got a straight answer from him when I asked his view on the conflict in the convention, and I found I could never trust him.
I had never found a reason to believe in the existence of Satan or of hell. My own views were that God would take his saved into heaven, and end the existence of those who weren't acceptable. This was not a good time to believe such things. Even Daphene S., as bright and happy with learning as she was, didn't accept this belief. I found myself dancing around the subject one day, and I told myself I would prefer to keep silent, rather than go on deceiving those I cared about into thinking I believed as they did. In retrospect, I think this was the point at which I started considering pulling out of religion.
It is hard to remember, at this point so many years removed from that time, exactly how I viewed my relationship with the Christian God. I was one of those people who prefer to talk about God as a personal acquaintence. Well, it was a strange "relationship." I never spoke in tongues - overly emotional displays never went over well in this church. There were times during prayer services I felt warm all over, like I was a recipient of love. Musical events were my favorite times. Singing some particularly inspiring peice of music got me very emotional, charged up. There was my prayer life, also. I tried to keep that as private as I could, just talking with God. At times like this, I would ask questions to which I felt I had no answers. Often, an answering thought would pop into my head - and that was how I "got answers" to my prayers.
When I was just starting out in Christianity, I decided to read everything I could to take it all in. I read straight through the New Testament that first summer. I tried the Old Testament next, but got bored by the end of Genesis, and left off about half-way through Exodus (just before the interesting stuff starts!). After that, my bible readings were restricted to the verses needed for Sunday School, and occasional forays into the books of the prophets. I would often pick up the bible and look at pages randomly. I thought of this as letting God talk to me through scriptures. I usually found passages that I was able to think of as useful to me in my life in one way or another. However, it wasn't very satisfying as a means of listening to God, so I dropped it after a year or two.
When Daphene decided to leave the church, I was devastated. I had come to rely on her good humor and friendship quite a bit. I had been happy with my role in her class of being an augmenter of her material and of being one who encouraged other people. Now, this was mostly taken from me. Another friend, Ander W., took over the class briefly. It was OK, but the magic had gone for me. The class broke up shortly after this, when Ander's stepson was killed in an accident. It was a sad, hard time for all.
I stopped going to church, partly because it was no longer helping me to go, partly because of a spiritual struggle I had recently encountered. In one of the last classes I had attended under Daphene, a couple of things had happened that had a profound effect. We were studying the story of Elijah, and and come to the end with the prophet going up into heaven, and Elisha taking over. I read a little further into the story, and found a fateful verse: 2 Ki. 2:23-25. I was shocked at this little item, and I mentioned it to Daphene. She shrugged it off, as if she didn't want to discuss it.
Then, someone in the class asked her about whether God had been created. Daphene thought about it, but she had no real answer. She said something to end the conversation, something she hoped would cover her lack of an answer, but I could tell she was at a loss. Well, she was very fond of saying that God should be your focus, because people would eventually let you down. She was very wise in matters like this. One other way I felt let down was when I mentioned to her that I was having a hard time keeping my faith. Her reaction was very disappointing - she basically said, "Oh, that's nice. I'm sure it'll come out OK." So I continued my struggle alone.
My thoughts centered around several questions: Why would God allow a person who was in His church to go without the help he needed, even after asking for it? I asked several people for help, prayed for help, but no one and nothing came to help me. Also, the bible verse I read was, to me, inexplicable. How could this event be reconciled with a loving God? I entered into a state of flux - swinging between a desire to remain in the church, and a desire to leave it behind.
I went on rare occaisions to Sunday School, but I almost never went to the worship services. The pastor got his doctorate, but he never had anything to say that made much impression on me. The end came (finally) when I went to a Sunday school class, where the subject was prayer. It was a crowded class, and Deb was not there, having to work that morning. Every person in the room was getting along nicely, and I decided to put in a comment. I started with, "If people pray to God, hoping to change His mind..." but I got no further. Another class member (one who had gone on missionary trips to South America, and had been studying to become a minister) said, "Now let's get one thing clear: God never changes His mind!"
Well, I was offended by several things. First, I was offended at being cut off before I could make my point. Secondly, I was offended at the absolute tone of the interruption. But most of all, I was offended that no one stood up to this person to defend my right to speak or to tell him he should try to listen, or that he might want to wait and think before making such absolute statements. That was the straw the broke that camel's back.
Of course, that wasn't the moment of decision. I try to never be hasty over such an important decision. I withdrew into myself to consider the options. I was well on the way to leaving Christianity at that moment, but I felt I had to keep my mind open. I got onto the internet and looked up links to atheism, and found the Internet Infidels. I also purchased the book "Atheism: The Case Against God" by George Smith. I read as much as I could find on the positions against Christianity. I also purchased the book "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Philosophy."
After going through as much material as I could find on the "con" side, so to say, I started looking at the "pro." I looked with a more critical eye at religious TV programs. I started reading through the bible, looking for things that would make a difference to me. I also bought "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis.
After studying "Atheism" I thought I should adopt the stance of a Deist, as I had been years before. This brought its own conflict with it.
First, there was the practical problem. I was a Scoutmaster with a young, small Boy Scout Troop. The church my Troop belonged to had agreed to host the Scout program with the stipulation that all adult leaders had to be Christian and they had to be members of some Christian church. At this point, I was in violation of one of these "extra" requirements. I felt bothered by this false position I was working under, so I asked my good friend, Phil L. (nominally my Assistant Scoutmaster) for advice.
This turned out to be a very enlightening event. Phil had little concern for the church situation. However, he was VERY concerned over my spiritual condition. In fact, we decided to have a long meeting to discuss my concerns over Christianity and my reasons for no longer believing in the God of the Bible.
When we met, I shocked my friend by stating that while I might not know much about the creator of the universe, I was pretty sure the god described in the Bible was not it. He had come to our meeting, thinking I was concerned over the contradictions in the bible, and I believe he was fully ready to answer any item I cared to mention along these lines. I threw him a curve, however, when I stated that god, as described in the bible is a far more evil, childish, and hateful creature than most priests and ministers let on.
He eventually pulled out his bible and asked me to show him where it says that. Not having made, at that time, an extensive search of the bible, I was only able to show him Num 31 (Murder of children and women AFTER a battle, rape of virgins, possible human sacrifice) and 2Ki2:23-25 (god send bears to rip apart 42 children because they called Elisha "Baldy"). I also mentioned the "hardening of Pharoah's heart" in order to justify punishing Egypt. And the thought that the story of Adam's fall constituted entrapment. Phil had a difficult time with the conversation, though I don't think it made a dent in his convictions.
One comment he made had a great (though I'm sure it was unintended) impact on me. He said that he thought the Deist stance was nonsense, that I would be better off just going straight to atheism. I thought this over for quite a while.
The second source of conflict concerning the deist stance was the internet.. Out of curiosity, I started lurking around the usenet group alt.atheism. I saw much that I liked there - people who thought very much like I did. I started posting messages, under the name "Nemo." (I expect very few people would be able to identify the literary source for this name). When I mentioned I was a deist and ex-christian, I heard the same thing - why bother with deism, when atheism makes more sense?
Eventually, I decided that I should complete the journey - leave all parts of my theism behind and become atheist. After the things I've gone through, I can't imagine going back. I haven't yet burned my bridges completely, but that's how I stand at this point in my life. Later articles will come out, as I continue my way through this thing known as life.
Update 7/25/99
Another step in my journey away from religion has made itself apparent. As I mentioned earlier, I made a special effort to study the details of the Christian beliefs. This was an extension of the desire I had to keep an open mind when learning about any religion. I wanted to find the ideas and beliefs that were good in each religion. I still do appreciate it when I find good ideas, no matter where they may come from.
However, after nearly a year of watching television and hopefully reading the posts of Christian visitors to my home newsgroup (alt.atheism), I have had to recognize the fact that a compelling, logical reason to accept the existence of God is not available. In fact, all the things I've read, listened to and watched have convinced me that I will never see anything that will convince me. I hope to keep an open mind, in case someone can present something new, and I plan to treat such people with courtesy. However, anyone who approaches me will need to be aware that they'll have to be quite innovative in order to present me something I haven't seen before.
Further update - 6/16/2004
In May of 2004, I finished reading the book "Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by Pascal Boyer." This is a book that outlines Boyer's theories regarding the nature of human religious thought and its origins. It contained several surprising concepts, ways of seeing religion that I hadn't thought of. It also held several interesting examples of religious beliefs that he picked up from all over the world, in his work as an anthropologist and psychologist.
The basic premise of the book is to show that religion can be explained as a by-product of the normal functioning of the human brain, a "bonus feature," if you will, of the complex workings of our minds. And even though I always thought the human mind was "complex," the details I learned on that subject in this book were staggering. "Complex" is just too weak a word.
The main point here is that while Boyer's work was surprising and often counterintuitive, the evidence he put forth to support his conclusions certainly seemed to support his theories. What's more his theories often covered and explained very neatly things that I have seen, both in my own experience and in the people around me.
The effect of this book can't be overestimated. I am convinced that all religious thoughts are covered by Boyer's theory. There is nothing that I am aware of that can even come close to being considered "supernatural" or "miraculous." So far as I can tell at this point, there is nothing that could convince me that any supernatural being might exist. Other than, perhaps, an event that contradicts some well-established law of nature. Miracles are about the only thing that has a chance with me.
From this point on, I won't be very interested in discussing the existence of any invisible, undetectable beings. Sure, folks can try to "convert" me, and I expect they will. But I now understand where this impulse comes from (and it ain't no "order from Jesus," in case you're curious), so I won't be bothered.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that this sounds to some folks like I'm becoming close-minded regarding religion and/or God. I disagree. As I have said in other places, I say again here: If I encounter evidence that unquestionably points to the existence of any god, I'll consider it and change my beliefs if it convcinces me. But other than a patent, unambiguous and thoroughly documented event that defies one or more known laws of physics occurs, I can't imagine anything that could come close to convincing me that my view is wrong. The problem is that the naturalistic explanations for this thing called religion is so good (based on what I know today) that it covers every base needed in dealing with religion and the way it exists in human minds.
