Neal's Workshop

In Losing my Religion, Part I, I detailed my Christian upbringing. Part of that upbringing was learning to challenge ideas and to have a faith that was internally consistent with a loving God.

Once I left home for college, my lifestyle as a Christian became less dependent on church-based functions or regular Bible study. Having learned more than the average church-goer through having a live-in Biblical expert (my dad), I felt like I had sufficiently learned the basics of what I needed to understand the Christian faith in significantly all of its applications. In Christian discussions, I was often perceived as the guy with all of the answers.

Other's perception of my Biblical knowledge is a moot point; having a base proficiency in Christianity is not difficult. God created the heavens and the earth (everything). God is wholly good, all-knowing and all-powerful. Mankind's sin resulted in a rift between Man and God. Thus, God sent his Son Jesus to earth. Jesus Christ was the embodiment of a loving and forgiving God. He was sent to die as a sinless sacrifice and was resurrected three days later. Through this sacrifice, anybody could be reconciled to God through Jesus. A Christian life is one of love for God, yourself and your neighbor. If you do not accept Jesus as your Savior, you will suffer eternal separation from God in hell.

It is hard to pinpoint a singular event that changed my perception of Christianity. Rather, it was a slow realization effected by countless determinations that my belief in Jesus and God was inconsistent, false and unnecessary. One of the most important components in my awakening was in allowing myself to apply logical thought to my sacred Christian tenets. People build walls around their religious beliefs. These walls are constructed with statements such as "I don't know", "We are incapable of understanding", "It's a mystery", "Don't question God" or any number of other discussion-killing statements. I had to destroy this wall: I could answer the tough questions; I must challenge my beliefs both to understand and instill them with meaning. Furthermore, reason demanded that I extend my beliefs to their logical conclusions, no matter what the consequences.

Having armed myself with reason, I started tackling everything about Christianity. Here are some of the issues with which I wrestled (Read any you find interesting):

• There exist human beings whose lives are excellent. They are role models despite their stated religion or creed. However, they are not Christians. Per the Bible and Jesus' repeated teachings, these individuals will go to hell. Belief Consequence: God would punish a great human being with eternal damnation.
• God gave human beings 'free will'. Therefore, even if you are a great person, if you choose to reject Jesus, that is your free will and you will go to hell as a result. Problem: Free will requires the ability to choose. The problem with Christianity is in the choice: God or eternal pain and suffering. Such a "choice" is akin to duress. Is this really a choice? How is it meaningful to choose God when the alternative is hell? If God is okay with such free will, what does this say about God? Is he vain? Does he demand meaningless worship by his own creation?
• Man's distinction from every other being is our ability to use reason and logic. Furthermore, we have the ability to think abstractly. If God created mankind with these distinctive, uniquely human abilities - the very things that make us such amazing creatures, why would he then demand we reject our reason in favor of faith, which is inherently irrational? This is akin to a watchmaker creating a fantastic watch and then demanding the watch to stop telling time.
• The theory of evolution is a hot topic in Christendom. Assuming you can understand the Bible as a symbolic document whereby not every story is to be taken literally, you have no problem with the potential for creation to have occurred in some manner different from either of the creation stories in Genesis whether it be seven day creation (Genesis 1) or the Adam and Eve Garden of Eden myth (Genesis 2). All evidence points to the universe being billions of years old. Evolution is the dominant theory that explains the existence, complexity and diversity of life on earth. What about Creationism, you say? A wealth of evidence exists to refute the argument from Intelligent Design. If you can accept that the Intelligent Design is flawed, which can be as simple as acknowledging the existence of useless organs, you must deal with evolution. Belief Consequence: If you accept evolution as how God created life, you must deal with the consequences. Either a) The end result of evolution, humanity, is an unintended consequence of evolutionary natural selection OR b) despite God creating life via evolution, he chose to make it appear as though the process was God-less and random. In other words, God chose to paint himself out of the picture of creation and then proceed to demand we believe He actually created everything. Problematic.
• Salvation through Jesus: God had his Son die a painful death on a cross. Why? If you're God, anything is possible. Why, then, would you require this event to take place? Beyond that, why is it a meaningful act: Jesus' resurrection is hardly a feat for God/Jesus. God's all-powerful, so really, the sacrifice story is meaningless to God; therefore, why is it meaningful to Mankind? What does it accomplish aside from being a symbol of altruism? Or is it altruistic when Jesus ultimately got refunded the purchase price vis a vis resurrection?
• Christian beliefs build walls between you and other people: human beings define individuals by religious beliefs in lieu of their real complexity.
• Pascal's wager backfires: This is the argument that, "If you believe and you're wrong, you still lead a great life. But if you don't believe and you're wrong, you go to hell." Pascal's Wager is problematic for numerous excellent reasons but philosophy aside, my reason for vehemently disagreeing with Pascal's wager goes back to a late night discussion with a good friend back when I was twenty, an R.A. at Myers Hall, and on the edge of walking away from Christianity. My friend said to me, "I just can't believe that this [life] is all there is." It was then when it struck me: belief in God - in an afterlife - can actually diminish your experience of life. Why? Belief in an after-life means there's something better waiting when you die; the consequence is that it makes your life appear less important. Think about it this way: assuming you are wrong in your belief in God, your Christian beliefs net you:
  1. Nothing upon your death, and
  2. A life diminished by your fears and expectations; the knowledge that you've only got one shot at a great life is a huge motivator not to screw up your one chance.
  Pascal's argument backfires. Furthermore, Christian beliefs make for less costly mistakes: after all, you can always ask for forgiveness. Contrarily, a life without God demands you maximize the life you have knowing it's the only life you're going to get.

I ended with that last example because if there was one event that was the culmination of my faith abandonment, that was it. In truth, it took all of these examples above and many, many more to get me over to the other side. I couldn't hope to represent them all in this single post; thus, if you are unconvinced by the above, feel free to egg me into telling you some more. I enjoy debating this stuff.

Why did I lose my religion? I didn't lose it; rather, I grew out of it. I opened my eyes to a world without fear or mysticism. And it was like being reborn. I am an atheist. I do not see belief in God as meaningful: every meaningful way I ever tried to define God resulted in contradictions to the evidence of personal experience, science and reason. There still may exist some higher power. However, I am convinced its existence is inconsequential to your life and mine. Life is too important to waste chasing shadows.

I have never regretted my decision to close the book on Christianity. I feel more alive as an atheist than I ever did at the peak of my belief in God. Why? Because the world makes sense now. What a great feeling that is! If you have any questions, concerns, challenges or whatever, please comment and I'll be happy to respond. I obviously enjoy healthy debate.

Stay tuned for An Atheist Epilogue, a case for a worthwhile life.