Deconversion - Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Reason
28 March 2006 by Lya Kahlo
In dealing with theists, an atheist will inevitably be asked why they don’t believe in Jesus/Allah/TheGreatPumpkin. I’ve gotten this question several times lately, which prompted this post.
Each time I’ve been asked this question my answer has been different, though I couldn’t put a finger on why it was always different. Everything I’ve said to answer the question has been true, each situation or event has led me to atheism. However, I’ve never really felt my answers told the whole picture. It was as if I’ve only ever given half answers, only a piece of the picture. The concern there being that a theist would read it and think it was a silly (or worse yet insignificant) situation or event that made me lose faith. Then, they would conclude that my search for god was never a serious one and that if only I’d give it a true shot would I ever find whatever god they’re peddaling.
This is untrue. While I was searching I meant it. Fully intending to convert imagine the disappointment when, after years of study, it became crystal clear that neither religion was for me. And Islam - fuhgetaboutit - Judaism and Christianity are misogynistic enough!
Recently, I had a dream that sparked a memory I’d long forgotten about. The dream is inconsequential - just me and the bf driving around with three white teddy bears in the back seat of the car that somehow turned into three little girls in white dresses. But it was one of the white teddy bears that sparked the memory. And once this little pebble started falling, it unleashed an avalanche - all the pieces suddenly fell into place. I know how and why I became and atheist. And finally, I can answer this question. (but it’s a long answer, so it will be in parts. These long posts are for my own benefit, which is not to suggest anyone out there cares. 
)
A note before I begin: This is only what happened to me. I am not claiming anything about any brand of any religion. So spare me the “this isn’t how WE do it” stuff.
Part One: Christianity
That teddy bear is one that my father bought me when I was ten and in the hospital. It was Easter time and I was having my appendix out. But, it had ruptured and had been leaking poison into my body for no one knew how long (the doctors estimated it had been a month - to which I know you medical types are saying “impossible!”- but I was in the hospital a month before hand with a bad staff infection in my left leg, and they knew then that my appendix would have to come out). The doctors had told my parents - well within my earshot - to have “arrangements” ready because they fully expected me to “not make it”.
Something very similar would happen again five years later. It was my sophomore year of high school, Easter break again, and I was back in the hospital being given blood transfusion after blood transfusion because I’d come dangerously close to bleeding to death. (which, as morbid as it may sound would have been a nice way to go. I just got extremely sleepy, there was no pain.) And again, my parents were told that it would be “prudent” to be ready for “anything”. The doctor had told my parents that a girl of my age should have a hemoglobin level of 12 (percent?) and mine was 2.6. When I survived, he would later say that my heart being so young was what saved me. Had I been a decade older, I’d be dead.
These events and my subsequent survival - despite the doctors giving me little chance of surviving - are what convinced me to start investigating religion more closely. Since those around me seemed convinced that these happy turn of events were divine intervention, I felt compelled to become more devoted. (Up until this point we were light weight xians. I had been an altar girl (of sorts, we were Methodists, not Catholics) when I was young, I was in the choir and all that, but we stopped going when the Pastor died in the early 90’s. After that the only thing concerning religion my mother had ever said to me was asking me if I wanted to be confirmed into the church when I was eighteen. (To which I said no, because I had just started investigating other brands of Christianity.)
In the hospital that second time, I found a copy of the Bible in the night stand (damn Gideons! ). I read it. Not the whole thing - just the gospels - as I was instructed to do by a nurse attending me. It was like a revelation - it was all there. He healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the poor, saved sinners. He loved me and I loved Him. I wanted that feeling of being protected to last. So I started to read more and more - anything that supported and reenforced my hope that god was out there and that he cared.
A few years later, I was off to college and knee deep in Christianity. There I joined a Bible Fellowship on campus and eventually through my Catholic roommate met a priest who gave conversion classes (in case I wanted to join Catholicism). It was at this point that I learned of the schism between Catholicism and the Protestant/Evangelical versions of Christianity. Catholicism, being parent and original, claimed authenticity where as the others claimed superiority. The more I studied the more disillusioned I became. The more bickering between the two brands of the same religion I witnessed, the less I wanted to be in either.
Both were claiming to be exclusively right. Both were claiming that the other was a path to nowhere. Both were claiming that god backed them up.
And yet, they weren’t teaching things that were that different. There were minor, petty differences but nothing that necessitated the ranting and raving. I started to feel like a commodity to them, or a prize to be won. It was as if either side could only claim to be the One True Christian Faith(tm) if they won me as a convert. I felt played.
It took me a year to make the decision, but just before my 19th birthday I left both groups. To this day I credit several courses I took in college with helping me make this decision - the Bible as Literature course, the French Civilization and Culture class, and or the (spectacular fem-nazi) Women’s lit classes, philosophy classes, and anthropology classes.
As if the bickering over nothing wasn’t bad enough, these classes illustrated several things that had been bothering me. Bible as Lit, and Women’s Lit illustrated the nature and extent of “females as second class citizens” - that my bible study glossed over (”oh, our church doesn’t do that”) or made cute excuses for (”God made Eve from Adam’s rib so that she would be by his side, but under his arm to be protected”), but never explained. French Civ and Culture introduced me to the unlucky Cathars. Anthropology introduced me to evolution. The philosophy courses were the intro to, the philosophy of science, and the Philosophy of religion.
Philosophy of religion dealt the death blow to my studying Christianity. The course was not critical of religion, but rather attempted to reinforce it. The prof attempted to use philosophy as a substitute for empirical evidence. I remember the exact class where I finally decided to get out. The prof had been talking about free will and how god gave us free will so that we would not be fawning followers” like the angels are. ( I know, I know. Bear with me a moment.)
I asked “what about ‘god has a plan’.” He said “God won’t let you stray off the right path because he loves you.” (No, I’m not kidding. And please note this was a SUNY (State University of New York) college, not a religious one.) I said: “but you just said we had free will to chose. If we have the free will to chose, then he can’t have already decided we weren’t “allowed” to stray off his path. If we can’t stray off the path, we don’t have free will.”
He stared at me, then repeated a slightly modified version of what he had just said. It was something like “god doesn’t want you to stray” or some such nonsense. It was that straw that broke the camel’s back. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had this conversation with the priest or the bible fellowship before. But in that moment, I was looking for more divine intervention. I was looking for a sign that I shouldn’t doubt. And this is what I got.
I studied from the age of 15 to nearly 19 - all that time served only to prove to me that Christianity was not where I belonged.
This is ultimately why I rail against xianity more than others. Yes, I’m American so I am confronted with Xianity more so than all other religions. Yes, that also means that it’s xians (read: the religious wrong) trying to destroy this country, so they are ripe for ridicule. But beyond all of that I feel betrayed. My search for god was reduced to a tug of war between the two.
Now some may say this is my own fault for trying on both - perhaps I should have tried one at a time. Perhaps. But, that would not have spared me from being questioned by the opposing side. Neither would have stopped the “oh you’re not a True Christian ™, then” jabs, or prostelyzing attempts by the opposing side.
In an attempt to gain the whole picture, and to be as thorough as possible, I tried on both. I don’t regret it.
Then, feeling upset that I’d lost touch with god, is when I met Simon Barat (an anglicized version of his real name). A self-labeled “freelance” bouncer originally from Israel, who’d come here after spending time in the military.
And he led the way into part two: Judaism.
(coming soon)
28 March 2006, on 1:56 pm
Wow.
I’m sitting here at the comp (at work yet!), trying to process the flood of memories that your post set off. Suffice it to say that I heavily identify with your search for reasons to believe, and understand that no one can give them to you. You either have belief, or you don’t. There are rationalizations, but there is no true rationality behind belief.
Thanks for the post.
28 March 2006, on 2:05 pm
Philosophy of religion dealt the death blow to my studying Christianity.
Woo-hoo! Philosophy to the rescue!…
The course was not critical of religion, but rather attempted to reinforce it.
Oh…damn…
I asked “what about ‘god has a plan’.” He said “God won’t let you stray off the right path because he loves you.” (No, I’m not kidding. And please note this was a SUNY (State University of New York)college, not a religious one.)
This last part fucking sickens me. I got all my degrees from SUNYs, and I never had to put up with that fucking bullshit. Would really like to know this fucker’s name (if you want, you can just email me).
He stared at me, then repeated a slightly modified version of what he had just said. It was something like “god doesn’t want you to stray” or some such nonsense. It was that straw that broke the camel’s back.
I’m assuming this was a prof, and not a TA? In any case, you got him, Lya. You didn’t mean to, but you still got him. You called him on his shit, and he fucking folded. It’s always cool when that happens, especially in front of the rest of the class. Nice.
28 March 2006, on 2:32 pm
“You either have belief, or you don’t. There are rationalizations, but there is no true rationality behind belief.”
Agreed. And ultimately, that’s what all this taught me. Those who want to believe will include or exclude anything they have too in order to continue believing. Those of us on the outside see the bigger picture.
Like I said, every time I’ve answered this question, I tried making it brief. So depending on what I remembered on any given day, the answer would be different. Having been asked several times over the last week or so made me want to iron it out and really answer it.
Then that dream about the teddy bear set off memories of being in the hospital – something I haven’t thought of in years. Then being in the hospital the second time and having the nurse – Nancy Klein (how odd that I remember some random nurses name from 11 years ago.) – show me which passages to read.
It didn’t occur to me at that time that it was strange she didn’t tell me to read it from the beginning. Later, I’d find out why.
~~
“The course was not critical of religion, but rather attempted to reinforce it.
Oh…damn…”
No kidding.
“This last part fucking sickens me. I got all my degrees from SUNYs, and I never had to put up with that fucking bullshit. Would really like to know this fucker’s name (if you want, you can just email me).”
It was at Fredonia, though I don’t remember his name. Pothead memory loss aside, it was nine years ago. I actually left Fredonia w/o a degree – I finished elsewhere. Because Fredonia SUCKED.
“In any case, you got him, Lya. You didn’t mean to, but you still got him. You called him on his shit, and he fucking folded. It’s always cool when that happens, especially in front of the rest of the class. Nice.”
The guy sitting next to me in class (who would become a friend after this episode) said the same thing; “You got him”. Neither he or I ever went back to that class again. Though we did both pass, just the same. >:)
It was unintentional, but the glaring problem with his lecture was like two T-Rexs and an aardvark sitting in the room with us. Someone had to say something about it.
28 March 2006, on 3:22 pm
Great story, Lya! I am in suspense awaiting the next part!
28 March 2006, on 7:27 pm
Ah, Lya is making the rest of us look lame by comparison again. Awesome post.
28 March 2006, on 7:49 pm
Like I said, I wanna be like Lya when I grow up - age difference not withstanding!
Part 2: Judaism sounds promising; am I detecting a hint of “s-e-x” in that teaser, or is my mind just down in the gutter?
28 March 2006, on 9:32 pm
Lya - I can relate to your story so far very well only I was older in my 30s before I started really analyzing things. I was even a freakin Sunday School teacher…a doubting one after awhile who when little kids asked me questions about plagues and stuff I found that I no longer wanted to perpetuate those stories as truth. I went back to school in my 30s…early 40s to get a different degree and took Bible as Lit. Women’s lit and Philosophy of Literature and ethics classes and MYTHOLOGY. Mythology and Joseph Campbell really opened my eyes! Anthropology too…and learning about how religious missionaries cause confusion when they go to convert other cultures…it never totally switches…it blends old superstitions and new ones to make a new religion and can be extremely dangerous for many cultures.
I am lucky in the fact that my professors were all quite liberal-minded and the Chinese American who taught Bible as Literature was so neutral we never even suspected he was a CATHOLIC…he told us at the end of the course and you could have knocked me over with a feather I was so shocked! But he did tell us that he believed “parts” of his religion…he had a different view than most.
Anyway, it was education that opened my mind, and really made me question what I had been going along with and TRYING to believe all those years. I was not very happy during my church-going years. Once I gave up the facade, I became happy and content. I have accepted the way things are…nothing lasts forever…it’s the cycle of life.
Can’t wait to read the rest of your story…
28 March 2006, on 10:26 pm
BTW, Lya, love the title and the pic.
28 March 2006, on 10:51 pm
Star,
RE: Bible lit and Mythology lit course-
Sweeeeeeet… that’s right in my neighborhood…
What mythologies did you study?
28 March 2006, on 11:00 pm
Joseph Campbell rules. He did seem to be a bit of an anti-Semite and pretty dismissive of what he saw as primitive (read: African) mythologies.
28 March 2006, on 11:41 pm
Marcus - It was a couple of classes that covered World Mythology using a text called World Mythology:An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics edited by Donna Rosenberg. We also read books by Campbell and others and watched Campbell’s PBS series The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. When studying the myths of different cultures all around the world and from various eras throughout history, I was fascinated that many cultures had creation myths, flood myths, resurrection myths, etc. Many of these mythologies were once religions that were followed as christians, muslims etc do now. The courses I took covered myths of the British Isles, Far East and Pacific Islands, The Americas, United States and Canada (Native Americans)…Greece and Rome, Middle East, and Northern Europe.
28 March 2006, on 11:50 pm
Sean…as for Campbell being anti-Semite, that was kind of misconstrued. His true adversion wasn’t to Jews, but rather to Yahweh and the Yahwehist religions that elevated a tribal god to a universal deity. As we know all too well…when someone says something against religon, the religion being “attacked” goes on the defensive to twist and turn the “attacker’s” words to make them seem like they are being persecuted. But this didn’t get very far. Not that big a deal has been made of it. Here is a link to read more if you have time.
http://www.mythandculture.com/weblog/2004/12/joseph-campbell-antisemitism-politics.html
29 March 2006, on 12:25 am
Good point about Campbell, Stardust. What I’ve always found him to be dismissive of are the major modern religions which are more window-dressing and something to be put on at certain times than the myths which permeated all aspects of everyday life. Also, I think he largely saw the Abrahamic religions as having ripped off older systems of belief without truly embracing the psychological underpinnings of the mythological systems. Just my opinion though.
29 March 2006, on 4:15 am
I have sympathy with your quest to find truth and understanding in this strange Universe of ours via study and investigation into the claims of the various religions and their theologians. This, in my opinion is the logical way to go. And what is more, I’ve no doubt, anyone with a robust logical capability will return empty-handed. The existence of a god cannot be argued for philosophically, or demonstrated in the scientific manner. However, if someone simply lays claim to faith, without qualifying reasons, they are unassailable, as long as he or she states simply, “I believe in God”.
Problems arise when the believer attempts to ’share’ this belief, to proclaim it’s truth and thus prosyletise others. But by its very nature, this is impossible. The conviction felt on the part of the believer is forever private, and though fellow believers might believe they are sharing in the ’same thing’, how can they ever know?
Moving on from belief in God, I think it’s important to examine our own assumptions, that is, the sometimes taken for granted notion that objective, rational enquiry allows a priveleged view of the Universe, that what we ‘know’ is Truth. But that’s naive. When we apply our logic, we have to have a starting point, and this cannot be justified. To this extent, we have to have faith in the accuracy of our initial premises, so even scientists have to have a provisional ‘faith’ in their theories.
As for the rest of us, how much can do we really know? If we examine what we call ‘knowledge’ have we tested it to our satisfaction? Or is it simply something we’ve taken on ‘authority’, from books and teachers? Apart from private subjective knowledge, how much of what we’re convinced we know, is simply received? In everyday currency is talk of ‘patriarchal oppression’, ‘false consciousness’, ‘peer pressure’, etc. How can we know these ideas have any bearing on reality? Have we rigorously tested them to eliminate any doubt as to their veracity? The answer is no. If the paradigm Science, Physics, is not based on certainty, what weight can we give disciplines such as sociology with it’s speculative, untestable theories? It’s my guess, most of us are operating on ‘conviction’ rather than proven fact.
Having said all this, as an atheist myself, I would apply what I call commonsense (here’s a concept demanding investigation) in deciding which way to go. As a non-believer, I feel the best bet has to be with a God-less Universe. But who knows? Maybe in the future, I will be overcome by a ‘feeling’ so intense, faith will come. And if it does, I will quietly believe, and careful not to articulate that which cannot be articulated - private experience.
Good post, and notable for it’s respectful enquiry, as opposed to the thoughtless and dis-respectful God-knocking practised by many.
29 March 2006, on 6:58 am
“am I detecting a hint of “s-e-x” in that teaser”
M-a-y-b-e
~~
“I’ve no doubt, anyone with a robust logical capability will return empty-handed.”
Yes – unfortunately or fortunately – depending on how you look at it.
~~
“as opposed to the thoughtless and dis-respectful God-knocking practised by many.”
Which is why I wrote the post. I’m a HUGE god-knocker and I wanted it understood why.
29 March 2006, on 8:50 am
Good post, and notable for it’s respectful enquiry, as opposed to the thoughtless and dis-respectful God-knocking practised by many.
I zeroed in on that line, too. Who says Lya is not a god-knocker? She’s just explaining to us why she is.
As we have discussed on this site many times, and our pal Richard Dawkins makes abundantly clear, how is it disrespectful to scorn religion and the concept of the all-powerful sky daddy? Dawkins asserts, and I agree, that it is in fact the duty of rationalists to dismantle delusional belief systems wherever we encounter them.
29 March 2006, on 9:14 am
“Dawkins asserts, and I agree, that it is in fact the duty of rationalists to dismantle delusional belief systems wherever we encounter them.”
ESPECIALLY when they lie and cry “intolerance” because no one allows them to just steal the rights of other people whenever they invent a way it offends their imaginary friends.
Since the religious are anti-gay, anti-woman, and anti-common sense, they don’t get to hide behind “tolerance”. It is our duty to challenge them, since they are incapable of keeping their childish delusions to themselves.
31 March 2006, on 1:25 am
“Good post, and notable for it’s respectful enquiry, as opposed to the thoughtless and dis-respectful god-knocking practised by many.”
Religion and any supernatural belief is stupid and undeserving of respect. Also most atheists have put a good deal of thought into why they don’t believe in this foolishness, it’s illogical inconsistent anti-science garbage which doesn’t hold up under even a tiny bit of scrutiny. Consider that if any one religion was right then there likely wouldn’t be so many vastly differing others. Finally the fantasy deities of most religions are sadistic bastards who play more games than Star Trek’s Q and are petty and cruel like the mythological gods on Hercules and Xena, why wouldn’t anyone worship make-believe figures like that anyway ?
31 March 2006, on 1:35 am
Here’s an “alternate” version of that picture - http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushstrangelove.htm
31 March 2006, on 6:58 am
Damn! That’s the picture I was looking for!
31 March 2006, on 12:27 pm
Pleased to see rational humans exist in the good old USA, despite what us Brits are led to beleive.
Just a quick thought, should we perhaps treat people who believe in gods the same way we treat people with any other psychotic delusion?
If all these people are ill, we need a cure and fast…
31 March 2006, on 12:39 pm
Rick,
Please open British citizenship so we can all escape- BWAHA! Just kidding.
The problem is that religious belief is not psychotic delusion- it is more a shared social belief phenomenon which is something that can’t necessarily be considered psychotic delusion. You can’t really treat people who have no illness yet believe out of habituation.
I believe the cure is to question the conditioning of intellectual apathy that leads to blind devotion. The unfortunate side effect of social obssesion with religious morality is that religion is readily accessable as an experience to those of humanity that have any range of subtle mental illness because of a proclivity toward “magical thinking.” So, while we tend to have perfectly friendly, willing to compromise religious folks, we still end up with a HUGE cross-section of the maniacs.
9 April 2006, on 12:46 am
[...] THE YOU-KNOW-NOTHING-ABOUT-RELIGION XIAN Mikey, you just said that on the wrong site, fool. We have many people here who not only spent decades trapped in the beliefs that warp your brain right now, but studied your religion deeper than you probably ever have. I was never unfortunate enough to be indoctrinated, but I will let your ignorant statement get shredded by all the former Xians here. [...]
13 September 2006, on 3:23 pm
Yes, all religion, whether active or dead, is mythology. My best estimation on why mankind has consistantly invented god throughout our history is because we do have an inkling in regards to lifeforce. The native americans held that everything has a lifeforce (which is sometimes misinterpretted as ’soul’) and this lifeforce resonates. Typically every living thing does have an electrical signiture, so maybe that’s where all of this religious stuff comes from. We feel, we suspect, which is good, but then we start thinking and then there’s a god, or a pantheon of gods, and it all goes to hell.