Generation Atheist

by Dan Riley

  My parents are from India. They came to the United States in the late 1970s. I was born in 1983 and was raised in America. I grew up in the Jain religion. Jains believe in nonviolence in nearly every way. They’re vegetarian. Really devout Jains cover their mouths as they talk in an attempt to avoid killing any bacteria in the air. They might also sweep the ground in front of them as they walk so that they won’t kill any bugs. I was never that devout, but many of the Jain principles make a lot of sense to me. I think their philosophy generally leads to a good way to live one’s life.

  Jains do believe in supernatural things, but they do not believe in a creator God. Regardless, my family did believe in God, although no one ever defined what “God” meant. I was always taught to pray to God, and I would each night. I never felt as though God ever spoke back to me; it was like a one-way conversation. God never seemed to be listening or responding. I knew Christians who would rationalize why God wasn’t answering my prayers by saying, “God knows what’s best for you, so even if you come across an obstacle and God doesn’t give you what you want, that’s God testing you.” At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what I believed.

  When I was 14, my family moved from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Orland Park, Illinois. Having to go from a place where I had a lot of friends in junior high to starting fresh at a high school of more than 3,000 kids and not knowing anybody, I began to question God for the first time. I started asking myself, “If my religion is right, how come no one else has even heard of the Jain religion? And if I’m right, why doesn’t anyone else believe in reincarnation like Jains do? Is there any truth to this?” I’d go on AOL late at night looking for answers, grasping at straws. I found a couple atheistic websites that became very influential to me. The more I read about what atheists had to say, the more I realized that I agreed with them. I discovered that I didn’t just think that Jainism was wrong, I thought that religion as a whole was wrong. Over the course of only a couple months, I became an atheist.

  During my time online, I remember talking to a guy in a chat room, telling him that I no longer believed in God. He said, “You need to keep that to yourself because you will get beaten up if anyone finds out.” He easily remembered the abuse he had received earlier in his life for being an “out” atheist. I have never told anyone that story.

  I kept my beliefs to myself. It took a while for me to become comfortable using the “A” word with my peers. Over time, I began throwing out some feelers. I remember writing down my thoughts about religion on two sides of a piece of paper and handing it to a friend of mine. She read it and handed it back and said, “Yeah, makes sense.” Still, I didn’t really know any other atheists. I remember in my high school freshman English class we were talking about Greek mythology. My teacher asked everyone in my class if they believed in God. Everyone in the room said yes, and when the question came to me, I said yes as well.

  It wasn’t until college that I fully came out. I helped to start a group that became quite involved in the secular movement. I was exposed to a new world. I realized that there were other students in the same position as me — many, in fact, who had it a lot worse than me — and thought that I might be able to do something to help. I wanted to be a part of that.

  The girl who I started the secular group with told me that she had volunteered at Camp Quest, a summer camp for children of atheist parents. I thought, “That sounds awesome!” She also informed me about an organization called the Secular Student Alliance that helped organize atheist groups. Our group became affiliated with them and with a similar organization, CFI On Campus. I realized that I could meet all these other atheists and make it easier for people like me to come out. I also learned about other organizations that were doing charity work and pushing the message that atheists exist and that we’re good people. How could I not want to be a part of that?

  I had been accepted to medical school at the University of Illinois-Chicago right out of high school, provided that I met certain grade point averages and MCAT scores during my undergraduate career. I met the requirements, so I enrolled. My grades were fine, and I passed my classes, but I just wasn’t happy. I started dating a girl, and I remember thinking, “I just don’t have time for her.” I asked the medical school for a year off. They allowed me to do so with no penalty.

  During that year, I had plenty of free time. I decided to get certified as a high school teacher. There was a church near me, and I realized that for all the railing against religions that I did, I had a stereotype of what church was like: really boring, really dry. I had been informed largely by The Simpsons. I decided to see it for myself.

  I ended up putting this silly thing on eBay that said, in short, “If you want to bid on where I, the atheist, go to church or mosque or synagogue, you can, and I’ll go wherever the highest bidder wants me to go.” I didn’t think anyone would take it seriously, but the bidding got out of hand. There were Christians bidding to have me go to church and atheists bidding for me not to go. They set each other off, and the bidding climbed higher and higher. Ultimately, a pastor won for over $500, and I owed him 50 weeks of church. We ended up making a deal. He picked the 10 churches that I would attend. In exchange, I agreed to write about my experiences on his ministry’s website. A publisher saw what we were doing and thought that it was cool that I was criticizing church, and Christians weren’t mad at me for doing so. The publisher said, “Why don’t we send you to a bunch of other churches across the country, and we’ll turn your experiences into a book?” This, mind you, was a Christian publisher, not a secular publisher, and no atheist had ever written a book for them. I thought that I’d be crazy to say no, so I took the opportunity. It was a wonderful, educational experience. The book that resulted from those experiences, I Sold My Soul on eBay, came out in 2007 and was sold in bookstores across the country. It’s still sold on Amazon.

  I had thought that most Christians would be lockstep with the Christian fundamentalist preaching on TV, people I viewed as perhaps nice, but very bigoted. Some of the churches I attended did talk about social issues and were anti-homosexuality; I had my problems there. What I found, however, was that a lot of Christians didn’t agree with what fundamentalist pastors said. I had never heard that perspective. At a lot of the churches that I went to, they didn’t talk about gay people. They didn’t talk about politics. They talked about how best to live to make your life better. It was hard for me to have a problem with that.

  Many of the people at these churches, I found, were just good people who happen to believe in God. I think they’re wrong about that last part. But they weren’t doing anything harmful. In fact, I found many of them to be pretty liberal regarding social issues. We actually shared a lot of the same values. I had thought that if someone was a Christian, then they also shared the same views as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. I was glad to learn that that wasn’t necessarily true. I realized that there are Christians who are on the left, and they dislike the religious right as much as I do, if not more, because the religious right is besmirching their good name. Interacting with them was a good experience because it made me realize that there’s no reason why the secular movement can’t ally with moderate Christians on some of the bigger social issues of our time. I think it’s a much more pressing issue, for example, to get same-sex marriage legalized or to make sure that abortions are available and safe across the country than it is to convince people that there is no God.

  After my experiences at these churches, I started my blog, Friendly Atheist. The name came from the idea that, in America, every time one hears about atheists in the media, they’re always framed as “Bob, the devout atheist, the militant atheist, or the angry atheist.” It’s never “Bob, the really happy, smiley atheist.” I realized that if my site was called Friendly Atheist, people would have to put those two words together.

  I began blogging about religious issues on a regular basis. I knew that I couldn’t say that Christians were the sole problem in the world or push the idea that al
l churches that exist in the world are bashing gay people. I could admit that there were Christians who were bigoted and wrong but also recognize that not all Christians felt that way. I needed to delineate conservative Christians, the religious right, the fundamentalist Christians, from all other Christians. I had to change the way I thought and wrote.

  In fact, even now, even with fundamentalist Christians, with people I’m so opposed to on a personal level because they just say and do things I abhor, I’ve met a lot of them, and they’re really nice people. I find it hard to hold a grudge as much as I might have in the past. For example, James Dobson used to run Focus on the Family. He always emphasized that he was anti-gay. Now Focus on the Family is run by Jim Daly. I’ve seen him speak. When I listened to him, I realized that I didn’t have problems with everything he stands for. He talks about the importance of adoption. When I saw him, he didn’t emphasize his opposition to gay marriage and abortion. Most likely, if I were to mention Focus on the Family to a bunch of atheists, they’d raise all of our differences, they’d get pissed off, perhaps rightfully so. But not all the people who work with these groups are as bad as they might be perceived.

  Still, I am not hesitant to criticize groups of people, including churches themselves, when I feel like they are doing something wrong. I try to watch my language to make sure that I’m not stereotyping. I try not to call them mean names unless it’s warranted.

  My public atheism has brought on issues at work. There’s a group called the Illinois Family Institute, a conservative Christian group in Illinois. I called them out on my website for saying bigoted things. They found out that I’m a high school math teacher at a public high school and e-mailed my principal, other administrators, my department chair, and even my district’s school board. They outed me as an atheist because they didn’t like what I had written. They sent out three separate press releases about it, and I had to have a chat with my boss and my principal. They said, “We know you don’t talk about this in the classroom, so we don’t care.” That was the right response. That incident did not stop me from going after the Illinois Family Institute the next time they said something ridiculous. In time, I actually talked to the person who sent out the press releases about me. We had coffee because we wanted to talk outside of the blog atmosphere, where the comments are often quite vitriolic. In my view, she is a really nice lady who happens to think in a horrific way. That fact hasn’t stopped me from talking about her group or calling her out when the Illinois Family Institute does something that’s, in my view, just wrong.

  With everything I have experienced, I think that, depending on its mission, the secular movement can be successful. It needs to determine its goals. If its goal is to convert people to atheism, good luck with that. That’s probably not going to happen. If its goals are to make atheism more visible and respectable, more power to it. I think the young secular activists now are way smarter than I was at their age. They know how to get the message out that atheists are good, moral, decent people. If they focus on that, they’ll get very far. A lot of these student groups now partner up with religious groups on campus so that they can have a positive dialogue. I’ve been able to be a part of some of those conversations, and I love them.

  The secular movement needs to be wise about its strategy. There are a few atheist groups that have done things that have really pissed me off. I remember one example in particular, when a group in Texas held an event and said, “Give us your holy books and we’ll give you X-rated pornography,” an event known as “smut for smut.” I immediately thought, “That is just a dick move.” I see their point in a way, but I still don’t like their strategy. I think a more clever campaign is to do what a group at Purdue did, offering to trade fiction for fiction: give us your holy books, and we’ll give you a book of fiction in return. From my perspective, we lose religious moderates and religious liberals when we talk about pornography. We risk alienating women when we talk about pornography. Most of today’s secular college and high school groups, though, are starting to blossom and are doing amazing things.

  In my personal life, I’ve thought a lot about whether I would date and potentially marry a religious woman. I think the only time that our differences would cause a conflict is if we had kids. Even now, if I’m dating someone, my atheism is probably more of an issue for her than it is for me because being an atheist is part of my identity. I honestly don’t care if someone I date believes in God so long as we share the same values. I think it’s possible to make relationships work when perspectives are different, but compromise would be necessary.

  I think there are real advantages to being an atheist. In a way, it’s nice to be in a minority because, in my experience, there’s almost a secret handshake with other nonbelievers. When I see an Indian person on the street, for example, there’s always a knowing head nod. We bond automatically. The same thing happens with atheists. As a high school teacher, even though I don’t talk about my personal beliefs in the classroom, students tend to find out that I’m an atheist. I’ve had some kids come up to me and say, “I’m an atheist, too!” I usually jokingly respond, “I don’t really care, go do your homework!” But I think they appreciate knowing that there’s someone else out there who’s like them. I’ve received many e-mails from people who say that they’re afraid to talk to their family or friends about their atheism because they’re terrified of what the reaction will be. I’m not gay, but I imagine something similar occurs in the minds of closeted gay people, too. When a gay person meets someone else who’s gay, they probably don’t have to know anything else about that person to automatically bond over the fact that they have probably had some similar experiences.

  Reducing fear should be one of the great goals of the secular movement at large, and we seem to be making progress. Younger people are now much more willing to say that they don’t believe in God than they were in the past. Our numbers are going up. I think we’re doing something right. When you know someone who’s an atheist, it’s much easier to consider that possibility, too. A huge part of our mission as atheists should be to make it okay to say, “I’m a rational person, and there’s nothing wrong with me.”

  If I could go back in time, I would tell a young me — or anyone else who is young and realizes that they don’t believe in God — to not be afraid. I would tell them to start talking to other atheists. Seek them out, and see if you can make a difference. Be courageous, and have discussions about religion with other people. I didn’t really tell people that I was an atheist for quite a while, largely because I didn’t want to offend anyone. Now, I’m not worried about that. I would advise them to have more pride in who they are from a younger age.

  I’ll never forget going to bed the first night that I was convinced that God doesn’t exist. I didn’t pray. I thought that there was a chance that I would wake up with cuts on me as a punishment from God. That didn’t happen, and after that, I never had an inkling that I might be wrong. Even if I had a choice, even if I could choose to have a God exist, I wouldn’t. That idea doesn’t appeal to me anymore. For me, it’s nice that I’m not afraid and that I’m honest with myself.

  XX.

  ______________

  Lydia Murphy: Losing Religion and Anti-Religion

  “I could now open the door to a new life, one without God.

  It didn’t seem too scary. It felt more like something new and exciting, like exploring a new home.”

  — William Lobdell, Losing My Religion

  It is indeed possible for religious indoctrination to fade away. Lydia Murphy (a pseudonym) left her faith quite suddenly, just a year after leaving her private Baptist school that used Christian history books, chastised students for committing thought crimes, and encouraged its pupils to attend Bob Jones University. Once she left, she realized that the Baptists had encouraged stereotypes: not all non-Baptists, she found, were evil and, to her surprise, recreational drug users could be quite pleasant people. She drifted away from her religion, an experience she
describes as “like coming out of a fog or waking up from a dream.”

  Lydia became heavily involved in her university’s secular group once she enrolled in college, creating some of her fondest memories with its members. While she’s adamant that she would not raise her children in a religious institution, she has lost much of her hostility toward religion in general. She recognizes that many people have had horrendous experiences in life, and religion often provides both comfort and a community for them. It may, she thinks, simply be better for some people to be religious. She’s come to believe that being right isn’t everything. Still, she’s happy that she’s left her faith — and its dogma — behind her.

  My parents are vaguely religious in the American cultural Christian way. I grew up in a house that was in a really bad school district, and the only private school that my parents could afford was a Baptist Christian school with a Bible-thumping, Southern-style atmosphere a few miles from our home. I went there from kindergarten through fifth grade.

  Perhaps because of its religious teachings, my parents were very concerned about what we were learning there. At one point, in fourth grade, they abruptly pulled me out of the Baptist school and sent me to public school for a quarter. They weren’t happy with the public school either, mostly because they were concerned for our safety, so they put us back in the Baptist school.

  From an early age, I took religion very seriously. I would often get into arguments with my family and friends because I felt that their lifestyles were terrible, that they were living against God. My parents, for example, listened to rock music. I was taught in school that that was a sin, and that I should preach to my parents when they listened to it.