Generation Atheist

by Dan Riley

  Needless to say, my school was very conservative and very Christian. It regulated our hairstyles. Girls had to wear dresses below their knees. My teachers were creationists; I was taught that the world was roughly 4,000 years old. My peers and I had a lot of Bible study, and we would memorize one verse every week. It was both expected and required that people would wait until they were married to have sex. We used textbooks from the evangelical Christian college Bob Jones University. History, for example, was taught from a Christian perspective. We were encouraged to attend Bob Jones when we graduated from high school, which, in retrospect, likely would have been a bad career move, considering that that school has had some accreditation issues.

  My memory of my childhood is one of pervading guilt. Everything that I did was a sin, always. I believed that if I was saved and really meant it, if I really believed in Jesus, then I would go to heaven. According to my teachers, people of other faiths and other denominations of Christianity would go to hell. I was told that one day I was going to have to face God, and in front of everyone, He would name off all of my sins, even things that I didn’t remember doing. I was told that every day, I should be praying on my knees for God’s forgiveness. It was really intense, and I had a constant fear of hell.

  After fifth grade, my family moved to a better district, and I transferred to a good public school. That experience was unbelievably different. For the first time, I found out that there were good people who weren’t Baptists. Quite quickly, I rejected nearly everything that I had been taught about the world. I started calling myself an atheist in seventh grade, and my curiosity only grew. I read about Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. I immediately determined that they were all the same to me, all equally untrue. I realized that the reason that people believe in God and religion has to do largely with an emotional conviction, a conviction that is similar for everyone from all faiths. I concluded that if there’s nothing that makes any one religion uniquely true, if there’s no reason to believe in one over the others, then there is no reason to believe in any of them.

  This newfound independence of thought carried over to my ethical worldview, too. My Baptist education had been incredibly foundational from such a young age. I had been indoctrinated with a specific morality, taught that people needed to be Baptist Christian, not just Christian. I had been told that if someone didn’t believe a specific part of Baptist doctrine, then they would be damned to hell. I had to reject the morality that I had been taught my whole life and reevaluate everything. I started to become a much more tolerant person.

  The switch to the public school impacted nearly every facet of my life. When I got out of the private school, I was very socially awkward. My educational environment had been extraordinarily restrictive. There was no bullying, and there were no cool kids, no cliques. In the public school, I was different, so I got made fun of a lot, which made the people who were nice to me all the more important. The people who were nice to me, I found, weren’t Baptist.

  I was incredibly naive. I remember one day I was standing at the bus stop and someone talked about smoking a bowl. I didn’t know what that meant. I thought the person had meant smoking an actual cereal bowl. This was my first introduction to recreational drug use. I became friendly with drug dealers. To my surprise, they weren’t crazed people who were raping and pillaging.

  Losing my religion was like coming out of a fog or waking up from a dream. Looking back, I think that the only way that I could have possibly maintained a belief in a God is if I had had a constant feedback loop of people telling me over and over that such a being existed, that it was something that I needed to care about, worry about, and consider. Almost as soon as that environment left my life, my interest and belief in that ideology disappeared. I came out of my shelter and found out that the world isn’t how I had been taught. So I changed my views.

  My mind was open for the first time. In high school, I started to get really interested in reason and logic, especially when I began to take science classes. Being exposed to theory of evolution had an important impact on me. After I became educated about the subject, I realized that I no longer needed to search for an ultimate purpose or an ultimate meaning to life. We are collections of genes that are geared toward continued existence. We create our own meaning. It’s a happy accident that we are self-aware, intelligent, that we exist in the way that we do. I intend to enjoy my time while I’m alive.

  My fascination with these topics continued when I enrolled in college. By the time I saw an e-mail about a secular student group on campus, I was quite interested in atheism. I went to one meeting and was immediately hooked. The smartest and most interesting people on campus were in that group. When I think about my good experiences in college, I’ll always think about them. Those were some of the best times in my life.

  Despite the sense of community that I was able to create in college, there are negative things about being an atheist. The worst thing that’s ever happened in my life happened a few years ago. My ex-boyfriend Lawrence and I had been friends for a long time after we broke up, even though he was a very different person than I am. He was crazy. He wanted to live on the edge and do drugs. He said, like Kurt Cobain, that he would “rather burn out than fade away.” He had a fascination with his own death and talked about it often. One day, he was fighting with his girlfriend and took out his gun and put it to his chin. He showed her that it was empty. He put it to his chin and pulled the trigger. She mocked him. She said he would never do it. So he did. He put a bullet in the chamber and fired. That was it.

  I found out what happened to Lawrence on my way to a secular student group meeting. I was hysterical. I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I couldn’t speak or form cogent thoughts. I went into the meeting, and there were two religious people there who always crashed our meetings. The people in the group were my closest friends. They felt really badly for me, and they all really wanted to help me. But it was the religious people who came up to me. They hugged me, helped me to the elevator, and told me that I should go home. They asked me if I’d be okay and if I needed a ride. My friends, the atheists, seemed too socially awkward for that kind of warmth. It was probably hard for them to know how to act in that situation.

  I’m an adult. I understand that people die. But it’s really, really hard to emotionally understand that fact. I had a great deal of trouble coping with Lawrence’s suicide. I still have nightmares about it. In terms of dealing with death, because I have had to face life’s reality, I understand why believing in an afterlife is worth so much to so many people. Atheists tend to be a certain kind of person, pretty independent. Over time, I started to realize that not everyone is like that. I lost a lot of the anger that I had toward the evils that religion has visited on the world. Even though I still believed that religions were wrong, I started to become more accepting of religious people.

  I had to grow up and figure things out. One of things that I have learned is that just because I might be right about something, it doesn’t mean that I’m better than other people. I had anger at all religious people because I bought into the argument that the existence of moderate religion enables extreme religion. I was harshly judgmental of people who didn’t believe as I did.

  I learned about the world and that people have real-life problems that are a great deal worse than anything I’ve ever faced. I no longer necessarily feel that one’s beliefs are the most important thing in the world. I think I was too focused on religion. I needed compassion and empathy for the common man.

  When I graduated from college, I enrolled in law school. During my first year, I read many cases about terrible things that have happened to innocent people. This continued to reinforce my belief that my focusing solely on people’s religious beliefs when making a judgment about them was too limiting. If what I believe about the universe is true and I sit at home secure in the knowledge that I’m right while reading a book about logic and doing math puzzles, while what others believe about the universe isn’t true but
their fake belief causes them to go out and help at a food pantry, I’m not the better person. Actions mean more than beliefs.

  Even though I have a greater amount of empathy for religious people, I still think that my shift, going from religious to nonreligious, was a really good thing. Finding compassion and tolerance for religious people is not the same thing as thinking that it’s superior to be religious. It wasn’t easy for me to overcome all the guilt that I had when I was young. It took a long time.

  When I was younger, I would feel guilt if I didn’t live up to Baptist school-imposed goals. Now, I feel guilt if I don’t live up to self-imposed goals. I have the ambition, for example, to be a good person, and I have an idea of what that means. I want to give back. I want to be nicer than is natural. In Baptist school, I was taught that if I had a critical thought about someone, if I thought that someone’s shoes were ugly, for example, then that was a sin. I was told that I needed to pray for forgiveness. Those aren’t attainable goals. I can be nice to people, and I can volunteer, but I can’t make sure that every single thought that I have conforms to a religious code. I now have a different, attainable standard for morality that is grounded in things that actually matter and that will truly impact the people around me.

  Still, I understand the social dangers for people becoming atheists or nonreligious. My best friend is an atheist largely because I persuaded him. Then, he de-converted his mom. His mother is black. The reason that I mention her race is because prior to her de-conversion, she was very involved in a black community of churchgoers. When she lost her religion, it was as though she lost her identity, not just as a religious woman but also as a black person, as a black woman. She was rejected from her entire social group. She became extraordinarily depressed. Her switch to atheism has been a negative change for her. This has changed my view on the subject, too. I think that being religious may simply be better for some people. I know that that statement would probably make so many of my atheist friends angry, but I think that there’s a reason why religions have existed for so long.

  I also, though, understand how religious differences can impact relationships. My ex-boyfriend was religious. We lived together and had been dating for two years. We were very close. He’s religious, and the differences in our worldview created conflict. I had never refused to date anyone because they’re religious, and I didn’t even know that he was religious until we had been dating for quite a while. His religiosity didn’t impact us at first, but it began to. He very clearly told me that he would not have kids with me, and I told him that I would never allow my children to be brought up in a religious environment. Understandably, this subject can make it or break it for couples. It did for us.

  Despite my desire to be tolerant of religious people, I won’t budge on whether to send my children to religious schools and to church on Sunday. So often — and this was certainly true in my experience — churches teach guilt. Their lessons can be terrible. It’s been a long time since I went through my indoctrination, but I felt extraordinarily betrayed when I realized that what I had been taught wasn’t true, that I had been taught to feel guilty about ridiculous things. I was instilled with a morality that doesn’t correspond with how responsible human beings should operate within the world. On top of that, if my husband were religious and I was not, there’d be confusion for our kids. If mommy believes that there is no God and daddy believes that there is, if what daddy believes is true, then mommy is going to go to hell. I think that’s pretty terrible to teach to a kid. I would only allow my children to go to church if he or she wanted to, if he or she wanted to explore.

  Overall, I think that the change in my beliefs from being religious to being an atheist was very good for me. I feel really indebted to people. I’ve had an extremely privileged life. My parents, my family, my community have all provided that to me. I feel a strong need to give back some of that goodwill. I think we should all enjoy life while we can. As an atheist, I can do so without religious blinders.

  XXI.

  ______________

  A.N.: From Bombay to Oklahoma

  “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

  — Gandhi

  A.N. didn’t taste beef until he was 21 years old. When he did, he had just arrived in America following a childhood spent in his native India. Millions of Hindus abstain from eating their sacred cows. America, he quickly found, was different from his home country. The world’s most technologically advanced nation not only subsisted on Big Macs, it also had Christian evangelicals who asked strangers in college cafeterias if they had been saved by Christ.

  Because he stopped believing in God at an early age, A.N. was not severely impacted by his conclusion that the universe is neither created nor governed by a celestial guider. To A.N., critical reasoning, the ability to use one’s own mind to discover facts about the world, is perhaps the most valuable personal skill. He’s grateful that he’s been able to foster that ability in himself.

  I was born in Bombay, India and was raised in Hinduism, one of the world’s oldest religions. It has several branches, and no two are alike. While some Hindus only eat vegetarian food and other Hindus eat a lot of chicken and fish, they generally do not eat beef. A major reason why is because, in the past and the present, Indians have fed themselves from the milk of cows, which has made it difficult for Indians to kill them. There’s a Hindu analogy that a cow’s milk is similar to the milk that a child receives from its mother. Because of this, cows began to be revered and even worshipped, something that has spread from generation to generation.

  Different sects of Hindus follow different Gods; it’s a polytheistic religion. Interestingly, there is also one branch of Hinduism that’s primarily atheistic. They do not believe in a God, even though they do believe in other superstitions like reincarnation. Many Hindus believe in reincarnation — literally being born again — and in the idea that people are born human and that if they do good deeds, they will be reborn as a human in their next life. If they do bad deeds, they believe that they will be born as a cockroach or some other unpleasant creature.

  In addition to its religious diversity, the caste system, which, to an extent, still exists today, is also an important factor in Indian society. Historically, Brahmans have been the priests and the most educated caste. They’re generally richer, and their kids received an education. The lowest caste has been the untouchables. They did the dirty work of society, and their kids never received an education. Recently, there has been a growing assimilation and inter-marrying between the castes. The government now reserves college opportunities for people belonging to the lower castes in order to give them an education. Things are changing.

  Gandhi is an important figure in the religious history of India. He was a religious person, and he wanted Hindus and Muslims — the majority of the population of historical India — to live in peace. His trademark philosophy was one of non-violent protesting, and he was critical to India’s bloodless freedom struggle against the British. Gandhi aimed to bring about a change in the heart of the torturing oppressor. He once stated that the spiritual enlightenment that he needed, Hinduism provided. That said, he was joined in his struggle by Hindus and people from other religions, too.

  As Gandhi knew, there has historically been strife between India and Pakistan, much of which still exists today. Even though they’re not at war, there is a Cold War-like scenario because of the situation surrounding the state of Kashmir. India and Pakistan received their independence on two different dates. Both countries then began to annex as many surrounding territories as possible in order to expand their respective lands. Kashmir, because of its beauty and its potential for tourism, became a favorite for both nations. India annexed most of it, then Pakistan occupied some of it. Ever since the beginning of the disagreement, wars have been fought over that piece of land.

  With that history explained, I will begin telling my personal story. My religious upbringing was pretty moderate. I was religious, of course
. I believed in a God largely because my family was mostly religious, and I followed what they believed. But I was always very scientifically inquisitive. Mathematics and science were my favorite subjects in school. From a very early age, unlike many, I did not believe in superstitions like ghosts. I did not stop when a black cat crossed my way. Perhaps I was a natural skeptic.

  At the age of 12, I began to wonder, “I do not believe in ghosts; I do not believe in life after death; I do not believe in bad luck; why is belief in God not a superstition?” It seemed to have all of the characteristics of one. Why do people believe in God but laugh at people who believe in other silly things? I determined that unless someone came up with evidence of a God, I was an atheist.

  Demanding evidence for beliefs seems to be part of who I have always been. My grandmother is very religious and very superstitious. When I was younger, I would playfully defy her. If she told me that saying a word on a certain day or at a certain time was bad luck, I would say that word on that day or at that time. If she said, “Don’t trim your nails at night because it is bad luck” I would do just that right in front of her, just to tease her. I think that I wanted to show her that some of what she believed wasn’t true.

  Largely because of my lifelong commitment to critical reasoning, when I became an atheist, I didn’t feel enlightened, suddenly free, or anything like that. Even though my parents believed in a God, they let me think for myself. Once I told them what I had concluded, though, they did ask me to keep my atheism to myself. They thought that other people might think that I was arrogant because I was 12 years old.

  My life continued. I came over to the U.S. at the age of 21. My parents knew that the first thing that I was going to do when I reached the U.S. was eat beef. I’d never eaten one hamburger in my entire life, and on day one, I did just that.