Why I stopped believing

I first started to question the validity of religion when I was a little girl driving home through the countryside with my mother after a visit to my grandmother's house. There were cows out in the fields all along the highway, and for some reason I started wondering what happens to cows when they die. I asked my mother, "do cows go to heaven when they die?" She told me that they didn't. When I asked why, she said "because they have no souls."

Now, this brought me right up short. What?? Cows have no souls? This was big news. But of course, dogs and cats have souls, right Mommy?

Nope. No souls.

Okay, now that's just not right, I was thinking in my little kid head. This is just wrong. Cats and dogs have to have souls! Otherwise they can't go to heaven and be with their families when they die! But Mum insisted it was so, so it must be so. Mum was always right, after all.

My belief began to die that day, when I was just a kid, because animals couldn't go to heaven.

Then there was the fact that my Mother and brother and I converted to Judaism when I was nine. Going from believing in the god of the Christians to believing in the god of the Jews didn't really do a lot to help in the soulless animals department. I mean, if you can just switch from one god to another, it doesn't really help when it comes to really believing in something. It's a little fickle, isn't it. Mum always insisted she converted because she believed in the Jewish faith, and because she's my Mum, I believe her, but I always got the feeling that most people I share the story with assume she converted because she wanted to marry a Jewish man (because she did marry a Jewish man). So if you can change your religion simply to marry someone, it doesn't seem to give religion a lot of cling in the stickiness department.

So, doubting on two fronts, I was totally primed for what happened when I was sixteen. I wish I could remember it better, but memory has never been my strong suit. I do remember sitting on the kitchen floor, talking on the phone with my boyfriend at the time, who had just started med school at Carleton University. We spent hours on the phone, like all teenagers do.

This particular conversation was about religion, and I remember the thoughts going through my mind. I remember thinking how I just couldn't grasp the concept of some old white-bearded guy sitting on a throne up in the sky. It just didn't make sense to me at all. My boyfriend of course was doing his best to encourage this train of thought. And suddenly it was like there was a *click* and all of a sudden I didn't believe anymore. Just like that.

Kinda like the way I quit smoking when I was 23. I ran out of cigarettes at work one day. I was the only one in the office, and I was seriously considering leaving the office empty for up to half an hour so I could walk to the convenience store down the street and buy more smokes. All of a sudden I realized that cigarettes were running my life. How stupid was that? So right then and there, I quit, and I've never had a cigarette since. (Rather a good analogy don't you think? And true!)

Soulless animals, religious conversion and a convincing atheist boyfriend may not be very compelling reasons to give up religion. Certainly not very dramatic. But young people don't need compelling reasons to do the things they do. The important thing is that I've never wavered in my lack of faith since it left me. 31 years it's been, and even without a god I'm still a good person for the most part...at least as good as any god-fearing folk are, if not more so. I haven't suffered for the lack of a personal deity in my life. In fact, my life has been unusually free of suffering and want. I don't ascribe that to any choices I've made. I'm just lucky. My Mum always said so.

A rose by any other name?

Words are important to me. I like to use just the right word to express what I mean, so there can be little to no chance of misunderstanding. It drives me crazy when I've tried very hard to write a sentence to express exactly my intent, and still some people don't "get" it the way I meant it.

I try to be the same way when speaking, though the spoken word is much more difficult to get just right owing to the fact that it's on-the-fly and can't be edited once it's spoken.

So you can see my dilemma when it comes to being a non-believer. How do I refer to things in such a way that it's clear that I don't believe in god and don't wish to frame my thoughts using expressions created for a god-fearing world?

Even though I stopped believing in any form of deity when I was 16 (more than thirty years ago!) I still use many expressions that originate with religious terms, even though people don't think of them as religious expressions anymore, they're so ubiquitous. But with my recent escalation from simply being a non-believer to being a well-informed and aware non-believer, I feel it necessary to start watching my language.

The term "atheist" is a little problematic for me. It's problematic in the sense that it's a simple, widely-understood term, yet it forces me to define myself in terms of what I am not. I wouldn't call myself an amermaidist or an aleprechaunist, right?

So what do I call myself instead? Do I need to call myself anything? When someone asks what religion I am, I've always said "I'm an atheist." But I don't want to use that term to define myself anymore. I also don't like terms like "Humanist," as it connotes a relationship with an official group of people whose methods I haven't completely decided if I agree with yet.

At one point, I thought I would refer to myself simply as homo sapiens. It's accurate, and in its translation, very true: thinking man (if you accept the word "man" to define the entire human race, which just opens up another whole can of worms!). Besides, people would just look at me funny if I said "I'm homo sapiens." Half of them because they wouldn't know what it means, the other half because it just sounds silly. And all of them would probably think I was saying I'm gay. Besides, technically, even if it doesn't seem like they do much logical thinking, even deists are homo sapiens.

I think from now on, when the subject comes up, I'll simply say I don't believe in a deity.

I've also been having trouble lately with expressions like "thank god" or "thank heaven" or any number of other expressions that refer to anything religious. I'm trying to purge them from my lexicon, but it's not easy, partly because they're so ingrained in me after almost 48 years, and partly because I haven't come up with suitable replacements. One of my favourites is "thank my lucky stars." I can't even use that anymore because it implies a belief in astrology or some such folderall. "Thank goodness" is probably the best I can do there. It doesn't imply any religious intent. "Oh for crying out loud" is a good expression of exasperation or frustration to use instead of "oh god."

Hmmm...I wonder what I'll say instead of "oh god" when I'm having really good sex?

Atheism -- it ain't for sissies

I kind of envy believers. That's not something you'd expect most atheists to admit to, but maybe I'm a little different from most atheists.

The reason I envy believers is that they're so comfortable in their belief that they'll go to heaven when they die. They'll rejoin lost loved ones, live in paradise for all eternity and never suffer hardship or disease or pain ever again. Many of them actually look forward to dying.

And that's why atheism ain't for sissies. Because every day we live with the fact that this is all there is, baby. There ain't no afterlife, there ain't no great reward. No lounging around on climate-controlled clouds for all eternity eating bon-bons and playing canasta with Mother Theresa.

Being an atheist is like living in a drafty cabin at the top of some remote mountaintop. There's no room for delusions and you sure can't pretend the doorbell is going to ring and some heavenly pizza guy is going to deliver you from evil. Being an atheist means you're mostly on your own. There's not that many of us out there - about 18% in Canada, and far fewer in the U.S. Then again, it's hard to say how accurate any stats on atheism are because many studies lump the "non-religious" and the agnostics in with atheists. I strongly feel that atheism should not be lumped in with agnosticism. They're very different things.

Being an atheist is a wee bit like being gay. You mostly have to keep your atheism to yourself in case someone is offended enough by it to make your life difficult or unpleasant. I don't deliberately try to keep my atheism a secret, but I haven't been in the habit of going around making it a public issue. I'm not ashamed of being an atheist, but I usually don't bring it up unless it's logical to do so in a conversation. That may change. This blog is the first step in that.

It just seems to me that the faithful are doing far too much damage and getting far too much power. The separation between church and state, especially in the U.S., is becoming almost impossible to distinguish. The fanatics are getting more fanatical and the results of that are becoming more and more frightening and dangerous. I think it's time for me to stop being so coy about being an atheist.

In this blog I will not refer to "God" or "Allah" as proper nouns. If I ever do use the word god, it will be as a regular noun. A god, a deity, whatever . I will refer to the deity of the Christians or the deity of the Muslims, etc. I may use the term sky-god.

I'm becoming tired of what Sam Harris speaks of as a taboo against challenging people's faith. We've all been brought up to think that it's highly improper to discuss religion in polite society or to *gasp* suggest that you think someone's religion is nothing more than mythology. I think it's time to break that taboo, regularly and firmly, while maintaining a firm adherence to diplomacy and reason.

One of the things I really dislike about most of the atheist "experts" like Richard Dawkins is that they can become quite nasty at times in their refutation of religion. I don't think that's necessary. Personally, I'm not here to destroy religion. But I would like to destroy the stranglehold it has on the minds of most of the world, the damage it's doing to all of us, and its presence in our political spheres. I am willing to live peacefully with the faithful if they're willing to keep their faith contained within reasonable boundaries.

And that is how I feel personally. I will leave you with a definition of atheism that I found on the internet:

The following definition of Atheism was given to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Murray v. Curlett, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S. Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d (MD, 1963), to remove reverential Bible reading and oral unison recitation of the Lord's Prayer in the public schools.

“Your petitioners are Atheists and they define their beliefs as follows. An Atheist loves his fellow man instead of god. An Atheist believes that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth for all men together to enjoy.

An Atheist believes that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction, and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and enjoy it.

An Atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment.

He seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man.

He wants an ethical way of life. He believes that we cannot rely on a god or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter.

He believes that we are our brother's keepers; and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now.”