Why I am an Atheist

Introduction

About 5 years ago, I began a long journey of introspection and questioning that eventually lead me to freeing myself from my constraining and limiting faith. Since that point my christian friends and family have asked me what made me “leave the faith,” and I’ve had trouble putting such a great pilgrimage into linear words that can do justice to the reality of my experiences. This post is not an argument or an apologetic for atheism. It is a collection of some of the more meaningful checkpoints and landmarks that I have visited along my way.

The question of suffering

As I moved from a predominantly black and hispanic city called the Bronx, into a 95% white town, I started noticing some large social and economic differences. The schools were immaculate, the students had a wide and broad support system. Almost everyone, no matter their economic situation, had local family members who had ownership, businesses, money, or influence to some degree. The government housing was well maintained and looked similar—if not better—than the surrounding houses and apartments. The police were friendly to the youth and the streets were safe. Although the town was and is vastly impoverished, the poverty here was nothing like the poverty I grew up knowing. I knew racial inequalities existed on paper, but experiencing both Americas was strange and upsetting. Perhaps the worst “sin” was the absolute silence on racial matters in the Church and amongst my new found white friends. No one talked about it, it didn’t touch them, it didn’t exist to them.

When you are someone who believes in an omnipotent higher power and you're confronted with injustice and suffering, you have a choice to blame the victim or the higher power. In America, the wealth median ratio from white to black is 13 to 1, white to Hispanic 10 to 1. Globally the figures are worse. Indigenous people and people of color have been consistently raped, pillaged, killed, and enslaved throughout history. There’s no need to site sources, the sheer amount of books, and works written on the subject should be telling. If there is a good, just, God who is in control with the power to bless and curse, how can we justify this? It was hard to come to grips with, but If God has the power to bless and curse, he must exponentially favor white people.

The inequalities and human suffering on this earth are near incomprehensible. Inorder to remain functional in today’s world we have to fortify our concsiounses to a state of ignorance and indifference. When those fade, and awareness begins to manifest, the Christian mind is thrusted into a powerful state of cognitive dissonance. We always have the choice to brave through it and risk the collapse of our entire psychic structure, or cave and refortify ourselves in the dark cells of ignorance and numbness. Faced with these competing realities, I stepped forward and came to a conclusion.

If a benevolent all powerful deity exists he’s either

a. Not a powerful deity and cannot put an end to the worst pain and suffering on earth

b. Not a benevolent deity but a malevolent one who is responsible for the pain and suffering on earth

c. Chose to relinquish his power in the name of “free will” and is thereby functionally powerless

d. Doesn’t exist at all

If he is A or B then I’m not quite sure why he deserves to be worshiped or has earned any authority to dictate our lives. If he is C, which many Christians hold to, than in what benefit to the earth has he limited his powers? Could he have not made man without the extremely depraved desires and terribly weak will? Must he allow millions of children to be raped? Must he send billions of people to untimely deaths, after living terrible painful existences? What justification is there to have power to stop these things, but do nothing? Look at the past 2,000 years of chaos, war, disease, and death, if he hasn’t come to the rescue yet, at which point will he step in? When all life has been destroyed? I found no answer, only faith, excuses, and denial.

As a I processed this question, it become more likely, in my mind, that the answer is D. Once you invalidate the Bible by escaping the circular reasoning that the Bible is true because it says it’s true, there’s very little reason to believe in it’s God or it’s version of reality.

A convenient truth

It doesn’t take a scholar to realize how doctrines seem to have been created to bolster the Church’s power, membership, and influence. If a “truth" is too convenient for it’s teller, the truth should be questioned. It isn’t a stretch to make the following assumptions:

• The doctrine of hell was introduced to keep people attending church (originally not being a member of the Catholic church damned you to hell)
• Purgatory and indulgences were a means of collecting money to fortify the churches power and reign
• Suicide became an unforgivable sin to keep members from killing themselves when facing the terrible reality of medieval existence.
• The heavy pressure for servitude created free labor for the Church without the mess of slavery
• Rewards in heaven for good works kept the people from expecting real world returns for their efforts
• God will take revenge allowed the people to be content in their oppression by Church leadership and government
• The pastor became the “mouth of God” to keep the people from questioning leadership
• “Belief” in Jesus Christ became the entry point into heaven as it is much more accessible than living a righteous life (also the renaissance brought with it the idea of the individual perspective, and the Church followed suit. Belief was an individualized perspective that placed the subject at front and center. This was not a miraculous revelation out of tune with the rest of culture)
• Gay relationships were forbidden to keep church membership growing through population growth
• Women were excluded from leadership to maintain the patriarchal power structure
• Dispensationalism was a way to explain why miracles and acts of God no longer take place
• A prayer's effectiveness depends on the faith of the one whom prays
• The Bible is inerrant.safa This is not claimed anywhere in the Bible. 2 Tim 3:16-17 simply states it’s inspired by God and useful for teaching. This doctrine was clearly invented to keep adherents from questioning the Bible, and keep believers trapped in an endless cycle of “The bible is true because it says it’s true."

With every doctrine it wasn’t hard to find a convenient benefit to the institution or a clear cultural force driving it.

No way to validate, or invalidate

This is a very simple objection, if you can’t prove and I can’t disprove your claim, why should I believe it? The claim that there is a deity that created life is not falsifiable. However, just because it isn’t falsifiable, and can’t be proven this way or the other, doesn’t mean it isn’t functional or useful. The function or usefulness of a claim or belief can be tested. Religion as a construct can be falsified, whether it’s claims are true or not are irrelevant in this matter.

Historically, Christianity is responsible for some great and terrible things. The burning of books of knowledge, the obliteration of cultures, the dark ages, the holy wars, the witch hunts, the inquisitions. The reformation was a bloody mess between waring versions of Christianity and government interests. None of this is out of the ordinary for human institutions, and there were positive elements of Christianity that must be applauded. But broadly, Christianity caused humanity to halt and move backwards, and stay there for a thousand years. And this was a direct cause of the functional application of christianity. Christianity had the power to innact anything it desired for a full melenium, and this is the legacy it left. The reformation hoped to correct these ills, but unfortunately it’s legacy is mired in blood, genicide, xenophobia, racism, and misogyny. We can make excuses for the church and it’s many manifestations, but it’s record remains. I saw it’s societal uses as near exhausted and It’s construct falsified by it’s disfunction.

Taking a step back from Christianity’s dark past, and moving into a rational modern context, I asked, is today’s American Christian any better off than today’s Atheist? The question, simple on the surface but complex in its workings, is rather hard to answer definitively. The statistical differences don’t seem to standout, and are usually associated with other factors outside of religion. Given how much time, money, and effort is invested into religion, you’d expect a certain ROI threshold for it to be considered functional and useful for the individual. From a broad statistical perspective, you don’t see any significant differences in the average Christian that justify Christianity as a staple construct we should be compelled to adopt in our lives, especially considering its long dysfunctional history.

This realization, that Christian’s are by and large no different than any other person, reinforced my suspicions that the Christian God did not exist, or at best was functionally mute. This lead me to observe my personal experience, and evaluate the effects that the deistic teachings of Christianity have had on my own life.

1. Enforced dualistic thinking
   1. Everything was black or white, right or wrong. I was unable to hear realities nuanced, fluid expression of itself
2. Gave me an easy outlet to ignore serious and festering problems
   1. A simple prayer, or "God is in control" allowed me to stay blissfully ignorant of compounding errors in my life
3. Gave me a false sense of security and superiority
   1. Thinking you know the all powerful creator of the universe in an intimate way tends to make you feel special and secure, when in reality, you're just another dot in the universe very few sentient beings give a shit about.
4. Gave my emotions, hunches, and feelings too much weight
   1. When you think God speaks through your feelings and thoughts, any of them may be "God’s voice” or “God’s direction"
5. Kept me in a revolving state of confusion
   1. Trying to decipher God’s will, or direction for my life with the tools of; a giant document, which doesn’t agree with itself; my thoughts; my emotions; and mere happenstance; was a means of great ambiguity and stress in my life.
6. Reinforced illogical and circular reasoning patterns
   1. Every Christian knows the stress of doubts. In reality, this is your frontal lobes kicking in. But we immediately bathe ourselves in irrational verse, song, and community to suppress these thoughts as rapidly and as forcefully as we can as our salvation depends on it, damnit!
7. Encouraged me to repress, rather than integrate, the various aspects of my personality and nature

Now for the person in an immature state, many of the above can actually be useful. But at a certain point in the person’s life, they become damaging and regressive. That’s why I use the term “outgrew” Christianity; It was functional for a period of my life, but became dysfunctional after it’s purposes were served.

The answer of suffering

There is suffering because man’s tools have always been more powerful than man’s intellect. I believe spirituality is a tool to process, experience, and describe our reality when we lack the means to do so otherwise. Religion is what happens when the tool of spirituality is more powerful than our intellect and becomes our master. I am still trying to find the answers and solutions for suffering. But without the rigid confines of a religion or a ruling deity, I have the freedom to pursue every possible end, unencumbered by dogma, guilt, or the terror of doubt.

Final notes

I wouldn’t want this to digress into a debate whether Christianity is real, or not. The intention of this post was not to bash Christianity, but to simply state my reasons for not believing in it’s deistic claims or dogma. I do believe that all of its books belong amongst the greatest works of humanity. It’s depictions of the human state, desire, weaknes, fear and hope are still relevant today. Jesus as the savior archetype gives us the last and most well developed depiction of the hero from the mythological mind of man. I would hope every Christian would consider these thoughts and find resolve and peace in wherever they land.

Photo: My family in 2014, Cherith Hope Photography