Freedom
Thu Jan 12, 2006 06:05 EST (UTC -5)And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
-Hamlet
There's something I need to say. It's something I've been hiding to many people for fear of rejection. But I can't keep it in any longer, because doing so would hurt others and myself. So here it is: I am a nonreligious atheist. The nonreligious part means that I don't subscribe to any religious or supernatural belief. The atheist part means that I believe that gods don't exist.
Why would I come to this decision? I have many reasons, but the main one is this: Many religions have existed to explain the unknown. Most are incompatible with each other, and all are unprovable. It makes sense to conclude that science, an alternate answer to "Why?" that, by definition, can be proved, is right. I'd rather find a meaning to life on earth using logic, critical thinking, rationality, and knowledge, than have people hand me a mythological answer, written by guys in tents in a desert thousands of years ago, that no longer holds itself up.
This is obviously a far cry from my Roman Catholic upbringing, but it didn't happen overnight. After I left a Catholic school and started high school, I gained a few more freedoms. I immediately realized that at a public school, I had the legal right not to say the Pledge of Allegiance, which acknowledges that the United States is a "nation under God." I felt that people who didn't believe in God shouldn't have to acknowledge his existence, so I myself didn't say the Pledge.
Over a year ago, in Programming I, my friends and I would discuss such weighty issues as the existence of God. Justin and David would say he existed. Gilbert and Brian would say he didn't. Believing that both views had merit, I would defend the side that was losing. Although I had no qualms about praying or going to church, the dominoes of my faith were set up to fall.
Last year on Palm Sunday (March 20) I was asked to do a reading or something at the mass. When I was done and I had gotten back to my seat, someone -- it doesn't matter who -- said to me, "You forgot to reverence the altar." I thought to myself, "Why would I do that?" It started the chain reaction: it got me thinking about the seemingly strange things that religious people do. After a lot of consideration, I had serious doubts about the rationality of religion in general.
Then, at the youth group mass on April 24, a guest priest was going on about how great Catholics were, in his opinion. "We Catholics are the best," he kept saying. His main bit of evidence, I think, was that Catholic relief organizations get to disasters before any others. Not only did I doubt that, but I noted his haughtiness. That experience knocked down the last domino. From that moment I decided that I could not believe in any religion.
After that I hid my decision from almost everyone. But I became increasingly agitated and I didn't like going to church anymore. I couldn't get anything out of it, and I could no longer live a lie. So the truth has now been told. In fact, I told my parents last night. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. As I was uttering the words, I actually felt like I was trapped in a nightmare. They took it calmly, but I think they were distressed, and rightly so. They say it's just a phase, but it's been a number of months already. Anyway, it's better than being kicked out of the house.
Let me make some more things clear. I am not going to be evil; I'm still going to apply the morals I've learned in life because I know that what is harmful to society is bad, and what is not is okay. I have no ill will against any individuals in my former religious sphere, namely my former schoolmates, members of my family's church, or friends from the youth group. I respect people who adhere to religious beliefs; I just don't think highly of the beliefs to which they cling. I agree to disagree. If more religious people come to understand more nonreligious people, then atheists may finally get a break from being the most openly hated group in America, and that can only be a good thing.
People who will talk about this might say, "Jordon has quite literally lost his religion." But now, having liberated my mind from the confines of a religion, I am free. So I'd prefer to say that I've gained the freedom to think. I can wonder about things. I can accept new ideas. And hopefully, this fresh degree of open-mindedness will make me a better person. If we're going to make the world a better place, then it's living on earth, not an afterlife, that we have to be concerned about. Let's have fun, be good to each other, and live like this is all we've got.
Filed under Atheism, Family, Friends, Musings and Observations, Science, Stuff
. 
13 comments
#1 by Danny Kaye: Thu Jan 12, 2006 15:01 EST (UTC -5)
Hi Jordan.
I think perhaps you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, here. I can understand why, if you were doing these ritualistic motions simply because you were told to do them, you would stop going to church.
But I don't know that you covered the part about why you deny that God exists.
I know this is your blog, and that you don't have to do anything anyone asks you to do. But if you get the chance, and you are so inclined, I would love to hear your reasoning agianst God's existence.
I am not trying to badger you, or convert you to anything. You probably know that I am a "fundie" (to apply the lable others have used) and that I am obviously biased. But I really do want to hear(read) your evidences against a Creator.
#2 by Sean: Thu Jan 12, 2006 15:46 EST (UTC -5)
so are you still gonna come to youth group or no?
#3 by Luke: Thu Jan 12, 2006 15:47 EST (UTC -5)
"--Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant?
--I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I
had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake
an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is
illogical and incoherent?"
You asked me this morning if I was religious, and I knew why you asked, but that dialog shows that Catholics are permanently marked in certain matters. You can't shake some of those things. O, and you went to Catholic school. That's especially damaging.
#4 by Jordon: Thu Jan 12, 2006 16:04 EST (UTC -5)
Danny: Sure, I'll send you some of my thoughts.
Sean: No, I'm not going to go to youth group.
Luke: Interesting quotation.
#5 by Peter: Thu Jan 12, 2006 16:18 EST (UTC -5)
Could you answer your Ask Jordon? I'm kind of relying on it.
#6 by Jordon: Thu Jan 12, 2006 16:32 EST (UTC -5)
Sure, I'll get on it in tomorrow's post. Sorry for the delay.
#7 by kristen: Thu Jan 12, 2006 16:38 EST (UTC -5)
so no more youth group comedy night... shame.
#8 by casey: Thu Jan 12, 2006 18:03 EST (UTC -5)
-clap clap clap-
Jordon, I know exactly how you feel. I pretty much gave up [ooh, that sounded worse than it was meant] on catholocism a few months ago. Like, I still go to church and youth group but its not a real religious expirience for me. Am I a bad person if I don't pray at church or mean every word we were taught to say?
#9 by Jordon: Thu Jan 12, 2006 19:09 EST (UTC -5)
No, you're not a bad person, you're thinking for yourself.
#10 by Jamuraa: Fri Jan 13, 2006 16:14 EST (UTC -5)
I admire you - I can't go quite as far as to be a nonreligious atheist, at best I'm a militant agnostic: I don't know and you don't either, damnit. I try to get myself firmly planted in science, but it doesn't have the answers to the questions which are big and need answering; the questions which religion originally began with. If there is a compelling argument for there to be no god, I am willing to listen to it, but I haven't heard one yet that convinces me completely. At least it's better than what most people in a major religion will just dismiss anything out of hand.
#11 by Joe: Fri Jan 13, 2006 18:21 EST (UTC -5)
So, why exactly did you stop believing in God? Because of rituals and traditions?
#12 by Jordon: Fri Jan 13, 2006 18:53 EST (UTC -5)
I thought I made it clear, but I'll make it clearer: Religions don't make sense.
#13 by Josephus: Wed May 03, 2006 10:44 EST (UTC -5)
This is interesting to me. I would like to start a dialogue with you, and any of the other people who have posted, if they are interested. I should mention that I found this post becasue I did a search for the quote form Joyce in one of the responses... it has haunted me for some time now (I ma in my early forties) and fascinated me at the same time... I am on somethig of a quest to understand my own faith (which i consider deep and abiding) and the inconsistencies of major religions - with themselves and others. Religiosity and faith, I have concluded - are not only the NOT the same thing - they are often exclusionary to each each other. BUT faith and the communities it fosters are an essential part of every civilisation since history began. I, too, am a student of science, and its history - and find it has all the earmarks and flaws of any OTHER religion. There is no doubt in my mind that God exists - and i believe that a proof consisyent with scientific methods is out there for the taking, if only "scientists" and "theologians" could free themselves from the semantic boxes the last htousand or so years have built. I am also certain that the nature of God is NOT explainable on any level we have yet attained... but one of the lessons of quantum mechanics is that the "real" need not be determined by by sense alone, but by the realm of possibility. I think we have failed as an inquisitive species by categorizing our modes of thinking so much so that we miss the forest for the twigs. It is undeniable that science, at its farthest reaches, has become incapable of discussing the foundation of reality without resorting to language that necessarily involves concepts of philosophy - which is just theology by another name. No matter where you wind up in the search for ultimate reality - whether it is the theoretical existence of an independently a priori moral code, or a sense of order in the universe - that is G.O.D (as one recent writer puts it) and so, I have found myself at the threshold of my last philosophical prejudice - I believe that True Atheism is impossible. I would love to discuss this further, as you are seemingly coming from a viewpoint that I once held, and seem eager to be its apologist.