Losing My Religion

I was Catholicized without having first been consulted at a very young age, though at least we didn't make a habit of attending Masses; when my family moved to Albion Avenue in Paterson, New Jersey, however, we eventually started attending the Baptist church down the street. My sister and I even spent time there on days other than Sunday and helped to clean the church and its grounds. Yes, I was in the church choir, too. We all stopped going after some years, though.

I decided at the tender age of thirteen that I could no longer believe in any sort of spiritual being that watched and had power over us, or that there was an afterlife, in which each of us might be judged for his/her 'sins.' My seventh-grade teacher, Mr. Messina, who turned me on to the Beatles, was also an atheist, and while he may have influenced my decision to some degree, it's hardly his fault I'm a non-believer now.

In high school, I got in the habit of responding jokingly whenever someone took the Lord's name in vain. This annoyed a few people, but entertained many; a fellow student coupled my Ray-Ban Wayfarers (like Don Johnson's in "Miami Vice") with this habit and dubbed me the 'Vice God,' a nickname I haven't quite been able to shake since 1987. Another student and friend was stunned to learn that I was an atheist yet didn't drink / smoke / do drugs / sleep around. I had to explain to her that morality and temperance are not only for the devout, and that atheists are not by definition immoral or amoral, a lesson that many people still need to learn.

During my year at Glassboro State College, my suitemates Michael Streahle (who was also an atheist) and Don Mennig (who was not) and I engaged in a few debates on religion, until Don decided that he didn't want to talk about it with us anymore.  ;)  Streahle and I then discoursed on the possibility of the two of us being the Second Coming of Christ and the Antichrist, not necessarily in that order. I figured that I was a cinch for the Second Coming, except for one minor detail: I wasn't a believer. Don probably wouldn't have enjoyed those conversations at all...

I have at times been a rather militant atheist, though once I'd reached my mid-20s, my stance had softened considerably. While some will argue otherwise, atheism is not actually a belief system; it is instead the lack of one. There are certainly 'hard' atheists who actively deny the existence of a deity and therefore actively believe there is no God; I, however, found myself shifting to the 'soft' school, which simply sees no evidence to support belief in a deity and therefore does not believe in one. The difference between believing something is not true and not believing that something is true is perhaps subtle, but it is a difference nonetheless. I've sometimes chided people for their religious beliefs and rituals, but as long as I wasn't subjected to it, affected by it, or forced to bear witness, it really didn't rouse any emotions in me one way or the other. Religion, or the lack thereof, should be a personal choice, and if it's kept to oneself, then all the better.

During my late twenties and early thirties, I developed an interest in and a deep respect for the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and political leader of Tibet's government-in-exile. In 2003, I saw him speak twice, in Boston and in New York. I'm not a Buddhist, any more than I am a Christian or a Hindu, but of the major religions, Buddhism makes the most sense to me. I also like that the Dalai Lama has said that, if science proves something that contradicts Buddhism, then Buddhism will have to change to accomodate that new fact. He's shown a very keen interest in science, and in Boston he publicly decried faith healing and stated that, if he found someone who could actually do it, he'd have that person look at his knee. Heh-heh... If I were going to put my fate and faith in the hands of a religious leader, he's the best candidate out there!

As for my current feelings on religion, while I'm not the hardline militant atheist I once was, I have still not been convinced by anyone, of any faith, that there are any deities in the universe worthy of my awe and adulation, with the possible exception of the universe itself. Oh, I sometimes gives thanks to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but I'm not really a Pastafarian. I prefer to think of myself as an agneist these days. Maybe there is some kind of omnipotent cosmic presence, but I've seen no incontrovertible evidence and am not at all certain...

Read an essay I wrote on atheism

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