I was raised as a Catholic, but I transcended into an atheist. Here's some of that story below:
It was always the same.
Every Sunday, I sat in the pew between my father and sister as the priest began his homily, a brief sermon on the message derived from that day’s passage from the Gospel. I’d watch the dedicated Catholics around me as they tried to stay awake, the wooden Christ lounging on his cross overhead. Then would come a tremendous crash as the stained-glass windows shattered inward, and a dozen black-clad men tumbled into the church.
Terrorists. Maybe Russians. They swarmed the altar, a few breaking away to block all exit from the building. I surveyed the scene with a detached glance as the terrorist leader put a knife to the priest’s throat. I scanned the room: Everyone was petrified. No one moved. It would be left to me to save the day. I just had to come up with a plan --
No. Scratch that. I couldn’t be sitting in the pew. I should begin in the bathroom instead. Yes, I happened to be taking a leak, and just as I was zipping my pants at the urinal, I’d hear the tremendous crash in the main chapel. Terrorists. It had to be.
I crept into the candle-lit hallway and peeked around the corner. Yes, the priest was blubbering on his knees with a knife at his throat. The faithful mass cowered as the dark assassins circled the room. What were these guys after? Why attack St. Barnabas? Did the Protestants send them? Did they want the collection plate? I shrugged these questions aside knowing the why wasn’t important. The only current necessity was to figure out what I could do to stop it.
I pressed my back against the wall as one of the killers started down the hallway. He was medium build, average height. He wore a grizzled frown and carried an assault rifle. OK, this was it. So what if I was only thirteen years old and unarmed? I had to take this guy out. Hell, I had taken some karate lessons at the local Y when I was younger, and I’d almost made it to greenbelt. This would be kitten’s play.
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I yanked the muzzle of the rifle into the air as the terrorist stepped in front of me, and I brought my knee up into his groin. Baffled and in pain, the evil man began to tumble forward, and I crushed his Adam’s apple with the flat of my hand. He was dead before he hit the ground, and I strapped the rifle over my shoulder.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” I hurried back to the foyer and watched as the terrorist leader made his announcement. “No one needs to get hurt today. We mean you no harm. We’ve come for only one reason: We want Jave Miller!” Me. Were they there for me? Of course. “Give us the boy and no one gets hurt.”
Now I was faced with that most philosophical of questions: to be selfish or altruistic? Should I sacrifice myself on the altar for this crowd of innocents? Did the many claim and crush the rights of the few, the individual? Surrendering myself would be the honorable thing to do. It might even be heroic. I scanned the chapel one final time and decided to compromise.
I can take these guys.
I rested the butt of the rifle in the indent of my shoulder and lined up my first shot, right into the terrorist leader’s heart. I exhaled slowly and began to squeeze the trigger –
RING-A-LING-A-LING!
What the hell? I examined the rifle, making sure the safety-catch was off, but everything seemed fine. I aimed once again, and –
RING-A-LING-A-LING!
I jerked awake as the priest blessed the cardboard-flavored wafers. “This is the body and blood of a new and everlasting covenant. Do this in memory of me.” RING-A-LING-A-LING!
The god-cursed altar boys and their bells.
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My father had brought me to Mass every Sunday for as far back as I can remember. In the beginning it was a pleasant routine: I got to wear nice clothes, say hello to the good people of the community, and pray to some invisible, magical being everybody called “God”. What was this God? I didn’t know. But millions of Catholics couldn’t be wrong, and I put my faith in the understanding of others.
My mother sometimes joined us at church, but she never got in line for the bits and pieces of Christ they called the Eucharist. I didn’t blame her. Jesus wasn’t tasty. But there were some other differences between her and my father in matters of religion. I soon learned that my mother was a Protestant, a member of a different sect or group of Christians. It was an odd thing to realize.
Though I understood little about such things, I knew religion and morality were the same, or at least connected. My mother did not go to her own “Protestant” church, and she never expressed her own peculiar religious view. Yet I knew she had a strong sense of morals, perhaps greater than my father’s since she was the one who had actually told me what was right and wrong.
Apparently everyone in the world was not Catholic. Not even all the good people.
I started attending CCD – the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine – when I was in the second grade. Classes were once a week and taught by some of the local parents. Between church and CCD, I soon realized Catholicism was a significant part of my life. So, unlike most of the children around me, I paid attention in class. And I asked questions.
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“If God is all-knowing, how could Adam and Eve hide from him in the garden after they had sinned?”
“If Jesus was God, why was he so worried the night before his execution?”
“If God is just, why should mankind be blamed for Adam’s weakness?”
All those well-meaning parents could do was stutter and shrug. “Have some faith, child.”
One of the first purposes of CCD is to prepare the young initiate for the sacrament of Confession. Even to my still-molding mind it seemed a corrupt practice to teach an eight-year-old how to beg forgiveness for the horrific sins he is destined to commit.
Don’t get me wrong. When I write “destined” I’m not tossing out the idea of free will. A man has the freedom to sin in any way he chooses. God, in his infinite mercy, created this fail-safe called Confession, because he knew Man was too low and foolish to avoid misappropriating that said freedom. And if a sinner fails to tell a priest all his willful indiscretions, his soul will be flayed on the lightless flames of Hell for all eternity.
The holy day of my Confession quickly arrived, and it was confusing. This was supposed to be a happy event. This day I would proclaim myself a sinner, and my family and I were going to celebrate the fact.
“Oh, no. Today you free yourself of sin. Today you are forgiven.”
Yes, forgiven. But such a statement relies on a very definite assumption – that I had committed sins that needed forgiving.
As far as I was concerned, I was innocent as God’s little finger. Had I made mistakes in my day? Sure, but these weren’t sins. Even then I knew the difference between a conscious wrong and a mistake made in ignorance. A sin is to commit evil when one knows it to be evil. I would never be so foolish or incomprehensible, and therefore I was no sinner. And if it were God’s intention to fling a man’s soul into the pits of Hell over a mistake – if the Church were willing to hold a blameless child as guilty – then something was seriously wrong.
I told my teacher I had never committed a sin and had nothing to tell the priest. “Oh, come now honey, you must have done something wrong in your life. You have to tell the Father something.” I reaffirmed my innocence. “That’s blasphemy, child, and a lie. There’s two sins right there!” She smiled sweetly and tottered off.
I looked around at the dozens of children waiting to enter the confessional. I suddenly thought that if there were some natural disaster like an earthquake before we were able to make our Confession, we’d all be condemned to Hell in an instant.
The thought did not make me afraid. It made me angry.
I found another innocent nearby named Garrett. He also knew he was no sinner, but he suggested we make something up to satisfy the adults. I reluctantly agreed.
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“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” I told him I had argued with my mother or fought with my sister, both of which were true; but I did not count such things as evil. The priest gave his blessing, related God’s commands, and I felt weak for having to conform to something I neither understood nor condoned.
I used to pray every night. I would begin with an “Our Father” or a “Hail Mary” and then God and I would just talk. Well, I would talk. God was an exceptional listener: no interruptions, always a ready ear. I never asked for anything in my prayers because it didn’t seem right. I thought about the millions and billions of people in the world and knew that if they had all asked for things, some desires would have to conflict, and certain people would go wanting. I didn’t want to put God in the position of having to form a contradiction.
I usually just talked about my day. I spoke as if God were my good friend. A pal. Until one day I realized I was only talking to myself, and I stopped praying.
This realization did not upset me. The non-existence of Santa Claus had been a far greater shock. Besides, even if God were not an active participant in my nightly conversations, it didn’t necessarily follow that He did not exist. But it certainly raised the question.
In the seventh grade, CCD came to an end, and it was time to make my Confirmation. Twelve years old, and I was to confirm myself as a Catholic for the rest of my life. It made no sense. I had too many doubts. There were too many discrepancies. I wanted to put it off until I could learn more about my faith. I wanted to understand, and I knew that I was far from any answers. I was certain, however, that my Confirmation was supposed to be a solemn occasion. A holy one. And I did not want to dishonor it or myself with doubt or deception.
Even in the last half hour before the Bishop arrived, while I waited with the other young Catholics-to-be in the Sacristy, I considered refusing to go through with it. I knew taking part in the ceremony would be a sin, if not against God, than against myself; and there is no greater blasphemy. But I also knew that my father was inflexible on this point. I knew if I refused my Confirmation, I’d be starting a war at home that I was in no position to fight. Besides, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
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In the end, I told myself I could last another four or five years and bottle my doubts until I was able to move out of the house. And so I donned my red gown and committed my first conscious sin: I became Catholic.
Afterwards, I grew more restless with every passing Sunday. Mass was not a learning experience, it was a form of worship. That word started to get under my skin. Back when I had prayed every night and God was just one of the boys, well that was fine. But what was with this kneeling crap? Getting on one’s knees was a conscious effort to belittle oneself – and for a thing that was looking more and more like a figment of everyone’s collective imagination.
I started to pay attention to what the priests said during Mass: “Obey the word of God.” What was I, a dog?
“The Kingdom of Heaven.” Kingdom? Isn’t that a bit archaic? I’m an American, damn-it. I want a heaven of the People, by the People, and for the People.
“To love God is to fear God.” What kind of twisted ego-maniac were we talking about here, anyway? So God created us, big deal. Does it mean I should lose all my rights as a human being and grovel before a resentful, immature spirit?
The more I learned in school, the more ridiculous biblical mythology became. Creation vs. Evolution wasn’t even a valid question. OK, so God does a little dance, says “abracadabra” three times, and POOF! there’s the world and man and thousands of animal species. Sure, Father, tell it to the “special” boy down the street.
Once I learned some world history as a freshman in high school, I officially declared myself an atheist.
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Here were all these cultures and nations spanning thousands of years, all with different religions and different gods. Dozens, hundreds of them! Even Christianity had innumerable splinters. And why? What was it that kept these supernatural beliefs alive? People were born into their beliefs and accepted them without question. That was it. That was the whole secret. If you were born in Egypt at a certain time in history, you worshipped Ra; if a Greek, you bowed before Zeus or Athena; if a Hebrew, then Jehovah was your idol. It was random. Absolutely random.
Obviously all these religions could not be true. Only one had any possibility of being correct. Therefore ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine percent of all the gods that had ever frolicked through the imagination of Man were necessarily false. A great hoax. So why? Why did everyone believe that his particular god was the real one? What inescapable proof, what inscrutable evidence did people have for their theological convictions?
Faith.
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.” - Hebrews 11:1. My God, it was right there in the definition. HOPE was their evidence for belief.
It was insane. The faithful of the world were a bunch of whining, teary-eyed children wishing for what was not. And they were willing to do anything to keep themselves from seeing the non-existence of their beliefs’ foundations: Sacrifice your first child; sacrifice your most prized bull; sacrifice ten percent of your income. Kneel before the twisted, slaughtered Christ-god. Wallow in your own sin and weakness. Beg, bow, and confess to the black-robed emissaries of Love and Mercy and Justice and Destruction. Burn a town; enslave a nation; slaughter a race of people. Anything. Do anything and everything, so long as you keep your sacred wish alive!
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I decided atheism was not enough. Atheism is not a belief, but a lack of one. I had positive convictions too. For lack of a better term, I wanted my own religion. And I named it “Javism”.
The main thrust of Javism was this: It is highly unlikely that an omnipotent, omniscient being called “God” exists, and therefore, a person is foolish to believe in such a thing. However, if it turns out that such a being does exist, especially one that fits the description of the Christian god, a man must do everything within his power to overthrow it. God must be ousted from his seat of power.
If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, He must be aware that there is extraordinary room for doubt in His existence, and He must have the power to take away that doubt. But He does not. And because He does not, the clash between faith and doubt has been the cause of innumerable wars and hatreds and miseries. Whether He makes this choice through sadistic glee or nihilistic laziness doesn’t matter – whatever way you sliced it, I could think of no greater evil than God.
You might think a battle with the Almighty is a bit risky. Well, maybe so. But right and wrong should not be dictated by the ease in which they can be accomplished. As an example, the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union was still a fact of life at that time. If the Russians had invaded America, and the odds against resistance were nil, would I have willingly sat on my hands and watched as the Red Horde invaded my country? Do you think I could have meekly allowed my capitalistic brethren to be chained by the irons of communism without a fight? No, I would have fought, and maybe I’d have died, but I would be a man.
And so with God. I, along with some like-minded souls, would storm the gates of Heaven if necessary, and we would topple that ancient tyrant. We’d toss him down to his self-created Hell, and we’d free all the tormented souls that had come before.
It would be difficult, but I had eternity to come up with a plan.
This was not all of Javism. A Javist was a capitalist; he believed in freedom and democracy and the individual; a Javist had faith that good would eventually overcome evil, and he believed that Man’s strength outweighed his weakness; and, most of all, a Javist believed in the power of reason. But I had examined these issues only at their surface. My main meditations concentrated on the rebellion against God.
There were occasional flare-ups between me and my father, but I saved the precepts of Javism for my friends. I still went to church every week. I knew my father was more powerful than God – he existed – and I bided my time.
Then one day I was watching Donahue on TV with my mother, and his guest was a woman, a self-proclaimed atheist. I was impressed by many of her views and found much in her thought that coincided with my own. When my father walked into the room, I beckoned him toward the television. “See, this is exactly what I’ve been trying to say.”
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I wasn’t hostile about it, at least I didn’t mean to be. I realized I was still young and that many of my views were ill-formed and hard to express. I thought perhaps this woman’s eloquence could better explain my opinions, and my father and I could reach an understanding. But I was wrong.
“I don’t want to hear any more about this. While you live under my roof, you’ll go to church and do as I say, or you can pack up and go somewhere else!” And he slammed the door and stormed out of the house.
I was shocked. I did not know my father as a man with a temper. Both my parents had been reasonable concerning almost everything in my upbringing, but that day I witnessed a violence in my father. I saw a flame in his eyes born of fear and frustration and faith, that cursed, cursed word.
From the moment he shouted the words, I never believed he’d follow through with them. But to even threaten abandonment over a difference of opinion – to turn one’s back on a person because he wasn’t willing to blindly bow before an idea – it was horrifying.
Yes, that day I was angry. I was angry at my father for valuing me so little and angry at god for being an obstruction to my freedom and angry at the countless generations that had come before that had saddled the present with that infectious, putrefying disease called Christianity. And my anger helped to cover the searing pain of rejection.
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