Detours On My Path
from Theism to Atheism
Many people have made a
successful transition from a previous theistic belief system to the
lack of belief known as atheism. It is particularly difficult for
people who have been indoctrinated into dogmatic theism at a very
young age. Critical skepticism is incompatible with many dogmatic
religions, people that become atheists do not likely start their
transition for this reason. It would require a skill set that is
suppressed by the religion itself. So lacking the skills to
apply rational logic to one's beliefs, the path to atheism is most
often quite complicated and takes various detours that only in
hindsight are exposed as unnecessary.
One major hurdle for
many believers is getting past personal revelations. That is,
believers often have had some experience that made them believe their
god exists. They may believe they have felt or sensed the presence of
this god. For Christians who have never had this experience, the path
to atheism is that much easier.
I was not so lucky. I
had a self-evident experience that I attributed to god as a child. I
felt I had a relationship with an actual entity. Only much later in
my life did I understand that personal revelations are often quirks
of brain chemistry, including sensations of a 'presence', all of
which have been reproduced in laboratory experiments, any rational
being should dismiss any experience that cannot be objectively
verified by another person. At some point, these experiences stopped.
I still believed I was a Christian at the time, and certainly did not
want these experiences to stop. I prayed and asked that god to
re-reveal himself to me so my faith would again be bolstered. This
never again happened. Despite repeated genuine attempts to rededicate
my life to god, I never again achieved that connection.
I then relied on the
testimony of others to keep any sense of faith. But I realized that
the reason Christians share similar personal experiences does not
point to the truth of those experiences, but to the fact that they
have shared beliefs. Shared concepts and imagery influences
personal experiences to the extent that similarities then arise. It
is like dreaming about something that one constantly thinks about.
Plus, the fact that people of differing religions (which often
contradict each other) also have personal experiences of their
different opposing gods, negates any evidential value of these
claims, even anecdotally. They cannot all be true as certain dogmas
contradict other dogmas. One certainly cannot tell who is really
experiencing 'the real god' and who is just delusional.
Once one can doubt
personal revelations on these grounds, one has to find better reasons
to believe. That is, one is finally on a path to truth. So here is
the process of transition that I went through, including the missteps
I made along the way:
- I gave myself permission to doubt as it seemed to be a logical designed feature of my mind that a god would want me to use honestly and unbiased. The problem of evil in particular made me question my faith. The fact that a god would kill everyone on the planet in a flood, or would authorize bands of people to enslave others, or would kill infants seemed particularly troubling, but my problem with evil was more based on the actual history of humankind, such as the holocaust, the massive world wars, the disease and famine throughout the world. This all seemed inconsistent with a loving god that was also all powerful.
- I then studied other religions. This seemed quite logical after I realized that the only reason I was a Christian was that I was indoctrinated as a Christian. It was reasonable to expect that the god I thought existed might well be independent of the dogma. I looked for common traits among religions and found only certain morals were shared, and that no central god concept was consistent enough to believe there was any underlying true nature for that god. It seemed the world had got god wrong, but had figured out certain morals regardless. Given that the morals did still vary, and that the ones that were shared were pretty common sense (like not killing or stealing), I found no reason to expect morality itself indicated a common god. I dabbled in many religions, including pantheism and Buddhism. Once I realized that what I was getting out of these religions had natural explanations, and that no god was evident in them either, I became interested in science.
- I sought explanations for as much of the world as possible to remove the need for a creator. This was a flawed approach (though I certainly did not realize this was a flawed approach at the time) that lead me to having to study a huge variety of scientific fields. I had not yet realized that I was allowed to simply state 'I don't know' and had not yet discovered the logical fallacy of the argument from incredulity or the argument from ignorance. Ultimately, I am glad I did go down this unnecessary detour, as I found that I really enjoyed science and was indeed able to understand it, despite the fundamentalist Christian teaching that would lead people to believe the universe is too mysterious to understand (and therefore god exists). But specific books opened my mind. Stephen Hawking's “A Brief History of Time” and Brian Greene's “Elegant Universe” were particularly mind-blowing for me and made me realize that science can, in fact, explain quite a lot of the universe, and that the god hypothesis is not even necessary to consider for what remains unexplained.
- With the advent of the internet it is possible to watch the best minds of both positions, theism and atheists discuss the matter of god's existence. Knowing my mind was inferior to people with degrees in psychology, cosmology and theology, I wanted to see who was winning the argument in question. I found that the atheist debaters were overwhelmingly more rational in their arguments. That is, they just seemed to make more sense. I wanted to then know WHY they were making more sense, that is, I needed to understand what it is to be a critical rational skeptic.
- Having found the limits of scientific explanations, I wanted to know how and why humans think in particular ways, especially why the majority of people are theists. Having seen that atheists debated their points from logical positions that seemed infallible, I also wanted to know how they had this power to create infallible arguments. Studying logic eventually lead me to understand fallacious arguments and the logical absolutes.
- I then quickly realized that the remaining reasons I was holding to weak deism, or being an agnostic theist (without any dogma) were all fallacious. Making an exception for a god that I do not permit for big foot, fairies, or unicorns was unfair and illogical. I now chose to only believe in things that have been demonstrated to exist.
- I then learned to be comfortable with unanswered questions. I just leave the holes alone. I figure we should let the scientists investigate and find answers and not worry about what is not yet explainable. I figured out that there was no need to plug holes with things that could not even prove exist in the first place as this stops the investigation and hinders science, as it has throughout history countless times. Once I learned that 'I don't know' is not an admission of inferior beliefs, but rather the most honest approach to avoiding fallacious beliefs, I became free. The honest way to continue from here was to remain an agnostic atheist: though I am certainly able to prove that certain gods do not exist, I can have my mind changed if any evidence ever presents itself. As no such evidence exists for ANY god, atheism is the logical default position.
The feeling of freedom,
of owning my mind, and being a moral and good person despite the
immorality and evil taught by Christianity made the transition worth
while. I just wish I had learned the logical absolutes, logical
arguments, and the logical fallacies at some point in my upbringing
as the transition would not have taken me 14 years. Teaching rational
thinking and logic to our children should be the new indoctrination
and the goal of atheist parents. Give them the tools to know what
they believe to be true and they will naturally avoid fallacious
beliefs. It is quite the opposite to religious indoctrination.
Further reading: My Book is now available on Amazon Kindle and other formats. Here is the link to the book's website:
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