Why I Failed As an Atheist

I tried to believe in nothing. And I failed. It was simply too difficult for me to let go of a belief in God that is as innate to me as the English language.

I was born into a secular Jewish family. We observed the holidays as cultural events. The existence of God was implicit, even as I went to public school and studied science and learned about evolution. No one forced me to believe in God. No one even told me to believe in God. No one told me to pray or taught me to pray.

I don't remember the first time I talked to God, but I think that it was around the time that I read Judy Blume's "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret?", which puts my age then at around 10. A pre-adolescent with lots of confusing thoughts going round in my head, I liked how the main character seemed to get something emotionally satisfying out of talking to God. And so I did the same. I liken it to when having read "The Diary of Anne Frank," and taking note of how Anne framed her diary entries as letters to her imaginary friend, Kitty, I decided that I too would frame my diary entries as letters to a friend.

Essentially, I gave myself a friend to talk to, when I was, in essence, talking to myself. It was totally unrelated to any real belief in God's existence. But it felt good.

My first and possibly only brush with the "dogma" of my religion was when I asked my parents about Jesus Christ. They told me there was no such thing. I asked them to clarify. Did they mean that there was no such deity, or no such man? They answered that Jews were "supposed to" not believe that Jesus Christ had ever existed. This didn't make sense to me. Why would it matter if Jesus Christ was a man? And why should anyone be telling me what I should and shouldn't believe?

I put that aside though. It seemed like a minor flaw in an otherwise satisfactory religion. Not that I participated much in my religion. My family never went to synagogue, didn't even belong to one. It was more that being "a Jew" defined me culturally. It gave me brisket and bagels and some holidays to celebrate around the dinner table.

As an adult, I did not join a congregation until my firstborn son was ready to enroll in preschool, and then, it was only because we were required to do so by his preschool, which was part of Park Avenue Synagogue. For years, we drifted along as barely-participating members of this congregation, drifting anemically into enrolling our sons in the Hebrew School, then leaving Park Avenue Synagogue for a less rigorous Hebrew School, then leaving the city and joining a synagogue with a Hebrew School that was so lacking in rigor that it doesn't even call itself "Hebrew School", but rather "Jewish Identity Education." Finally, this past year, we have found ourselves drifting rather lacksidasically towards my older son's Bar Mitzvah.

It wasn't until we attended a training session for parents of Bar Mitzvah age children that I was jarred out of my trance. It was at this training session that our rabbi basically summarized the Torah (the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) in an hour's time. He started with the Garden of Eden and he ended with the death of Moses. As a lover of literature, I expected to be delighted with by the stories that are told over and over again throughout literature, drama and music, whether directly or as metaphor. Instead, all I heard was this:

"God built, God destroyed what he built, God rebuilt, God destroyed it again. God was angry, God was proud, plague of this, plague of that, flood, fire, destruction, war, slaves, more death, my way or the highway. The end."

I walked out of that lecture traumatized. This God that the rabbi spoke of, that the Bible spoke of, could not be benevolent. He certainly couldn't be my imaginary friend. This God was vindictive, arbitrary and capricious, like a child, building towers out of Legos and then smashing them to bits. And if God were not really anything like that, the Bible was still glorifying a God that could kill entire races because they displeased him.

That night, I couldn't sleep. It dawned on me that using the Bible as a reference, one might suppose that the Holocaust was evidence that the Jews had displeased God, and that God was simply cleaning house. My mind reeled: Hurricane Katrina as God's will? Children with cancer? Orphans? Plane crashes? Of course, intellectually, I understood that the Bible was written by people who witnessed, or were told of, terrible events, and were simply trying to make sense of it. So, either, I couldn't believe in this God, or I couldn't tolerate the Bible as anything more than the rantings of scared, primitive people who needed to believe that there was a reason for all of the things that frightened and displeased them.

I decided to reject the Bible. And that was no small feat given that the Jewish religion is based on the Torah, on celebrating the Torah, on revering the Torah (for God's sake, we KISS the Torah, as if it were a living being). But I decided that no one could tell me how to be a Jew. And I decided that I could tolerate my son having a Bar Mitzvah, so long as I told him that he doesn't have to "believe" in the Torah to participate in the ritual (he had already expressed his own doubts in the existence of God, which makes him vaguely agnostic, but still a Jew).

Not long after this, I was talking to my brother-in-law, who I like to refer to as an "Extremist Atheist" because of his efforts to convert the entire world to atheism, and his epic intolerance for anyone who believes in God, about my decision to reject the bible. I told him that my feeling was that the Bible is the problem, as opposed to God, that I could believe in God but not believe that he was single-handedly responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened in the history of the world.

My brother-in-law's reply was to ask me this: "What evidence to you have that God exists?"

I thought about it. And I thought about it some more. But I had no answer beyond, "How could this world exist without intelligent design?" And even I knew that that was not "evidence". You might call it "faith" of sorts, because "faith" cannot exist except in the face of a LACK of evidence. But still, it wasn't evidence, and I knew that.

And for lack of a better answer, I decided, "Yep, I'm an atheist."

Except I couldn't stop talking to my imaginary friend, God. And I felt weird trying to not use the word "God" in sentences like, "God knows..." and "God help us" and "Oh my God!" But mostly, I couldn't stand the idea that there is no greater power out there, and I couldn't tolerate my own hubris at denying the existence of something that might be beyond my comprehension. I don't understand a word of what Stephen Hawking writes, but that doesn't mean he's a raving lunatic. I don't know if there is life on other planets, and I certainly have no evidence of it, but wouldn't it be a bit short-sighted to refuse to believe that there could be?

And so, as quickly as I made the decision to reject God, I made the decision to stop rejecting God. I know that isn't saying a lot. But it's enough for me. Sure, I'm still not a fan of the way God is presented in the Bible. Sure, I don't understand why bad things happen to good people or otherwise. Sure, I don't like the fact that religion has been and continues to be the root of so much violence. But having that "imaginary friend" is a comfort to me in my life. And I don't presume to know anything more than that. Which is kind of the point, I think. Isn't it?

Lauren Cahn blogs about spirituality on Yoga Chickie: Chicken Soup for The Navel Gazing Soul.

Comments

[Dave24]

Atheism is not a belief in nothing. Atheism is a lack of belief. This is not semantic. "God" is an idea invented by humans who did not know what germ is, how the weather operated, or how to treat people who were "different." The only evidence for God consists of fabricated dreams, misinterpreted events, and ancient fairytales that are inconsistent within themselves. While it's possible that God exists, it's just as possible that an invisible violin is floating beside your head. Should we start worshiping the violin? Probably not. So we can only believe in things for which we have evidence. And all claims remain open to outright change. One should have conviction in nothing -- only confidence. And that level of confidence depends upon the amount of verifiable information and supportable evidence.

Science reveals the deep interconnections shared by all creatures, including humans -- for we are animals just the same. It is arrogant to think we are somehow special; we are not. We are distinct, at best.

Wake up and recognize the beauty of the Universe. Wake up and see the situation we are in. It's time to remove the religious filter from our eyes, which blocks the true majesty of nature.

[kjstjohn]

Neal wrote:

"People prayed to gods for millennia and the life-expectancies, overall health, and technological advancement only began to make serious strides once empiricism and systematic logic became the norm."

I would say this:

There are very few Westerners of faith who would dipense with the benefits of empiricism and systematic logic. You seem to believe that the choice one must make is between science and religion when, empirically, we know that not to be the case. Approximately 40% of American scientists profess to believe in God.

I do not profess to "believe in" God. That is not how I perceive God. I would say that I frequently experience myself (and everything else) as being grounded in God. I also do not "believe in" science but I believe it is an adaptive construct that allows us to predict and alter the physical world with great success.

You are vastly more ideological than I am Neal. I would posit that between the two of us, I am far more of an empiricist than you are. I think that your hostility to my world view is not based on my lack of logic or empiricism. I think that you are frustrated at sharing the planet with people who enjoy all the benefits of the scientific method while systematically undermining the culture with magical thinking and an obstinate conflation of myth and history.

[elmerfude]

Neal-- The prominent psychologist Howard Gardner has described eight different types of human intelligence of which the logical-ma­thematical is one. When it comes to understanding God or god or anything else, I am not prepared to throw out the other seven.

[elmerfude]

I can relate to this. After excommunicating myself from the religion of my youth and later converting to another only to be kicked out, I tried to become an atheist. What I really had was panic attacks whenever I went into a church. But recently after my negative encounter with atheists on the blogosphere and my positive encounter with Fr. Richard Rohr and his concept of the Cosmic Christ, I am giving Christianity another look. I realize that it isn't necessary to conflate the dreadful Old Testament God with Jesus or to not believe in the parables or the Sermon on the Mount just because the hierarchies of religion are so disgusting. There is still an sacred impulse in nature that I can find through direct exposure to nature, through science and art and poetry and through the kindness of others.

[kjstjohn]

Now all we need to do is start a movement to free Jesus from Christianity.

(And btw, note what Jesus always did to restore himself. He always retreated to nature.)

[elmerfude]

I completely agree. I think the Gospel of Thomas reveals this pantheistic side of Jesus but of course that book didn't make it into most Bibles. Fr. Rohr goes a long way towards conflating Jesus and nature. He extrapolates the Christ to a metaphor for the human as nature and ties it to a chain of being. He goes a long way, but I am prepared to go further. I am making up my own personal Bible. I like to think of myself as a Jesusian to avoid the aspects of Christianity in history that are deadening to me including the concept of the Trinity.

[wondering]

I don't think you were ever really an atheist. I read your article very carefully, and I think you have always been a believer. You have certainly always maintained an active connection to your Judaism. The truth is, you just didn't think about your faith too deeply for a period of time.

Many True Believers are like this. They don't regularly attend a place of worship, but they feel guilty about it. And when cornered (or when facing mortality), they admit to believing in *something*.

I can still remember my RC parents snickering at the "twice-a-year" Catholics - people who only came to church on Christmas and Easter.

But being a little bit religious is like being a little bit pregnant.
.

[Neal Jansons]

When one person believes something that is inconsistent with the known rules of nature, has no evidence for it, and discounts and resists evidence against it, we call them delusional. When lots of people believe something that is inconsistent with the known rules of nature, has no evidence for it, and discounts and resists evidence against it, then we call it a religion (if it is old; if it is new it is a cult). Why?

And nobody's comfort is worth a credulous, irrational voting population that can be convinced of anything so long as the right buttons are pushed (anyone ever wonder how Christianity became synonymous with capitalism, war-mongering, and democracy among the fundies? the right buttons got pushed).

[Lauren Cahn - Huffpost Blogger]

OK, Neal_Jansons, I NEVER said one word about the pubic sector, about laws, about public policy. I abhor religion in government. I hated the prayers at Obama's inauguration. I hate the Pledge of Allegiance and its use of "under god". That is crap to me and inconsistent with a separation of religion and government.

If you are worried about where to draw the line so that crazies don't go around blowing up abortion clinics in the name of God, etc., I do not have the answer. But I know that the answer is NOT trying to abolish religion. THAT makes YOU sound crazy. The craziest people I know are the people on the extremes, and that goes BOTH ways...both left and right, both religious fanatic and atheist missionaries.

Respect for other peoples' religious choices should be the norm. Lines should be drawn where the health and safety of minors are infringed upon (e.g., denying a child healthcare because of religious beliefs) and where violence would be mandated in order to further one's religious beliefs (no example need be given here, as there are so many within easy reach). It seems simple to me: respect and tolerance of that which is respectful and tolerant.

[NickMcH]

What about a fundamental respect for Atheists? It is quite offensive to be told you are all the sudden a nihilist. I didn't mind it the first time I read it but then you drove it home some more in the comments. You should understand that Atheists don't, at least not the famous ones, have an ability to be free in their beliefs in our society and not face some consequences, especially here in the South. Things are getting better for a lot of subgroups in our society, thankfully. Just because a bunch of Atheists you know are not nice about it doesn't mean you can use whatever forum to disparage them. It is ok to have a debate on the merits of an argument but flatly stating that we believe in nothing is offensive.

[kjstjohn]

LOL. What you are likely referring to as the "known rules of nature" are false. Our brains dupe us into thinking that time unfurls in three-dimensional space. In fact, there are no fewer than 11 dimensions. Knowing that my paradigms of a four-dimensional reality are merely adaptive and not "true" I feel completely empowered to embrace reality-busting paradigms that point to a truth beyond my powers of ordinary perception.

If I were brilliant enough to be a physicist, the poetry of physics would probably be sufficient for me. As I have a lesser mind, my being is grounded instead in the poetry of God.

[NickMcH]

While I won't diss physics, those things you speak of are pretty squarely in the realm of theory at this moment and there are many possible angles of that area of science that go in wildly different, contradictory directions. It is possible to know truth but you also have to know your own limits in that you have to know where your ability to know truth ends. Give me a little liberty as I am not actually trying to be rude. Your argument states " if I was smarter I might not believe in God", I would never project yourself as intellectually settling because that just ends any possible argument you might have.

[kwinter]

Neal,
If your avatar picture is you, all I can say is, I wish I had figured that much out when I was your age!

[kjstjohn]

I tried existential nihilism for a few years.

When I deconstructed my thoughts very nearly to the point epistemological nihilism, I decided I was free to choose any belief system that wanted. At that point, I rejected existential nihilism in favor of a more verdant inner life.

[kjstjohn]

Too many typos. I will try again.

When I deconstructed my thoughts very nearly to the point of epistemological nihilism, I decided I was free to choose any belief system that I wanted. At that point, I rejected existential nihilism in favor of a more verdant inner life.

[minimalist syntax]

I just wanted to point out that technically, the English language is innate to no one. It is human language (i.e., the human language capacity) that is innate. :-)

[Lauren Cahn - Huffpost Blogger]

Well, today is certainly National Splitting Hairs Day. Actually, I did mean the "English language"...

[minimalist syntax]

Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I put a smiley face after my statement--to try to convey I was making a friendly statement.

One way we can see that it is the capacity for human language that is innate and not any particular language itself is because a human infant could be the biological offspring of a couple that speaks English, but be adopted into a family that only speaks Spanish. Provided that adoption was very early in the life of the child--before substantial exposure to English, he/she will know no English whatsoever. I think the fact that it is only human language capacity, but not a particular language, that is innate raises some interesting points for your discussion. It suggests that we are then, given your opening sentence, "creatures of faith"-- with the particular faith being undefined before experience with the environment. I think that is an interesting idea.

[kwinter]

min syn,
That was my first thought when I read that sentence too.
My second thought was - language and 'god belief' are BOTH learned, as opposed to innate.

[minimalist syntax]

I think the question of acquisition (and attrition) of God belief would be very interesting to investigate from the point of view of cognitive sciences although I also think that there would be many ways of interpreting the findings.

[RadicalRepublican]

Lauren, You opened with "I tried to believe in nothing. And I failed. “As though one either believes in god or believes in nothing. That is unfair. That would be like an atheist saying since you don't believe in natural selection you don't believe in anything, you just have a fantasy you share with millions of other dillusionalists. What is wrong with recognizing that life exists and that we don't know why or from whence it began? After all, we've only been asking the question legitimately for a few centuries. 10K years from now we may be closer to an answer and neither you nor I will be around to find out the answer.

[MerhabaAbi]

Hi Lauren,

I think what you went through is commonly referred to as a period of doubt. Believing in a god struck you as at odds with rational thought and you needed time to reconcile you conflicting beliefs. I am an atheist and doubt is not a part of my belief as I'd bet doubt is not a part of your belief any longer. Nice post.

[Lauren Cahn - Huffpost Blogger]

A) I LOVE (not really) how atheists are so insistent on convincing non-atheists that there is no evidence of God when, in fact, many (or all) who believe in God do so despite a glaring lack of concrete evidence. We don't CARE about a lack of evidence. We believe because we CHOOSE to, regardless of whether we were forced to or influenced to as children. Who has never questioned whether God exists? We believe in, or use the idea of, God because we choose to do so. The rational argument of atheists is absolutely off point to those who choose or use God.

B) The FSM is funny, yes, but there is also something cruel about the way it is employed as a means of taunting people like myself who choose to believe in something. Why should I pray to the FSM? Why not pray to whom I feel like praying?

Basically, I just don't understand the dogma-heavy atheist movement.

[JohnFromCensornati]

Why keep insisting that atheists believe in *nothing*?
Basically, I just don't understand why you decided to provoke atheists today.

[kjstjohn]

LOL. We should not be provoking each other. All liberals need to stick together to make sure that conservative fundamentalists stay out of high public office. The difference between a progressive Christian and a progressive atheist is minute compared to the difference between a progressive and a conservative fundamentalist.

[youzaho]

Not *all* atheists are fundamentalist evangelicals, but there sure are a lot of them on the Huff Post.

I don't understand them either. They seem genuinely offended by someone else's beliefs.

[NickMcH]

I am not going to argue that there are rude atheists but quite often people are venting their frustration with the lack of logic that goes into some people's points. I mean " because I choose to ignore evidence, I've proven my point" is treated like it is something besides illogical can be frustrating and some people will pull their hair out in writing. We could all use some civility but conflating atheism with nihilism is just plane old flame-baiting.

[Gewyne]

Maybe because you come of as wanting it all.

You reject the God of the Bible - instead you come up with your own version who is not so vengeful. I am sure you are not a prophet so either you do reject god as you do not accept his word, or you believe in him in his entirely. He does not give you options, its not a mobile phone plan where you can check boxes for options you like.

So you do not worship God, you are beleieving in your own version of God - you have created your own God that fits your believes - so not so different from the FSM at all.

[Lon]

But the God of the Gospels is not nearly as vengeful as the God of the Old Testament. The idea that there is some one picture of God that one has to take in full or reject in full seems silly.

From your comment below it appears that you are on the side of rejecting God altogether. But it is pretty presumptuous of you to tell other people what choices they are limited to. That the Israelites would impart their own feelings of vengeance onto God would not be surprising even if there was a God who lacked those attributes.

A healthy debate could be had about the picture of God that Ms Cahn embraces. But telling her that she does not have the option of that choice, or that a God more like that of the Gospels is like the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a silly way to go about it.

[elmerfude]

HuffPost's Pick

I was astonished after attending some meetings with atheist groups, reading some of the books by prominent atheists and of course encountering them on the blogosphere how "dogma heavy" and often intolerant the "movement" is. I just was not ready for it. I often felt like I was back in Mormon Sunday school only with different dogma.

[elmerfude]

I agree that we believe despite a lack of concrete evidence although there certainly is at least anecdotal evidence for something beyond ourselves. I like to think of it as a spiritual impulse although I am not happy with this name either. These concepts do seem to me to have much in common. This impulse has been described and named in various ways as Holy the Firm (Dillard), the Collective Unconscious (Jung), the Great Spirit (Native American), quantum mechanical entanglement (modern physics), the Holy Spirit (the Bible), the Great Integrity (Lao Tzu), the Cosmic Religious Feeling (Einstein), Natura Naturans (Spinoza), the Eternal Beauty (Hawthorne), the Forms (Plato), the Unmoved Mover (Aristotle), the Guest (Kabir), the Prayer of Union (Saint Teresa of Avila), the Divine Imagination (William Blake), Morphic Fields (Rupert Sheldrake), the Anima Mundi or World Soul (Paracelsus), the Mysterium Tremendum (Rudolf Otto), the Designing Fire ((Zeno of Citium), the World Spirit (GWF Hegel), Infinite Substance (Anaximander), the One (Plotinus), Spiritus Insertus Atomis (Democritus), the Self-Existent (the Therapeutae), shamanic ecstasy (Miro), Facultas Formatrix (Kepler).

[Lon]

Organizing ones thoughts by speaking to someone who isn't actually there seems common enough. And choosing someone with a God's eye view of the world also makes some sense. Although the fact that God is equally served by an imaginary friend named Kitty seems to put things in some kind of perspective. I don't know if I am an akittyist.

But, as others have noted, the way to become an atheist is not to believe in nothing. It is to believe in the people and things around you without bringing in some invisible intelligence to understand it. I can see there would be something hubristic about contemplating the world and believing that one can comprehend it all. But I don't see what is supposed to be hubristic about contemplating the world, recognizing its complexity and not then bringing in an all knowing being to make sense of it by proxy. The world seems enough to keep one humble. One doesn't need to bring in something even greater than the world to cut us down to size.

[Lauren Cahn - Huffpost Blogger]

But maybe one DOES. ONE does. This one. This one talking to you right now.

[Lon]

It took me a while to figure out what this was a response to in what I said. You mean that without God the world offers nothing to put your existence into perspective? That does seem to be a very strange view. I am not even sure how to make sense of it.

Millions of people have died due to repressive governments around the world, and as much as I assume like me you would wish it were otherwise, as a practical matter there was nothing you or I could have done to save them. That seems to be a humbling fact about the world if one cares about the suffering people in it. But without God you think there would be nothing in the world to humble you?

Descartes believed that he could have physics done by the time he died. Needless to say science has not gone in that direction. Modern physics is full of the kinds of randomness and complexity that Descartes could not have dreamed of. But without God there would be nothing in the world to humble you?

I don't care if you believe in God or not. I was a bit put off by your mischaracterizing what athiests believe in by describing it as believing in nothing. But it does seem like if you need God to find a way to stay humble in the world, then you have not considered the world fully.

[elmerfude]

Some of the atheists I have encountered in the blogosphere don't believe in nothing. They believe in their own "logical" constructs. I really can't detect a difference between their faith in their own logic and the bishops faith in their scriptures. They both can be dogmatic, judgmental and unwilling to respect those who have a different view.

[Gewyne]

I can understand the appeal of your friend who comforts you your desire to not want to feel alone. I am not convinced that this therefore means you should believe in a god. The only evidence God exists is the Bible, and if you reject what are said to be Gods words then you are rejecting God (in the sense of a Jewish / Christian entity).

What you have done is created a feeling for a sense of being, an answer to the universe, and a friend - you have in effect created your own god (don't tell any Christians - they are pretty tight about there being only one god).

So your next step is just to realise that this god you created, who is not a destroyer, not vengeful that you created according to your own morals and ideas - is really just you, your thoughts, your core, your being and sense of right and wrong.

[minimalist syntax]

Do you really believe that the only way people have encountered God is to read about Him? And even if that were the only way people can come to know God (which it isn't), why would there be only one "correct" interpretation of sacred scriptures? There are many different, even orthodox, interpretations of the same passage of scriptures. Personally I would reject any evangelica­l-fundamen­talist interpretation of the Bible. That would not mean I am rejecting God. There are many community of believers in God who experience a God who pours out His loving kindness on the world and is not interested in destroying the world. and such communities have existed in an historical continuity for centuries.

[davism97]

Being an atheist is not the same thing as rejecting God. One only rejects God if one believes in God to begin with. It seems like you never really stopped believing in the first place.

The notion that an atheist doesn't believe in anything and therefore leads an empty existance is just wrong. As an atheist myself I can say I have quite a lot of faith and hope in humanity (moreso than most religious people I talk to).

[NickMcH]

I've heard the term apatheist being floated around. I think many who identify as atheist are much more in the boat of " It is just a silly argument to begin with".

[JohnFromCensornati]

"I tried to believe in nothing. And I failed. It was simply too difficult for me to let go of a belief in God that is as innate to me as the English language."

Atheists do *not* believe in nothing! We are *good* for nothing.
It's some other group of people that *believes* in nothing.

[kwinter]

Yes, we're all good for nothing heathens! lol

[Lauren Cahn - Huffpost Blogger]

God, how I wish I had not said that first line. It just distracts from the point I am making.

[FogBelter]

The great thing about having a nation based upon religious freedom is if you start out a Jew and want to become a Catholic, you can. If you start out a Catholic and want to become a Buddhist, you can. If you start out an Atheist and become a Scientologist, you can. If you start out a Methodist and wind up a Satanist, you can. People are free to believe or not believe in the United States as they choose and that was one of the cherished Gifts the Founding Fathers gave to all of us.