I am an atheist. I am also a mother and a damned good one. I wasn’t always atheist. I was raised Christian and enjoyed the benefits that believing in God with the rest of my friends offered. I enjoyed that deep down good feeling that I was doing something right because I had confirmation from a higher order that said, “God approves.” I had a rule book laid out before me and I had checks and balances in the form of preachers and youth advisors. I was happy with this.
Who doesn’t want to know that what they are doing is right, correct, and good? Being good was easy. Having loads of friends who also agreed and accepted me because of my choice to have Jesus in my life was also nice. So what turned me? What made me step away from the solace of a life well lived in step with the creator to face uncertainty? I know that in writing this, even though I don’t intend to offend anyone, it will inevitably offend someone. My lifestyle choice offends people as it is. Just being me offends someone. So, the only way that I can write this is to do myself justice and be completely truthful with my feelings, knowing full well that people are going to disagree with me and that people will be offended. So, in advance, if you are of the offended, I apologize that you are offended, but I will not recant my experiences, point of view or expression.
Everyone knows that life is a journey rife with lessons to learn and experiences to be had. We are all fumbling around grabbing at anything that might hold answers to our loaded questions and have been since birth. If you don’t believe me, just take this example from my son, who is four. One day he came to me and asked,
“Mommy, why do people die?” This is the epitome of a loaded question if I ever heard one. What do you tell a four year old child? His innocence beamed up at me like a lost trinket of childhood that I once held in my own hand. I had options at my disposal. I had stories taught to me by various pastors, professors, science teachers and my own parents but I had to quickly choose the right thing to say to my child. How do you explain to him that death is something that everyone will experience? That one day, I will die and he will die? My first impulse was to soften the blow and describe a place that was better than this one. How could I paint such a bleak picture of the end of a human life after all? I wanted to protect him. I am his mother.
I will get to my answer in a moment, but first I must say this. I AM his mother and therefore I feel strongly that he is educated. I think that holding things back and painting a reality based on my philosophies could do a disservice to him later in life. I knew that some of my answers and thoughts could be difficult for him to process, but he looked at me in earnest.
“Everyone dies.” I finally answered, “It’s the natural order of life. Every person that is on this planet and every living thing will one day, eventually, stop living.” I knew that this was a lot for a four-year-old to understand, but I figured that it was a good base for questions that I knew would erupt from his thoughtful mind later in life. I could tell that he was considering this new information and drawing conclusions and tying up loose ends in his mind. I felt good about my answer. It was careful, true and it avoided breaching subjects that I wasn’t comfortable breaching with a child his age. But he had other plans. He’s always been very inquisitive.
“But then what?” He asks, finally reaching that moment in his brain where he’s placed the events in their natural order and is so used to there being a next step-- a cause and effect--that he simply wants to know what happens next. I suck in a deep breath and choose my words carefully.
“This is a hard one, baby. Different people have different thoughts on what happens when we die, but no one is really sure. What do you think happens?” He considers me carefully and then his eyes shift to the side. His mouth opens slightly and his hands finally come to rest on his hips.
“I think that maybe we turn into superheroes.” His eyes reached mine, full of wonder and excitement at this new idea. I had to hand it to him. He was a smart child and imaginative at that.
“Well, I think that’s a good hypothesis,” I responded. Earlier that week we learned what a hypothesis was and how making hypothesis about how things work in the world helps us to understand the physical plane around us. He seemed satisfied with my answer and ran off to ransack his toys. I know that I want my child to form opinions and thoughts independent of me. I want to cultivate in him the ability to consider what I think and feel without taking it as the ultimate word when it comes to most things in life. I want him to understand that we are all human and that no one, no matter how smart, has all the answers. I want him to feel free to consider the world around him and to find where he fits in it and ultimately find what makes him happy. If this includes being religious, irreligious, gay, straight, powerful, artsy—whatever—I’d want him to be comforted in knowing that I would accept him no matter how he chose to view the world and those in it.
Most of us atheists have a defined moral compass that is independent of the church or outside influences. We view the world around us and decide what is right based on what seems best for society and humanity. Is it right to steal? No. It hurts people. It hurts the economy. There are obvious and tangible consequences to stealing. Do I need to add the extra muscle of god in heaven looking down and mandating that it’s wrong? Not personally. This is only a small example of the expansive nature of the religion debate, but it’s a good one. When I chose to deny a god it came in stages. I asked every question and tried with fervor to maintain the notion that I needed a god in my life. I wanted to believe.
I considered, deeply, the many well thought out arguments for a god existing that came to me throughout the years. I tried accepting them and when simple acceptance didn’t work, I tried reasoning them into my reality. Where did everything come from? I agreed at one point that it must be a divine being. Someone who created everything, some entity that had a plan, a designer a creator. But… then my pesky brain would kick into gear and a cloud of questions would descend into my conscious, ruining my beautiful picture. The first inconsistency that always came to me, without fail, even as a child was if everything was created by god, this would mean that everything that exists must have a creator. If this is true, then god, himself, must have a creator… and so on into infinity. Even though I still have no clue as to how everything came to be, I know that logic is not on the side of Christianity in this instance. When I asked about this in church as a child several things happened. First, the pastor explained that God is the I Am, which made no sense to me. He told me that he spoke himself into existence… now, whether or not this is general Christian belief I do not know.
