Returning to My Little Island

It appears that I am making a visit back to my little island again. I feel it. It’s been nagging at me for some time but I now recognize my self-imposed solitary confinement. This time, however, I am making the trip there for a different reason.

Before, I felt isolated from others due to my fear of the opinions that my friends and family might have because I am an atheist. I cowered in the corner for fear that someone might find out and their opinion of me would be shattered; that they might actually think I was a “bad” person because I am an atheist. This poor lost soul. A good friend in life that they won’t see after death because obviously I must be going to hell. These thoughts restricted my life and kept me alone and afraid for so long.

This time, however, not at all afraid. My island has changed a little from my last visit. I no longer fear whether someone knows I am an atheist or not. Granted, there are still members of my family and some friends who may not know. But if opportunity arose for me to share my thoughts, I wouldn’t be afraid to tell them the truth. I now have an arsenal of facts and ideas to back myself up. I have opinions and positions when it comes to politics and human rights and the influence religion has on them. I am now a much more militant atheist in my thoughts and my isolation stems from the fact that I now want to tackle religion head on and drive it out of the lives of those I love. But to attempt to do so would very well destroy important relationships. So, alone on my island I sit waiting for the right time to invite some new people to visit.

The friends I associate with most here in Tucson are religious folks and they know I am an atheist… and they still like me anyways. That was the result of me getting off my island the first time. But now as I look to reconfigure my place amongst these religious friends in a way that is non-confrontational, I find that I am having a difficult time. These people are intelligent. I simply can’t understand why they find the need to believe in imaginary sky fairies and can’t see the big picture. Why can’t they have more faith in themselves and what THEY can do instead of relying on god. We, as humans, are amazingly powerful creatures. There is so much good we can do if we just take action instead of praying about it.

I am not sure how long I plan on staying on my island this time. Not sure what it will take to get me out of my head. Perhaps I just need to redirect my energy and become an activist for the secular movement. With the elections coming up this year, there are plenty of opportunities for me to try to make a difference. I NEED to do something for my kids’ sake. The religious right-wing nut jobs out there are making me MAD and I can’t stand for it any longer.

Prayer

So I have decided to stop waiting until there is something epic on my mind to write about and just write when the desire pops up to do so. Lately I keep feeling the urge to write and get things off my chest, but then I stop and ask myself if anyone would even care about a paragraph of atheistic ramblings. At this point, I don’t care whether everything I write is something that will reach out and grab people. I just need to put pen to paper and get things out in the “open” and then let anyone who cares to read it be the judge of whether it had any impact on them. Not looking to change the world though my ramblings…. Just to understand myself a bit better.

I have to wonder if the time will ever come that I will actually open myself up to my family and friends about what I believe. Every time I get to a point where I think those who love me would understand me, something comes up and it requires me to hold my tongue for a little while longer. There always seems to be something going on in someone’s life for which they are soliciting prayers from their supporters. Whether it’s for a new job, a safe return, a good grade, or, in the most recent situation, a good bloodwork result. It tears at me whenever I see those I love asking for everyone’s prayers. I mean, I want to support them in whatever it is they are needing, but I cannot and will not pray about it. Give me something tangible to do about it. Need me to hold your hand when you get a call? Need me to help you study? Heck, need me to clean your house because it’s just impossible right now? Just ask me and I will be there. But to pray? To talk to no one and think that somehow it’s going to change the course of events or give the desired outcome? It’s preposterous. The only way to change things is through action; Doing something about it. Sitting around asking a god to make things be the way you want it to be isn’t going to work… unless that outcome is already what was going to happen anyways.

Now, asking me to pray to a non-existent god is one thing. But what drives me even crazier is how people react when their prayers are supposedly “answered” by their god. As though he/she/it moved mountains to make your wishes come true. I get so frustrated when god gets accolades for doing NOTHING! Take for example the recent situation in my family. My 2 ½ year old nephew recently went through testing to see if he had Leukemia. He showed many symptoms of the disease and that frightened most of my family. My sister went to Facebook and asked for prayers from her friends and our family so that the results would come back negative. She just couldn’t bear the thought of her son possibly having cancer. And so the comments to her prayer request went a lot like this “You and your son are in our prayers!” “God will take care of him!” “Give it to God! He works miracles!” Fortunately, his results did come back negative. When news broke of the results, the comments turned to “God is awesome!” “Praise God!” “Hallelujah!!” While everyone else is thanking god for answering their prayers, I merely said, “That’s fantastic news.” I began to wonder what would their reactions have been if the results had been different. Would they have said “Sorry, I didn’t pray hard enough” or “God must have a reason for him to have cancer”? Unlikely. That would be a pretty mean god to let that happen. But because the prayers were answered, god is wonderful and gracious.

I had this vision of god sitting there trying to decide whether to have the result be negative or positive. As though he was handed a memo and he had to stamp it with a positive or negative rubber stamp. He looked at the petition attached to the memo (the list of people who prayed for the negative result) and decided there were enough signatures to give the best result. Now, either the results were going to be positive and god changed them to be negative because there were enough prayer requests. Or they were going to be negative anyways and god was happy that he would be praised for what little he had to do. But what if the vengeful god was sitting at the desk that day? What if the god who didn’t get enough sleep the night before was sitting there all grumpy and when he was handed the memo, he decided not enough people cared about this little boy or the wrong people had prayed. He could have changed negative results to positive as a way to punish my sister and our family. How would the devout have handled that one?

The fact remains, the test results were negative because my nephew simply doesn’t have cancer. He didn’t have cancer when they drew the blood. And no amount of prayers influenced the outcome of those test results.

In times like these, I hold my tongue around those I know would be offended by my beliefs. It seems like I may be holding my tongue forever. What good would it do to bash the beliefs of those I love just because they don’t believe the same as me?? While they all hold onto a false sense of security by giving it all to a non-existent god, I am secure in the fact that I am the one who can change the things that can be changed. If something needs to be done to change an outcome to the way I would like it to be, then I am the one who has to make that happen. I control my destiny. I make my own luck. Those of you who wish to change the world, start with yourself. Start with action. Stop asking for things to be different if you are not willing to make the changes yourself and do something about it.

Labels

Back in 1996 when I realized I no longer believed in God, I briefly sought out a label for myself. If I was no longer a Christian, then what was I? The thought of accepting the label of Atheist bothered me. It sounded like a bad word. I had grown up thinking that either you were a Christian (someone who was good because they believed), or an Atheist (someone who was bad because they didn't believe). The thought that I was going from being a "good person" to a "bad person" didn't work well for me. So I avoided labeling myself at all. When someone would ask me if I was a Christian, I would simply say "No. I don't have a religion." Occasionally, the person would ask the follow-up "So, you're an Atheist?" Again, I would just simply say, "No. I'm not anything. I just don't believe in God."

I held this stance on my religious label for many years. In fact, it wasn't until this year that I finally could say that I thought I was an Atheist. When my husband and I actually started looking into our beliefs this year, he was the first to say that we were Atheists. I was startled. I actually had to go and look it up in the dictionary because if someone who truely knew me was able to classify me that way, then maybe that's what I was.

By one definition, an Atheist is "unbeliever in God or deities: somebody who does not believe in God or deities". Well, that doesn't sound so bad after all. There is nothing in the definition that isn't true for me. It says nothing about an Atheist being bad for having no belief in God. I realized that it was the Christians (and other believers) who give the term Atheist the negetive connotation.

Ok.... So I'm an Atheist. There I said it. It still didn't exactly sound "good" but it was the truth. My husband and I continued to work on our "label" and found that we identified more closely with a particular group of Atheists. (Yes, I was suprised to find that there were whole sub-groups below Atheism.) What we found was that we tended to lean pretty heavily towards the label of Humanist. That sounds a bit nicer, doesn't it?

By one definition, Humanism is a "belief in human-based morality: a system of thought that is based on the values, characteristics, and behavior that are believed to be best in human beings, rather than on any supernatural authority". I believe in people and the good that comes from people when they concern themselves with what is right and just and good without the need for religion to define those things. I dont need God to tell me that killing someone is bad; that lying is wrong. They just ARE! "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." That's not a religious saying. It's common sense! I don't want someone killing me.... So I am not going to go kill someone else.

So.... Humanist it is for now. I can accept that. And I am no longer afraid to call myslf an Atheist either.

My Revelation

(Below you will find the very first thing I ever wrote that I felt was "blog-worthy". This was written back in March 2010 as a theraputic way to work thru my sudden interest in figuring out what I did or did not believe. After writing it, I had contemplated posting it right away but held back because I still wasn't yet comfortable sharing this with the world. But now I have become much more comfortable in my own skin and have decided that this is probably the best possible way to introduce myself. You will also see where the title of my blog came from. I thank you for taking the time to get to know me a little better as I go on this journey. It is my hope that someone else out there will find their way a little easier by taking this trip with me as I leave my little island.)

Do I believe in God? Do you really want to know the answer? More importantly, if you knew the answer, would you still want to be my friend? I have come to realize it is my fear of your answer to these last two questions that has paralyzed me over the years from making any close friends in my adult life. When people find out that I don’t believe in God they tend to ask me what made me stop believing? At what point did I realize that I didn’t believe anymore and why? And I would tell the story of how I reacted when my dear friend Jason passed away in 1996. And it would go something like this:


When Jason passed away, it was very tough on me as it was on most of the people who knew him. He was one of the kindest and most genuine people you could ever have the chance to know. A good Mormon boy. When he passed away, I took it very hard. One night a few days after his death a bunch of his close friends gathered together to console each other and to remember him. We were all still in shock. My boyfriend at the time drove me to the house where we were all getting together. When he went to get out of the car he noticed I was not moving to open the door to get out with him. He asked me if I was ok and I just lost it. I began crying in a hysterical way that I had never cried before. I was crying so hard that I couldn’t breathe. I sincerely thought I was going to pass out. I managed to tell my boyfriend to go on without me; that I needed time to process what in the heck was going on in my head. He reluctantly left me alone in the car. I had wanted to go to this gathering to be strong for some of Jason’s other close friends who I knew were having a hard time as well. How could I go in there crying like this? And…WHY was I crying like this? I thought to myself, “He’s gone!!” I realized it wasn’t just that he was gone in the sense that I would never see him again. He was just GONE. I had just made the revelation that I didn’t believe in heaven. Jason had just ceased to exist on any level… anymore. After what seemed like an hour, a couple of friends came out to check on me and found me still in hysterics. They asked me what was wrong and I just blurted out “Prove to me that there is a heaven. Please, prove to me that heaven exists. Because, if you can prove that there is a heaven, I know that’s where Jason is now.” As hard as they tried to “prove” to me that heaven existed it all led to me just needing to have faith that it existed; that God existed. And I just couldn’t have faith in it anymore. I didn’t believe in heaven. I didn’t believe in God… anymore.


So, that’s the story I would tell when someone would ask me when did I lose my faith or when did I stop believing. But as I read this story now, I realize that this moment doesn’t define when I lost my faith or why I lost my faith. It’s just the moment I knew that I didn’t believe anymore and I questioned if I ever really believed. Now, I had been going to church for awhile at this point in my life. I had been baptized in the church and one of the friends who was standing there in front of me that night had been there to witness it. So, what happened? If you had asked me if I believed in God any day before that day, I would have said yes. I think I believed at one point. Or, maybe that’s just it. Maybe I never really believed. Maybe I just wanted to believe. Maybe I just wanted others to believe that I believed. And that leads me to what has paralyzed me for years.

Since that September day in 1996, I have only made a handful of friends. Most of those friends are people who have, for one reason or another, been kind of “forced” to get to know me because of having to be around me on some sort of regular basis; Co-workers, neighbors and a few of my husband’s friends. My circle is pretty small. My little island I sometimes call it. But I like to think that those who have had a chance to get to know me see me as a good person. So why am I afraid of letting new people get to know me for me?

I used to be pretty social. In high school, I wasn’t afraid of what people would think of me. I was me… take it or leave it. But since I realized I didn’t believe in God I became a bit of on introvert. Don’t get me wrong, I am completely ok with my beliefs. I am secure in what I believe and I like me for me. I just find that I have a fear that others who I may want to get to know won’t like me when they find out I don’t believe in God. So I keep that tidbit to myself. It goes even farther than that though. I actually avoid situations where I know I will be surrounded by religious people because I would be the outcast. That fear keeps me from going quite a few places and meeting many different people. It keeps my circle…my island… small. Lately, though, I have realized I want to get off my little island. I want a bigger circle. I want to be social again. I need to be social again. And there are so many opportunities out there for me to make new friends if I can just convince myself that they will like me if they just get to know me. I have qualities that would make me a good friend, right?

Am I a good person? I would like to think so. Am I kind and caring? Yes. Do I help the person who needs help? Yep. Do I treat others as I would want to be treated? Always! So, should it matter if I believe in God or not? It really shouldn’t. I know it’s not something I need to advertise when I first meet someone. “Hey. Nice to meet you. I don’t believe in God. I am a good person though. You want to be friends?” I know that’s a bit extreme. Most people will probably never care to even know if I believe in God or not. There is a good chance that it probably will never come up in conversation. I would be a fool to think that everyone I will meet in my life will at some point want to know and will then judge me differently based on that one piece of my personality. It’s silly really and I say all of this in humor. I know that I am just as good as the next person. I have a good heart. I have a good head on my shoulders. I have good values and a good moral compass. It shouldn’t matter to anyone “why” I am good, just that I am good, right?

In an attempt to get over my fear that as I walk into a room full of people I don’t know that I am wearing a post-it note on my head that reads “No God For Me”, I have embarked on a bit of a “Social Experiment” I like to call it. Some friends of ours (mine and my husband’s) invited us to take part in a 10 week course for people who have questions about religion. Not necessarily for people looking to be converted but for people who may have a hard time with some of the concepts and beliefs that religion presents. When the idea was first presented I went thru a gambit of emotions. Anger, resentment, hurt. After all of these years, were we suddenly not good enough for these friends and we needed to change in order to remain friends? I know that wasn’t the case but it didn’t stop the thought from crossing my mind. After I had time to process this unintentional “attack” on my beliefs, I really started thinking about it. If I am so secure in what I believe, then what possible harm could come from checking it out? What better way to show myself that I can be in a room with religious individuals, take part in religious discussions and still be myself with my beliefs. If they like me, then great! If they don’t, then what have I lost? My circle will remain unchanged. My island would be unaffected. But if I could get over my fear, how amazing would that be? Not being afraid to say yes to an invitation to go out with people. Not worrying if I will be shunned if word gets out that I am a non-believer. Knowing that most people are only going to care that I am a good person. And if someone actually does decide that I am not “good enough” to be their friend… well… their loss.

We just completed our 5th week of this 10 week “Social Experiment” and I am feeling pretty good about myself. Our little discussion group knows that my husband and I are the non-believers and they seem to like to talk to us anyways. I knew I wasn’t going into this looking for answers about religion but rather looking to explore myself and just work thru my bizarre fear. I had a good feeling that the discussions were only going to solidify what I already believed and that has proven true thus far. What I have found to be an interesting (and very welcomed) “side effect” of this experiment is that my husband and I, after 9 years of being together, have found new things to talk about. We always knew that we believed pretty much the same thing but now we actually discuss why we believe that way.

So there it is…. My revelation. I know I am a good person. I know I don’t need religion and God to make me a good person. I like me. Others will like me too if I can just stop being afraid to let people get to know me. And if knowing that I don’t believe in God is too much for someone to handle, sorry. This is me. Take it (and add another good person to your life) or leave it.


Party on Jennifer’s island!! Bring a friend!