I'm an atheist. That means that I have a belief that there is no God. I also have no belief in spiritual creatures, karma as an acting force, or a soul. But at one point in my life I had a belief that cannot be termed as anything else but supernatural. I believed in my own luck. I had faith that even if I couldn't see how thins could be OK that they would actually work out. This happened when I was a teenager, prime territory for "Being in trouble" and prime territory for being terrified of the results.
Looking back it is really alarming to think of the times I might sit in a classroom, my hands sweaty, my heart racing, literally terrified that a teacher would catch me at something so heinous as not doing my homework. The only times I get anything close to that level of fear nowadays are in life and death situations, like a potential high speed cr crash. My fear of authority figures was literally equivalent to my present level of fear of horrific car crashes, or the fear of the death of a relative. Yet there was a little part of me that felt things would work out somehow. I didn't know how it would work out, and it certainly wasn't going to work out because of anything I was going to do. But I had a feeling it was going to work out, that I was somehow just lucky.
After a few times when things did work out (and how could they not turn out better than my terrified self expected?) this reinforced this belief until I started to rely on being lucky. Over time this belief has left me. I have been lucky in many ways in my life, but I've also been clinically depresses, utterly miserable. I've been treated well and treated badly, and over time my terror of people has left as I have been able to take more control of my life as naturally happens in becoming an adult.
I don't really know if my experience as a teenager is typical, although I have certainly talked to people who found the teen years a nightmare, just something to endure. My memories of being a child are generally feelings of drudgery, extreme stress, imprisonment, with times of real joy being generally when I was alone and with some ability to decide things for myself. This isn't to suggest that my parents or teachers were ogres, I would absolutely not take a randomnly determined alternative childhood, I think I was lucky with my siuation. Rather I think my natural personality abhors not having autonomy, being under the power of others, and that was present from a very early age. My first memory is at four years old and deciding that my teacher was rude to me and I wasn't going to stand for it. I simply left the school and walked home by myself despite never having done such a thing at all in my life before. Overall I much prefer being an adult to being a child.
So, I am an atheist but I have had a religious belief. That religious belief came about in a time of fear, powerlessness. It gave me hope and may have been the reason why I simply didn't collapse as a human being. From talking to a number of people about their moments of conversion this seems to be if not usual, at least very common. looking back, I am extremely grateful for that little piece of irrational hope.
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6 comments:
Well, Dan, could it be that the "little piece of irrational hope" is an indication of --dare I say it? --God? The term "God" is a label that we humans apply to something that is beyond human comprehension, yes? So how can one be an atheist without fully comprehending what it is that one does not believe in?
No.
We don't label whatever is beyond human comprehension God. A little piece of irrational hope is not beyond comprehension. One can be an atheist without having 100% of the information just like one can believe that Atlantis doesn't exist without knowing everything about the culture of that non-existent sub-continent.
If God is just things we don't know then calling it God is misleading. There are very few people who define God as the absence of human knowledge. You are using the argument of the God of the Gaps, just like the Catholic Church of the 17th Century.
You are assigning the "irrationality" to your hope. This may simply be you keeping up with your atheist beliefs, perhaps out of fear of having potentially been touched by something you are not yet ready to understand or accept. That hope may in fact be "God" reaching out to you when you need it most and without whom, as you said, you would collapse as a human being. When a person is "on the ropes" or at the end of it and he reaches out for "God" he cannot call himself an atheist when his life is going well no matter what his age. It seems odd that an intelligent man such as you is so afraid to acknowledge the possibility of God especially since you are one to revel in his greatest gift "free will" even at the tender age of four. God does not mind if you change his name to "irrational hope", he will forgive you.
Mark, I do call it irrational based on my beliefs, just as you would describe things based on my beliefs. I'm not afraid of being touched by God, I have sought him out on numerous occasions because it would be foolish to be wrong on this matter without at least checking. You find it odd that an intelligent person is so afraid to acknowledge the possibility of God, yet I am not afraid, I have spent a lot of time investigating the possibility of God. Perhaps an intelligent person with differing views from you is not afraid, but rather has thought intelligently on an important topic, have you considered that as a possibility?
In fear you turned to something you consider irrational but an intelligent man does not suddenly become dumb beneath pressure. A true atheist would not turn to God. An intelligent man cannot rationalize faith and God, therefore it is near impossible for him to acknowledge God. Perhaps "afraid" was a poor choice of words. However, the ego is all powerful and the fear may stem from what others may think if the so called "smart guy" suddenly believed something outside of the box. Don't fall prey to that thinking.... embrace God, you know you already do because otherwise, in essence, your ego is such that you feel that when you reached out to God, that you should have been deemed worthy of a response and/or contact? So since you didn't hear back, he doesn't exist? Could you call Michael Jackson and George Bush so they can cease to exist too?
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