I must have been about twelve years old when I figured out that God did not exist.
Four years earlier, I had worked out the whole Santa Claus ruse. I was a precocious eight-year-old and had an intense love of mathematics. (This was cured later by college calculus.) I made estimations of the number of households with children on the planet, multiplied by an estimated percentage on the “nice” list, and after careful analysis of time zones, the earth’s rotation, the distances covered, factoring population densities, I figured out the number of stops Mr. Claus would have to make in one night. His sled would have had to withstand 3000-degree temperatures as he traveled the multi-hyper-sonic speeds necessary, the reindeer would have been crispy critters, and we haven’t even begun to talk about getting this fat guy through the average chimney!
So as this world of Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairies, leprechauns, and other fanciful mythologies began to unravel, I grew up wondering why the adults bothered to tell us these lies, even going to the point of decorations, celebrations, and days off from school.
Then one day while Christmas shopping with my mother, I witnessed a parent with an unruly little child. She was scolding him for some misbehavior, and she warned, “If you don’t be good, Santa’s not going to bring you any presents!” The kid straightened up, sniffled, and they went on their way.
It was one of those “aha!” moments and I realized the reason the adults told us these fanciful legends was to keep us in line. A little carrot-and-stick approach. Be good and you’ll get presents, be bad and you’ll get on Santa’s “naughty” list. There was a reason for all of this tomfoolery — mind control for these unruly little hellions.
After four years of this revelation I found myself enrolled in a gifted-and-talented program in public school called DELV. (That’s right; I was the Belv in DELV. Looking back, I now would trade it for the born-rich-and-handsome program, but my school didn’t have that.) In this program, we were allowed to pick any subject of study for a nine-week period and at the end of the nine weeks give a presentation. I chose ancient mythology.
I’d read about the Greek gods and I was just becoming aware that other cultures had their own gods. I narrowed down my study to Greek, Norse, Sumerian, Egyptian, and Native American mythologies. I became fascinated by the stories, their strange comic-book-like powers, and the impossible explanations for natural occurrences. Driving a sun-chariot across the sky. Hurling thunderbolts from the sky. Crazy stuff primitive people believed to bring comfort to their lives in the face of the unknown.
That was when the second epiphany happened for me. I kept reading about the rituals and sacrifices these ancient people performed, the fanciful stories that were real to them, and the punishments one could face for blaspheming their gods. I wondered why all the ancient god stories are called mythology and the modern god stories are called religion?
It didn’t take long to figure out the answer. I made my final presentation into a diorama that compared the five different mythologies I had studied, I presented the story and god from each mythology over a set of seven common themes — “creation myth”, “life after death”, “flood story”, “underworld”, “end of the world”, “ecology”, and “ceremonies”. I found my answer as my facilitator (DELV did not have “teachers”) proofread my text.
“Oh, you’re going to have to change this… and this… oh, you’ve got one on each panel, don’t you?” I thought my poor facilitator would need a defibrillator. She was referring to the comparison to Biblical stories I had done for each of the seven themes. She explained to me in very straightforward terms that she understood what I was getting at and she even commended me for my analysis. I asked, “Why are those mythologies and these religions?”
“Because people who really believed in those gods died a long time ago and won’t be around to pressure the school board to shut down gifted programs that mock their religions. Do you understand, Russ?”
I understood completely. I was born and raised in a little stretch of North Utah called Nampa, Idaho. There were three dominant religions in our area. I was born into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whose members call it LDS and everyone else calls Mormon. The other religion was the Church of the Nazarene. Two of the largest Nazarene congregations in the world meet every Sunday in Nampa and the city is home to a Nazarene university (which was a college when I lived there.) There were also the Catholics, but they were mostly Latino, and Nampa was a segregated town, separated oh-so-stereotypically by railroad tracks. I was surrounded by religious people everywhere I went.
I edited my diorama, removed the modern religious references, and everything went fine. I certainly didn’t want to be branded as a weirdo; I had six more years of public school with these people’s kids. Nevertheless, from that point on, I realized that God was just another fanciful story used to keep people in line. Zeus, Odin, Gilgamesh, Ra, Great Spirit, Heavenly Father, people have always had religions to explain how they got here, who they are, why things happen to them, what they should do in life, and where they go when they die, all with the same burden of proof — faith, or in other words, no proof at all.
I had stopped going to church — mom always tried to get my brother and I to go to Sunday school, but I found my dad’s religion, NFL football, to be much more entertaining. However, I continued studying the Bible. Hey, if I’m going to live among the people who believe it, I’d better understand it. Besides, if you skip over the Great Begatsby parts (“begats begats begats”), there are some fun stories of sex, murder, betrayal, and plagues in there.
As I entered my senior year, I began to stop caring whether my atheism would be offensive to anyone. I wondered why only the Mormon kids were getting a class in the middle of the day where they would leave school grounds to learn theology. I wondered why the Nazarene girls who weren’t allowed to dance or wear makeup or date were the most fun to park with out by the lake at night. I wondered why that group of Catholic boys was beating the hell out of those Mormon boys. Why weren’t the fanciful stories keeping these people in line?
There were many confrontations. A guy from my math class asked me where I went to church. I told him I was an atheist; I don’t go to church. When he asked why I don’t believe in God, I asked him why he did. He said that God created the universe. I asked why did the universe have to be created? Who created God?
“God has always existed. He is the Alpha and the Omega,” he preached.
“Well, fine, then you’re showing me you believe in infinity,” I answered, “something that always is and always shall be. So why not cut out the middleman and declare the universe is infinite? It big bangs, it grows, it collapses, it crunches, it bangs, infinitely. It didn’t need to be created, it is creation, and it is its own God.”
A girl from my drama class asked me if I had accepted Jesus Christ as my savior. I asked her, “from what?” She gave me the whole spiel about dying for sins, avoiding damnation, ascending to heaven, you know the script. I just asked her if I could promise not to sin. Oh, no, we are all sinners, she told me, and the only way to the Father is through accepting Jesus.
“What about the people who built the Great Wall of China?” I asked her. “They never heard of Jesus. They spent their whole lives in slavery, building a wall, watching their parents die building that wall, watching their kids grow up building that wall, dying as the wall remained unfinished. They never heard of Jesus. Are you telling me those people are all in Hell now? Your god is so picky!”
One time some Christian girls thought that I should be more respectful of people’s religion. They told me even if I don’t believe it, I should understand that it is important to them and I should accept and tolerate their beliefs. They said maybe if I just learned a little more about their religion, I would have a spiritual moment and get right with God. This was far too easy an opportunity to pass up.
I went to a bookstore and picked up a copy of Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible. I bought a little pentagram necklace and drew some pentagrams on my Trapper Keeper. I made a point of approaching the Christian girls and enjoyed every shocked, horrified look on their faces.
“You were right, girls, I should learn more about religion. Since I already know so much about Christianity, I figured I should start with a religion that I know the least about. Do you girls know anything about Satanism? Once you get past the goat rituals and funny symbols, there is some good stuff in there! You know how Jesus talks about turning the other cheek? Well, Satan says if someone smacks you, you should smack them back. That just sounds like good old self-defense to me…”
The level of understanding, acceptance, and tolerance was underwhelming, to put it mildly. Most of the girls scampered away, probably fearing there was a lightning bolt on its way. A couple of the girls started yelling at me. One girl took out her cross necklace, pointed it at me as if I were a vampire, and began chanting the Lord’s Prayer under her breath. Even though the Satanism was a one-day joke and the charms, books, and symbols were never seen again, I was never treated the same way by a large segment of the school population. My facilitator was right; it was religion because living people believe it.
After high school I joined the National Guard. As a part of Basic Training, I was issued dog tags. On those tags, they put four lines of information: your name, your Social Security number, your blood type, and your religion. My tags ended up like this:
BELVILLE JOHN R
###-##-####
A POS
ATHEIST
They always bring me a laugh because I can say I am “A positive atheist, says so right on the tags.” Not only do I not believe in God, I am absolutely sure! Then there came a problem. During my time in the National Guard, two things made me start to doubt my atheism.
One event was the Sunday services in Basic Training. On Sunday we privates had just one escape from the all-seeing eye of the drill sergeant, and that was the three hours your could take to attend services in the religion of your choice. Those who didn’t go to service have to stay and clean latrines. I disliked preaching, but I hated cleaning latrines, so I opted for church.
I thought it would be hard to convince my drill sergeant of my sincerity. After all, he had seen the “atheist” on my tags. I was even ready with the excuse — “who needs to go to church more than an atheist?” — but I didn’t even need it; they have to allow privates to go to any service without question.
I took advantage of the diversity of services to be found on an army base in New Jersey. I started with a Mormon service, which was as dull as home, but with less professional flair than you would find in North Utah. I tried the Catholic service, but didn’t enjoy it much because I didn’t know all the words. Then my atheism was tested when I visited the mostly-black Methodist church service.
If you can recall the scene where James Brown sings “The Old Landmark” in the movie “The Blues Brothers”, then you have some idea of what this service was like. There was singing, dancing, a rhythmic and charismatic preacher, a flawless gospel choir, and an exciting band playing joyous up-tempo music. If church had been like this when I was twelve you couldn’t have kept me away on Sunday.
It is not as if I was ready to believe that a man could survive in the belly of a whale, Jesus could walk on water, or God created the earth, dinosaur bones and all, in just six days. However, there was something palpable in that cheerful congregation that I had never felt before. It felt like a room full of unconditional love and joy. I began to look at the religions in less literal terms and began to think more about people searching for belonging and happiness.
The other event in my National Guard experience was meeting two other Guardsmen named Greg and Brint. Greg was a genius who played saxophone, wrote software, played tennis, juggled, and balanced things on his face. He is one of the smartest, best-educated people I have ever met and was an even more skeptical atheist than I was. Brint also played saxophone, but he was a divinity and theology student at the Nazarene university in my hometown.
We were all members of the Idaho Army National Guard’s 25th Army Band, helping to keep all Idaho, from Payette to Pocatello, from Sandpoint to Salmon, safe from the marauding hordes of Soviet musicians. We accomplished our mission by playing in many summer parades and concerts, and the three of us would hang out during the many boring bus trips we made to outposts like American Falls, Idaho Falls, and Twin Falls.
During these trips, we’d have the longest discussions about theology and religion. Greg wondered why people who would accept the science that cures disease and lands men on the moon would deny the science that suggests that men may have evolved from lower forms of life. I wondered why could people accept the fossil fuels they put in their cars but deny that shows the earth has been around a very long time? We had hours to kill and Brint stayed with us at every turn of conversation.
Brint said something that I will never forget. “People who take the Bible literally are missing the point.” He went on to explain how the Bible was recorded in ancient times in an ancient language. It was full of inherent contradictions and many stories could very well be explained as the hallucinatory ravings of drunk or drugged fanatics. It was translated repeatedly between many languages, written by hand in careful script by secluded monks. It was censored to fit the political whim of the times. It was a closely guarded secret tome of a literate priest caste kept hidden from the illiterate masses until around the fifteenth century.
He continued to explain, however, that within the Bible are incredible metaphors and lessons for moral life. He told me of how all the major religions had come to the same conclusions — do unto others as you would have them do unto you, don’t lie, cheat, or steal, don’t kill or prejudge one another, love thy neighbor, be honorable, respect your elders — the truths in life are self-evident.
If people want to believe the fanciful stories, that is fine, but the truths in the Bible or any other religion are just as real without them. Does the Sermon on the Mount lose its meaning if Jesus is just a normal man? Do lying, cheating, stealing, killing, or prejudice become less sinful if there is no invisible man in the sky judging it or no hellfire and brimstone to punish it? Could there be a God that created the Big Bang and the quantum physics and vast billions of years it would take to evolve a software-writing saxophonist who can juggle thirteen tennis balls while balancing a tennis racket on his face?
Brint finished by saying something else I will never forget. “Christianity is about trying to be Christ-like and accepting the teachings of Christ. It’s not about who wears the nicest clothes to church, who prays the best at church, or whether you even go to church.” It was at that moment in that drab Army bus that I realized I had found my religion.
Positive Christian Atheism. I mean, I certainly believe in moral aspects of Christianity. I just don’t believe in the mumbo-jumbo God bits of it. I think there is some precedent for picking and choosing the parts of a religion to believe and parts to discard. I see many Christians choosing to believe the abomination parts of Leviticus regarding homosexuality, but they’ve discarded parts from the very same chapter regarding shellfish, working on Sunday, or interacting with menstruating women. Many of them are pro-death penalty because of specific Bible verses, anti-abortion because of other verses, but aren’t as supportive of verses promoting slavery or polygamy. You would think with an infallible omniscient God there would not be any wiggle room.
As A Positive Christian Atheist, I believe there was a black man (“skin like brass, hair like wool”, go find it in your Bible) who lived around 2000 years ago in Judea. He taught people that they should love each other and treat each other well. He spoke in theistic words and metaphors of the time to illiterate people with no understanding of science. Then, for raising a rebellion against rich merchants, the government executed him. Afterwards, his fan club became a cult, made up some fantastic stories about wine making and water-walking, started lots of wars, and killed many people because they didn’t believe the exact same set of fantastic stories.
I don’t believe there is a God, but I do allow for the fact that neither anyone nor I could possibly know for sure anyway. It might be better to say I see no reason to believe in God; life, morality, and belonging do not require one. Sin is wrong because it harms others. I believe if you need a book and a God to divine wrong from right, you lack or ignore a basic empathy for others. God is ancient shorthand for life, the universe, and everything. We’re all a part of a closed system; we all affect and depend on that system to survive.
The “positive” part of Positive Christian Atheism means blending the positive aspects of Christian teaching with the positive reality of atheism. The admonition to treat others well means so much more when you realize this is the only life we’ve got, and the only heaven we’ll experience is the one we strive to create here on earth. A Positive Christian Atheist has to avoid sin not because he fears retribution in an afterlife, but rather because it creates poverty, death, mistrust, and despair in the real life. A Positive Christian Atheist doesn’t do good works to impress God; he does good works because they help people, just as Christ would have done.
A Positive Christian Atheist realizes that people believe in myths and Jesus was a person, so Jesus said many things about God, salvation, and afterlife, but Jesus didn’t have any more proof of these things than anyone else does. Prayer is a good way to express positive hopefulness and create an atmosphere of community and belonging, which in itself is a good thing that can work wonders, but I don’t believe anything is listening or prayer actively changes events.
A Positive Christian Atheist doesn’t try to interpret the Bible as a good source of law. The Bible is like Aesop’s Fables of Grimm’s Fairy Tales — they are good stories and they have definite lessons and morals, but they are not meant to be taken literally. Law should be derived by just consent of the governed with respect toward the self-evident truths that all men are created equal and given the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I’ll take Thomas Jefferson over Thomas Aquinas any day.
So there it is, my religion, Positive Christian Atheism. It’s a religion of one with a clever oxymoronic name and flexible dogma from a clever guy with an oxymoronic nickname and a funny dog tag. It can only be a religion of one, because I believe that the way you understand the universe and your place in it is undeniably unique. I believe in your right to have faith in any story or gods you choose, but I will not refrain from pointing out something silly, contradictory, or just plain sinful from my point-of-view. I believe we’d all get along better if we kept the god stories to ourselves and solved our problems with reason and reality with which we all can agree.
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