I do not believe in any sort of sentient “God.” I do not believe in any sort of personified “Creator” of the universe. I never had any such beliefs. Nor do I think that science has all of the “answers” (as though we know how to ask the right questions).

Looking back over my past few years of writings, however, I can see that I have come a long way regarding my approach to religion.  Prior to 2001, I was mostly in the live-and-let-live camp. Then came 9/11 when the destructive power of many religions (including American religions) came front and center. Out of mouths allegedly professing the words of God Himself, we heard plenty of bigotry (often aimed at gays, non-believers, people of Middle Eastern ancestry and, of course, members of other religions), war-mongering, anti-science, pro-ignorance, and biblical literalism.

I pushed back forcefully–one of my prime motivations for starting Dangerous Intersection was my strong reaction to the rise of conservative religions in the United States. Eventually, though, I came to realize that my reaction was overbroad. My concern should not so much have been against religion, but against those specific religious communities that encourage their members to engage in destructive behavior.   I think that I understand why I made this error; following 9/11, almost all American religions chose to be silent in the face of the destructive behavior by competitor religions.  I viewed that widespread silence as general approval. I assumed, based somewhat on the increasingly conservative views of several close acquaintances who had been religious moderates, that even moderate religious beliefs too often served as slippery slopes to fundamentalism.

I eventually developed a more nuanced view. I have come to believe that religions serve as grouping techniques that help good-hearted people do group-oriented good-hearted things and, yes, that religions invoked by mean-spirited and violent people amplify their destructive ways.

Even though I have my intellectual differences with virtually all people who profess religious claims, it turns out that many such people have more in common with me, politically and religiously, than many non-believers. There are many issues that we need to grapple with as communities and individuals, many of them having very little to do with religions claims.  Further, after the 9/11 smoke cleared, I could see better that many good-hearted religious believers were of the live-and-let-live persuasion. These were important realizations.  I eventually came to appreciate that many religious folks are truly my allies in what should be a joint quest to make the world a better place.

Over the past year, I spent many hours writing a long article on my own “spiritual” journey.  Writing this chapter was an intense exercise in self-discovery that drew from many of the posts I’ve made at this blog. I originally planned to publish my article as a book chapter that was to be called “Mending Fences with Believers and Moving On.”  My chapter eventually grew to an unwieldy length that branched off into several distinct (but related) topics.  What follows is list of each of the Parts of “Mending Fences with Believers and Moving On.”

I. The day I discussed atheism at a church service
II. My atheism
III. It’s time to call a truce.
IV. What about the science?
V. The many things we have in common
VI. Where do we go from here?
VII. Conclusion

I do believe that the full finished product works well on its own and I’ve decided to break it into several parts here at Dangerous Intersection. Parts I and II of my article are included as part of this post. I’ll post the other sections over the next few days. I hope this collection is as engaging for you to read as it was for me to write.

I. The day I discussed atheism at a church service

What can happen when atheists take the time to compassionately engage with those who believe in God? Sometimes, extraordinary things happen. Things like an atheist being invited to tell a packed church why he doesn’t believe in God.

Although I am an atheist, I occasionally tune into religious talk radio to better understand fundamentalists.Two  years ago, I heard a radio preacher ranting that many new “false” Christian churches were springing up, and that they were stealing lots of young adult Christians from “true and established” fundamentalist Christian churches. I was intrigued that this Christian preacher would disrupt his otherwise nonstop condemnation of atheists, abortionists and gays in order to get so angry about other Christian churches.

It turned out that one of those “dangerous” new Christian churches was located on a busy street less than a mile from my house—I must confess that I originally noticed the church because so many young attractive and energized looking women (and men) could be seen in and out of that church when I happened to pass by on Sunday mornings. I had wondered what was attracting such a young and energized flock. The church is called “The Journey” and a large sign in front of the church prominently included the church’s website. I decided to attend a Sunday service in order to blog on what appeared to be a new spin on worshipping Jesus.

Throughout his sermon, Pastor Darrin Patrick showed himself to be an affable and self-deprecating fellow. His sermon included a detailed exegesis of bible passages, but it lacked the high degree of fear-mongering, condemnation and xenophobia that I’d noticed at some other churches. After the service, I introduced myself to Darrin as a “skeptic” who was blogging about his church. After I published a post about The Journey at Dangerous Intersection, Darrin posted an upbeat comment in response and he suggested lunch.

Darrin and I ended up having lunch a few times, but we didn’t limit our discussion to our religious differences. Instead, we found ourselves rolling up our sleeves and focusing our conversations on our common concerns for improving our community, especially our concerns with the sad state of our local public schools. We also took some time to better understand each other’s views regarding faith and doubt.

After a few of these conversations, Darrin asked me if he could shoot a video interview of me discussing my ideas about faith and skepticism. I agreed. He then played excerpts of my video interview (and his interviews of other skeptics) for his 2,000 church members as part of a series of church services exploring religious skepticism. Darrin’s unusual approach to preaching was featured on a front page article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Article, “Church Takes On ‘New Atheism’ By Embracing the Doubt,” ran on Oct 19, 2008.

A few months later, Darrin invited me to present my views in person at a Saturday evening religious service. After introductory music by the church choir, Darrin and I walked to the front of the church, where we sat side-by-side on stools, microphones in hand, in front of a live audience of four hundred people. As part of that church service, I was given free rein to discuss why I didn’t believe in a sentient supernatural being called “God.”  Here’s the story of how I discussed my atheism before a live congregation. In an atmosphere that was nothing less than cordial and welcoming, I spoke to the congregation for fifteen minutes. After the service, I mingled with a large group of church-goers who thanked me for coming to their church and sharing my views. This experience energized me and convinced me more than ever that believers and atheists can and should engage in productive conversation.

My “sermon” convinced me that atheists would be much better off in the long run if we toned down the harsh rhetoric we often aim at religious moderates. Cultivating trust, patience and self-criticism can bring down the temperature between believers and atheists. It allows us to collaborate with each other regarding the numerous important social and political issues on which we clearly agree.

My Atheism

Who am I? Although I like to spend time writing and meditating in big empty churches, I am an atheist. For me, the notion of a sentient disembodied being is an oxymoron because there is no evidence that sentience can occur in the absence of a physical neural network. Rocks and air can’t think; neither can anything else that lacks a physical substrate. I don’t believe in the sentience of ghosts or Holy Ghosts. I have no faith in any of the supernatural claims touted by any religion. I never believed in God, angels or heaven, even as a young child.

My frustration with religion started in 1960, when I was four years old. My dad took me to a neighborhood Catholic church for a “visit.” It was early evening and no one else was in the big church. My dad kneeled and prayed silently. I wondered what to make of the solemn expressions of the statues. After a few minutes, my dad finished praying and sat down in the pew next to me. He had a strange expression on his face as he whispered to me that Jesus lived in a little gold box at the front of the church. I was puzzled. He told me that Jesus was a piece of bread and that people ate Jesus. This statement hit me like a shotgun blast. Even though I was only four, I knew that there was something terribly wrong with my dad.

My parents required me to attend Catholic schools through high school. While attending mandatory religion classes, even in grade school, I relentlessly asked questions, and this frustrated everyone in the classroom, including me. I asked where the waters receded if the entire Earth had been flooded. I was perplexed that the most sacred part of the Mass involved cannibalism. I expressed my doubt that a woman who didn’t have sex could get pregnant and that her baby boy was his own father. I asked these questions for years, but I never heard any answer that made any sense. I felt isolated and excluded, especially when I was told that I needed to pray more. I wondered whether there was something wrong with me.

In my last two years of high school, I stopped going to church because I had lost all patience with religion. None of the other students at school seemed to care—they just marched off to church when told to do so. Though I didn’t call myself an atheist back then, I had become an atheist. My lack of faith made other students uncomfortable. My iconoclastic views got all the more intense on the day I wandered into a public library and picked up a copy of Bertrand Russell’s 1927 essay, “Why I Am Not a Christian.” I was about 17 years old at the time, and this was the day I discovered that I was not alone and that I was not crazy.

All through my life, my lack of belief in supernatural beings has led many people to judge me as morally defective even though they didn’t know me in the least. For instance, while in law school, my woman I was then dating invited me to travel to meet her family in Illinois. On Sunday morning, her father (a philosophy teacher at a local college) was shocked that I did not accept the family’s invitation to attend Catholic Mass. That night, he told my girlfriend that she shouldn’t ever bring that “God-damned atheist” into the family house again.  I could easily tell many additional stories where I disappointed acquaintances, friends and family because I didn’t proclaim that I believed in God.

In short, my story is typical of the experiences of American atheists who were raised in religious homes.

[To be continued]