Cognitive Dissonance

When I was younger, religion was a huge part of my life. Church every Sunday, rain, shine, sick, well, whatever. It was the hardest thing because I wasn't allowed to play Pokemon in church. And I had to get up early. Why did I have to get up early on a day of rest?

But that aside, it actually was an important factor in my life. When I was maybe in 4th grade, we were learning about the solar system, and I was terrified that the sun was going to spontaneously turn into a black hole and we'd all be dead. I lost a lot of sleep over this and I remember praying to God to keep me and my family safe. I remember the immense amount of comfort I got from that, knowing there was a god that loved and cared about us, that listened to our prayers.

In fact, at the age of 12 or so, it was one of 6 adjectives I used to describe myself: Religious. As I got older, I loved being part of mission projects, and most importantly, choir. Choir every Sunday morning and choir tour every summer were the best parts of my religious life. We went to a contemporary Methodist service and the songs were fun. The sermons were boring, but the songs were fun.

To be honest, I don't remember when it started to change, really. I think it might've been when the church installed a new $10,000 electronic sign outside, but I remember not really liking how the church was run. I didn't like how the Bible said that non-Christians went to hell. What about all of the people in India who just never had a chance to choose Christianity? What about children who weren't baptized? What about my Muslim friends? My Jewish friends?

I quietly revised my definition of what it meant to be a Christian and moved on, but that didn't sit well with me. Why would the Bible say that? Why would the Bible say that the only way to get to heaven is through Jesus? Especially if it weren't? What if you're a fantastically good person who's dedicated your life to helping people? Why would that person go to hell? The Bible says it's because we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God but...why isn't really trying (and repenting when you fail) enough?

So I started skipping Sunday School after the service. I started meeting my friend in the stairwells and reading the Bible ourselves.

Well, in theory, anyway. It never worked out that way, but I always tried to read it at home. First, I started with Genesis but that was all family trees and boring crap. Then I started with the gospels but...I don't know. I got bored? Went back to Genesis and got up through Leviticus, I think. There are some fun stories in there. Sodom and Gomorrah is a riot and that whole bit about Abraham saying Sarah was his sister? Hilarious.

But anyway, it was at that point I decided to start trying to follow the rules in the Bible. They were right there, in the holy book, so I was going to follow them. It didn't make sense for them to be part of the Bible if we were going to ignore it, right? So I went kosher, which wasn't a big deal for me except I had to give up Pizza Rolls (which was the hardest decision of my life). I honestly didn't know much but I tried to follow what I could. I tried not to pick and choose what was convenient. I tried to actually live by what the Bible said but...that whole bit about sending good people to hell still didn't sit right with me. Eventually, I went through confirmation and I remember that being such a peaceful weekend. I was constantly surrounded by people saying "No, don't worry, this is how it is. You don't need to think too hard about it, just believe and that's enough." It was calming. It made it easy to just go along with it. It wasn't until after confirmation, when that nagging feeling came back that I felt I had to do something about it. I looked into other religions. Judaism was closest to what I was practicing: Be a good person, follow the rules. I was dating (sort of?) a Muslim at the time, so I looked into Islam too. Interesting religion, that. Honestly though, the thing that really kept me from converting was the services. The contemporary service, the songs, that all felt comfortable to me. It felt fun and welcoming.

And then I thought, "Am I really a Christian because I like the songs?"

That disturbed me, but I tried to put it out of my head. I tried to figure out what I believed. At one point, I tried a mix-and-match thing, picking out the beliefs I liked and rejecting the ones I didn't, but that always felt fake to me. If the Bible said that Jews go to hell and Christianity follows the Bible, then how am I a Christian if I don't believe that?

Then in 2008, Cute Is What We Aim For released their album Rotation. Track 4 was a simple song called Loser. The first verse (and bridge) went like this:

I've read of a man up in a room 
Who can control everything I do 
But what do I know? 
What do I know? 
And if the story of the man isn't true 
Then tell me what I should do 
Should I take off the blindfold? 
Or do what I'm told? 


But we'll never know about the life I chose 
I won't believe I won't be so naive until I go 
Yeah we'll never know 'til these eyes close

And it sounds superficial, but that song gave me the idea: What if there isn't a god? It was a simple idea and one I'd never thought of before, but as soon as I gave it a chance, all of the pieces fell into place. I'd figured out that there was so much nagging at me I didn't even know about.

I thought about how prayer never made sense to me. If God were omniscient...then shouldn't he know every argument you could possibly have against him? Shouldn't he have it all under consideration? And if he had a plan for all of us, then...why were we praying about Susie's cancer? If logic can't change his plan then...what? Do we need to get as many people to pray as possible because there's a quota you need to meet? 100 people and Susie's cancer goes into remission, any less and it metastasizes? I never understood what made prayer matter if God knew us before we were born, who we would be and what we would become. If he were going to help us, wouldn't he just do so?

And why was God so active in Biblical times, talking to people, burning bushes, causing floods, but not at all now? Why didn't he pick a prophet every hundred years or so to guide his flock? Why didn't he make it easy to believe and make the challenge to be a good person?

And there's been religion throughout all of history and we've consistently looked back and said "Ha ha, those guys were idiots. Thinking a guy in a chariot pulled the sun across the sky, what silly people," and then held our own religious beliefs...wasn't it kind of...proud? To think that people wouldn't look back in a thousand years and do the same thing to us?

And this is big, why is there no proof? Why is there no statistical proof that prayer helps aside from the general help that having a loving, supporting family provides? Why can't you find anything other than anecdotal evidence about Christians having miracles happen to them? If God is affecting our world, there should be proof. We can study everything in this world, but does God just refuse to participate in science? It seems rather unsportsmanlike, like he thinks we're cheating. I never understood why faith had to be so hard, why there wasn't any proof on our side.

But thinking he didn't exist (or at least not the active, involved God the Bible describes), that made sense. The nagging feeling went away. Everything fell into place and started to make sense. We had enough science to explain how people came to be. With the sheer size of the universe, it makes sense that somewhere, conditions would be right for life to evolve like this. Given infinite chances, things of all probabilities are possible. The more I thought about it, the more it became clear to me that I didn't need a god to make sense of the world. Sure, I didn't understand where the first matter or energy came from, but I didn't understand where God came from either, so it seemed like a fair trade. There weren't any holes in my understanding of the world that needed a god to be filled, and trying to shoehorn him in where he wasn't necessary caused so much stress.

Of course, I never had anything against the deist theory of God as a master clockmaker who set the universe in motion and then went off to...make other clocks, I guess, but it seemed like an unnecessary complication. If God exists, it should be provable. He could just make a loud pronouncement from the heavens and let us know "Yo, guys, still here. You might want to clean up your act a bit." I think he'd be really pleased with the results. But you can't prove that he doesn't exist any more than you can prove there isn't an invisible pink unicorn somewhere in space. If you can prove something but can't disprove it, then I don't understand why I should give equal weight to each idea, not if there is literally no way to discredit your idea.

But this wasn't a decision I made lightly. I didn't go "Aha! You silly peons still believe this while I see the truth!" To be honest, I don't like talking about my opinions on religion because I don't want to come off that way (And believe me, I talk about everything, at length). It's hard to say "I believe differently than you and here are my reasons why" without it coming off as "And you're stupid for disagreeing," especially with things like this. I didn't really talk about it when it happened and I think this is the first time I've really told anyone the full story (so enjoy, internet). The fact is that it pained me because there were so many things that were so comforting about religion that I wanted back. I wanted to believe in an afterlife. I wanted to believe that somewhere, Biscuit was still happy and healthy. I wanted to believe that I'd be reunited with my loved ones in a place of eternal happiness, but I just...can't. Religion nagged and nagged at me until I realized it wasn't something I could be a part of anymore. To be honest, when my cat died in 11th grade, I didn't think I'd ever stop crying. I didn't know how to deal with the fact that he was just...gone. Never coming back. Never see him again. That was it. Gone. Dead. Forever.

And I don't know how I'm going to be able to deal with that if someone close to me dies. Them not being there anymore. Not ever. I don't...I really don't know how to deal with it. I'm not saying this to ask for pity but just...I never hated religion.

Well, except for that one time it made me feel immensely guilty for my magic spell book (that was pink revolved around rose petals and fingernail polish). To be honest, I still feel resentment for that. Stupid Christianity and it's stupid rules about witchcraft.

But seriously, I never hated religion and I still don't. It was an important part of my childhood and a really positive influence, for the most part. I don't blame people for believing differently than I do and I just ask that people not judge me for not being able to believe what they do. Believe me, I tried, but after years of discomfort and confusion, I finally found what made sense to me, what I was comfortable with, and I feel better for it.

That said, I really don't like people who talk about "atheism," like it's a religion. I don't believe god exists, but I don't have any dogmatic attachment to the idea. I believe in science, in evolution, that the earth was once a ridiculously hot singular land mass with no atmospheric oxygen and that life evolved from prokaryotic cells. My beliefs don't include a god but neither are they about not having one. I consider myself an atheist if you want to talk about religious beliefs, but it's really more that I don't have any than that mine revolve around denying god's existence. I'm an atheist, but I'm not a "follower of atheism," because that doesn't make any sense. If there were proof of god, I'd be all for it, but in the absence of such things, I don't see any reason to include him in my views of the world.

Though just in case there is a god, I fully believe that if he's a god worth worshipping, he should accept me by the good life I've tried to live, rather than by strict adherence to whatever holy book is most prominent in my area, so I think I've got all my bases covered.