The question I get asked the most is: what was the one thing that made you became an atheist? Answering this question now is as hard as it was when I originally became an atheist. I do want to explain my process, but it’s very long and comes with a large smattering of antecedents and tangential clarifications, so bear with me.
If I had to pick one reason why I’m an atheist, this quotation from The Chronicles of Narnia would be the simplest way I can think of to explain it:
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
(Prince Caspian)
I used to be like Lucy. The idea of a ‘big’ God, infinitely omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, has always been very important to me. As I grew—spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, temporally—I always found that God was bigger than I had previously realized.
I’m a visual person, so here is the illustration that I see in my head: I see my mental conception of the universe as a box, whose boundaries are constantly expanding. Sometimes the size of the box remains static for awhile; usually, it grows at a slow to moderate pace. Sometimes certain things make my box suddenly increase exponentially in size: having an artistic epiphany, working on an agonizingly painful quantum physics project, living on my own in a big city for the first time, taking Jerry Root’s Christian Education class at Wheaton.
Always, always, my box was completely filled by God. Every time my box grew, my conception of God grew along with it, seamlessly. Often, it was God who grew first, pushing the sides of the box outwards. I never had to work to make God big enough for my box. He was always there, infinitely big.
Then, during my junior year at Wheaton, several things happened in quick succession that made my box double in size. It was fantastic, until I realized that God didn’t quite fill it. I realized that I could see the edge of God, and that scared me. So I threw myself even more deeply into my faith. Contrary to slowly sliding away from faith, I found that there was a very fine line between earnest, committed, conservative Christianity and radical atheism. It’s hard to describe what my faith looked like at this stage. I desperately wanted to stay a Christian. I desperately wanted God to fill my box. But he didn’t, and still my box was growing.
In my view there is absolutely no place for a God who is less than infinite, but I didn’t know what to do now that the only God I knew was a small God. Then, for the first time, I heard someone else voice my belief: that no God at all was preferable to a small God. I threw God out of my box and began looking out with new eyes, and my box immediately increased logarithmically in size.
My love of analogy tends to get lost in itself while complicating the obvious, so I’ll try to follow this up with an actual explanation sometime.
When I finally became an Atheist, it was a culmination of years and years of philosophical thinking for me. I don’t think anyone can say that ONE thing made them become atheists, or Christian or Muslim, I certainly can’t. Becoming an atheist required, for me, the dismantling of dozens of mental assumptions I had in my brain, and for each concept that I finally rejected as wishful thinking I never afterwards thought: “oh, cool, one more step to becoming an atheist!” It was more that, after enough steps, you finally realize where you are, and what you are not.
To be honest, Richard Dawkins was the one that finally “guided” me through the last few steps from wishy-washy agnosticism to outright and proud atheism, but the core reasons for my atheism today were established years ago, when I first started looking sceptically at the world, without even knowing what a “sceptic” was.
I think you should take all the time you need to explain why you are an atheist. There’s simply no way of compressing years of hard-thinking into a couple of bullet points, and if you condense your experience too much you risk people not comprehending your arguments and thinking them too shallow. This is not something easy to explain, so if people are interested, they should be willing to put in the time to try to fully understand your reasons.
Your story seems eerily similar to mine. I was trying to find a way to reconcile my new found love of science with the supernatural world of religion, specifically Christianity, when I too found that Time magazine debate between Dawkins and Collins. I wasn’t converted right then. I actually thought Collins “won” the debate. He sounded more sincere and kinder compared to Dawkins who sounded like an arrogant jerk. But I kept looking. I found Dawkins’ website. I found YouTube videos. I found Carl Sagan and “Cosmos”. I found Sam Harris. I found the videos of the Beyond Belief conference in ‘06. The more I found the more I was sure that I couldn’t keep both. Science was here to stay, religion had to go.
Reading your story is like reading about myself from someone who is a better writer than I am
Excuse me for any ignorance I may show in this post, I am just trying to learn. You are far more educated then me in theology and so I don’t mean anything but to learn.
I have pondered this post for a few weeks and I am confused by some stuff, so, I just thought I’d ask. So you know where I am coming from – I am a Christ follower. I haven’t always been, but am now. Anyways, I just have a couple questions if that’s ok.
“I realized that I could see the edge of God, and that scared me.”
I am curious as to why? Why does the idea of a God that you can “know” and who wants nothing but to “know” you in return scare you, a god who made it so you could “see the edges of him” and see that He is actually “there” (or here) doesn’t bother me, so I am curious the reasons.
“that no God at all was preferable to a small God.” … I understand your logic behind this, but I question it. Really? If God were so big and complex that he were unknowable, or at least as powerful as it sounds like you’d like him to be – I tend to think he’d probably just squash us or at least wouldn’t want us.. Anyways my question, again, is, why?
Maybe you’re only seeing one side of the paradox that is God? God is infinite and yet finite at the same time. That is Christ by definition. Even God and the idea of the tri-unity is a paradox and there are many more paradoxes in the universe and “spiritual realm”. I’m ok with them, and I am just curious why you would rather stake your belief in nothingness rather then risk that “God” might be right.
I am not meaning to debate, I know you have probably answered these questions a million times over, mostly, I am curious to know why the idea of God being “small” or “seeing the edges of him” is a problem to you.
If by “edges” you mean that there is stuff that God can’t do, (to overly simplify) like making 2+2=3 or a square circle, that kind of stuff doesn’t bother me. I prefer God keep some order in the Universe, but I really would like to know these “edges” you speak of and why that bothers you.
Also, as a side note, have you read Ravi Zacharias’ “The End of Reason”? How would you refute him? I’ve never seen Ravi so hammer and tongs as this book. Harris, Dawkins and Sagan got him worked up.
Thanks for being so honest (at least on this blog.
. Christians have much to learn from you.
I won’t debate this any further, just would like to know your answers. If you have another post that might shed light on this, I’d be happy with a link.
Thanks Lily,
Ryan
[...] 12, 2008 by Lily This began as a response to Ryan’s comment on the post the simple answer. After failing to answer his question, it turned into something [...]