normal

I had a normal conversation yesterday.

This is a big deal. I can say with 95% certainty that I have never before had a normal conversation at Wheaton. Normal is something I usually only experience when I leave Wheaton during breaks or visit friends who don’t go to Wheaton. I can’t really define it, and most of the time it’s not until I experience something normal that I notice how much abnormality I’ve been marinating in.

It’s not that atheists are normal and Christians are not, but it makes sense for conversations at a Christian college to not be normal. There is so much pressure for everyone to be a certain way, and to talk in a certain way. I could practically have a Wheaton conversation in my sleep, it’s so formulated. Still, most of the time I don’t feel like people are trying to be someone they’re not.

Un-normal conversations are more than just formulaic.  They somehow feel like they’re going against human instinct.  It’s not just about being yourself; there are plenty of people who don’t act like themselves and but still act normal.  Conversations here just doesn’t flow in a natural way for me, though it may be natural for the other person. It seems like they are somehow trying not to be human, or maybe we are human in not quite the same way. I really don’t know how to describe it.

I had a normal conversation. There was nothing spectacular about it. It was just so… normal.

reading Sagan

I just finished reading Carl Sagan’s The Varieties of Scientific Experience. A great book, it really wonderfully and subtly explains the religious impulse and gives some insight into origins of organized religion, while firming up atheism for me. I haven’t been able to find any Christian responses to the book, but I’m really curious about what they might be. I would love to discuss it with a Christian who has read it.

Why can’t Christians hold their tongues?

I’m writing our of anger and frustration lately, so I won’t be as nice or eloquent as usual. Throw me a frickin bone.

I have a fair number of unflattering opinions regarding Christians in general and some Christians in particular. However, I don’t say it to their faces. I won’t even say it here, both because I think it serves no purpose to offend someone and it’s nothing Christians haven’t heard before anyway. So why, whenever I am in conversation with a Christian about our respective beliefs, can they not hold their damn tongue?
“You might not believe this, but God does love you and you will bow to him one day.” What purpose could it possibly serve to say this to me, that is worth my offense and disgust? Do you honestly think I haven’t heard this a million times before?

Christians often excuse this kind of verbal vomit in themselves and others by saying, “they can’t help it, that’s just what they believe.” Honestly? When has this ever been accepted as an excuse for anyone else with an inconsiderate mouth? First of all, atheists usually don’t shoot off their mouths by telling Christians they’re delusional, etc. in everyday conversation, unless they happen to be someone who makes their living doing so, like Richard Dawkins. Second of all, when atheists do tell Christians what they really think of them, it’s because they are (according to the Christians) arrogant, immature, and sinister. It’s not because they can’t help but express what they really believe about the world.

I have never said anything to demean anyone’s personal faith. I would never consider saying anything along the lines of “I bet you won’t be a Christian in 5 years.” I would never even consider telling anyone that I wish they would become an atheist. I think individuals are entitled to their own beliefs and they’re entitled to base their beliefs based on whatever criteria they choose. Yet these things are said to me in 98% of all conversations that I have with Christians who know that I’m an atheist.

no honesty for atheists. atheists lie.

I was hoping that this blog could be a place where I could be honest, but that no longer seems possible. Maybe the internet is just not the right place for honesty. For an atheist at Wheaton, there is apparently no place for honesty. I guess I should have known that from the beginning, shame on me for being optimistic. Everything I say is used by Christians as ammunition against me. I listen to the stories and testimonies of Christians day in and day out without a word or a “yay, he’s doubting” thought, but that’s something Christians can’t reciprocate. I can’t talk to people without being prayed for, I can’t say anything good about Christianity or anything bad about atheism without it being used against me as evidence that I’m not a real atheist.

When I listen to Christians talk about their faith, I never doubt that what they’re saying is true for them. I never question whether they actually believe in God or whether Christianity actually makes them happy. I would never even consider contradicting someone’s story about himself. So why can’t people trust the words of an atheist? Why do atheists apparently not know themselves as well as Christians do? Because we’re depraved and don’t know our own minds and don’t know the truth about ourselves, obviously. Maybe I should just shut up and let Christians tell my story for me, since they know me so well.

coming out and the absence of religion

I came out as an atheist to one of my professors today. This professor has been a spiritual mentor and role model for me during my entire time at Wheaton, so it was important for me to come out to her. It ended up being a good conversation, but boy was it awkward at first. Actually, it turned out a lot better than I expected, given the less than stellar conversation we had when I was first starting to let go of Christianity.

I think when you spring an unexpected piece of information on a person, you have to excuse the first things that come out of their mouth. I’ve found this to be true with most of the people I’ve come out to. Usually the entire first conversation I have with someone upon revealing my atheism just needs to be scratched out completely, until they’ve had time to think about their reaction and we’ve re-learned how to relate to each other. When you have such a fundamental difference between you, you have to put more thought into your words instead of just saying the first thing that comes to mind. Honesty is still best, but not rash honesty.

As expected, she pulled off several faux pas: the “you’re a Christian, you just don’t know it, etc.,” and everyone’s favorite, “God loves you”. Everybody does that, and most of them should probably be forgiven for it. Overall, I’m glad I told her I’m an atheist. It’s important to me for the significant people in my life to know, especially if they’ve been involved in my spiritual life as a Christian, so it’s not like I’m deceiving them.

I’ve had several spiritual mentors as a Christian, and I’ve been feeling that lack of a mentor since I became an atheist. Mostly because I’m still steeped in Christian culture, I’m still trying to figure out what atheism actually looks like. Maybe I’m just trying to take Christian forms and fill them with atheist approximations, and it can’t or shouldn’t be done.

Atheism is exactly the opposite of a religion, and I keep forgetting that. Maybe because Christianity is the only thing I’ve known, and I don’t know what life without religion looks like. There are atheistic things that can fill the place of religion; things like the UU church, which I have ventured into a little, but I’m not really interested in that. I want to be religion-less. So why can’t I actually imagine a life without religion?

Along the same vein, I’ve been feeling like I want to come out en masse at Wheaton. Maybe I’ve been fattened by success, so to speak, but I’m starting to really enjoy being able to relate to my Christian friends as an atheist and navigating relationships across that boundary. I have momentary flings with the idea of dropping my anonymity, at least at Wheaton (internet anonymity is quite a different thing altogether). Here’s what’s stopping me: I feel like coming out to people other than my closest friends is tantamount to making a commitment to atheism.

I’ve been thinking about why the thought of committing to atheism bothers me. It’s not that I think I’ll back out anytime soon, but on principle there’s something wrong with committing to a thing which, by definition, is the absence of religious commitment. At the same time, I don’t want to qualify my atheism with a lack of commitment and leave myself open to bets on how long it will take to convert me back to Christianity. I just want people to know me as I am: not settled into religion or non-religion, but happy with just basic atheism. I’m happy with my life as an atheist, and I don’t want to keep that a secret. Unfortunately, most people don’t seem capable of just listening and receiving someone else’s story.

all-school communion, jumbled memories, passion

Sometimes I miss being a Christian. I don’t miss Christianity, but I miss being a part of this whole thing. This whole thing that goes on at this school, where I am way out of the loop.

Tonight I went to All-School Communion for the first time in a long time. We have this once a month (it’s not mandatory), where communion is served in the chapel, and there’s worship music and a speaker. It usually lasts about an hour and a half. I stayed for the whole thing, dodging in between spectator and participant. It was strange. I went initially because I missed worship music, but was a bit dismayed to find that after skivving off chapel so much, many of the songs were new.

At times I got really into the music and the atmosphere of the place, and I actually felt like I was one of them. I felt like I actually was a Christian and like I believed what I was singing. That felt good, to tell the truth. For a few moments, I detached myself and thought: it is not that unlikely that I could become a Christian again tonight. I really felt like a Christian; I could just go through the motions and become a part of this community again and will myself into believing that I actually love God. Nobody would be able to tell that I don’t actually believe in God. I might not even be able to tell the difference… But that would make me delusional. So I snapped out of it.

At other times, especially during the breaking of bread and all the prayers and proclamations that go with that, it felt very foreign and ghastly. Like some bloody ritual of sacrifice on a Mayan temple. The ritual of eating the bread and drinking the grape juice itself didn’t seem odd to me, but the words around it and chaplain digging his fingers into the bread to break the loaf, and the flickering candles and wooden cross, seemed so cult-like and barbaric.

Not long ago, I was one of the students serving communion, holding the bread and grape juice and solemn with the privilege of serving my classmates and serving God. At the time I truly saw that as a privilege. I loved it. It’s a good memory.

Contentment

A couple of weeks ago Dr. Lisa McMinn, a former Wheaton sociology professor, spoke in chapel about contentment. She was one of the most popular profs on campus (and one of my favorites), and her message was on the whole pretty good, with one major flaw.

Contentment, she said, is being present in the moment, even when your plans are waylaid. Being at peace regardless of your present circumstances. Being aware of the world around you and being present in it, even when you are in pain.[1] So far, so good. Except the basis of Christian contentment is that God is in control and will eventually work everything out in our favor. God will one day fulfill everything that we (or Christians, at least) long for, even if it doesn’t happen within our lifetime, so because God is constantly at work, we can/should be content in the moment. Because the future has already been decided, and there’s nothing to worry about in the long run, we should realize that present struggles are part of the process of redemption, and be fully present in them.

So I ask: what kind of contentment is that? This is the same kind of reasoning that Christians use when they talk about accepting death, which I wrote about in a previous post. Just as truly accepting death means accepting that it really is the end instead of glossing over it with heaven, true contentment is being present and accepting that things don’t always work out. Some desires and injustices will never be fulfilled, now or in the future, and we have no idea which things will or won’t turn out for good. Contentment is accepting that and being present in the moment when you have no ultimate insurance policy, and you know that some bad situations will just end up being bad. In the face of suffering or injustice, you do all you can to change it, and then you accept what you can’t change. You live with the sucky aspects of being human because that’s what we are, and in some cases neither we, nor our future descendants, nor our future resurrected spirits will get what we long for.

random notes

I want to thank everyone who has been reading, commenting, and discussing here. I really enjoy reading your comments. Writing this blog and reading your comments have done wonders for my sanity.

It’s always fun to see how people find this site. Shout out to the person who got here by googling “wheaton college sucks”.

A few people have requested to contact me privately. I welcome anyone to email me: leavingedenblog@gmail.com.

Good luck with your midterms, Wheaties. And safe travels for Fall Break.

an atheistic equivalent of prayer?

It’s midterm week at Wheaton, and everybody is frantically taking exams, writing papers, and getting ready for Fall Break. For devotions in every class, we pray for our exams, preservation of sanity, and safety traveling during Fall Break. I think it’s incredibly hokey. So I was surprised, as I walked across campus on my way to take a midterm exam, to find myself wishing that there was some atheistic equivalent to prayer.

I used to be one of those Christians who prayed at every opportunity, including before a test. Sometimes it was a last-ditch plea for God to save me from my lack of studying. Most of the time, I simply found prayer a nice way to prepare myself for any event, to put my mind at ease and wrap up the preparation before the execution phase of a project. Praying before a test was a way of acknowledging the preparation I had done and get into the right mindset. It seems like a nice, quaint 17th century thing to do. Except that I kind of miss it. Not the God part, but the pausing and recognizing and pulling things together. And, it’s kind of fun to have someone you can talk to in your head all the time.

Is there an atheistic equivalent of prayer? A way to recognize the good, prepare for the worst, and put your mind at ease, maybe with a small ritual? How do you express concern for someone where you might normally say “I’ll pray for you”? How do you keep friends’ troubles in your thoughts and mentally provide moral support? Or are these psychological games purely the domain of religion?

Or, is praying essentially the same as thinking?  As I once overheard a Wheaton student say to another, “sometimes I don’t know if I’m praying or thinking”.

Dear Wheaton: atheists are people too

I see that more and more Wheaton College people are finding their way to this blog, so I thought I should extend a welcome and also explain a little about the purpose of this blog. Welcome, Wheaton readers. Don’t be shy.

When I became an atheist and realized I was locked in at Wheaton, I spent hours poring over the internet, searching for people in the same situation. I found plenty of atheists who were former evangelical Christians, and some who had attended Christian colleges, but googling any combination of “Wheaton College” and “atheist” got nil. When I started this blog, I had to decide between leaving my school unnamed and including more personal details about me, or remaining anonymous and unidentifiable while writing specifically about Wheaton. I chose the latter because I didn’t want any other current or future students in my situation to search for hours like I did and not find anything relevant.

There have always been and always will be atheists and other happily non-Christian students at Wheaton (and at other Christian colleges as well). My experience is not new or unique. It is just unspoken. I’m tired of atheism and deconversion being a shameful thing that is only discussed either secretively by the nonbelievers or mockingly by the believers on campus. So I want this blog to be a kind of collective voice of the Wheaton atheist. Maybe if I can lay out my reasoning and experiences here, people will be able to consider my position and listen, instead of simply hearing the word “atheist” and immediately running to start a prayer group for my lost soul.