The Importance of Atheism

Atheism is nothing more than not believing in deities, so I often question why I devote so much time and energy to mere disbelief. The activities are mostly devoid of positive content, consisting mostly of critical thinking applied to this one very controversial topic, and therefore almost entirely reactive toward religion rather than creative. And when I try to be constructive, as when I focus on Humanism rather than just atheism, I still concentrate heavily on the atheistic aspects rather than on the purely secular aspects. I’ve come up with a few possible explanations for this phenomenon.

Atheists, especially explicit atheists, are a rather small minority worldwide, even smaller in the United States, and smaller still in the southeastern part of this country. What’s more, theists make their presence known through churches and a thousand other ways that atheists generally don’t, for vocal atheists are the smallest minority yet. Indeed, many atheists have no interest whatsoever in their atheism and even consider expressing one’s atheism, except perhaps upon direct questioning, to be inappropriate, in bad taste or simply ridiculous. Given this extreme minority status and the constant reminders of it, it’s not surprising that I sometimes feel slightly insecure in my position despite feeling such confidence whenever I actually examine the arguments on both sides. In fact, this dichotomy explains the situation almost on its own.

When I think about how as an atheist I believe the rest of the world is not only mistaken but very badly mistaken, I feel the need to remind myself why I think this and to make sure I’m not the one who’s mistaken. And although I don’t get many opportunities to have sincere, honest and good faith discussions with believers on the topic of religion, that’s why it’s something I really love to do when I can. Whenever there are two sides to a debate, which is essentially always, I don’t feel comfortable dismissing the other side unless I know exactly why they’re mistaken and can present specific errors in their thinking. I want to show them these errors, in exactly the same way I would like others to show me mine rather than simply dismissing me as an idiot. Dismissing others and disengaging from the debate is generally unconducive to the search for truth.

There’s an additional reason stemming from my past not only as a believer but as a scrupulous believer, deathly afraid of hell. Although I haven’t really felt anxious about the possibility of being wrong about Christianity in over five years, the indoctrination certainly left an indelible mark on my psyche that will probably remain until I die. I’ve never for even the briefest moment feared that Islam was true and that Allah would send me to hell, so I know the only reason I’ve ever feared Christianity was true is because it’s part of my past and part of my culture. But whenever I see a new book at bookstores claiming to justify belief in God or Jesus, I immediately feel a little bit of anxiety at the possibility that I’ve somehow overlooked something. I know this reaction isn’t rational, especially since it’s emotional and almost reflexive, and I sometimes calm myself by picking it up, thumbing through it, and seeing that it’s the same arguments theists have been making for centuries. It's notable, however, that I've never felt the urge to do this regarding other religions.

Sometimes I feel like I really should fully dismiss all belief in the supernatural, completely disengage from all discussion about atheism, and focus my energies elsewhere. But atheism is an important hobby for me and sometimes reduces anxiety, though disengaging may be more effective, for all I know. And someone needs to help fly the banner of atheism, as it were, so that religious doubters have somewhere to turn for help. I’m very happy all the people who helped me on my road to deconversion didn’t just decide to focus their attention on something “constructive” after they personally decided religion was false and instead actually took the time to express their atheism and their reasons for disbelief. Without them, I would very likely either still be a very miserable scrupulant with no life or a suicide. Atheism, not Humanism or any other positive philosophy, has been very constructive in my life and made me very happy comparatively, and I want to help offer other people that option if that’s what they need.

Afraid of Nothing

It’s been almost exactly five months since my last post. There’s no special reason for this; I just haven’t had much to say on the topics of religion and irreligion so far this year. I still receive occasional comments on my prior posts, and there’s one particular type of feedback that draws me back in and makes me want to write more. It comes from former or current scrupulants who tell me that my blog has helped them in their suffering and given them hope. As a former scrupulant, I can identify with their struggles from my own experience, and I’m certainly much more aware of their plight than most others. The vast majority of scrupulants avoid anything questioning their faith, at least during most their time in that condition, but the few who do when the time is right, like me, truly benefit from hearing someone address their exact concerns and show them the path to mental freedom. I don’t know how to reach this target audience better, but they’re certainly a major part of my desire to write more and provide them with more resources if and when they find my blog.

Scrupulosity is not a disease. It’s a perfectly rational reaction to the threat of eternal damnation. The solution is to realize the threat is false. There is nothing to fear.

Uncertainty about the Afterlife

In response to the problem of evil, believers typically claim that God must have a perfectly valid reason for allowing great evil in the world even if we cannot discover or understand it and that the proper response is to trust him without questioning. I recently encountered an interesting idea from Robert M. Price which addresses this response in a new way. He rhetorically asks how Christians would react if, upon death, God canceled their ticket to heaven (faith in Jesus, life of good works, state of grace at death, etc.) and sent them to hell without any explanation whatsoever. Applying their argument to this situation, they couldn't complain at all, for God must have a perfectly valid reason for sending them to hell even if they cannot discover or understand it. No Christian could honestly counter that it's an absolute impossibility; this is the same deity who slaughtered multitudes of Egyptian babies in their sleep and who they acknowledge threatens to send billions of souls to hell for mere disbelief. It's a perfectly valid rhetorical question without any clear answer.

Dr. Price's idea reminds me of the major issues I had with scrupulosity and fear of hell before I deconverted. For years, I had regular, persistent doubts about whether my confessions were valid, whether I was forgiven, and whether I would be damned to hell if I died at that moment. Priests regularly told me to trust in God's love and that God wouldn't condemn me if I honestly did my best to obey him, but their assurances never helped me because I also believed this was a deity who didn't hesitate to send souls to hell for all eternity for something as absolutely ridiculous as masturbating or missing mass one Sunday; I had no trouble imagining him on judgment day telling me that I sinned by listening to my confessor instead of my own conscience and casting me into a lake of fire to burn forever. It was mental agony to believe one is constantly being watched by a despicable, malevolent being who demands blind love, blind faith, and blind obedience and who will probably eventually capture and torture you. It's a lot like being Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, but with infinite consequences. This is why the day I deconverted was the best day of my entire life.

While I'm on the topic of the afterlife, I want to say that sometimes I rather wish there were a way for arrogant religionists who claim certainty in their beliefs to learn they're wrong before they die. If my belief is correct that our consciousness is forever extinguished upon death, it's really a pity they can all pass out of existence without ever being forced to admit the magnitude of their stupidity.

Thought Control

Although I have previously written about my past experiences with a condition known as scrupulosity when I was a devout Catholic, I would like to go into more detail regarding a particularly torturous element thereof which I endured for a few years, in order to illustrate the absurdity of certain religious prohibitions. As I have discussed in a separate earlier entry, the Catholic Church teaches an especially strict sexual morality which condemns every sexual act except that between a husband and wife without contraception and, per clear scriptural authority, condemns even willful indulgence of sexual thoughts. While the prohibition against actions is severe, it's not impossible to obey it if one is truly careful to avoid opportunities to succumb to temptation. The prohibition against thoughts, however, proves practically impossible to obey if one takes both it and the threat of eternal damnation seriously. I struggled mightily for years to control my thoughts and, despite my most strenuous efforts, I failed to achieve anything except an unhealthy suppression of my natural desires and the development of violent compulsions against myself.

The most relevant fact about the condemnation of consenting to impure thoughts is that it's simply impossible to control one's mental activity, most especially with respect to such a basic animal instinct as sex. It's almost always on our minds, subconsciously if not consciously. Most people realize this, especially psychologists and advertisers. Healthy adults automatically respond to the sight, sound or smell of attractive individuals by becoming sexually aroused. Now while the church teaches that mere instinctive thoughts aren't willful and thus aren't at all sinful, it does teach that to consciously entertain and indulge these thoughts constitutes such a serious offense that you could burn in hell forever if you commit it and die without repenting and confessing it to a priest. That idea in itself is absurdly evil, but notice that there's nothing even resembling a clear boundary between an event that happens automatically and an action that can condemn one to eternal damnation. That's just an open invitation for obsession.

Let's say that a sexual thought enters one's mind as it does innumerable times each day. If one dwells on it for even a moment, then one risks sinning by “entertaining” or “consenting” to it. If one attempts to banish it from one's mind, the thought only becomes stronger and more persistent. I found it impossible to simply “let it pass” as I was repeatedly advised by confessors because I was afraid that I had not done enough to avoid sin and had thereby sinned already. My response to this fear was to work harder and harder to banish any sexual thought as soon as it entered my mind. I shouldn't reveal much detail, but I will say that my attempts to immediately distract my mind from unwanted images became more and more manic over time and that it was simply impossible for me to function properly until my deconversion.

If I saw an attractive woman who aroused any sexual feelings in me, I forced myself to avert my eyes and drive out with a physical response against myself any sexual thoughts that the sight of her generated in my mind. I then thought about whether I was thinking about it and then about whether I had sinned by thinking something lustful about her, often subtly appearing like I suffered from a mental condition, which in retrospect was not entirely inaccurate. This rumination could last from a few seconds to several minutes to the rest of the day and all I had actually done was happen to a see a woman in completely normal and acceptable attire. My mind even seemed to revolt at the suppression of its thoughts. The more I struggled not to think something, the stronger the urge I felt to think it out of frustration and anger. This tendency, by the way, extended to violent and blasphemous thoughts as well, though these caused much less trouble due to far weaker instincts to think them. It's notable that I came to believe that the vast majority of women dressed immodestly and that I noticed every single inch of cleavage on every woman, perhaps similar to how a Saudi man might feel in a western society.

Contrast that to how simple life has become with respect to sexual thoughts since my belief in God and hell disintegrated. Now when I see an attractive woman, the exact same sexual thoughts arise, but they present no trouble whatsoever. If I want to and have the time, I can indulge in a sexual fantasy for a short time and move on. If I'm busy or focused on something else, I can let it pass because there's absolutely no fear that I have done anything which might result in neverending torment. Either way it lasts for a few moments at most and I can concentrate on actually living my life, all without any guilt or fear. There's no obsession; it's natural and normal. And I'm sure there's just as much cleavage and as many pairs of tight pants as there were a few years ago, but I hardly notice except in the most exceptional cases, when such a sight most likely presents far more potential pleasure than anguish. It feels so good to be normal again.

Scrupulosity, OCD and the Doctrine of Hell

For approximately five years, from 1999 until my deconversion in 2004, I suffered greatly from an obsession with sin, death and hell known as scrupulosity. The condition is usually considered a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder and is normally treated with counseling and medication. While I respect the general opinion of mental health professionals in this matter, I always insisted that my own problem was not the result of abnormal brain chemistry but simply of sincere belief in the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the afterlife and I think that the almost three years of my life since then, without any belief in the supernatural and without the slightest hint of obsession, have vindicated that opinion. My belief that God might damn me to hell forever almost drove me literally insane and the terrible anguish which it caused contributed to my sustained antipathy toward the idea of the Christian God.

The Catholic Church preaches two entirely incompatible doctrines which led to my scrupulosity:

1. God loves each person perfectly and unconditionally.
2. God will damn a person to hell forever if they commit a mortal sin and then die without having confessed or at least having made an act of perfect contrition with the intention to confess as soon as possible.

It also seems that one must engage in doublethink to fully accept both of these conflicting dogmas and that my eventual inability to reconcile them in my mind was indeed the source of my problem.

Let's say that I'm not certain whether I have committed a mortal sin despite knowing that it must be a gravely immoral act committed with full knowledge of the intellect and full consent of the will. A confessor would most likely instruct me that if I'm not certain, then it cannot be a mortal sin and I don't need to confess it. The problem is that there is no absolute distinction between certain and uncertain in any of the three elements and I was frequently uncertain about whether I was certain! The prospect of literally never-ending torture meant that I couldn't risk even the very slightest chance that I culpably judged wrongly and that obsession was the only rational response to infinite danger. I was often told that I had to trust my current confessor absolutely, but my confessors had directly contradicted each other, directly contradicted official church documents, and even told me that I was right in leaving other confessors who had instructed me wrongly. I was told even more often that I had to trust God because he loves us, but it was simply impossible for me to really believe this. If he really and truly loved us, then he would never assign us infinite punishment for finite sins or make our salvation so heavily dependent on the hour of our death. I was told that I was wrong to view God as a policeman who is constantly waiting for us to do something wrong so that he can punish us, but the image seemed to fit rather well except that, unlike a policeman, God had unlimited control over me, my world, the rules and the punishment! I simply couldn't love a being who threatened me with eternal fire if I didn't follow his rules exactly and who would just completely give up on me once I died. The Christian God was a monster in my eyes whom I grew to fear and despise more and more over the years.

My scrupulosity was treated by confessors, counselors, and even with medication from a psychiatrist. Their assistance granted me a certain limited amount of relief, but it was always only temporary and my condition never really improved beyond being simply bearable. My deconversion, which included the rejection of the concepts of God and hell as absurd, on the other hand, resulted in complete, instantaneous and permanent relief without any counseling or medication because my obsession was rational and had nothing to do with brain chemistry or my “failure” to trust and love God. Here is an example. Like sufferers of actual OCD, I had an obsession with washing and cleanliness. The typical OCD obsession is based on the small possibility of becoming sick and the minuscule possibility of becoming fatally sick from lack of washing and cleanliness. My obsession was based on the possibility of sinning by getting me or someone else sick from lack of washing and cleanliness. The worst that happens with an OCD obsession is that someone gets sick or dies. Everyone dies eventually, so while it makes sense to be careful, it doesn't make sense to be so careful that it ruins one's life. The worst that happened with my obsession, however, was that I burned in hell forever and ever. It really would be worth ruining one's life to avoid an eternity of pain, so my reaction was completely proportionate to the danger. Once I realized that there was no danger of hell, however, I returned to normal immediately. I started washing my hands only after using the restroom and sometimes before eating. I could touch anything without worrying about germs. I could drop a cookie on the ground and eat it without thinking about it except to laugh at how easy it had become. That is simply not possible for someone with abnormal brain chemistry and irrational obsessions. Of course, I would argue that my belief in hell was essentially irrational, but my scrupulosity itself was a perfectly rational response to that irrational belief. The infinite nature of hell had completely disrupted my normal pattern of ordinary risk management and created obsessive thinking, and the church's liturgy had forced me to participate in compulsive rituals such as mass and confession to eliminate these obsessive thoughts. My scrupulosity was thus generated by belief in the church and was thus resolved by disbelief in the church.

A fundamentalist Protestant might respond that one's salvation is assured upon accepting Jesus as one's lord and savior. (As an aside, I don't understand why they usually think Catholics haven't done this except that they don't use those exact words to describe their faith.) At first this seems to avoid the problem of always having one's salvation in doubt, but there other problems which only become apparent upon further reflection. If one's salvation were truly assured, then they could sin with impunity without any fear of hell. Fundamentalists respond that sinning greatly would be an indication that a person was never saved in the first place. This entails that one can be mistaken about whether they are truly saved because they also might sin greatly in the future and therefore they have no assurance of their salvation! One cannot argue that they know they would never do that because many people have been very devout in their faith and then sinned greatly. I have heard of fundamentalists who repeatedly tried to become saved after sinning because they didn't know whether it worked the other times. Since fundamentalist hell is just as terrible as Catholic hell, the same infinite danger merits the same obsessive response.

From Catholic to Atheist

In the interest of providing additional perspective to my thoughts, I will now share the tale of my journey from Catholicism to atheism.

The circumstances of my entrance into the Church are very commonplace. My Catholic parents had me baptized shortly after my birth, brought me to Mass each Sunday, and sent me to formal religious education until I received the sacrament of confirmation at the age of thirteen. Around that time, I developed a serious interest in religion and became relatively devout in my faith. I sought to understand the teachings of the Church more deeply. I read the Bible, the newly published universal catechism, and a few books on apologetics, though my forays into online apologetic debate were largely uneventful. Discussion of religion with two atheist friends at the end of high school, however, planted seeds of major doubt in my mind, which seemed to flower immediately before being quickly crushed by fear and anxiety.

At university I entrenched myself even more deeply into religion, leading to serious considerations of entering the seminary or the monastery, but the fear of an eternal hell which had forcefully preserved me in the faith soon created a terrestrial hell for me in form of scrupulosity. I will not discuss the details of the situation, but I will say that it truly was a nightmare. The condition persisted for years with only temporary, partial, and sporadic reprieves despite extensive assistance from the clergy and other persons. Eventually, however, the issue of doubt became a major focus of my obsession and the seeds planted years before germinated such that they were ready to blossom with the proper amount of cultivation.

A frank discussion with a friend who had earlier made a similar journey provided the catalyst to a thorough investigation of my doubts over the course of several months. During this time I read everything that I could find, online or in print, pro- and anti-religion. I spoke with family, friends and priests. I spent much time in prayer and in thought. In the end I found that I had lost my faith from a combination of the obliteration of my former justifications for belief, the establishment of numerous insurmountable objections and difficulties, and the realization that everything in life makes much more sense if Catholicism is indeed false. I left the Church almost four months after my initial decision to question my religion.

Though my sufferings certainly helped prompt the investigation, my loss of faith and subsequent apostasy were the result of logical, systematic inquiry rather than an emotionally motivated escape from the torment I experienced at the hands of religion. I am certain, however, that many believers will dismiss my reasons as less than noble. In response I would like to indicate that my decision to face my doubts and fears demanded a certain amount of courage. With my understanding that to entertain and indulge one's doubts was a sin grave enough to merit eternal damnation, I willfully endangered my soul in order to satisfy my sense of intellectual honesty and desire for truth. Additionally, I realized that it would perhaps be impossible to feel sorry and thus seek forgiveness for the sin of doubting if I found the Catholic faith to be true, meaning that I effectively had to surmount a point-of-no-return in order to even begin. Whatever the case, supposed emotional motivations do not discount rational argumentation and criticism.

My scrupulosity immediately and substantially diminished upon my apostasy, though the fear of hell lingered for approximately six months before fully dissipating. I initially considered myself an agnostic, but the more appropriate term would have been weak atheist. A further examination of the problem of evil a few months later prompted my transition to strong atheism. I have maintained that position since and that is where I stand today.