A 6th generation Mormon, Jeremy Runnells had expectations and plans of living in the Church of Latter Day Saints for the rest of his life. However, in February 2012, Jeremy experienced a crisis of faith. In the spring of 2013, Jeremy was approached and asked by a Mormon Church Educational System Director to share his concerns and questions about the LDS Church's origins, history, and current practices. In response, Jeremy wrote what later became publicly known as Letter to a CES Director, and very quickly went viral on the internet. The CES Director responded that he read the "very well written" letter and that he would provide Jeremy with a response. No response ever came.
You can download the letter from this web site (click on "download the PDF" when you get there - it's a free download).
I found this letter - and the silence from the Mormon church - so hauntingly familiar. I had very similar, specific questions when I was in my teens and was realizing I just wasn't really believing what I had been taught all of my life by Christian churches, that I'd never believed it. The number of Bible contradictions - such as the examples listed here and here - I was realizing for myself were mounting. The cruelty and violence, the misogyny against women were disturbing me in particular, and no one had answers to my many questions and observations - they just kept telling me to "accept" and that I would have answers "some day." I was made to feel bad for my many questions and statements that I felt nothing people assured me I would feel if I said things like, "Christ, I accept you as my savior. Live in my heart." I might as well have said abracadabra over and over.
When I was trying to be a Christian, deep joy was always out of reach. Happiness was oh-so-fleeting. I was afraid of my own emotions, because I was being told I shouldn't be upset no matter what horrors in life I might encounter, no matter what happened in my life or anywhere in the world, because God had a plan, and to be upset was to doubt that plan - in other words, children being raped, people being slaughtered, villages and cities being destroyed by natural disasters, people dying slowly from the most horrible diseases you can imagine, and all other suffering was a good thing, a divine thing, and I would just have to hope and trust there was a reason for it all. God Makes No Mistakes and God is Good All the Time. And I was supposed to seek out other Christians as friends, specifically, and avoid non-believers. In fact, many people said I was to seek out only certain Christians - no Catholics, no Mormons, maybe not anyone that sprinkles instead of dunks...
When I quit trying to believe, when I embraced that life-long doubt in a magical invisible all-powerful friend who allowed, or caused, misery, life very slowly started to get better. No one was allowing tsunamis, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters to kill millions of people - those things happened, without any meaning behind them other than weather patterns and geological realities, and there were all sorts of things we, humans, could do to mitigate the damage. And there were all sorts of things we can do to reduce horrors visited upon humans by other humans. And God hadn't abandoned or ignored me as I prayed every day, desperately, for an end to the abuse in my family - there is no God, and I needed to find help to get out of that situation and live a very different life than I'd grown up in.
And I got to be kind to everyone, no matter their beliefs. I got to pick friends and associates based on the character they showed - the kindness, the understanding, the care - not their proclaimed religion. I get to embrace humankind, the brotherhood of man, as a species, as a family.
And I got to hope, in a way I never could before, because I knew there was no omnipotent sentient entity with some master plan causing everything in the world, helpful, glorious or harmful - instead, the world was full of endless possibilities, some of which I could control, some of which I could influence, and all of which were real.
Hallelujah!
Why I love being an atheist
Showing posts with label joy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label joy. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Why I love being an atheist
There are so many things I love about being an atheist, things that were not possible when I was trying to be a Christian:
- The much bigger size of the universe, full of so many more possibilities. When I was trying to be a Christian, life and the universe had all sorts of boundaries and limits. The universe was SO small. I heard Christians dismissing science and what science was telling us about the size and age of the universe, and encouraging people to NOT explore science - things beyond the boundary of the Earth, things on a molecular level, and history beyond 6,000 years ago. People would say, "With God, all things are possible," yet, there seemed to be so many limits on possibilities for life. Now that I'm an atheist, the universe is HUGE, bigger and more complex than I could ever imagine, and I revel in how much there is to learn and discover.
- I get to have any friends and associates I want. When I was trying to be a Christian, I was told that I should seek out the company of other Christians - and who was or wasn't a Christian was deeply debated. I was encouraged to avoid certain groups - atheists, sure, but also those that my Christian sect weren't really Christian (Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses...). I was told that a sinful, uncharitable Christian, seeking forgiveness after each transgression, was better company for me than a caring, philanthropic-minded, friendly non-Christian. When I expressed my doubts about faith as a young person, I had two friends tell me they could not be friends with me any more, that we couldn't talk anymore, because of my doubts - they had been told by their church leaders that a person like me - a doubter - was dangerous. By contrast, now, I can be friends with Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Bahai, Buddhists - and I am! I get to have a range of interesting, fun, lovely people in my life, regardless of their beliefs or doubts. I don't have to stop being friends with someone just because they aren't in my belief club - instead, I get to choose my friends based on the content of their character.
- No guilt for my doubts. I ask questions. A lot. When I was a pre-teen and teen, trying to be a Christian, questions about ethics, goodness, history and the origins of the Bible got me into trouble. I was chastised for asking questions, condemned for doubting, and discouraged from not just "believing." As an atheist, questions are celebrated, no one chastises me for asking for source material, and I get to be kind to anyone regardless of their religious beliefs or lack there of.
- Much less despair. To believe in God means having to either believe God allows children to be raped, or doesn't care that they are being raped. Either way, it means that he watches passively as children are forced into horrific acts from which many never recover mentally. Super magical friend supposedly has the power to stop such, but doesn't. Same for natural disasters that wipe out the lives of dozens, hundreds, thousands.... When I was a pre-teen and teen, trying to be a Christian, that thought that the God I was trying to believe in stood by while people suffered horrors, and that he could stop it all but didn't, made me crazy. I trembled at the thought of extreme misery inflicted on the most innocent, and that the God I was trying to believe in did nothing. The comfort offered by believers (God makes no mistakes, He has his reasons, He doesn't do anything to people they aren't strong enough to handle, blah blah blah), made me physically ill - I wanted to throw up every time I heard it. Still do. Now, I take comfort in knowing that natural disasters are, well, natural. I take comfort knowing that there is nothing personal in a hurricane or tornado or massive flooding or a non-preventable disease or whatever. And while I am still horrified at man's inhumanity to man, I also know that such happens because humans can be horrible, NOT because a magical, invisible being allows it, or even causes it.
- Humans get responsibility for their successes and failures. When a space ship successfully takes off and enters outer space, when a disabled plane successfully lands, when the surgery of a loved one goes well, I don't credit a magical invisible friend - I credit the people that made that happen. I love celebrating such things. Likewise, when a person makes a mistake, real reasons for that mistake can be sought: greed, insecurity, ignorance, etc. - rather than attributing such to a magical, invisible, evil entity. And that means so many problems seem so much more solvable - I don't have to beg a magical, invisible being for a cure for cancer but, rather, I get to support the many human-driven endeavors seeking a cure for such (and having some major successes regarding such).
- No guilt for sex. Woot!
- No shame in being the woman I am. I am childless. I love my job. Many years, I've made way, way more money than my husband. Sometimes, I insist a decision go my way instead of my husband's (really, just sometimes). I read and study whatever I want to. I assert myself. I sometimes draw attention to myself (really, just sometimes). I curse like a sailor in adult company. I state my disagreement with men if I disagree with their point of view. I cut my hair. I dye my hair. I dress how I want to. I go anywhere I want to by myself. Many of these acts would get me stoned to death in some religions - and condemned in most of them. I love my life!
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Lovely things that feel magical in the natural world
Hope
Love
Joy
Wonder
Delight
Contentment
Resilience
Fulfillment
Aspirations
Optimism
Promise
Goodness
None of those things are supernatural. None are magic, though they can feel like something magical. They are all natural, all real, a part of our world, and, therefore, all are possible to experience. That means you can experience them without a belief in a god or gods. And atheists do, just as often, maybe even more often, than people that believe in the supernatural.
I love experiencing all of these wonderful things. I don’t experience them every second of every day, but I experience these wonderful things far, far more often, and in greater abundance, since I stopped trying to believe in a magical, invisible super friend.
Believers love to say you can't be happy without a god or gods. I wonder how they explain me?
Happy New Year!
Also see:
Happy New Year!
Also see:
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
The power & the glory of hope, WITHOUT a God
I was suicidal twice in my life.
The first was when I was 10 years old or so, and had realized just how screwed up my family was: an alcoholic, emotionally-abusive, narcissist, paranoid, cheating Dad who couldn't hold a job and lost money hand-over-fist, and a mother who silently tolerated - and, therefore, approved - all of it. I saw no future for myself. I had no idea how a person really became an astronaut or a writer or an actress, I thought I was doomed to have to work in my Dad's business du jour (he talked about me doing so), and I knew I wasn't pretty. Life had no hope, no possibilities for happiness. What stopped me? My sister. I had a plan for how to off myself all set, but when I really thought about the consequences for of her, of how it might affect her later in life, I couldn't do it. The idea of harming her with my own action repulsed me on every level - isn't that what my parents had done to me? I decided, instead, I'd move away some day and just disappear, as far as they were concerned. Which, indeed, is kind of what happened... day-to-day, it was books and this new-fangled "cable TV" thing showing old movies and TV shows I'd never heard of but delighted every part of me that got me through it.
The second time was when I was away at university. I was 19, with the same family situation at home, but now, I had committed some colossal mistakes that I don't want to detail here, and the pain was overwhelming. I lost a lot of friends over my situation - nothing cleans out the play pen like someone being seen as a "loser" or a "downer." I was desperate for the pain to stop. What stopped me from offing myself that second time? I was in a play at the time, and felt that I needed to finish it - I'd seen what happened when someone dropped out of a play a week before opening, and there was no way I was going to do that to my fellow actors. The idea of them hating me mortified me. Once the play was over, I was in a different place emotionally - things were still painful, but some great friends I didn't realize I had in my life, along with some new friends, got me through it.
Religion played no role in helping me in either of those occasions. None. God was no where to be found. I looked for him when I was a child and facing those demons: I prayed, I begged, I pleaded, I went to church and Vacation Bible School and even got baptized, hoping to get some help. None came. Instead, it was reasoning and thinking and considering the consequences of my acts that got me through that pain. By the second time, I had embraced the term agnostic, and though I would have been totally open to the idea of some kind of divine intervention to help me, none came; my resiliency came from hard work on my part, and those friends I hadn't realized were so wonderful until my time of need.
I haven't been suicidal since. Even when I was diagnosed with clinical depression in my early 30s, following the suicide of my father and getting dumped and betrayed by a person I had thought I would marry, I wasn't suicidal. I was down - oh, how I was down! But I never thought about suicide as a good or desired option. What changed? Part of it is that I have worked very hard to design and sustain a life for myself where exposure to toxic people is kept to a minimum. Instead, life has lots of healthy moments that I work regularly to create - I always have a dream to pursue, large or small. I celebrate good times, even just really happy moments. If a relationship isn't going well, I think about it, I analyze why it is, I think about what I can and can't do about the situation, I think about what I want to change, and sometimes I have to change, and sometimes, I have to walk away.
I listen to music I love, go to see movies when I want, read voraciously, sing in my house, in my car, in my yard, always have a dog in the household, have catnip on the back porch to attract neighborhood cats, work in my garden, ride a motorcycle, travel, and laugh and laugh with my husband. I make time to do all that. I create strategies so that I can guarantee those things happen. I don't wait for things to change magically, I don't hope for divine intervention, and therefore, I'm never, ever disappointed that Jesus has decided yet again not to help out - because I left that desire to believe back in my early teen years. There's a freedom and a comfort and a universe of possibilities and hope that I never, ever had when I was trying to believe in God.
In short, I taught myself to hope and to look for opportunities and choices to help make things better. I mourn what I lose, but also consider the new options a clean slate or an empty page brings me. I experience pain, but I also know that I have means to lesson that pain. I have power and hope I never had when I was trying to believe in God.
If you are hurting, get help: start by talking with your doctor. If you don't have health insurance coverage, contact your county's mental health department, or even just the health department, and ask what mental health services are available for someone experiencing whatever it is you are experiencing: depression, drug or alcohol abuse, addiction, compulsive behavior, etc. Look online for support groups in your area addressing your circumstances. If part of the reason you are hurting is your financial situation, look online for nonprofit financial counseling in your area (your credit union may have classes). Go to the library and read books that address your situation as well. Walk, every day.
You do have options. You can teach yourself to hope.
The first was when I was 10 years old or so, and had realized just how screwed up my family was: an alcoholic, emotionally-abusive, narcissist, paranoid, cheating Dad who couldn't hold a job and lost money hand-over-fist, and a mother who silently tolerated - and, therefore, approved - all of it. I saw no future for myself. I had no idea how a person really became an astronaut or a writer or an actress, I thought I was doomed to have to work in my Dad's business du jour (he talked about me doing so), and I knew I wasn't pretty. Life had no hope, no possibilities for happiness. What stopped me? My sister. I had a plan for how to off myself all set, but when I really thought about the consequences for of her, of how it might affect her later in life, I couldn't do it. The idea of harming her with my own action repulsed me on every level - isn't that what my parents had done to me? I decided, instead, I'd move away some day and just disappear, as far as they were concerned. Which, indeed, is kind of what happened... day-to-day, it was books and this new-fangled "cable TV" thing showing old movies and TV shows I'd never heard of but delighted every part of me that got me through it.
The second time was when I was away at university. I was 19, with the same family situation at home, but now, I had committed some colossal mistakes that I don't want to detail here, and the pain was overwhelming. I lost a lot of friends over my situation - nothing cleans out the play pen like someone being seen as a "loser" or a "downer." I was desperate for the pain to stop. What stopped me from offing myself that second time? I was in a play at the time, and felt that I needed to finish it - I'd seen what happened when someone dropped out of a play a week before opening, and there was no way I was going to do that to my fellow actors. The idea of them hating me mortified me. Once the play was over, I was in a different place emotionally - things were still painful, but some great friends I didn't realize I had in my life, along with some new friends, got me through it.
Religion played no role in helping me in either of those occasions. None. God was no where to be found. I looked for him when I was a child and facing those demons: I prayed, I begged, I pleaded, I went to church and Vacation Bible School and even got baptized, hoping to get some help. None came. Instead, it was reasoning and thinking and considering the consequences of my acts that got me through that pain. By the second time, I had embraced the term agnostic, and though I would have been totally open to the idea of some kind of divine intervention to help me, none came; my resiliency came from hard work on my part, and those friends I hadn't realized were so wonderful until my time of need.
I haven't been suicidal since. Even when I was diagnosed with clinical depression in my early 30s, following the suicide of my father and getting dumped and betrayed by a person I had thought I would marry, I wasn't suicidal. I was down - oh, how I was down! But I never thought about suicide as a good or desired option. What changed? Part of it is that I have worked very hard to design and sustain a life for myself where exposure to toxic people is kept to a minimum. Instead, life has lots of healthy moments that I work regularly to create - I always have a dream to pursue, large or small. I celebrate good times, even just really happy moments. If a relationship isn't going well, I think about it, I analyze why it is, I think about what I can and can't do about the situation, I think about what I want to change, and sometimes I have to change, and sometimes, I have to walk away.
I listen to music I love, go to see movies when I want, read voraciously, sing in my house, in my car, in my yard, always have a dog in the household, have catnip on the back porch to attract neighborhood cats, work in my garden, ride a motorcycle, travel, and laugh and laugh with my husband. I make time to do all that. I create strategies so that I can guarantee those things happen. I don't wait for things to change magically, I don't hope for divine intervention, and therefore, I'm never, ever disappointed that Jesus has decided yet again not to help out - because I left that desire to believe back in my early teen years. There's a freedom and a comfort and a universe of possibilities and hope that I never, ever had when I was trying to believe in God.
In short, I taught myself to hope and to look for opportunities and choices to help make things better. I mourn what I lose, but also consider the new options a clean slate or an empty page brings me. I experience pain, but I also know that I have means to lesson that pain. I have power and hope I never had when I was trying to believe in God.
If you are hurting, get help: start by talking with your doctor. If you don't have health insurance coverage, contact your county's mental health department, or even just the health department, and ask what mental health services are available for someone experiencing whatever it is you are experiencing: depression, drug or alcohol abuse, addiction, compulsive behavior, etc. Look online for support groups in your area addressing your circumstances. If part of the reason you are hurting is your financial situation, look online for nonprofit financial counseling in your area (your credit union may have classes). Go to the library and read books that address your situation as well. Walk, every day.
You do have options. You can teach yourself to hope.
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