From Christianity to Agnosticism

Hey everyone,

I’ve already made one video about my process of going from Christianity to atheism through a period of being agnostic, but looking back on that video now, I realize that those years of going from heartfelt believer to agnostic were kind of brushed over; also, the slideshow format of those videos made it difficult to fully articulate my ideas. In this video, I’ll go into more detail on the thought processes, as I recall them, from that period of my life; maybe this will be of particular interest to folks who consider themselves somewhere between believers and agnostic s now, or folks who are religious and wonder how others who were raised in a faith can begin to reject it. Maybe those of you who now consider yourselves atheists can relate my process to yours in some ways as well.

I grew up in a large Midwestern city that was largely Catholic. Coming from a Catholic family, I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through twelfth grade (besides, the public schools in the area were notoriously crappy). As a young girl, up until the age of 10 or 11, I accepted the tenets of Catholicism without question. My only exposure to anyone of a different religion was one uncle, who in his 20s had rejected Catholicism and become a Jehovah ’s Witness, thanks to the persuasion of other Jehovah’s witnesses he met. Yes, he did go door-to-door proselytizing, and even we, his family, weren’t exempt from his attempts at converting. When I was six or seven, he gave me a Jehovah ’s Witness illustrated bible, which I remember featured a colorful picture of Jesus being put to death on a pole rather than a cross.

Anyway, around the age of 12 or 13, being a typical frequently-annoyed pre-teen who enjoyed sleeping in and doing things independently of her parents, I became a bit pissed off at having to go to mass every single Sunday, a rule that my parents enforced under penalty of taking away my beloved Sims game and internet privileges. Going to church meant waking up early and staying awake through a seemingly-endless cycle of ritualizing, sitting, standing, kneeling, and occasionally incense smelling, which is a scent to this day that I dislike. When I actually happened to listen to the pastors’ homilies, instead of tuning them out, they were generally feel-good sermons, catered to the large community of the parish, enough to keep them coming each week, contributing to the collection on a regular basis, and feeling like they were being good devout Catholics fulfilling their duties to God and the church. In fact, the parish community was actually a very nice, fairly accepting group of people who regularly held bake sales, craft fairs, and other get-togethers, and I realize how nice it is to belong to that sort of community – too bad active communities of atheists, agnostics, and secularists are few and far between, at least in the United States. Anyway, when I listened to the bible readings at mass, it was a different story. I kept hearing stories where patriarchy and female subjugation was endorsed, which bothered me, and as I grew older and learned more about what constituted reality and what constituted fiction, it became very difficult to suspend my disbelief when I heard stories of angels, Jesus rising from the dead, and God’s omnipotence and omnipresence and role as creator of everything. I really enjoyed reading Edith Hamilton’s books on Greek Mythology as well as the Egyptian mythology and the King Arthur legends of the Middle Ages, and so if those stories were supposed to be false, why did the Bible get a free pass? Why were the writings of a small group of ancient desert people the basis of worship for billions, while probably many other civilizations’ spiritual writings from that era roughly four to two thousand year ago long-forgotten or considered irrelevant to all but historians?

At the end of grade school, I received the sacrament of confirmation, marking my full initiation into the Catholic church, not that I had any choice in the matter. So, if I ever bump my head against a very hard rock and come to the conclusion that Catholicism is the one true path to salvation, I’ll be able to get married in a Catholic church without having to go through special education classes, that is, if my plan of eloping in a city hall somewhere wearing jeans and very little make-up falls through.

I also went to a Catholic high school that, as I’ve mentioned before, required us girls to wear hideous plaid skirts and itchy oversized sweaters - I guess Japanese anime and the porn industry have glamorized and sexified school girl outfits, but there was nothing remotely attractive or comfortable about our uniforms. In high school I matured a lot in my breadth and depth of knowledge about the natural world and the people in it. I took a class on world religions, which was ironically required in the school’s four-year religion curriculum, and that class gave us all opportunities to meet and interact with people of different faiths. It was definitely an eye-opener for me, and I wondered why Christianity maintained its insistence of being the only path to salvation while the majority of the world’s people, even today in a global society with ample exposure to different cultures, follow faiths besides Christianity. I also took three years of biology, two of chemistry, four of math, one of physics, two of philosophy, and four of history, which combined gave me insight into how the natural world operates and how knowledge and human civilizations have developed and grown. It was during these years, between studying, family time, and extracurriculars, that I took time to sit by myself and have long periods of self-reflection. I had been raised to believe that God was a loving father to humankind, and that everything was created with a purpose in mind, and that I could have a personal relationship and conversations with God, and that God was looking after me and my family members as we faced struggles, dealt with grief, and celebrated accomplishments, but each of these beliefs seemed entirely based on faith and not backed up by resounding evidence. If God placed a soul capable of persisting for eternity and a heart capable of great love in every human being across the world, why didn’t everyone in the world believe in God? Why couldn’t God move the hearts of everyone to have experiences or see the proof that convinced them of the truth of Christianity? Why didn’t the miracles of the bible or of pre-modern times happen in modern times, where they can be documented and verified as events that defy the laws of nature? Why were there so many sects of Christianity? Was there truth in the claims of other religions? Was only one religion the true one, and could it be one besides Christianity? Surely people of other faiths must have strong reasons for believing in what they believe too. Why were so many Christian pastors corrupt, if they claimed such a strong relationship with God? What made the Muslim extremists who were responsible for the terrorist acts of September 11, the year I was a freshman in high school, so convinced that their god wanted them to murder innocent fathers, mothers, grandparents, servicemen, and children? What twist of faith caused George Bush to then spend his tenure in office on fighting a holy war, costing thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars? How could the will of god allegedly revealed to humans be so different, even so conflicting, from one person to the next?

My thinking shifted over my high school years and was influenced by the books I read, movies I watched, and the philosophical ideas I explored, both in school, on the internet, and in my own thoughts. I wondered a lot about morality, the nature of reality, and the plausibility of the existence of any god. One site I found fascinating was the game section of Philosophersnet.com. In one game, you’re put in a Matrix-like scenario, where you can’t conclusively disprove that you’re actually a brain in a vat plugged into a computer that simulates the sensory experiences of your life; in another game, the parsimony of your concept of God is measured; in another, called Battleground God, the rational consistency of your religious beliefs, or lack thereof, is tested. For those of you who’ve never played Battleground God, I’d highly suggest it; even today when I go through the game from an atheistic perspective rather than an agnostic or Christian one, I finish having bitten a bullet, and maybe we can discuss that further if you’d like. I’m linking the game page right here.

Anyway, one day I was laying on my bed, thinking to myself, and I came to the realization that I could not conclusively disprove the existence of the God I was raised to believe in, but I also, using my reason, logic, and what is known about the natural world and the cosmos, couldn’t prove its existence either. In fact, it seemed highly improbable, if not impossible, that this God could exist, be the creator of the physical world but also not require a creator himself, could be all-knowing of the past, present, and future but still give people free will, knowing full-well which ones of them would reject him or choose a different faith and would hence be damned, and could be all-loving, all-present, and all-father to the billions of people that have been, that are, and that will be, dictating a purpose and role in life for each and every one of them. I had wondered before if other religious held merit or if the characteristics attributed to the Christian god were exaggerated or contrived, but that was the first day I thought to myself “What if there is no God?” It was that day that I stopped identifying myself as a Christian and decided to live open-mindedly and inquisitively, exploring all points of view, religious and otherwise, without prejudice or predilection, which was something that I could not do previously holding onto feelings of guilt about questioning Christianity. So in a period of about five or six years, I went from being an unquestioning believer to essentially realizing my agnosticism at around the age of 16 or 17.

This isn’t the end of the story by any means – a lot has happened in the past five or six years as I’ve gone from identifying as agnostic to identifying as a firm atheist. I’ve already talked about that period in my life in a few other videos, but if you all would like more of a detailed discussion of that transition, please comment and tell me. Thanks for watching, and I’d love to hear what you have to say.